She realized she wasn’t nervous anymore. She liked the feel of the sun on her shoulders and the smell of dark, wet ground everywhere. Probably some of what she was smelling was animal shit, but it actually didn’t smell that bad—just like growth and newness.
Anne showed her the stables, where two horses stood quietly in the half dark, like sentinels guarding something precious. Heather had never been so close to a horse before, and she laughed out loud when Anne gave her a carrot and instructed her to feed it to the black one, Lady Belle, and Heather felt its soft, leathery muzzle and the gentle pressure of its teeth.
“They were race horses. Both injured. Saved ’em from being shot,” Anne said as they left the stables.
“Shot?” Heather repeated.
Anne nodded. For the first time, she looked angry. “That’s what happens when they’re no good for running anymore. Owner takes a shotgun to their head.”
Anne had saved all the animals from one gruesome fate or another: the dogs and horses from death, the chickens and roosters from various diseases, when no one else had cared enough to spend the money to nurse them. There were turkeys she had saved from slaughter, cats she had rescued from the street in Hudson, and even an enormous potbellied pig named Tinkerbell, which had once been an unwanted runt. Heather couldn’t imagine that it had ever been the runt of anything.
“All she wanted was a little love,” Anne said, as they passed the pen where Tinkerbell was lolling in the mud. “That, and about a pound of feed a day.” She laughed.
Finally they came to a tall, fenced-in enclosure. The sun had broken free of the trees, and refracted through the rising mist, it was practically blinding. The fence encircled an area of at least a few acres—mostly open land, patches of dirt, and high grass, but some trees, too. Heather couldn’t see any animals.
For the first time all morning, Anne grew quiet. She sipped her tea, squinting in the sun, staring off through the chain-link fence. After a few minutes, Heather couldn’t stand it anymore.
“What are we waiting for?” she asked.
“Shhh,” Anne said. “Look. They’ll come.”
Heather crossed her arms, biting back a sigh. The dew had soaked through her sneakers. Her feet were too cold, and her neck was too hot.
There. There was movement by a small cluster of trees. She squinted. A large, dark mass, which she had taken for a rock, shook itself. Then it stood. And as it stood, another form emerged from the shadow of the trees, and the two animals circled each other briefly, and then loped gracefully into the sun.
Heather’s mouth went dry.
Tigers.
She blinked. Impossible. But they were still there, and coming closer: two tigers, tigers, like you would find at a circus. Massive square heads and huge jaws, bodies muscled and rippling, coats glossy in the sun.
Anne whistled sharply. Heather jumped. Both tigers swung their heads toward the sound, and Heather lost her breath. Their eyes were flat, incurious, and old—impossibly old, as though instead of looking forward, their eyes saw back to a distant past.
They ambled up to the fence, so close that Heather stepped backward, quickly, terrified. So close she could smell them, feel the heat of their bodies.
“How?” she finally managed to ask, which was not quite what she meant, but good enough. A thousand thoughts were colliding in her head.
“More rescues,” Anne said calmly. “They get sold on the black market. Sold, then abandoned when they’re too big, or put down when there’s no one to care for them.” As she spoke, she reached her hand through a gap in the fence and actually petted one of the tigers—like it was an overgrown house cat. When she saw Heather gaping, she laughed. “They’re all right once they’ve been fed,” she said. “Just don’t try and cuddle up when they’re hungry.”
“I don’t—I won’t have to go in there, will I?” Heather was rooted to the ground, paralyzed with fear and wonder. They were so big, so close. One of the tigers yawned, and she could make out the sharp curve of its teeth, white as bone.
“No, no,” Anne said. “Most of the time, I just chuck the food in through the gate. Here, I’ll show you.”
Anne walked her to the padlocked gate, which to Heather looked alarmingly flimsy. On the other side of the fence, the tigers followed—languidly, as though by coincidence. Heather wasn’t fooled, though. That’s how predators were. They sat back and waited, lured you into feeling safe, and then they pounced.
She wished Bishop were here. She did not wish Nat were here. Nat would flip. She hated big animals of any kind. Even poodles made her jumpy.
When they turned their backs on the tigers’ pen and returned to the house, Heather’s stomach started to unknot, although she still had the impression the tigers were watching her, and kept picturing their sharp claws slotting into her back.