Terry Brooks - Running With The Demon

He'd moved closer then, and his wizened face had furrowed with delight and his voice had lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. "Feeders, my young friend, devour people!"

Nest's eyes had gone wide, and Pick the sylvan had laughed like a cartoon maniac.

She still remembered him saying it. Feeders devour people. There was more to the explanation, of course, for the complexity of feeders could never be defined so simply. There was no mention of the feeders as a force of nature, as sudden, violent, and inexorable as a Midwest twister, or of their strange, symbiotic relationship with the humans they destroyed. Yet it was hard to get much closer to the heart of the matter. Pick's description, provocative and crude, was still the most accurate Nest had ever heard. Even now, six years later, his words resonated with truth.

The pungent smell of spruce filled her nostrils, borne on a momentary breeze, and the memories faded. She turned and jogged quickly to the end of her yard, slipping smoothly into the gap in the hedgerow. She was almost through when Pick appeared on her shoulder as if by magic, springing out of hiding from the leafy branches. At six inches of height and nine ounces of weight, he was as small and light as a bird. He was a wizened bit of wood with vaguely human features stamped above a mossy beard. Leaves grew out of his head in place of hair. His arms and legs were flexible twigs that narrowed to tiny fingers and stubby toes. He looked like a Disney animation that had been roughed up a bit. His fierce eyes were as hard and flat as ink dots on stone.

He settled himself firmly in place, taking hold of her collar. "What have I told you about provoking the feeders?" he snapped.

"Not to," she answered dutifully, swinging west down the service road toward the park entrance.

"Why don't you listen to me, then?"

"I do. But it makes me angry to see them nosing about when it's still light out." She darted a quick look at the ballplayers to make certain that Danny Abbott wasn't among them. "They didn't used to be like that. They never showed themselves when the sun was shining, not even where the shadows were deepest. Now I see them everywhere."

"Times change." Pick sounded disconsolate. "Something's happening, that much is sure, but I don't know what it is yet. Whatever it is, it's caused the balance of things to tip even further. There's been a lot of bad things happening around here lately. That's not good." He paused. "How's the little Scott girl?"

"Fine. But George Paulsen stole her cat, Spook." Nest slowed to a walk again. "I promised Bennett I'd try to find it. Can you help me?"

Even without being able to see him, she knew he was tugging on his mossy beard and shaking his leafy head. "Sure, sure, what else have I got to do but look for someone's lost cat? Criminy!" He was silent a moment as they passed behind the backstop. The spectators grouped at the edge of the ball field were drinking beer and pop and cheering on their favorite players. "Batter, batter, batter–swing!" someone chanted. No one paid any attention to Nest.

"I'll send Daniel out, see if he can find anything," Pick offered grudgingly.

Nest smiled. "Thanks."

"You can thank me by staying away from the feeders!" Pick was not about to be mollified. "You think your magic and that big dog are enough to protect you, but you don't know feeders the way I do. They aren't subject to the same laws as humans. They get to you when you're not expecting it!" She could feel him twisting about angrily on her shoulder. "Creepers! I don't know why I'm telling you this! You already know it, and I shouldn't have to say another word!"

Then please don't, she thought, hiding a grin. Wisely, she swallowed her words without speaking them. "I'll be careful, I promise," she assured him, turning up the blacktop road toward the cliffs.

"See that you do. Now, cut across the grass to the burial mounds. There's an Indian sitting up there at one of the picnic tables, and I want to know what he's up to."

She glanced sideways at him. "An Indian?"

"That's what I said, didn't I?"

"A real Indian?"

Pick sighed in exasperation. "If you do like I told you, you can decide for yourself!"

Curious now, wondering if there really was an Indian or if the sylvan was just making it up, she stepped off the roadway into the grass and began to jog steadily toward the cliffs.

The Indian was sitting at a picnic table on the far side of‑1- the playground just across the roadway from the burial mounds. He was all alone, having chosen a spot well back in the tangle of pines and spruce that warded the park's northern boundary against the heavy winter storms that blew down from Canada. He sat with his back to the roadway and the broad expanse of the park, his gaze directed west toward the setting sun. Shadows dappled his still, solitary form, and if she had not known to look for him, Nest might have missed seeing him altogether.

He did not look up as she neared, and she slowed to a walk. His long, raven hair had been woven into a single braid that fell to the middle of his back, and his burnished skin shone with a copper glint where errant streaks of sunlight brushed against it. He was a big man, even hunched down at the table the way he was, and the fingers of his hands, clasped before him in a twisted knot, were gnarled and thick. He wore what appeared to be an army field jacket with the sleeves torn out, pants that were baggy and frayed, boots so scuffed they lacked any semblance of a shine, and a red bandanna tied loosely about his neck.

Somewhere in the distance a child squealed with delight. The Indian did not react.

Nest moved to a picnic table thirty feet away from the Indian and seated herself. She was off to one side, out of his direct line of sight, where she could study him at her leisure. Pick perched on her shoulder, whispering furiously in her ear. When she failed to respond, he began to jump up and down in irritation.

"What's the matter with you?" he hissed. "How can you learn anything from all the way back here? You've got to get closer! Must I tell you how to do everything!"

She reached up, lifted him off her shoulder, and placed him on the table, frowning in reproof. Patience, she mouthed.

In truth, she was trying to make up her mind about the man. He looked like he might be an Indian, but how could she be sure? Most of what she knew about Indians she'd learned from movies and a few reports she'd done in school–not what you'd call a definitive education. She couldn't see his face clearly, and he wasn't wearing anything that looked remotely Indian. No jewelry, no feathers, no buckskins, no buffalo robes. He looked more like a combat veteran. She wondered suddenly if he was homeless. A heavy knapsack and a bedroll were settled on the bench beside him, and he had the look of a man who had been out in the weather a lot.

"Who is he, do you think?" she asked softly, almost to herself. Then she glanced down at Pick. "Have you ever seen him before?"

The sylvan was apoplectic. "No, I haven't seen him before! And I don't have the foggiest notion who he is! What do you think we're doing out here? Haven't you heard anything I've said?"

"Shhhhh," she hushed him gently.

They sat there for a time without speaking (although Pick muttered incessantly) and watched the man. He did not seem aware of them. He did not turn their way. He did not move at all. The sun slipped below the treeline, and the shadows deepened. Nest glanced about guardedly, but she did not see the feeders. Behind her, back toward the center of the park, the baseball games were winding down and the first cars were beginning to pull out from the parking spaces behind the backstops and turn toward the highway.

Then suddenly the man rose, picked up his knapsack and bedroll, and came toward Nest. Nest was so surprised she did not even have the presence of mind to think of running away. She sat there, frozen in place as he approached. She could see his face clearly now, his heavy, prominent features–dark brows, flat nose, and wide cheekbones. He moved with the grace and ease of a younger man, but the lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth suggested he was much older.