Running With the Demon

  Then a funny thing happened. Nest, who didn’t know much about fighting, was unsure what she should do. Anger and fear warred for control. Should she stand her ground or run for it? She stood her ground. Lori grabbed for her, their eyes locked, and Nest, raising her hands to defend herself, thought, You better not touch me, you better quit right now, you better stop! And down went Lori in a heap, legs tangled, arms askew, and mouth open in surprise. Lori scrambled up again, furious, but the moment their eyes met she began to stumble about helplessly. She tried to say something, but she couldn’t seem to talk, the words all jumbled up and nonsensical. Some of the students thought she was having a fit, and they ran screaming for help. Nest was as shocked as they were, but for a different reason. She knew what had happened. She couldn’t explain it, but she understood what it was. She had felt the magic’s rush, like a gasp of breath as it left her body. She had felt it entangle Lori, its cords wrapping tightly and implacably about the other girl’s ankles. She would never forget the horrified look on Lori Adami’s face. She would never forget how it made her feel.

  They were suspended from school for fighting. Nest had debated how much she should tell Gran, who was the one she had to answer to for any sort of misbehavior, but in the end, as she almost always did, she told her everything. She found she needed to talk to someone about what had happened, and Gran was the logical choice. After all, wasn’t she the one who kept saying Nest had magic? Fine, then—let her explain this!

  But Gran hadn’t said anything at first on hearing Nest’s tale. She merely asked if Nest was certain about what had happened and then let the matter drop. Only later had she taken Nest aside to speak with her, waiting until Old Bob was safely out of the house.

  “It isn’t as strange as you might think that you should be able to do magic, Nest,” she told her. They were sitting at the kitchen table, Nest with a cup of hot chocolate in front of her, Gran with her bourbon and water. “Do you know why that is?”

  Nest shook her head, anxious to hear her grandmother’s explanation.

  “Because you are your mother’s daughter and my granddaughter, and the women of this family have always known something about magic. We aren’t witches or anything, Nest. But we have always lived around magic, here by the park, by the feeders, and we’ve known about that magic, and if you live next to something long enough, and you know it’s there, some of it will rub off on you.”

  Nest looked at her doubtfully. Rub off on you?

  Her grandmother leaned forward. “Now, you listen to me carefully, young lady. Once upon a time, I warned you never to tell anyone about the feeders. You didn’t pay attention to me then, did you? You told. And do you remember the sort of trouble it got you into?” Nest nodded. “All right. So you pay attention to me now. Using magic will get you into a whole lot worse trouble than talking about feeders. It will get you into so much trouble I might not be able to get you out. So I am telling you here and now that you are not to use your magic again. Do you hear me?”

  Nest chewed her lip. “Yes.”

  “Good. This is important.” Gran’s face was scrunched up like a wadded paper sack. “When you are grown, you can decide for yourself when you want to use your magic. You can weigh the risks and the rewards. But you are not to use it while you are a child living in this house. Except,” she paused, reminded of something, “if you are threatened, and your life is in danger, and you have no choice.” She looked away suddenly, as if fleeing things she would rather not consider. “Then, you can use the magic. But only then.”

  Nest thought it over for a moment. “How am I supposed to be sure I’ve really got magic if I don’t try it out?”

  Her grandmother’s gaze fixed on her anew. “You seemed sure enough about it when you were fighting with Lori Adami. Are you telling me that maybe you made it up?”

  “No.” Nest was immediately defensive. “I just don’t know for sure. It all happened so fast.”

  Her grandmother took a long drink from her glass and lit a cigarette. “You know. Now you do as I say.”

  So Nest had, although it was very hard. Eventually, she broke her promise, but not for several months, when she used her magic on a boy who was trying to pull down her swimsuit at the pool. Then she used it again on a kid who was throwing rocks at a stray cat. She knew for sure then that the magic was real, and that she could use it on anyone she wished. But the odd thing was, using it didn’t make her feel very good. It should have provided her with some measure of satisfaction, but all it did was make her feel sick inside, as if she had done something for which she should feel ashamed.

  It was Pick who had straightened her out, telling her that what her grandmother meant was that she wasn’t to use her magic against other people. Using it against other people would always make her feel bad, because it was like taking advantage of someone who couldn’t fight back. Besides, it would attract a lot of unwanted attention. But the feeders were fair game. Why not use it against them?

  Pick’s idea had worked. Using her magic against the feeders satisfied her curiosity and gave her an opportunity to experiment. Eventually she told Gran. Gran, saying little in response, had approved. Then Pick had enlisted her aid in dealing with the nighttime activities of the feeders, and summoning the magic had suddenly become serious business. After that, she had been very careful not to use it again on people.

  Until now, she thought wearily as she walked home through the park. She had split up with the others as soon as they were in the trees and out of sight of the ball field. See you tomorrow, she had told them, as if nothing had happened, as if everything were all right. See you tomorrow, they’d replied. Hardly a word had been spoken about the incident, but she knew they were all thinking about it, remembering anew some of the stories about her.

  Only Robert had ventured a parting comment. “Jeez, it didn’t even look like you touched him!” he’d said in his typically direct, unthinking, Robert way. She was so distressed she didn’t even try to respond.

  As she reached the edge of the service road, she thought suddenly she might vomit. Her stomach churned and her head ached. The inside of her mouth tasted coppery, and her breathing was quick and uneven. Using the magic on Danny Abbott had been a mistake, even though it had probably saved Robert a beating. She had promised Gran she wouldn’t use it again. More important, she had promised herself. But something had happened to her this afternoon. She had been so angry she had forgotten her resolve. She had simply lost control of herself.

  She angled through the trees and houses that paralleled the park, closing in now on her home, buoyed by the sight of its familiar white siding and its big stone chimney, her refuge from the world. She knew what troubled her most about what had happened. It was what Danny had said. Your friends are weird. What are you doing with them? But, really, she was the one who was weird, and using the magic as she had just pointed it up. Having magic made her different from everyone—but that was just part of it. How much stranger could you be than to know that you were the only one who could see feeders, the only one with some sort of monster dog for a protector, and the only one with a sylvan for a friend?

  She was the one who didn’t belong, she knew, tears running down her cheeks, and she wanted desperately not to feel that way.

  CHAPTER 7

  Nest went for a run before dinner, disdaining to wait for the heat to lessen, needing to escape. She asked Gran if it would be all right, and Gran, with those unerring instincts for evaluating the depth of her granddaughter’s needs, told her to go ahead. It was after six, the sun still visible in the western sky, the glare of midday softened to a hazy gold. Colors deepened as the light paled, the green of the leaves and grasses turning damp emerald, the tree trunks taking on an inky cast, and the sky overhead becoming such a clear, depthless blue that it seemed that if gravity’s hold could be broken you might swim it like an ocean. As Nest turned out of her drive and ran down Sinnissippi Road, she could feel the branches of the big hardwoods sigh with the faint passing
of a momentary breeze, and the sigh seemed collective and all-encompassing. Friday was ending, the work week had come to a close, and now the long Fourth of July weekend could begin in earnest. She ran to the end of Sinnissippi, barely a block from her drive, and turned east onto Woodlawn. Ahead, the road stretched away, a wide, straight racetrack that narrowed between the houses with their lawns, hedgerows, and trees and faded into the horizon. She ran smoothly on its shoulder, feeling her blood hum, her heart pound, her breathing steady, and her thoughts scatter. The movement of her legs and the pounding of her feet absorbed her, enfolded her, and then swallowed her up. She was conscious of the world slipping past like a watercolor running on a canvas backdrop, and she felt herself melt into it. Neighbors worked in their gardens or sat on their porches sipping tea and lemonade and occasionally something stronger. Dogs and cats lay sleeping. Children played in their yards, and as she passed a few dashed toward her momentarily before stopping, as if they, too, were seeking an escape. Now and again someone waved or called out, making her feel welcome, a part of the world once more.

  She ran the length of Woodlawn, then turned left to Moonlight Bay. She passed boats and trailers on their way to the launch and campers on their way to White Pines State Park sixty miles north. She ran the circle drive of the bay past the shorefront residences, then swung west again and ran back to her home. Slowly, surely, her trauma eased, left behind with her footprints in the dust. By the time she turned down her drive once more, she was feeling better about herself. Her shirt clung damply to her body and her skin was covered with a sheen of sweat. She felt drained and loose and renewed. As she came up to the back door, she permitted herself a quick glimpse into the park, looking backward in time to the events of the afternoon, better able now to face what she had done to Danny Abbott—or perhaps, more accurately, what she had done to herself. The ache that the memory generated in her heart was sharp, but momentary. She sighed wearily, telling herself what she sometimes did when things were bad—that she was just a kid—and knew as always that it wasn’t so.

  She showered quickly, dressed in fresh shorts and T-shirt (this one said Latte Lady), and came down for dinner. She sat at the kitchen table with her grandparents and ate tuna and noodle casserole with green beans and peaches off the everyday china. Gran nursed her bourbon and water and picked at her food, a voiceless presence. Old Bob asked Nest about her day, listened attentively as she told him about fishing with her friends, and didn’t say a word about last night in the park. Through the open screen door came the sounds of the evening, distant and soft—the shouts of players and spectators as the night’s softball games got under way in the park, the hiss of tires on hot asphalt from cars passing down Sinnissippi Road, the muted roar of a lawn mower cutting grass several houses down, and the faint, silvery laughter of children at play. There was no air-conditioning in the Freemark house, so the sounds were clearly audible. Nest’s grandparents couldn’t stomach the idea of shutting out the world. You can deal better with the heat if you live with it, they liked to say.

  “Any news on the strike?” Nest asked her grandfather after they had finished talking about fishing, mostly in an effort to hold up her end of the conversation.

  He shook his white head, swallowed the last bite of his dinner, and pushed his plate back. His big shoulders shrugged. “Naw, they can’t even agree on what day of the week it is, Nest.” He reached for his newspaper and scanned the headlines. “Won’t be a resolution any time soon, I don’t expect.”

  Nest glanced at Gran, but her grandmother was staring out the window with a blank expression, a lighted cigarette burning to ash between her fingers.

  “Not my problem anymore,” Old Bob declared firmly. “At least I got that to be thankful for. Someone else’s problem now.”

  Nest finished her dinner and began thinking about Pick and the park. She glanced outside at the failing light.

  “Look at this,” Old Bob muttered, shaking out the paper as if it contained fleas. “Just look at this. Two boys dropped a five-year-old out a window in a Chicago apartment. Fifteen stories up, and they just dropped him out. No reason for it, they just decided to do it. The boys were ten and eleven. Ten and eleven! What in the hell is the world coming to?”

  “Robert.” Gran looked at him reprovingly over the rim of her glass.

  “Well, you have to wonder.” Old Bob lowered the paper and glanced at Nest. “Excuse my language.” He was silent for a moment, reading. Then he opened the inside page. “Oh, my.” He sighed and shook his head, eyes bright with anger. “Here’s another, this one quite a bit closer to home. One of those Anderson girls used to live out on Route Thirty shot and killed her father last night. She claims he’s been molesting all of the girls since they were little. Says she forgot about it until it came to her in a dream.” He read on a bit, fuming. “Also says she has a history of mental problems and that the family hasn’t had anything to do with her for some time.”

  He read for a little while longer, then tossed the paper aside. “The news isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on anymore.” He studied the table a moment, then glanced at Gran, waiting for a response. Gran was silent, looking out the window once more. Her hand lowered in a mechanical motion to the ashtray to stub out the cigarette.

  Old Bob’s eyes turned sad and distant. He looked at Nest. “You going out to play again?” he asked quietly.

  Nest nodded, already beginning to push back from the table.

  “That’s all right,” her grandfather said. “But you be back by dark. No excuses.”

  The way he said it made it plain that, even though he hadn’t brought the subject up at dinner, he hadn’t forgotten about last night. Nest nodded again, letting him know she understood.

  Her grandfather rose and left the table, taking the newspaper with him, retiring to the seclusion of his den. Nest sat for a moment staring after him, then started to get up as well.

  “Nest,” her grandmother said softly, looking directly at her now. She waited until she had the girl’s attention. “What happened this afternoon?”

  Nest hesitated, trying to decide what to say. She shrugged. “Nothing, Gran.”

  Her grandmother gave her a long, hard look. “Carry your dishes to the sink before you go,” she said finally. “And remember what your grandfather told you.”

  Two minutes later, Nest was out the back door and down the porch steps. Mr. Scratch had disappeared and Miss Minx had taken his place. As designated mouser she had assumed a more alert position, crouched down by the toolshed, sniffing at the air and looking about warily. Nest walked over and scratched her white neck, then headed for the hedgerow and the park. Mosquitoes buzzed past her ears, and she swatted at them irritably. Magic didn’t seem to do any good when it came to mosquitoes. Pick claimed once that he had a potion that would keep them at bay, but it turned out to be so evil-smelling that it kept everything else at bay as well. Nest grimaced at the memory. Even a hundred-and-fifty-year-old sylvan didn’t know everything.

  She was nearing the hedgerow, listening to the sounds of the softball games in progress on the other side, when she glanced left into the Peterson backyard and saw the feeders. There were two of them, hiding in the lilac bushes close by the compost heap that Annie Peterson used on her vegetable garden. They were watching Nest, staring out at her with their flat, expressionless eyes, all but invisible in the approaching twilight. Their boldness frightened her. It was as if they were lying in wait for her, hoping to catch her off-guard. They were implacable and relentless, and the certainty of what they would do to her if they had the chance was unnerving. Nest veered toward them, irritated anew by the feelings they aroused in her. It was getting so she couldn’t go anywhere without seeing them.

  The feeders blinked once as she neared, then simply faded away into the shadows.

  Nest stared into the empty gloom and shivered. The feeders were like vultures, waiting to dispose of whatever leavings they could scavenge. Except that feeders were only interested in the
living.

  She thought back to what Pick had told her years ago when she had asked about the feeders. Her grandmother had avoided the subject for as long as Nest could remember, but Pick was more than willing to address it.

  “Your grandmother won’t talk about them? Won’t say a single word about them? Not a single word? Well, now. Well, indeed!” He’d scrunched up his moss-bearded face and scratched at the side of his head as if to help free up thoughts trapped in his cranium. “All right, then, listen up. First off, you need to understand that feeders are an anomaly. You know what that word means, don’t you?”

  Since she’d been only eight at the time, she hadn’t the slightest idea. “Not really,” she’d said.

  “Criminy, your education is a mess! Don’t you ever read?”

  “You don’t read,” she’d pointed out.

  “That’s different. I don’t have to read. I don’t need it in my line of work. But you, why, you should be reading volumes of …”

  “What does anoma-whatever mean?” she’d pressed, unwilling to wait through the entirety of Pick’s by-now-familiar lecture on the plight of today’s undereducated youth.

  He had stopped in midsentence, harrumphed disapprovingly at her impatience, and cleared his throat. “Anomaly. It means ‘peculiar.’ It means ‘different.’ It means feeders are hard to classify. You know that guessing game you used to play? The one where you start by asking, ‘Animal, mineral, or vegetable?’ Well, that’s the kind of game you have to play when you try to figure out what feeders are. Except feeders aren’t any of these things, and at the same time they’re all of them, because what they are is determined to a large extent by what you are.”