Terry Brooks - Running With The Demon

"I won't lie to you," Gran said. "I have tried never to lie to you. There are things I haven't told you. Some you don't need to know. Some I can't tell you. We all have secrets in our lives. We are entitled to that. Not everything about us should be known. I expect you understand that, being who you ar, e. Secrets allow us space in which to grow and change as we must. Secrets give us privacy where privacy is necessary if we are to survive."

She started to reach for her drink and stopped. At her elbow, her cigarette was burned to ash. She glanced at it, then away. She sighed wearily, her eyes flicking back to Nest.

"Was it you, Gran?" Nest asked gently. "In the park, with the feeders?"

Gran nodded. "Yes, Nest, it was." She was silent a moment, a bundle of old sticks inside the housecoat. "I have never told anyone. Not my parents, not your grandfather, not even Caitlin–and God knows, I should at least have told her. But I didn't. I kept that part of my life secret, kept it to myself."

She reached across the table for Nest's hand and took it in her own. Her hands were fragile and warm. "I was young and headstrong and foolish. I was proud. I was different, Nest, and I knew it–different like you are, gifted with use of the magic and able to see the forest creatures. No one else could see what I saw. Not my parents, not my friends, not anyone. It set me apart from everyone, and I liked that. My aunt, Opal Anders, my mother's sister, was the last to have the magic before me, and she had died when I was still quite young. So for a time, there was only me. I lived by the park, and I escaped into it whenever I could. It was my own private world. There was nothing in my other life that was anywhere near as intriguing as what waited for me in the park. I came at night, as you do. I found the feeders waiting for me–curious, responsive, eager. They wanted me there with them, I could tell. They were anxious to see what I would do. So I came whenever I could, mingling with them, trailing after them, always watching, wondering what they were, waiting to see what they would do next. I was never afraid. They never threatened me. There didn't seem to be any reason not to be there."

She shook her head slowly, her lips tightening. "As time passed, I became more comfortable with feeders than with humans. I was as wild as they were; I was as uninhibited. I ran with them because that was what made me feel good. I was serf–indulgent and vain. I think I knew there was danger in what I was doing, but it lacked an identity, and in the absence of knowing there was something bad about what I was doing, I just kept doing it. My parents could not control me. They tried keeping me in my room, tried reasoning with me, tried everything. But the park was mine, and I was not about to give it up."

A car backfired somewhere out on Woodlawn, and Gran stopped talking for a moment, staring out the window, squinting into the hot sun. Nest felt the old woman's hand tighten about her own, and she squeezed back to let Gran know it was all right.

"The Indian had no right to tell you," Gran said finally. "No right."

Nest shook her head. "I don't think it was Two Bears, Gran. I don't think he was the one."

Gran didn't seem to hear. "Why would he do such a thing? Whatever possessed him? He doesn't even know me."

Nest sighed, picturing Two Bears dancing with the spirits of the Sinnissippi, seeing anew the vision of Gran, wild–eyed and young, at one with the feeders. "When did you stop, Gran?" she asked softly. "When did you quit going into the park?"

Gran's head jerked up, and there was a flash of fear in her narrowed eyes. "I don't want to talk about it anymore."

"Gran," Nest pressed, refusing to look away. "I have to know. Why did I have this vision of you and the feeders, do you think? I still don't know. You have to help me."

"I don't have to help you do another thing, Nest. I've said everything I have to say."

"Tell me about the other–the shadowy figure whose face I couldn't see. Tell me about him." "No!"

"Gran, please!"

The door to the library opened and Old Bob shambled down the hall. He stopped in the kitchen doorway, his coat and tie draped over one arm, his big frame stooped and weary–looking. He stared at them, his eyes questioning. Gran took her hand from Nest's and picked up her drink. Nest lowered her gaze to the table and went still.

"Robert, I want you to change into your old clothes and then go out and haul that brush out to the roadway for Monday pickup," Gran said quietly.

Old Bob hesitated. "Tomorrow's a holiday, Evelyn. There's no pickup until Tuesday. We've got plenty of…"

"Just do it, Robert!" she snapped, cutting him off. "Nest and I need a little time to ourselves, if you please."

Nest's grandfather flushed, then turned wordlessly and went back down the hallway. Nest and her grandmother listened to his footsteps recede.

"All right, Nest," Gran said, her voice deadly calm. "I'll tell you this one last thing, and then I'm done. Don't ask me anything more." She tossed back the last of her drink and lit a cigarette. Her gray hair was loose and spidery about her face. "I quit going to the park because I met someone else who could see the feeders, who was possessed of the magic. Someone who loved me, who wanted me so badly he would have done anything to get me." She took a long pull on the cigarette and blew out a thick stream of smoke. "Hard to imagine now, someone wanting this old woman. Just look at me."

She gave Nest a sad, ironic smile. "Anyway, that's what happened. At first, I was attracted to him. We both ran the park with the feeders and used the magic. We dared anything. We dared things I can't even talk about, can't even make myself think about anymore. It was wrong to be like that, to do the things we did. But I couldn't seem to help myself. What I didn't realize at first was that he was evil, and he wanted me to be like him. But I saw what was happening in time, thank God, and I put a stop to it."

"You quit going into the park?"

Gran shook her head. "I couldn't do that. I couldn't give up the park."

Nest hesitated. "Then what did you do?"

For a minute she thought her grandmother was going to say something awful. She had that look. Then Gran picked up her cigarette, ground it out in the ashtray, and gave a brittle laugh.

"I found a way to keep him from ever coming near me again," she said. Her jaw muscles tightened and her lips compressed. Her words were fierce and rushed. "I had to. He wasn't what he seemed."

It was the way she said it. Nest gave her a hard look. "What do you mean, 'He wasn't what he seemed'?"

"Let it be, Nest."

But Nest shook her head stubbornly. "I want to know."

Gran's frail hands knotted. "Oh, Nest! He wasn't human!"

They stared at each other, eyes locked. Gran's face was contorted with anger and frustration. The pulse at her temples throbbed, and her mouth worked, as if she were chewing on the words she could not make herself speak. But Nest would not look away. She would not give it up.

"He wasn't human?" she repeated softly, the words digging and insistent. "If he wasn't human, what was he?"

Gran shook her head as if to rid herself of all responsibility and exhaled sharply. "He was a demon, Nest!"

Nest felt all the strength drain from her body in a strangled rush. She sat frozen and empty in her chair, her grandmother's words a harsh whisper of warning in her ears. A demon. A demon. A demon.

Gran bent forward and placed her dry, papery hands over

Nest's. "I'm sorry to have disappointed you, child," she whispered.

Nest shook her head quickly, insistently. "No, Gran, it's all right."

But it wasn't, of course, and she knew in the darkest corners of her heart that it might never be again.