Running With The Demon

by Brooks, Terry

  "Yeah, sure." Robert smirked.

  "Well, I didn't."

  "I was there, Nest. Remember?"

  "He tripped over himself." She smoothed the skin on her knees with the palms of her hands, looking down at her feet. "I didn't touch him. You saw."

  Robert didn't say anything. He hunched forward and buried his face in his knees. "All I know is I'd rather have you for a friend than an enemy." He peeked up at her and rubbed his reddened ears gingerly. "So we're off to patch up a tree, are we? Jeez. What a treat. Good thing I like you, Nest."

  A few minutes later Cass arrived with Brianna, pulling a small, red metal wagon. They loaded the softener salt, compost, and bucket of Tree Seal into the bed and headed back down the drive, Nest and Robert pulling the wagon, Cass and Brianna helping to balance its load. They followed the road out to Spring, then turned down Spring until they reached Mrs. Eberhardt's blacktop drive, which ran back through her lot to her garage at the edge of the park. They were halfway down the drive when Alice Eberhardt appeared, yelling at them for trespassing on private property. This was nothing new. Mrs. Eberhardt yelled at every kid who cut through her yard, and there were a lot of them. Robert said it was Mrs. Eberhardt's fault for providing them with a shortcut in the first place. He assured her now, giving her his "don't mess with me" look, that this was an emergency, so the law was on their side. Mrs. Eberhardt, who was a retired insurance adjuster and convinced that all kids were looking to get into trouble, but especially the ones in her yard, shouted back that she knew who Robert was and she was going to speak to his parents. Robert said she should call the house before seven, because his father was still doing nights in jail until the end of the month and his mother would probably go off to visit him after dinner.

  They reached the end of the driveway, detoured around the garage to the back of the lot, and set off into the park. The woods began immediately, so they moved to the nearest trail and followed it in.

  "You are really asking for it, Robert," Brianna observed, but there was a hint of admiration in her voice.

  "Hey, this is how I look at it." Robert cocked his head, a savvy bantam rooster. "Each day is a new chance to get into trouble. I don't ever pass up those kinds of chances. You know why? Because even when I don't go out of the house, I get into trouble. Don't ask me why. It's a gift. So what's the difference if I get into trouble at Mrs. Eberhardt's or at home? It's all relative." He gave Brianna a smirk. "Besides, getting into trouble, is fun. You should try it sometime."

  They worked their way deeper into the woods, the heat and the silence growing. The sounds of the neighborhood faded. Gnats flew at them in clouds. "Yuck." Brianna grimaced.

  "Just a little additional protein for your diet," Robert cracked, licking at the air with his tongue.

  "What are we doing out here?" Cass asked Nest, plodding along dutifully, one hand balancing the sacks of salt and compost in the swaying wagon.

  Nest spit out a bug. "There's a big oak that's not looking too good. I'm going to see what I can do to help it."

  "With salt and compost?" Robert was incredulous. "Tree Seal, I can see. But salt and compost? Anyway, why are you doing this? Don't they have people who work for the parks who are supposed to patch up sick trees?"

  The trail narrowed and the ground roughened. The wagon began to bounce and creak. Nest steered around a large hole. "I tried getting hold of someone, but they're all off for the Fourth of July weekend," she improvised.

  "But how do you know what to do?" Cass pressed, looking doubtful as well.

  "Yeah, have you nursed other sick trees back to health?" Robert asked with his trademark smirk.

  "I watched Grandpa once. He showed me." Nest shrugged dismissively and pushed on.

  Fortunately, no one asked her for details. They worked their way along the trail through the weeds and scrub, swatting at bugs and brushing aside nettles, hot and miserable in the damp heat. Nest began to feel guilty for forcing her friends to come. She could probably handle this alone, now that she had the wagon and the supplies. Robert could go back to his computer and Cass and Brianna could go swimming. Besides, what would she do about Pick?

  "You don't have to come any farther," she said finally, glancing over her shoulder at them, tugging on the wagon handle. "You can head back. I can manage."

  "Forget it!" Robert snapped. "I want to see this sick tree."

  Cass nodded in agreement. "Me, too. Anyway, this is more fun than doing hair." She gave Brianna a wry glance.

  "Is it much farther?" Brianna asked, stepping gingerly around a huge thistle.

  Five minutes later, they reached their destination. They pulled the wagon into the clearing and stood looking at the tree in awe. Nest wasn't sure if any of them had ever seen it before. She hadn't brought them herself, so maybe they hadn't. Whatever the case, she was certain from the looks on their faces that they would never forget it.

  "Wow," whispered Robert. Uncharacteristically, he was otherwise at a loss for words.

  "That is the biggest oak tree I have ever seen," Cass said, gazing up into its darkened branches. "The biggest."

  "You know what?" Robert said. "When they made that tree, they threw away the mold."

  "Mother Nature, you mean," Cass said.

  "God," Brianna said.

  "Whoever," Robert said.

  Nest was already moving away from them, ostensibly to take a closer look at the oak, but really to find Pick. There was no sign of him anywhere.

  "Look at the way the bark is split," said Cass. "Nest was right. This tree is really sick."

  "Something bad has gotten inside of it," Brianna declared, taking a tentative step forward. "See that stuff oozing out of the sores?"

  "Maybe it's only sap," said Robert.

  "Maybe pigs fly at night." Cass gave him a look.

  Nest rounded the tree on its far side, listening to the silence, to the murmur of her friends' voices, to the rustle of the feeders lurking in the shadows back where they couldn't be seen. She glanced left and right, seeing the feeders, but not Pick. Irritation shifted to concern. What if something had happened to him? She glanced at the tree, afraid suddenly that the damage was more extensive than they had believed, that somehow the creature trapped within was already loose. Heat and fear closed about her.

  "Hey, Nest!" Robert called out. "What are we supposed to do, now that we're here?"

  She was searching for an answer when Pick dropped from the tree's branches onto her shoulder, causing her to start in spite of herself. "Pick!" she gasped, exhaling sharply.

  "Took you long enough," he huffed, ignoring her. "Now listen up, and I'll tell you what to do."

  He gave Nest a quick explanation, then disappeared again. Nest walked back around the tree, gathered her friends together, and told them what was needed. For the next half hour they worked to carry out her instructions. Robert was given the Tree Seal to apply to the splits in the trunk, and he used the stirring stick and brush to slap the pitchlike material into place in thick gobs. Cass and Brianna spread the compost over the exposed roots and cracks, dumping it in piles and raking it in with their hands. Nest took the conditioner salt and poured it on the ground in a thin line that encircled the tree some twenty-five feet out from its base. When Robert asked what she was doing, she told him she was using the salt to protect the tree from a particularly deadly form of wood bore that was causing the sickness. The pitch would heal the sores, the compost would feed the roots, and the salt would keep other wood bores from finding their way back to the tree. It wasn't true, of course, but it sounded good.

  When they were done, they stood together for a time surveying their handiwork. Robert gave his theory on tree bores, some wild concoction he said he had picked up on the Internet, and Brianna gave her theory on Robert. Then Cass allowed as how standing there looking at the tree was like watching grass grow, Brianna complained about being hot and thirsty, and Robert remembered the program he was downloading on his computer. It was not yet midafternoon, so there
was still time to go swimming. But Nest told them she was tired and thought she would go home instead. Robert snorted derisively and called her a wimp and Cass and Brianna suggested they could just hang out. But Nest persisted, needing to be alone with Pick, distracted by thoughts of the maentwrog and tonight's meeting with Two Bears. The lie felt awkward, and she added to her discomfort by saying that Gran had asked her to do some additional chores around the house. She promised to meet them the following day in the park by the Indian mounds after church services and lunch.

  "Hey, whatever." Robert shrugged, failing to hide his irritation and resentment.

  "Call you tonight," Cass promised.

  She picked up the handle of the wagon and trudged off, with Brianna and Robert trailing after. More than once her friends glanced back at her. She could read the questions in their eyes. She stared after them, unable to look away, feeling selfish and deceitful.

  When they were out of sight, she called softly for Pick. The sylvan appeared at her feet, and she reached down, picked him up, and set him on her shoulder.

  "Will any of this help?" she asked, gesturing vaguely at the tree, struggling to submerge her feelings.

  "Might," he answered. "But it's a temporary cure at best. The problem lies with a shifting in the balance. The magic that wards the tree is being shredded. I have to find out why."

  They stood without speaking for a time, studying the big oak, as if by doing so they might heal it by strength of will alone. Nest felt hot and itchy from the heat and exertion, but there was a deeper discomfort working inside her. Her eyes traced the outline of the tree against the sky. It was so massive and old, a great, crooked-arm giant frozen in time. How many years had it been alive? she wondered. How much of the land's history had it witnessed? If it could speak, what would it tell her?

  "Do you think the Word made this tree?" she asked Pick suddenly.

  The sylvan shrugged. "I suppose, so."

  "Because the Word made everything, right?" She paused. "What does the Word look like?"

  Pick looked at her.

  "Is the Word the same as God, do you think?"

  Pick looked at her some more.

  "Well, you don't think there's more than one God, do you?", Nest began to rush her words. "I mean, you don't think that the Word and God and Mother Nature are all different beings? You don't think they're all running around making different things-like God makes humans and the Word makes forest creatures and Mother Nature makes trees? Or that Allah is responsible for one race and one part of the world and Buddha is responsible for some others? You don't think that, do you?"

  Pick stared.

  "Because all these different countries and all these different races have their own version of God. Their religions teach them who their God is and what He believes. Sometimes the different versions even hold similar beliefs. But no one can agree on whose God is the real God. Everyone insists that everyone else is wrong. But unless there is more than one God, what difference does it make? If there's only one God and He made everything, then what is the point of arguing over whether to call Him God or the Word or whatever? It's like arguing over who owns the park. The park is for everyone."

  "Are you having some sort of identity crisis?" Pick asked solemnly.

  "No. I just want to know what you believe."

  Pick sighed. "I believe creatures like me are thoroughly misunderstood and grossly underappreciated. I also believe it doesn't matter what I believe."

  "It matters to me."

  Pick shrugged.

  Nest stared at her feet. "I think you are being unreasonable."

  "What is the point of this conversation?" Pick demanded irritably.

  "The point is, I want to know who made me." Nest took a deep breath to steady herself. "I want to know just that one thing. Because I'm sick and tired of being different and not knowing why. The tree and I are alike in a way. The tree is not what it seems. It might have grown from a seedling a long, long time ago, but it's been infused with magic that imprisons the maentwrog. Who made it that way? Who decided? The Word or God or Mother Nature? So then I think, What about me? Who made me? I'm not like anyone else, am I? I'm a human, but I can do magic? I can see the feeders when no one else can. I know about this other world, this world that you come from, that no one else knows about. Don't you get it? I'm just like that tree, a part of two worlds and two lives-but I don't feel like I really belong in either one."

  She took him off her shoulder and held him in the palm of her hand, close to her face. "Look at me, Pick. I don't like being confused like this. I don't like feeling like I don't belong. People look at me funny; even if they don't know for sure, they sense I'm not like them. Even my friends. I try not to let it bother me, but it does sometimes. Like right now." She felt the tears start, and she forced them down. "So, you know, it might help if I knew something about myself, even if it was just that I was right about God and the Word being the same. Even if it was only that, so I could know that I'm not parts of different things slapped together, not something totally weird, but that I was made whole and complete to be just the way I am!"

  Pick looked uncomfortable. "Criminy, Nest, I don't have any special insight into how people get made. You don't seem weird to me, but I'm a sylvan, so maybe my opinion doesn't count."

  She tightened her mouth. "Maybe it counts for more than you think."

  He gave an elaborate sigh, tugged momentarily on his mossy beard, and fixed her with his fierce gaze. "I don't like these kinds of conversations, so let's dispense with the niceties. You pay attention to me. You asked if I believe God and the Word are the same. I do. You can call the Word by any name you choose-God, Mohammed, Buddha, Mother Nature, or Daniel the Owl; it doesn't change anything. They're all one, and that one made everything, you included. So I wouldn't give much credence to the possibility that you were slapped together and modified along the way by a handful of dissatisfied deities. I don't know why you turned out the way you did, but I'm pretty sure it was done for a reason and that you were made all of a piece."

  His brows knit. "If you want to worry about something, I don't think it should be about whether you owe your existence to God or the Word or whoever. I think you should worry about what's expected of you now that you're here and how you're going to keep from being a major disappointment."

  She shook her head in confusion. "What do you mean?"

  "Just this. Everything that exists has a counterpart. The Word is only half of the equation, Nest. The Void is the other half. The Word and the Void-one a creator, one a destroyer, one good, one evil. They're engaged in a war and they've been fighting it since the beginning of time. One seeks to maintain life's balance; the other seeks to upset it. We're all a part of that struggle because what's at risk is our own lives. The balance isn't just out there in the world around us; it's inside us as well. And the good that's the Word and the evil that's the Void is inside us, too. Inside us, each working to gain the upper hand over the other, each working to find a way to overcome the other."

  He paused, studying her. "You already understand that you aren't like most people. You're special. You have one foot firmly planted in each of two worlds, forest creature and human. There're not many like you. Like I've said, there's a reason for this, just like there's a reason for everything. Don't you think for a minute that the Void doesn't realize this. You have a presence and a power. You have a purpose. The Void would like to see all that turned to his use. You may think you are a good person and that nothing could change that. But you haven't been tested yet. Not really. You haven't been exposed to the things in life that might change you into something you wouldn't even recognize. Sooner or later, that's going to happen. Maybe sooner, given the amount of unrest among the feeders. Something is going on, Nest. You better concentrate your concerns on that. You better be on your guard."

  There was a long silence when he finished as she digested the implications of his admonition. He stood rigid in her hand, arms folded across his wooden chest,
mouth set in a tight line, eyes bright with challenge. He was trying to tell her something, she realized suddenly. His words had more than one meaning; his warning was about something else. A sense of uneasiness crept through her, a shadow of deep uncertainty. She found herself thinking back on the past few days, on Bennett Scott's rescue from the cliffs, on the maentwrog's emergence from its prison, and on the increased presence and boldness of the feeders. Did it have to do with these?

  What was Pick trying to say?

  She knew she would not find out today. She had seen that look on his face before, stubborn and irascible. He was done talking.

  She felt suddenly drained and worn. She lowered Pick to the ground, waited impatiently for him to step out of her hand, and then stood up again. "I'm going home after all," she told him. "I'll see you tonight."

  Without waiting for his reply, she turned and walked off into the trees.

  She didn't go home, however. Instead, she walked through the park, angling down off the heights to the bayou's edge and following the riverbank west. She took her time, letting her emotions settle, giving herself a chance to think through the things that were bothering her. She could put a voice to some of them, but not yet to all. What troubled her was a combination of what had already come about and what she sensed was yet to happen. The latter was not a premonition exactly-more an unpleasant whisper of possibility. The day was hot and still, and the sun beat down out of the cloudless sky on its slow passage west. The park was silent and empty-feeling, and even the voices of the picnickers seemed distant and subdued. As if everyone was waiting for what she anticipated. As if everyone knew it was coming.

  She passed below the toboggan slide and above a pair of young boys fishing off the bank by the skating shelter. She glanced up the long, straight, wooden sluice to the tower where the sledders began their runs in winter, remembering the feeling of shooting down toward the frozen river, gathering speed for the launch onto the ice. Inside she felt as if it were happening to her now in another way, as if she were racing toward something vast and broad and slick, and that once she, reached it she would be out of control.