Terry Brooks - Running With The Demon

They walked through the rolling green of the cemetery and down its tree–shaded rows of markers to where her mother lay, out on a bluff overlooking the river and the land beyond. Her mother's headstone was gray with black lettering and bore the words BELOVED DAUGHTER & MOTHER just beneath her name, Caitlin Anne Freemark. Nest stared at the grave without speaking, immutable and remote, borne to other times and places on the wings of her thoughts.

"I don't remember her at all," she said finally, tears springing to her eyes with her admission.

John Ross looked off into the trees. "She was small and gentle, with sandy hair and blue–gray eyes you couldn't look away from. She was pretty, almost elfin. She was very smart, intuitive about things others would miss entirely. When she laughed, she could transport you to a better time and place in your life if you were sad or make you glad you were there with her if you were happy. She was daring and unafraid. She was never satisfied with just being told how something was; she always wanted to experience it for herself."

He stopped, went silent suddenly, as if he'd come up against something he did not care to explore any further. Nest did not try to look at him. She brushed at her eyes and bit her lip to steady herself. It was always like this when she came to visit. No matter how much time had passed, it was always the same.

Afterward, they walked back through the cemetery to the fence line in the waning light, listening to the dying sounds of a distant mower and the occasional honk of a car horn out on the highway. There was no one in the cemetery this night; its tree–sheltered, rolling green expanse was cradled in silence and empty of movement. The Midwest evening was sultry, the air tasted of sweat, and it felt as if time had slowed its inexorable march to a crawl. There was a sense of something slipping away, gone like chances at love or hopes for understanding.

"Thank you for telling me about her," Nest said quietly as they walked down the blacktop roadway toward the park fence. Her eyes were dry again and her mind was clear.

"Well, you remind me of her," John Ross replied after a moment. "That helps me in telling you what she was like."

"I have pictures," said Nest. "But it isn't the same."

"Not if you don't have the memories of the times those pictures capture, no." Ross limped steadily forward, his staff clicking softly against the blacktop with each step.

"I like your staff," Nest ventured. "Have you had it a long time?"

Ross glanced over at her and smiled. "Sometimes it seems like I have had it all my life. Sometimes it seems like I was born with it. I think maybe, in a sense, I was."

He didn't say anything more. They reached the fence and slipped through the gap and into the park once more. They were back at the turnaround, close by the cliffs. The twilight was deepening, the sun gone down behind the horizon, leaving only its crimson wake to light the world. The family on the swings and the two cars that had been parked at the turnaround were gone. In the distance, the baseball games were winding down.

In the shadows of the trees that bracketed the cliff edge, feeders were gathering, their squat, dark bodies shifting soundlessly, their yellow eyes winking like fireflies. As John Ross and Nest passed down the roadway, their numbers grew. And grew still more. Nest glanced left and right nervously, finding eyes everywhere, watching intently, implacably. Why were there so many? The chilling possibility crossed her mind that they intended to attack, all of them, too many to defend against. They had never done anything like that before, but there was nothing to say they wouldn't do so now. Feeders were nothing if not unpredictable. She tensed expectantly, wondering what she should do. Her heart beat fast and her breathing quickened.

"Don't let them bother you," John Ross told her quietly, his voice soft and calm. "They're not here because of you. They're here because of me."

He said it so matter–of–factly that for a moment the words didn't register. Then she looked at him in surprise and whispered, "You can see them?"

He nodded without looking at her, without appearing to look at anything. "As clearly as you can. It's why I'm here. It's why I've come. To help, if I can. I'm in service to the Word."

Nest was stunned. They continued to walk down the darkening roadway through the masses of feeders as if taking a garden stroll, and Nest fought to collect her thoughts.

"You know about the feeders, don't you?" he asked conversationally. "You know what draws them?" She nodded dully. "They are attracted to me because of the staff." She glanced over immediately, eyes fastening on its black, rune–scrolled walnut length. "The staff is a talisman, and its magic is very powerful. It was given to me when I entered into service to the Word. It is the weapon I carry into battle each and every day. It is also the ball and chain that binds me to my fate."

His words were muted and harsh, but strangely poetic as well, and Nest found herself looking at his face, seeing him anew. He did not look back, but continued to keep his gaze directed forward, away from her, away from the feeders.

"Are you a caretaker?" he asked after a moment. "Are you partnered with a sylvan to look after this park?"

The number of her questions doubled instantly, and she was confused all over again. "Yes. His name is Pick."

"I am a Knight of the Word," he said. "Has Pick told you of the Knights?"

She shook her head no. "Pick doesn't say much about anything that goes on outside of the park."

Ross nodded. They were even with the burial mounds now and turning in to the playground, stepping carefully over the low chain dividers. They moved across the twig–strewn grass beneath the hardwoods, solitary ghosts. Ahead, the baseball diamonds were filling with shadows and emptying of people. Nest could see lights beginning to come on in the houses of the subdivisions bordering the park and in the Sinnissippi Townhomes. Stars were beginning to appear in the darkening sky east, and a crescent moon hung suspended north across the river.

"Did you really know my mother?" Nest asked him, a twinge of doubt nudging at her, suspicious now of everything he had said.

He seemed not to have heard her. He said nothing for a moment, then slowed and looked over at her. "Why don't we sit somewhere and talk, and I'll tell you what I'm doing here."

She studied him carefully while he waited for her answer. "All right," she agreed finally.

They moved out of the hardwoods and away from the playground. The feeders that had been shadowing them fell away as they moved into the open again, unwilling to follow. They stayed on the west side of the road leading out of the park, away from the ball games that were ending and the players and fans packing up their blankets and gear, and moved to a picnic table just at the edge of a solitary spruce close by the crossbar.

They sat across from each other in the failing light, the girl and the man, and they might have been either confidants or combatants from the set of their shoulders and the positioning of their hands, and in the vast, empty space of night and sky that closed about them, their words could not be heard.

"This is how I became a Knight of the Word," John Ross said softly, his green eyes steady and calm as they fixed on her.

And he told Nest Freemark his story.

He was still a young man when he began his odyssey, noi yet turned thirty. He was drifting again, as he had been drifting for most of his life. He had earned an undergraduate degree in English literature (he had done his senior thesis on William Faulkner), and his graduation had marked the conclusion of any recognizable focus in his life. Afterward, he had migrated to a series of different schools and graduate programs, twice coming close to completing his masters, each time stepping back when he got too close. He was a classic case of an academic unready and unwilling to confront the world beyond the classroom. He was intelligent and intuitive; he was capable of finding his way. The problem with John Ross was always the same. The way never seemed important enough for him to undertake the journey.