Running with the Demon - Terry Brooks [66]
“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