She stalked out of the hospital, climbed in her car, and drove home through the snowy streets and the iron gray day. That Findo Gask would kill Bennett Scott didn't surprise her. Nothing demons did surprised her anymore. But what purpose did this particular killing serve? Why even bother with Bennett? She wasn't involved in Cask's effort to recover the gypsy morph. She didn't even know what a morph was, or what a demon was, or that anything of their world existed.
Her mood darkened the more she thought about it. This whole business smacked of spitefulness and revenge. It smelled of demon rage. Gask was furious at her—first, for taking in John Ross and the morph, and second, for refusing to give them up. The attacks at the toboggan slide and her house had been designed to frighten her by threatening harm to those she cared about. She was willing to wager that killing Bennett was intended to serve the same purpose.
She was angry and unsettled when she pulled into her driveway and climbed out of the car. The first few snowflakes were beginning to trickle out of the sky, and the light had gone darker even in the time it had taken her to drive to the hospital and back. Another storm was on the way. She hoped it would come soon. She hoped it would trap everyone inside their homes, demons included, for weeks.
Inside, she found John Ross checking the last of the locks on the doors and windows, a job she had left him to complete in her absence after informing him of Pick's efforts at implementing an early-warning system. When she told him about Bennett Scott, he just shook his head wordlessly. Mike the electrician had departed, his work finished, and the heat and lights were back on. She glanced into the living room where Harper and Little John were sitting cross-legged hi front of the Christmas tree, playing. Colored tree lights reflected off the Mylar ribbons and paper wrapped about the scattering of presents nestled behind them. The scene had the look of a Hallmark card.
She walked into the kitchen and found the message light blinking on the answer phone. There were two messages. Both had come in this morning. The first was from Paul.
"Hi, it's me again. Just following up yesterday's call. Looks like I missed you. But I'll keep trying. Been thinking about you. Keep a good thought for me, and I'll talk with you later. Happy holidays."
The familiar sound of his voice made her both smile and ache. She found herself wanting to talk with him, too. Just hearing those few words stirred memories and feelings that hadn't surfaced for a long time. Maybe it was because she was so lonely. Maybe it was because she missed what they'd once had more than she was willing to admit.
She closed her eyes a moment, picturing his face, then played the second message. It was a phone number. That was all. But she recognized the voice instantly. The good feelings went away, and she stared at the phone for a long moment before punching in the number.
"Miss Freemark," Findo Gask said when he picked up the receiver on the other end. No hesitation, no greeting. "Why don't you just give me what I want and we can put an end to this business."
Even knowing he would be there, she felt a jolt go through her at the sound of his voice.
"That would be the easiest thing to do, wouldn't it?" she replied. She was surprised at how calm she sounded, given what she was feeling.
"Maybe you could avoid any more unpleasantness," he suggested pointedly. "Maybe no one else would walk off the edge of a cliff. Maybe you wouldn't find any more surprises hiding in your basement. Maybe your life could go back to the way it used to be."
She shook her head at the receiver. "I don't think so. I don't think that's possible anymore."
He chuckled softly, and she hated him so much she could barely keep from screaming it out. "Well, life requires adapting to change, I guess. The trick is to adapt in the way least harmful to yourself and those around you. You haven't done very well with that of late, Miss Freemark. Your choices have cost you the lives of Bennett Scott and Ray Childress. They have resulted in your very nasty encounter with the ur'droch. What did you think of him, Miss Freemark? Would you like him to pay you another visit? He's very fond of children."
She took a deep breath. "I'll be waiting for him next time, Mr. Cask. His visit might have a different ending."
The gravelly voice purred. "Such stubbornness is foolish and pointless. You can't win, Miss Freemark. Don't think you can. Your allies are dropping away. Even that big Indian in the park. You've lost him, too."
Her throat tightened, and she felt her breath catch in shock. Two Bears? No, they couldn't have done anything to him. Not him. She saw him in her mind, a rock, immovable, powerful. O'olish Amaneh. No, not him. She would know.
"I can tell you don't believe me," Findo Cask said quietly. "Suit yourself. What you believe or don't believe changes nothing. He's gone, and he's not coming back. Is Mr. Ross to be next? How about that little sylvan who lives in the park? You're pretty fond of him, aren't you? What do you think about the ur'droch taking him—"
She placed the receiver gently back on its cradle, and the hateful voice died away. She stood staring at the phone, Findo Cask's words echoing in her mind. Her hands were shaking. She waited a long time for the phone to ring again, for Findo Gask to call back, but nothing happened.
Finally, she turned away. She would survive only if she kept her head. Stay busy, take things one at a time, anticipate what might happen without overreaching, and she might have a chance. Findo Gask could talk about making choices and suffering consequences all he wanted. She had made up her mind the moment she had seen Bennett Scott's dead face that she wasn't giving up the gypsy morph and its magic to the demons no matter what happened. A line had been crossed, and there was no going back. She didn't know what her decision might end up costing her, but she did know the cost of capitulating now was too great to live with.
Her resolve surprised her. It wasn't that she was brave or that she believed in the power of right over wrong. She knew Findo Gask was correct about her; she was being unreasonably stubborn. But somewhere along the way— since last night's events, she supposed—she had decided that whatever happened to her or even to those around her, she wouldn't back down. Something important was happening here, and even if she didn't understand exactly what it was, she would fight for it. She had an overpowering conviction that in this instance fighting was necessary, and that she must do so no matter what the consequences.
John Ross would understand, she believed. Certainly he had waged similar battles over the years, championing causes when the issues weren't entirely clear to him, believing that instinct would guide him to make the right decisions when reason wasn't enough.
She glanced out the window into the park. She would have to warn Pick of Cask's threat—although Pick was probably being pretty careful already. But if even O'olish Amaneh couldn't stand against the demons, what chance did the sylvan have—or any of them, for that matter? She couldn't imagine anyone being stronger than Two Bears. She couldn't believe that he might be gone.
She put aside her thoughts on the last of the Sinnissippi and walked into the living room. Harper and Little John were still playing. She smiled at Harper when the little girl looked up. "Come talk to me a minute, sweetie," she said gently.
She took Harper down the hall to her grandfather's den and shut the door behind them. She led Harper over to the big leather recliner that Old Bob had favored for reading and cogitating and naps, sat down, and pulled the child onto her lap.
"When I was little, my grandfather would always bring me into this room and put me on his lap in this chair when he had something important to tell me," she began, cradling Harper in her arms. "Sometimes he wanted to talk about our family. Sometimes he wanted to talk about friends. If I did something wrong, he would bring me in here to explain why I shouldn't do it again."
The little girl was staring at her. "Harper be bad?"
"No, sweetie, you haven't been bad. I didn't bring you in here because you did something bad. But something bad has happened to Mommy, and I have to tell you about it. I don't want to, because it is going to make you very sad
. But sometimes things happen that make us sad, and there isn't anything we can do about it."
She exhaled wearily and began to stroke Harper's long hair. "Harper, Mommy isn't coming home, sweetie." Harper went still. "She got very sick, and she isn't coming home. She didn't want to get sick, but she couldn't help it."
"Mommy sick?"
Nest bit her lip. "No, sweetie. Not anymore. Mommy died, honey."
"Mommy died?"
"Do you understand, Harper? Mommy's gone. She's in Heaven with all the angels she used to tell you about, the ones who make the sun bright with all the love that mommies have for their babies. She asked me to take care of you, sweetie. You and I are going to live together right here in this house for as long as you want. You can have your own room and your own toys. You can be my little girl. I would like that very much."
Harper's lip was quivering."Okay, Neth."
Nest gave her a hug and held her tight. "Your Mommy loved you so much, Harper. She loved you more than anything. She didn't want to die. She wanted to stay with you always. But she couldn't." She looked out the window into the park, where the hazy light was fading toward darkness. "Did you know that my mommy died when I was a little girl, too? I was even younger than you are."
"Wanna see Mommy," Harper sobbed.
"I know, sweetie, I know." Nest stroked her dark hair slowly. "I wanted to see my mommy, too, and I couldn't. But if I close my eyes, I can see her there in the darkness inside my head. Can you do that? Close your eyes and think of Mommy."
She felt Harper go still. "See Mommy," she said softly.
"She'll always be there, Harper, whenever you look for her. Mommies have to go away sometimes, but they leave a picture of themselves inside your head, so you won't forget them."
Harper's head lifted away from her breast. "Does L'il John got a Mommy, Neth?"
Nest hesitated, then smiled reassuringly. "He's got you and me, Harper. We're his mommies. We have to take care of him, okay?"
Harper nodded solemnly, wiping at her eyes with her shirtsleeve. "Harper wanna appo jus, Neth."
Nest stood her on her feet and put her hands on the little girl's shoulders. "Let's go get some, sweetie. Let's go get some for Little John, too." She leaned forward and kissed Harper's forehead. "I love you, Harper."
"Luv 'ou, Neth," Harper answered back, dark eyes brilliant and depthless and filled with wonder.
Nest took her hand and led her from the room. It took everything she had to keep from crying. In that moment, she felt as if her heart was breaking, but she couldn't tell if it was from sadness or joy.
Chapter 23
While Nest spoke with Harper Scott in the den, John Ross stood at the living-room entry watching Little John play with the pieces of his puzzle. Sitting in front of the Christmas tree, the boy picked up the pieces one at a time and studied them. He seemed to be constructing the puzzle in his mind rather than on the floor, setting each piece back when he was done looking at it, not bothering with trying to find the way in which it fit with the others. He seemed to be imitating what he had seen Harper doing a couple of days earlier. His blue eyes were intense with concentration, luminous within the oval of his pale face. He had lost color over the last twenty-four hours; there was a hollowness and a frailty about him that suggested he was not well. Of course, Little John was only a shell created to conceal the life force that lay beneath, and any outward indication of illness might be symptomatic of something entirely different from what it appeared. Little John was not a real boy, after all, but a creature of magic.
Yet sitting there as he was, lost in thought, so deeply focused on whatever mind game he was engaged in that he was oblivious to everything else, he seemed as real as any child Ross had ever known. Were gypsy morphs really so different from humans? Little John's life force was housed in his body's shell, but wasn't that so for humans as well? Weren't their spirits housed in vessels of flesh and blood, and when death claimed the latter, didn't the former live on?
Some people believed it was so, and Ross was among them. He didn't know why he believed it exactly. He supposed his belief had developed during his years of service to the Word and had been born out of his acceptance that the Word and Void were real, that they were antagonists, and that the time line of human evolution was their chosen battleground. Maybe he believed it simply because he needed to, because the nature of his struggle required it of him. Regardless, he was struck by the possibility that humans and gypsy morphs alike possessed a spiritual essence that lived on after their bodies were gone.
He leaned on his staff, mulling it over. Such thinking was triggered, he knew, by the inescapable and unpleasant fact that time was running out on all of them. Whatever else was to happen to Little John, Nest, Harper, and himself, it should not be invited to happen here. Nest might wish to remain in her home and to make whatever stand she could in a familiar place. She might believe that the sylvan Pick could spin a protective web of magic about her fortress so that she could not again be attacked by surprise. But John Ross was convinced that their only chance for survival was to get out of there as fast as possible and to go into hiding until the secret of the gypsy morph was resolved, one way or the other. They must slip away this afternoon, as quickly as it could be managed, if they were to have any hope at all. Findo Gask would not wait for Christmas to be over or the holiday spirit to fade. He would come for them by nightfall, and if they were still there, it was a safe bet that someone else was going to die.
Ross listened to the old grandfather clock ticktock in the silence, finding in its measured beat a reminder of how ineffectual he had been in his use of the time allotted him. He knew what was required if he was to resolve the secret of the morph. He had known it from the beginning. It had taken him forever just to get this far, and he had almost nothing to show for it. That the morph had brought him to Nest Freemark was questionable progress. That she believed it wanted something from her was suspect. She was levelheaded and intuitive, but her conclusion had come in the heat of a struggle to stay alive and might be misguided. So much of her thinking was speculative. How much was generated by wishful thinking and raw emotion? Could she really believe that Wraith and the morph were somehow joined? What could Wraith have to do with the morph's interest in Nest? Why would it matter to the morph that the ghost wolf was an integral part of her magic?
Ross considered what he knew, still watching the boy. Be fair, he cautioned himself. Consider the matter carefully. It might be that there was a problem because the ghost wolf was created substantially out of demon magic. Perhaps the morph couldn't tolerate that presence. Yet morphs had the ability to be anything. Their magic could be good or bad, could be used for any purpose, so that the presence of other magics logically shouldn't have any effect. Was it something about the form of the ghost wolf that bothered the morph? Was Wraith's magic competing with its own in some way?
Ross mulled his questions through. This boy, this boy! Such an enigmatic presence, closed away and so tightly sealed, so inscrutable! Why had the morph become a boy in the first place? The answer to everything was concealed there, in that single question—Ross was certain of it. Everything that had happened flowed directly from the morph's last, final evolution into Little John, the form it had taken before asking for Nest, the form it had taken before their coming here.
His hands tightened about the smooth wood of the staff. What was the gypsy morph looking for? What, that it couldn't seem to find in the woman whose name it had spoken with such need?
The door to the den opened, and Nest came out leading Harper by the hand. Neither said anything as they passed him and went into the kitchen. Ross followed them with his eyes, keeping silent himself. He could tell they had been crying; he could guess easily enough why. Nest poured apple juice into Harper's baby cup and gave it to her, then poured a cup for Little John and carried it to the living room, Harper trailing after her. The children sat together once more and began working the puzzle anew.
Nest was bending dow
n to help, speaking to them in a low voice, when the phone rang. She remained where she was, kneeling on the floor, Harper on one side and Little John on the other.
"John," she called softly without looking up. "Could you get that, please?"
He crossed the hall to the kitchen phone and picked up the receiver. "Freemark residence."
"I guess this just goes to prove how shameless I am, chasing after someone who leaves without a word in the middle of the night," Josie Jackson said.
He rubbed his forehead. "Sorry about that. I'm the one who's shameless. But I got worried about Little John. You looked so peaceful, I decided not to wake you."
"That's probably why you decided not to call this morning either. You wanted to let me sleep in."
"Things have been a bit hectic around here." He considered how much he ought to tell her, then lowered his voice. "Bennett Scott disappeared last night. They found her this morning at the bottom of the cliffs in Sinnissippi Park,"
"Oh, John."
"Nest just finished telling Harper. It's hard to know how she's going to deal with this. I think Nest is trying to find out."
"Should I come over?"
He hesitated. "Let me tell Nest you offered. She can call you back if she thinks you should."
"Okay." She was silent a moment. "If I don't come there, will you think about coming here?"
"To tell you the truth, Josie," he said, "I've been thinking about it since the moment I left."
Not that he would go to her, he reminded himself firmly. Because he couldn't do that, not even though he was telling her the truth and badly wanted to. He had already determined what he must do. He must leave Hopewell, and leave quickly—with Little John and Nest and Harper in tow. Maybe he could come back when this business with the gypsy morph was over. Maybe he could stay forever then. Maybe he and Josie could have a chance at a life.
But maybe not.
He was reminded anew of what had happened several months earlier when he had returned to Wales and the Fairy Glen to speak with the Lady. He was reminded anew of how deceptive hope could be.
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