Running With The Demon

CHAPTER 11

Nest Freemark spent Saturday morning cleaning house with Gran. It didn't matter that it was the Fourth of July weekend or that Nest was particularly anxious to get outside. Nor did it matter how late you stayed up the night before. Saturday mornings were set aside for cleaning and that took precedence over everything. Gran was up at seven, breakfast was on the table at eight, and cleaning was under way by nine. The routine was set in stone. There was no sleeping in. Old Bob was already out of the house by the time Gran and Nest started work. There was a clear division of duties between Nest's grandparents, and the rough measure of it was whether the work took place inside or out. If it was inside, Gran was responsible. Cutting the grass, raking the leaves, plowing the snow, chopping wood, planting and tending the vegetable garden, fetching and hauling, and just about everything else that didn't involve the flower beds were Old Bob's responsibility. As long as he kept up the yard and the exterior of the house, he stayed on Gran's good side and was relieved of any work inside.

Nest, on the other hand, had responsibility for chores both inside and out, beginning with the Saturday–morning house–cleaning. She rose with Gran at seven to shower and dress, then hurried downstairs for her breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and juice. The quicker she got started, she knew, the quicker she would get done. Gran was already chain–smoking and drinking vodka and orange juice, her breakfast untouched in front of her, Old Bob frowning at her in disapproval. Nest ate her eggs and toast and drank her juice in silence, trying not to look at either of them, consumed instead by thoughts of last night and of Two Bears.

"How did he know I was there?" Pick had demanded in exasperation as they made their way back across the park, the hot July darkness settled all about them like damp velvet. "I was invisible! He shouldn't have been able to see me! What kind of Indian is he, anyway?"

Nest had been wondering the same thing. The Indian part notwithstanding, Two Bears wasn't like anyone she had ever met. He was strangely reassuring, big, direct, and well reasoned, but he was kind of scary, too. Sort of like Wraith-a paradox she couldn't quite explain.

She pondered him now as she cleaned with Gran, dusting and polishing the furniture, vacuuming the carpet, sweeping and mopping the floors, wiping down the blinds and window–sills, scrubbing out the toilets and sinks, and washing out the tubs and showers. On a light cleaning day, they would stick to dusting and vacuuming, but on the first Saturday of the month they did it all. She helped Gran with the laundry and the dishes as well, and it was nearing noon when they finally finished. When Gran told her she could go, she wolfed down a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, drank a large glass of milk, and went out the back door in a rush, inadvertently letting the screen slam shut behind her once more. She cringed at the sound, but she didn't turn back.

"He said he was a shaman," Nest had remarked to Pick the previous night. "So maybe that means he sees things other people can't. Aren't Indian medicine men supposed to have special powers?"

"How am I supposed to know what medicine men can or can't do?" Pick had snapped irritably. "Do I look like an expert on Indians? I live in this park and I don't take vacations to parts of the country where there might be Indians like some people I could mention! Why don't you know what Indians do? Haven't you studied Indians in school? What kind of education are you getting, anyway? If I were you, I'd make certain I knew everything that was important about the history …"

And on and on he had gone, barely pausing for breath to say good night when she reached her house and left him to go in. Sometimes Pick was insufferable. A lot of times, really. But he was still her best friend.

Nest had met Pick at the beginning of the summer of her sixth year. She was sitting on the crossboard at the coiner of her sandbox one evening after supper, staring out at the park, catching glimpses of it through gaps in the hedgerow, which was still filling in with new spring growth. She was humming to herself, picking idly at the sand as she scrutinized the park, when she saw the feeder. It was slipping through the shadows of the Petersons' backyard, hunkered down against the failing light as it made its way smoothly from concealment to concealment. She stared after it intently, wondering where it was going and what it was about.

"Weird, aren't they?" a voice said.

She looked around hurriedly, but there was no one to be seen.

"Down here," said the voice.

She looked down, and there, sitting on the crossboard at the opposite corner of the sandbox, was what looked like a tiny wooden man made out of twigs and leaves with a little old face carved into the wood and a beard made of moss. He was so small and so still that at first she thought he was a doll. Then he shifted his position slightly, causing her to start, and she knew he was alive.

"I don't scare you, do I?" he asked her with a smirk, wiggling his twiggy fingers at her.

She shook her head wordlessly.

"I didn't think so. I didn't think you would be scared of much. Not if you weren't scared of the feeders or that big dog. Nossir. You wouldn't be scared of a sylvan, I told myself."

She stared at him. "What's a sylvan?"

"Me. That's what I am. A sylvan. Have been all my life." He chuckled at his own humor, then cleared his throat officiously. "My name is Pick. What's yours?"

"Nest," she told him.

"Actually, I knew that. I've been watching you for quite a while, young lady."

"You have?"

"Watching is what sylvans do much of the time. We're pretty good at it. Better than cats, as a matter of fact. You don't know much about us, I don't expect."

She thought a moment. "Are you an elf?"

"An elf!" he exclaimed in horror. "An elf? I should guess not! An elf, indeed! Utter nonsense!" He drew himself up. "Sylvans are real, young lady. Sylvans are forest creatures–like tatterdemalions and riffs–but hardworking and industrious. Always have been, always will be. We have important responsibilities to exercise."

She nodded, not certain exactly what he was saying. "What do you do?"

"I look after the park," Pick declared triumphantly. "All by myself, I might add. That's a lot of work! I keep the magic in balance. You know about magic, don't you? Well, there's a little magic in everything and a lot in some things, and it all has to be kept in balance. There's lots of things that can upset that balance, so I have to keep a careful watch to prevent that from happening. Even so, I'm not always successful. Then I have to pick up the pieces and start over."

"Can you do magic?" she asked curiously.

"Some. More than most forest creatures, but then I'm older than most. I've been at this a long time."

She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Are you like Rumpelstiltskin?"

Pick turned crimson. "Am I like Rumpelstiltskin? Crirriiny! What kind of question is that? What did I just get through telling you? That's the trouble with six–year–olds! They don't have any attention span! No, I am not like Rumpelstiltskin! That's a fairy tale! It isn't real! Sylvans don't go around spinning straw into gold, for goodness' sake! What kind of education are they giving you in school these days?"

Nest didn't say anything, frightened by the little man's outburst. The leaves that stuck out of the top of his head were rustling wildly, and his twiggy feet were stamping so hard she was afraid they would snap right off. She glanced nervously toward her house.

"Now, don't do that! Don't be looking for your grandmother, like you think you might need her to come out and shoo me away. I just got done telling you that I knew you weren't afraid of much. Don't make a liar out of me." Pick spread his arms wide in dismay. "I just get upset sometimes with all this fairy–tale bunk. I didn't mean to upset you. I know you're only six. Look, I'm over a hundred and fifty years old! What do I know about kids?"

Nest looked at him. "You're a hundred and fifty? You are not."

"Am so. I was here before this town was here. I was here when there were no houses anywhere!" Pick's brow furrowed. "Life was much easier then."

"How did you get to be so old?"

"So old? That's not old for a sylvan! No, sir! Two hundred and fifty is old for a sylvan, but not one hundred and fifty." Pick cocked his head. "You believe me, don't you?"

Nest nodded solemnly, not sure yet if she did or not.

"It's important that you do. Because you and I are going to be good friends, Nest Freemark. That's why I'm here. To tell you that." Pick straightened. "Now, what do you think? Can we be friends, even though I shout at you once in a while?"

Nest smiled. "Sure."

"Friends help each other, you know," the sylvan went on. "I might need your help sometime." He gave her a conspiratorial look. "I might need your help keeping the magic in balance. Here, in the park. I could teach you what I know. Some of it, anyway. What do you think? Would you like that?"

"I'm not supposed to go into the park," Nest advised him solemnly, and glanced furtively over her shoulder at the house again. "Gran says I can only go into the park with her."

"Hnimm. Well, yes, I suppose that makes sense." Pick rubbed at his beard and grimaced. "Parental rules. Don't want to transgress." He brightened. "But that's just for another year or so, not forever. Just until you're a little older. Your lessons could begin then. You'd be just about the right age, matter of fact. Meanwhile, I've got an idea. A little magic is all we need. Here, pick me up and put me in your hand. Gently, now. You're not one of those clumsy children who drop things, are you?"

Nest reached down with her hands cupped together, and Pick stepped into them. Seating himself comfortably, he ordered her to lift him up in front of her face.

"There, hold me just like that." His hands wove in feathery patterns before her eyes, and he began to mutter strange words. "Now close your eyes," he told her. "Good, good. Keep them closed. Think about the park. Think about how it looks from your yard. Try to picture it in your mind. Don't move …"

A warm, syrupy feeling slipped through Nest's body, beginning from somewhere behind her eyes and flowing downward through her arms and legs. Time slowed.

Then abruptly she was flying, soaring through the twilight high over Sinnissippi Park, the wind rushing past her ears and across her face, the lights of Hopewell distant yellow pinpricks far below. She was seated astride an owl, the bird's great brown–and–white feathered wings spread wide. Pick was seated in front of her, and she had her arms about his waist for support. Amazingly, they were the same size. Nest's heart lodged in her throat as the owl banked and soared with the wind currents. What if she were to fall? But she quickly came to realize that the motion would not dislodge her, that her perch astride the bird was secure, and her fear turned to exhilaration.

"This is Daniel," Pick called back to her over his shoulder. In spite of the rush of the wind, she could hear him clearly. "Daniel is a barn owl. He carries me from place to place in the park. It's much quicker than trying to get about on my own. Owls and sylvans have a good working relationship in most places. Truth is, I'd never get anything done without Daniel."

The owl responded to a nudge of Pick's knees and dropped

earthward. "What do you think of this, Nest Freemark?" Pick

asked her, indicating with a sweep of his hand the park below.

Nest grinned broadly and clutched the sylvan tightly about

the waist. "1 think it's wonderful!"

They flew on through the twilight, crossing the playgrounds and the ballparks, the pavilions and the roadways. They soared west over the rows of granite and marble tombstones that dotted the verdant carpet of Riverside Cemetery, east to the tree–shaded houses of Mineral Springs, south to the precipitous cliffs and narrow banks of the sprawling Rock River, and north to the shabby, paint–worn town houses that fronted the entry to the park. They flew the broad expanse of the Sin–nissippi to the wooded sections farther in, skimming the tops of the old growth, of the oaks, elms, hickories, and maples that towered out of the growing darkness as if seeking to sweep the starry skies with their leafy branches. They found the long slide of the toboggan run, its lower section removed and stored beneath, waiting for winter and snow and ice. They discovered a doe and her fawn at the edge of the reedy waters of the bayou, back where no one else could see. Deep within the darkest part of the forest they tracked the furtive movement of shadows that, cloaked in twilight's gray mystery, might have been something alive.

They swept past a massive old white oak, one much larger than its fellows, its trunk gnarled by age and weather, its limbs crooked and twisted in a way that suggested immense fury and desperation captured in midstride, as if a giant had been frozen in place and transformed one bare instant before it had fallen upon the world it now shadowed.

Then a flash of lamplight struck Nest full in the eyes as they crossed back toward Woodlawn, and she blinked in surprise, momentarily blinded.

"Nest!"

It was Gran calling. She blinked again.

"Nest! It's time to come inside!"

She was sitting once more on the crossboard of her sandbox, staring out into the darkening stretch of her yard toward the park. Her hands were cupped before her, but they were empty. Pick was gone.

She didn't tell Gran about him that night, wary by now of telling anyone anything about the park and its magic, even Gran. She waited instead to see if Pick would return. Two days later he did, appearing at midday while she poked along the hedgerow, sitting on a limb above her head, waving a skinny stick limb in greeting, telling her they had to hurry, there were things to do, places to go, and people to see. Then, when she did tell Gran about him, that very night, the old woman simply nodded, as if the sylvan's appearance was the most natural thing in the world, and told her to pay close attention to what Pick had to say.

Pick was her closest friend after that, closer to her than her school friends, even those she had known all her life. She couldn't explain why that was. After all, he was a forest creature, and for most people such creatures didn't exist. On the surface of things, they had nothing in common. Besides being a sylvan, he was a hundred and fifty years old and a big grouch. He was fastidious and temperamental. He had no interest in the playthings she tried to share with him or in the games she favored.

What drew them together, she decided when she was older, what bonded them in a way nothing else could, was the park. The park with its feeders and its magic, its secrets and its history, was their special place, their private world, and even though it was public and open and everyone could come visit, it belonged only to them because no one else could appreciate it the way they could. Pick was its caretaker, and she became his apprentice. He taught her the importance of looking for damage to the woods and injury to the creatures that inhabited them. He explained to her the nature of the world's magic, how it inhabited everything, why there was a balance to it, and what could be done on a small scale to help keep it in place. He instructed her on how to deal with the feeders when they threatened the safety of those who could not protect themselves. He enlisted her aid against them. He gave her an insight into the coexisting worlds of humans and forest creatures that changed her life.

He told her, eventually, that Gran and her mother and three generations of her mother's side of the family before Gran had helped him care for the park.

She was thinking of this as she crossed the backyard that Saturday morning. She paused to give a sleeping Mr. Scratch a rub behind his grizzled ears and glanced about in vain for Miss Minx. The day was hot and"slow, and the air was damp and close. Her friends wanted to go swimming, but she hadn't made up her mind whether to join them. She was still preoccupied with Two Bears and not yet ready to think of anything else. She squinted up at the sun, full and brilliant in a cloudless sky, brushed at a fly that flew into her face, and moved to the hedgerow and the park. The grass beneath her feet was brittle and dry and crunched softly. Questions pressed in about her. Would the spirits of the Sinnissippi appear tonight as Two, Bears believed? Would they reveal to her something of the future? Only to her? What would they say? How would she I respond? She brushed at her curly hair, ungluing a handful of strands from her forehead. Sweat was dampening her skin already, and a fresh mosquito bite had appeared on her forearm. She scratched at it ruefully. She had asked Pick repeatedly why it was that she was the only one who could see the feeders, or see him, or know about the magic in the park. Pick had told her the first time she asked that she wasn't the only one, her grandmother could see the forest creatures and the feeders and knew more about the magic than Nest did, and there were others like her in other places. After that, when she narrowed the scope of the question so that it excluded Gran and people in other places, Pick brushed the matter aside by saying that she was lucky, was all, and she ought to be grateful and let it go at that. But Nest couldn't let it go, not even now, after all these years | of living with it. It was what set her apart from everyone else. It was what defined her. She would not be satisfied until she understood the reasons behind it.

A few weeks ago she had pressed Pick so hard about it that he had finally revealed something new.

"It has to do with who you are, Nest!" he snapped, facing her squarely. His brow furrowed, his eyes steadied, and his rigid stance marked his determination to lay the matter to rest for good. "You think about it. I'm a sylvan, so I was born to the magic. For you to have knowledge of the magic and me, you must have been born to it as well. Or, in the alternative, share a close affinity with it. You know the word, don't you? 'Affinity'? I don't have time to be teaching you everything."

"Are you saying I have forest–creature blood?" she exclaimed softly. "Is that what you're saying? That Fm like you?"

"Oh, for cat's sake, pay attention!" Pick had turned purple. "Why do I bother trying to tell you anything?"

"But you said…"

"You're nothing like me! I'm six inches high and a hundred and fifty years old! I'm a sylvan! You're a little girl! Forest creatures and humans are different species!"

"All right, all right, settle down. I'm not like you. Thank goodness, I might add. Crabpuss." When he tried to object, she hurried on. "So there's an affinity we share, a bond of the sort that makes us both so much at home in the park…"

But Pick had waved his hands dismissively and cut her off. "Go ask your grandmother. She's the one who said you could do magic. She's the one who should tell you why."

That was the end of the matter as far as Pick was concerned, and he had refused to say another word about it since. Nest had thought about asking Gran, but Gran never wanted to discuss the origins of her magic, only what the consequences would be if she were careless. If she wanted a straight answer from Gran, she would have to approach the matter in the right way at the right time and place. As of now, Nest didn't know how to do that.

Pick jumped down onto her shoulder from a low–hanging branch as she neared the gap in the hedgerow. It used to frighten her when he appeared unexpectedly like that, like having a large bug land on you, but she had gotten used to it. She glanced down at him and saw the impatience and distress mirrored in his eyes.

"That confounded Indian has disappeared!" he snapped, forgoing any greeting. "Two Bears?" She slowed.

"Keep moving. You can spit and whistle at the same time, can't you?" He straddled her shoulder, kicking at her with his heels as you might a recalcitrant horse. "Disappeared, gone up in a puff of smoke. Not literally, of course, but he might as well have. I've looked for him everywhere. I was sure I'd find him back at that table, looking off into the sunrise with that blank stare of his. But I can't even find his tracks!"

"Did he sleep in the park?" Nest nudged her way through the hedgerow, being careful not to knock Pick from his perch. "Beats me. I scouted the whole of the park from atop Daniel early this morning. Flew end to end. The Indian's gone. There's no sign of him." Pick pulled and tugged mercilessly at his beard. "It's aggravating, but it's the least of our troubles."

She stepped into the park and crossed the service road toward the ball diamonds. "It is?"

"Trust me." He gave her a worried glance. "Take a walk up into the deep woods and I'll show you."

Never one to walk when she could run, Nest broke into a steady jog that carried her across the open expanse of the central park toward the woods east. She passed the ball fields, the playgrounds, and the toboggan run. She rounded the east pavilion and skirted a group of picnickers gathered at one of the tables. Heads turned to look, then turned away again. She could smell hot dogs, potato salad, and sweet pickles. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and her breath felt hot and dry in her throat. The sunlight sprinkled her with squiggly lines and irregular spots as she ran beneath the broken canopy of the hardwoods, moving downhill off the high ground toward the bayou and the deep woods beyond. She passed a couple hiking one of the trails, smiled briefly in greeting, and hurried on. Pick whispered in her ear, giving her directions interspersed with unneeded advice about running between trees.

She crossed the wooden bridge at the stream that emptied out of the woods into the bayou and turned uphill again. The woods ahead were thick with shadows and scrub. There were no picnic tables or cooking stations back here, only hiking trails. The trees were silent sentinels all around her, aged dark hulks undisturbed since their inception, witnesses to the passing of generations of life. They towered over everything, a massive and implacable presence. Sunlight was an intruder here, barely able to penetrate the forest canopy, appearing in a scattering of hazy streaks amid the gloom. Feeders skulked at the edges of her peripheral vision, small movements gone as quickly as they were glimpsed.

"Straight ahead," Pick directed as they crested the rise, and she knew at once where they were going.

They plunged deep into the old growth, the trails narrowing and coiling like snakes. Thorny branches of scrub poked in from the undergrowth and sometimes threatened to cut off passage entirely. Itchweed grew in large patches, and mounds of thistles bristled from amid the saw grass. It was silent here, so still you could hear the voices of the picnickers from back across the stream almost a quarter of a mile away. Nest navigated her way forward carefully, choosing her path from experience, no longer relying on Pick to tell her where to go. Sweat coated her skin and left her clothing feeling damp and itchy. Mosquitoes and flies buzzed past her ears and flew at her nose and eyes. She brushed at them futilely, wishing suddenly she had something cold to drink.

She emerged finally in the heart of the deep woods in a clearing dominated by a single, monstrous oak. The other trees seemed to shy away from it, their trunks and limbs twisted and bent, grown so in an effort to reach the nourishing light denied them by the big oak's sprawling canopy. The clearing in which the old tree grew was barren of everything but a few small patches of saw grass and weeds. No birds flitted through the oak's ancient branches. No squirrels built their nests within the crook of its limbs. No movement was visible or sound audible from any part of its gloomy heights. All about, the air was heavy and still with heat and shadows.

Nest stared upward into the old tree, tracing the line of its limbs to the thick umbrella of leaves that shut away the sky. She had not come here for a long time. She did not like being here now. The tree made her feel small and vulnerable. She was chilled by the knowledge of the dark purpose it served and the monstrous evil it contained. For this was the prison of a maentwrog. Pick had told her the maentwrog's story shortly after their first meeting. She remembered the aged tree from her flight into the park atop Daniel. She had seen it in the hazy gloom of the deepening twilight, and she had marked it well. Even at six, she knew when something was dangerous. Pick confirmed her suspicions. Maentwrogs were, to use the sylvan's own words, "half predator, half raver, and all bad." Thousands of years ago they had preyed upon forest creatures and humans alike, de- • vouring members of both species in sudden, cataclysmic, frenzied bursts triggered by a need that only they understood. They would tear the souls out of their victims while they still lived, leaving them hollow and consumed by madness. They fed in the manner of the feeders, but did not rely on dark emotions for their response. They were thinking creatures. They were hunters. This one had been imprisoned in the tree a thousand years ago, locked away by Indian magic when it became so destructive that it could no longer be tolerated. Now and again, it threatened to escape, but the magic of the park's warders, human and sylvan, had always been strong enough to contain it.

Until now, Nest thought in horror, realizing why Pick had brought her here. The massive trunk of the ancient oak was split wide in three places, the bark fissured so that the wood beneath was exposed in dark, ragged cuts that oozed a foul, greenish sap.

"It's breaking free," the sylvan said quietly.

Nest stared wordlessly at the jagged rifts in the old tree's skin, unable to look away. The ground about the oak was dry and cracked, and there were roots exposed, the wood mottled and diseased.

"Why is this happening?" she asked in a whisper.

Pick shrugged. "Something is attacking the magic. Maybe the shift in the balance of things has weakened it. Maybe the feeders have changed their diet. I don't know. I only know we have to find a way to stop it."

"Can we do that?"

"Maybe. The fissures are recent. But the damage is far more extensive than I have ever seen before." He shook his head, then glanced left and right into the trees about them. "The feeders sense it. Look at them."

Nest followed his gaze. Feeders lurked everywhere in the shadows, hanging back in the gloom so that only their eyes were visible. There was an unmistakable eagerness in their gaze and in their furtive movements, an expectancy that was unsettling.

"What happens if the maentwrog breaks free?" she asked Pick softly, shivering with the feel of those eyes watching.

Pick cocked an eyebrow and frowned. "I don't know. It's been a prisoner of the tree for so long that I don't think anyone knows. I also don't think anyone wants to find out."

Nest was inclined to agree. "So we have to make sure that doesn't happen. What can I do to help?"

Pick jumped down from her shoulder to her arm, then scooted down her leg to the ground. "Bring me some salt. One of those big bags of the stuff they use in the water conditioners. Rock salt, if that's all you can find. I'll need a bag of compost, too. A wheelbarrow full. A bag of fertilizer or manure is okay. Pitch or tar, too. To fill in those splits." He looked at her. "Do the best you can. I'll stay here and work on strengthening the magic."

Nest shook her head in dismay, looking back again at the tree. "Pick, what's going on?"

The sylvan understood what she was asking. He tugged up his shirtsleeves angrily. "Some sort of war, I'd guess. What does it look like to you? Now get going."

She took a deep breath and darted away through the trees. She raced down the narrow trail, heedless of the brambles and the stinging nettles that swiped at her. Even without hearing him speak the words, she could feel Pick urging her to hurry.