“They were just hanging there! All three of them, hanging upside-down by their tails. They were shredded, Sheriff! Bellies hanging out! And their fur…it was gone.” Elizabeth’s stomach rose, and by the way Regina brought a hand to her mouth, she would bet everyone’s had. “My babies,” she cried, over and over again.
“All right, Gina,” Taggart said softly, trying to keep his cool. But his voice trembled on the last note. “It’s all right. I’m not sure—”
With an abrupt sniff, Gina raised her head and met Elizabeth’s eyes, startling her. She trembled, but the physical power of her glare forced Elizabeth back. “You,” she accused in a low breath. “It was ever since you came into town.”
Everyone looked to Elizabeth. “M—Ms. Gray, I…don’t—”
“You, with your reckless behavior and blasphemous words.” Elizabeth had never met this woman, but she shouldn’t have been surprised, since word traveled fast in small towns. Gina looked at Taggart. “It’s her, and the monster.”
“Now, Gina,” Taggart said. “I don’t doubt this was the work of the monster, but Beth ain’t got nothing to do with that thing.”
“She defends it.” She gave no time for responses as she went on, “Sheriff, you kill it. It’s time we take care of that thing, once and for all. You hunt it down for what it did to my babies.”
Taggart sighed.
“How long before it starts doing this to us?” Her eyes traveled around the room, meeting everyone else’s. At the center of brown irises, surrounded by glazed, bloodshot whites, her pupils penetrated as though each of her eyes were independent intelligences, had their own souls. No one could speak. “Think about it. We haven’t had any problems until now. Something’s angered it, and how long before it starts taking out its evil anger on one of us?” Her eyes fell back on Taggart’s. “Something has to be done, Sheriff.”
It seemed everyone was absorbing this possibility, arriving at the same realization Gina had. Though the look in Taggart’s eyes said he’d already realized it. Elizabeth felt it rising in her stomach, then in her chest. Before she knew it, the words spewed out. “No.” Every head turned. “It wasn’t him.”
Gina gasped, as though she’d just seen for the first time that Elizabeth was the devil himself. “See. It’s her, it’s her love of this…thing.”
Elizabeth ground her teeth, tossing her hand towel on the counter as she took another step. “He is not a thing. He has a soul like the rest of us—maybe even more than some of us.”
Gina’s eyes became rounder than any Elizabeth had seen, even wider than Brian’s on that awful morning.
Taggart’s mustache twitched like it did when he began losing patience. Now sweat dotted his temples, a single droplet rolling down with gravity. The matter of the beast had been eating at him for some time, in the opposite way it ate at Elizabeth. But now he seemed to be unraveling, on the verge of losing it. With a hand still resting on his hip, he glared at Elizabeth. “Be. Careful.”
Discomfort rested upon the room, and though her eyes shot to every set watching her, she skipped over Henry’s. “I won’t be careful. Call me evil, call me whatever you like, but I won’t stand by and let you talk about him like that. Not here, not in my place. Not anymore.”
“You…” Brian began. He stood and backed up. “You’re really defending it? After all this time, I thought it was just some act. But you…you really think it’s…”
“He,” she corrected.
“Dammit, Beth,” Taggart said, saliva spraying. “I’ve had enough. It’s one thing to be brave, maybe even to question its motives, but to defend it after all this—after what it’s done to Gina’s cats…You’re walking a thin line.”
“He didn’t do it.”
“And how do you know?”
“I just know. He wouldn’t.”
“Then what did? We got only one evil demon wandering the forest. And I can’t stand by and let it tear this town apart!”
“There’s something else out there.”
No one spoke, and without a thought her eyes shot to Henry’s for the first time. They were narrow, nearly twitching. She looked back to Taggart. “I’ve felt it. It’s something dark, something not the beast. I can’t explain it, but there’s something else…”
“She’s just covering for it,” Gina said. Elizabeth may as well have been a witch on trial.
“Beth,” Taggart said. “This is gonna stop, you understand?”
“What’s going to stop, Sheriff?”
“You! You’re scaring us. And with the way Eustace was this morning…something’s not right. I won’t have you acting like a crazy person anymore!”
“I’m crazy? Just because I’m the only one who can see him for who he is? Because you’re all too blind to?”
“Ms. Ashton!” Henry stood so quickly his chair knocked to the tile. That same discomfort saturated the silence, only tripled in intensity now. Her eyes challenged his, and his face darkened. “Outside. I need a word.”
“If you don’t like the way I’m talking, Mr. Clayton, you’re free to leave.” She folded her arms and looked to the others. “That goes for everyone.”
With that, all who were sitting stood, and every single body except hers and Henry’s filed out the door, one after the other and all silently. Taggart shook his head and Regina was the last through. The fact that she went at all made Elizabeth’s arms hang, as well as her heart. “I’m sorry, Beth,” she said before leaving.
It was just her and Henry now, his brow fierce and caramel eyes fiery. “Are you satisfied now? You’ve pushed everyone away.”
She stepped toward him, her chest so afire she could hardly speak. “All I’ve done is stood up for what’s right in this town. I’ve been true to myself, Mr. Clayton, true to him. That’s more than I can say for you.”
He recoiled.
“You want to hide?” she added. “Fine. But I won’t.”
“What am I hiding from?”
She swallowed. He couldn’t know she knew; things were bad enough as they were. “I won’t sit back anymore,” she said instead, sidestepping his question. “Not when an innocent soul is being treated—”
“He’s being treated the way he deserves! Can’t you just let it be? You’ve done nothing but turn this town upside-down, and now people are getting hurt.”
“No one is getting hurt.”
“You are, Ms. Ashton.”
She blinked, and for the briefest instant, that warmth showed through his eyes. And she understood. She understood why he was so angry, and why he wanted her to stay out of things. But she couldn’t, and no matter how altruistic his reason was, it infuriated her. “But what about him? He may not matter to anyone else, not even to himself, but he matters to me.”
He exhaled through his nose, slow and painful-sounding, since his jaw was clamped. “Ms. Ashton, you’re going to destroy your new business. I suggest you rethink the road you’re headed down.” He slammed himself into the door and was through it before she could argue.
***
Henry pushed through Jean’s door with a force that left it slamming against the window. It may have been morning, but he sweated already. As he crossed the street to Arne, who had a look of question in his eyes, Henry removed his tie with two quick movements. When Arne opened his door, he threw it in the car, along with his suit jacket, and then unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt; the collar suffocating.
“Rough morning?” Arne asked cautiously.
Henry paced back and forth on the sidewalk, the door to the car open, waiting. His heart beat in all his limbs, quick and heavy. “She’s impossible. She’s going to be her own downfall.” He stopped, meeting Arne’s eyes. “I’m only trying to help her, Arne. How can she not see that?”