Running with the Demon - Terry Brooks [165]
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nest fled into the park in mindless shock, her thoughts scattered, her reason destroyed. Had she known a way to do so, she would have run out of her skin, out of her body, out of her life. The face of the demon would not leave her, the image burned so deeply into her mind that she could not dispel it, his features bland and unremarkable, his blue eyes pale and empty.
Your father...
Your father...
She flew into a dark stand of pine and spruce, flinging herself into the concealing shadows, desperate to hide from everything, frantic to escape. The leathery branches whipped at her face and arms, bringing tears, but the pain was solid and definable and slowed her flight. She staggered to a halt, grounded anew, lacking a reason to run farther or a better place to go. She moved aimlessly within the tangle of the grove, tears welling in her eyes, fists clenching at her sides. This wasn’t happening, she thought. It couldn’t be happening. She walked through the conifers to a massive old oak, put her arms about the gnarled trunk, and hugged it to her. She felt the rough bark bite into her arms and legs, into her cheeks and forehead, and still she pressed harder.
Your father...
She could not say the words, could not complete the thought. She pressed and pressed, willing her body to melt into the tree. She would become one with it. She would disappear into it and never be seen again. She was crying hard now, tears running down her face, her body shaking. She squeezed her eyes tight. Had her father really killed Gran? Had he killed her mother as well? Would he now try to kill her?
Do something!
She forced herself to go still inside and the tears to stop. Her sobs died away in small gulps as the cold realization settled over her that the crying wasn’t doing any good, wasn’t helping anything. She pushed away from the tree and stared out into the park through gaps in the conifers, rebuilding her composure from tiny, scattered fragments. She caught glimpses between the needled branches of other lives being led, all of them distant and removed. It was the Fourth of July, America’s day of independence. What freedom should she celebrate? She looked down at her arms, at how the oak’s bark had left angry red marks that made her skin look mottled and scaly.
A shudder overtook her. Could she ever look at herself again in the same way? How much of her was human and how much something else? She remembered asking Gran only a few days earlier, weary of the years of secrecy, if her father might be a forest creature. She remembered wondering afterward what that would feel like.
Now she could wonder about this.
She shifted her gaze inward, staring at nothing, still unable to believe it was true. Maybe John Ross was mistaken. Why couldn’t he be? But she knew there was no mistake. That was why Gran had been so anxious to avoid any discussion of her father all those years. She felt sick inside thinking of it, of the lies and half truths, of the rampant deception. Awash with misery and fear, she felt bereft of anything and anyone she could depend upon, mired in a life history that had compromised and abandoned her.
She moved back to the oak and sat down, leaning against the rugged trunk, suddenly worn out. She was still sitting there, staring at the trees around her, trying to decide what to do next, when Pick dropped out of the tree across the way and hurried over.
“Criminy, I thought I’d never catch up with you!” he gasped, collapsing to his knees in front of her. “If it wasn’t for Daniel, I’d never get anywhere in this confounded park!”
She closed her eyes wearily. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here? What do you think I’m doing here? Is this some sort of trick question?”
“Go away.” Her voice was a flat, hollow whisper.
Pick went silent and stayed that way until she opened her eyes to see what he was doing. He was sitting up straight, his eyes locked on hers. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” he