Running with the Demon - Terry Brooks [68]
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