Brooks, Terry - Word 3 - Angel Fire East

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Angel Fire East
by Terry Brooks
Sequel to Running with the Demon, and Knight of the Word.
TO MY FATHER, DEAN BROOKS
Who made sacrifices as an aspiring writer then so that I could be a published
writer now.
PROLOGUE
He stands at the edge of a barren and ravaged orchard looking up from the base
of a gentle rise to where the man hangs from a wooden cross. Iron spikes have
been hammered through the man's hands and feet, and his wrists and ankles have
been lashed tightly in place so he will not tear free. Slash wounds crisscross
his broken body, and he bleeds from a deep puncture in his side. His head
droops in the shadow of his long, lank hair, and the rise and fall of his
chest as he breathes is shallow and weak.
Behind him, serving as a poignant backdrop to the travesty of his dying,
stands the fire-blackened shell of a tiny, burned-out country church. The
cross from which the man hangs has been stripped from the sanctuary, torn free
from the metal brackets that secured it to the wall behind the altar, and set
into the earth. Patches of polished oak glisten faintly in the gray daylight,
attesting to the importance it was once accorded in the worshipping of God.
Somewhere in the distance, back where the little town that once supported this
church lies, screams rise up against the unmistakable sounds of butchery.
John Ross stands motionless for the longest time, pondering the implications
of the horrific scene before him. There is nothing he can do for the man on
the cross. He is not a doctor; he does not possess medical skills. His magic
can heal and sustain only himself and no other. He is a Knight of the Word,
but he is a failure, too. He lives out his days alone in a future he could not
prevent. What he looks upon is not unusual in the postapocalyptic horror of
civilization's demise, but is sadly familiar and disturbingly mundane.
He can take the man down, he decides finally, even if he cannot save him. By
his presence, Ross can give the man a small measure of peace and comfort.
Beneath a wintry sky that belies the summer season, he strides up the rise to
the man on the cross. The man does not lift his head or stir in any way that
would indicate he knows Ross is present. Beneath a sheen of sweat and blood,
his lean, muscular body is marked with old wounds and scars. He has endured
hardships and abuse somewhere in his past, and it seems unfair that he should
end his days in still more pain and desolation.
Ross slows as he nears, his eyes drifting across the blackened facade of the
church and the trees surrounding it. Eyes glimmer in the shadows, revealing
the presence of feeders. They hover at the fringes of his vision and in the
concealment of sunless corners, waiting to assuage their hunger. They do not
wait for Ross. They wait for the man on the cross. They wait for him to die,
so they can taste his passing from life into death-the most exquisite,
fulfilling, and rare of the human emotions they crave.
Ross stares at them until the light dims in their lantern eyes and they slip
back into darkness to bide their time.
A shattered length of wood catches the Knight's attention, and his eyes shift
to the foot of the cross. The remains of a polished black staff lie before
him-a staff like the one he carries in his hands. A shock goes through him. He
stares closely, unable to believe what he has discovered. There must be a
mistake, he thinks. There must be another explanation.
But there is neither. Like himself, the man on the cross is a Knight of the
Word.
He moves quickly now, striding forward to help, to lower the cross, to remove
the spikes, to free the man who hangs helplessly before him.
But the man senses him now and in a ragged, whispery voice says, Don't touch
me.
Ross stops instantly, the force of the other's words and the surprise of his
consciousness bringing him to a halt.
They have poisoned me, the other says.
Ross draws a long, slow breath and exhales in weary recognition: Those who
have crucified this Knight of the Word have coated him in a poison conjured of
demon magic. He is without hope.
Ross steps back, looking up at the Knight on the cross, at the slow, shallow
rise and fall of his breast, at the rivulets of blood leaking from his wounds,
at the shadow of his face, still concealed within the curtain of his long
hair.
They caught me when I did not have my magic to protect me, the stricken Knight
says softly. I had expended it all on an effort to escape them earlier. I
could not replenish it quickly enough. Sensing I was weak, they gave chase.
They hunted me down. Demons and once-men, a small army hunting pockets of
resistance beyond the protection of the city fortresses. They found me hiding
in the town below. They dragged me here and hung me on this cross to die. Now
they kill all those who tried to help me.
Ross finds his attention drawn once more to the shrieks that come from the
town. They are beginning to fade, to drain away into a deep, ominous silence.
I have not done well in my efforts to save mankind, the Knight whispers. He
gasps and chokes on the dryness in his throat. Blood bubbles to his lips and
runs down his chin to his chest.
Nor have any of us, Ross says.
There were chances. There were times when we might have made a difference.
Ross sighs. We did with them what we could.
A bird's soft warble wafts through the trees. Black smoke curls skyward from
the direction of the town, rife with the scent of human carnage.
Perhaps you were sent to me.
Ross turns from the smoke to look again at the man on the cross, not
understanding.
Perhaps the Word sent you to me. A final chance at redemption.
No one sent me, Ross thinks, but does not speak the words.
You will wake in the present and go on. I will die here. You will have a
chance to make a difference still. I will not.
No one sent me, Ross says quickly now, suddenly uneasy.
But the other is not listening. In late fall, three days after Thanksgiving,
once long ago, when I was on the Oregon coast, I captured a gypsy morph.
His words wheeze from his mouth, coated in the sounds of his dying. But as he
speaks, his voice seems to gain intensity.
It is my greatest regret, that I found it, so rare, so precious, made it my
own, and could not solve the mystery of its magic. The chance of a lifetime,
and I let it slip away.
The man on the cross goes silent then, gasping slowly for breath, fighting to
stay alive just a few moments longer, broken and shattered within and without,
left in his final moments to contemplate the failures he perceives are his.
Eyes reappear in the shadows of the burned-out church and blighted orchard,
the feeders beginning to gather in anticipation. Ross can scorch the earth
with their gnarled bodies, can strew their cunning eyes like leaves in the
wind, but it will all be pointless. The feeders are a part of life, of the
natural order of things, and you might as well decide there is no place for
humans either, for it is the humans who draw the feeders and sustain them.
The Knight of the Word who hangs from the cross is speaking again, telling him
of the gypsy morph, of how and when and where it will be found, of the chance
Ross might have of finding it again. He is giving Ross the details, preparing
him for the hunt, thinking to give another the precious opportunity that he
has lost. But he is giving Ross the chance to fail as well, and it is on that
alone his listener settles in black contemplation.
Do this for me if you can, the man whispers, his voice beginning to fail him
completely, drying up with the draining away of his life, turning parched and
sandy in his throat. Do it for your self.
Ross feels the implications of the stricken Knight's charge razor through him.
If he undertakes so grave and important a mission, if he embraces so difficult
a cause, it may be his own undoing.
Yet, how can he do otherwise?
Promise me.
The words are thin and weak and empty of life. Ross stares in silence at the
man.
Promise me...
-=O=-***-=O=-
John Ross awoke with sunshine streaming down on his face and the sound of
children's voices ringing in his ears. The air was hot and sticky, and the
smell of fresh turned earth and new leaves rose on a sudden breeze. He blinked
and sat up. He was hitchhiking west through Pennsylvania, and he had stopped
at a park outside Allentown to rest, then fallen asleep beneath the canopy of
an old hardwood. He had thought only to doze for a few minutes, but he hadn't
slept well in days, and the lack of sleep had finally caught up to him.
He gazed around slowly to regain his bearings. The park was large and thickly
wooded, and he had chosen a spot well back from the roads and playgrounds to
rest. He was alone. He looked down at his backpack and duffel bag, then at the
polished black staff in his hands. His throat was dry and his head ached. A
spot deep in his chest burned with the fury of hot coals.
His dream shimmered in a haze of sunlight just before his eyes, images from a
private hell.
He was a Knight of the Word, living one life in the present and another in the
future, one while awake and another while asleep, one in which he was given a
chance to change the world and another in which he must live forever with the
consequences of his failure to do so. He had accepted the charge almost
twenty-five years ago and had lived with it ever since. He had spent almost
the whole of his adult life engaged in a war that had begun with the inception
of life and would not end until its demise. There were no boundaries to the
battlefield on which he fought- neither of space nor of time. There could be
no final resolution.
But the magic of a gypsy morph could provide leverage of a sort that could
change everything.
He reached in his backpack and brought forth a battered water bottle. Removing
the cap, he drank deeply from its lukewarm contents, finding momentary relief
for the dryness in his throat and mouth. He had trouble fitting the cap in
place again. The dream had shaken him. His dreams did so often, for they were
of a world in which madness ruled and horror was commonplace. There was hope
in the present of his waking, but none in the future of his sleep.
Still, this dream was different.
He climbed to his feet, strapped the backpack in place, picked up the duffel
bag, and walked back through the park toward the two-lane blacktop that wound
west toward Pittsburgh. As always, the events of his dream would occur soon in
his present, giving him a chance to affect them in a positive way. It was
June. The gypsy morph would be born three days after Thanksgiving. If he was
present and if he was quick enough, he would be able to capture it.
Then he would have roughly thirty days to change the course of history.
That challenge would have shaken any man, but it was not the challenge of the
gypsy morph that haunted Ross as he walked from the park to begin his journey
west. It was his memory of the man on the cross in his dream, the fallen
Knight of the Word. It was the man's face as it had lifted from the shadow of
his long hair in the final moments of his life.
For the face of the man hanging on the cross had been his own.
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 21
CHAPTER 1
Nest Freemark had just finished dressing for church when she heard the knock
at the front door. She paused in the middle of applying her mascara at the
bathroom mirror and glanced over her shoulder, thinking she might have been
mistaken, that she wasn't expecting anyone and it was early on a Sunday
morning for visitors to come around without calling first.
She went back to applying her makeup. A few minutes later the knock came
again.
She grimaced, then glanced quickly at her watch for confirmation. Sure enough.
Eight forty-five. She put down her mascara, straightened her dress, and
checked her appearance in the mirror. She was tall, a shade under five-ten,
lean, and fit, with a distance runner's long legs, narrow hips, and small
waist. She had seemed gangly and bony all through her early teens, except when
she ran, but she had finally grown into her body. At twenty-nine, she moved
with an easy, fluid model's grace that belied the strength and endurance she
had acquired and maintained through years of rigorous training.
She studied herself in the mirror with the same frank, open stare she gave
everyone. Her green eyes were wide-set beneath arched brows in her round,
smooth Charlie Brown face. Her cinnamon hair was cut short and curled tightly
about her head, framing her small, even features. People told her all the time
she was pretty, but she never quite believed them. Her friends had known her
all her life and were inclined to be generous in their assessments. Strangers
were just being polite.
Still, she told herself with more than a trace of irony, fluffing her hair
into place, you never know when Prince Charming will come calling. Best to be
ready so you don't lose out.
She left the mirror and the bathroom and walked through her bedroom to the
hall beyond. She had been up since five-thirty, running on the mostly empty
roads that stretched from Sinnissippi Park east to Moonlight Bay. Winter had
set in several weeks before with the first serious snowfall, but the snow had
melted during a warm spot a week ago, and there had been no further
accumulation. Patches of sooty white still lay in the darker, shadowy parts of
the woods and in the culverts and ditches where the snowplows had pushed them,
but the blacktop of the country roads was dry and clear. She did five miles,
then showered, fixed herself breakfast, ate, and dressed. She was due in
church to help in the nursery at nine-thirty, and whoever it was who had come
calling would have to be quick.
She passed the aged black-and-white tintypes and photographs of the women of
her family, their faces severe and spare in the plain wooden picture frames,
backdropped by the dark webbing of trunks and limbs of the park trees.
Gwendolyn Wills, Carolyn Glynn, and Opal Anders. Her grandmother's picture was
there, too. Nest had added it after Gran's death. She had chosen an early
picture, one in which Evelyn Freemark appeared youthful and raw and wild, hair
all tousled, eyes filled with excitement and promise. That was the way Nest
liked to remember Gran. It spoke to the strengths and weaknesses that had
defined Gran's life.
Nest scanned the group as she went down the hallway, admiring the resolve in
their eyes. The Freemark women, she liked to call them. All had entered into
the service of the Word, partnering themselves with Pick to help the sylvan
keep in balance the strong, core magic that existed in the park. All had been
born with magic of their own, though not all had managed it well. She thought
briefly of the dark secrets her grandmother had kept, of the deceptions she
herself had employed in the workings of her own magic, and of the price she
had paid for doing so.
Her mother's picture was missing from the group. Caitlin Anne Freemark had
been too fragile for the magic's demands. She had died young, just after Nest
was born, a victim of her demon lover's treachery. Nest kept her pictures on a
table in the living room where it was always sunlit and cheerful.
The knock came a third time just as she reached the door and opened it. The
tiny silver bells that encircled the bough wreath that hung beneath the
peephole tinkled softly with the movement. She had not done much with
Christmas decorations-no tree, no lights, no tinsel, only fresh greens, a
scattering of brightly colored bows, and a few wall hangings that had belonged
to Gran. This year Christmas would be celebrated mostly in her heart.
The chill, dry winter air was sharp and bracing as she unlatched the storm
door, pushed it away, and stepped out onto the porch.
The old man who stood waiting was dressed all in black. He was wearing what in
other times would have been called a frock coat, which was double-breasted
with wide lapels and hung to his knees. A flat-brimmed black hat sat firmly in
place over wisps of white hair that stuck out from underneath as if trying to
escape. His face was seamed and browned by the wind and sun, and his eyes were
a watery gray as they blinked at her. When he smiled, as he was doing, his
whole face seemed to join in, creasing cheerfully from forehead to chin. He
was taller than Nest by several inches, and he stooped as if to make up for
the disparity.
She was reminded suddenly of an old-time preacher, the kind that appeared in
southern gothics and ghost stories, railing against godlessness and mankind's
paucity of moral resolve.
"Good morning," he said, his voice gravelly and deep. He dipped his head
slightly, reaching up to touch the brim of his odd hat.
"Good morning," she replied.
"Miss Freemark, my name is Findo Gask," he announced. "I am a minister of the
faith and a bearer of the holy word."
As if to emphasize the point, he held up a black, leather-bound tome from
which dangled a silken bookmark.
She nodded, waiting. Somehow he knew her name, although she had no memory of
meeting him before.
"It is a fine, grand morning to be out and about, so I won't keep you," he
said, smiling reassuringly. "I see you are on your way to church. I wouldn't
want to stand in the way of a young lady and her time of worship. Take what
comfort you can in the moment, I say. Ours is a restless, dissatisfied world,
full of uncertainties and calamities and impending disasters, and we would do
well to be mindful of the fact that small steps and little cautions are always
prudent."
It wasn't so much the words themselves, but the way in which he spoke them
that aroused a vague uneasiness in Nest. He made it sound more like an
admonition than the reassurance it was intended to be.
"What can I do for you, Mr. Gask?" she asked, anxious for him to get to the
point.
His head cocked slightly to one side. "I'm looking for a man," he said. "His
name is John Ross."
Nest started visibly, unable to hide her reaction. John Ross. She hadn't seen
or communicated with him for more than ten years. She hadn't even heard his
name spoken by anyone but Pick.
"John Ross," she repeated flatly. Her uneasiness heightened.
The old man smiled. "Has he contacted you recently, Miss Freemark? Has he
phoned or written you of late?"
She shook her head no. "Why would he do that, Mr. Gask?"
The smile broadened, as if to underline the silliness of such a question. The
watery gray eyes peered over her shoulder speculatively. "Is he here already,
Miss Freemark?"
A hint of irritation crept into her voice. "Who are you, Mr. Gask? Why are you
interested in John Ross?"
"I already told you who I am, Miss Freemark. I am a minister of the faith. As
for my interest in Mr. Ross, he has something that belongs to me."
She stared at him. Something wasn't right about this. The air about her warmed
noticeably, changed color and taste and texture. She felt a roiling inside,
where Wraith lay dormant and dangerously ready, the protector chained to her
soul.
"Perhaps we could talk inside?" Findo Gask suggested.
He moved as if to enter her home, a subtle shift of weight from one foot to
the other, and she found herself tempted simply to step aside and let him
pass. But she held her ground, the uneasiness becoming a tingling in the pit
of her stomach. She forced herself to look carefully at him, to meet his eyes
directly.
The tingling changed abruptly to a wave of nausea.
She took a deep, steadying breath and exhaled. She was in the presence of a
demon.
"I know what you are," she said quietly.
The smile stayed in place, but any trace of warmth disappeared. "And I know
what you are, Miss Freemark," Findo Gask replied smoothly. "Now, is Mr. Ross
inside or isn't he?"
Nest felt the chill of the winter air for the first time and shivered in spite
of herself. A demon coming to her home with such bold intent was unnerving.
"If he was, I wouldn't tell you. Why don't you get off my porch, Mr. Gask?"
Findo Gask shifted once more, a kind of settling in that indicated he had no
intention of moving until he was ready. She felt Wraith stir awake inside,
sensing her danger.
"Let me just say a few things to you, Miss Freemark, and then I'll go," Findo
Gask said, a bored sigh escaping his lips. "We are not so different, you and
I. When I said I know what you are, I meant it. You are your father's
daughter, and we know what he was, don't we? Perhaps you don't care much for
the reality of your parentage, but truth will out, Miss Freemark. You are what
you are, so there isn't much point in pretending otherwise, though you work
very hard at doing so, don't you?"
Nest flushed with anger, but Findo Gask waved her off. "I also said I was a
minister of the faith. You assumed I meant your faith naturally, but you were
mistaken. I am a servant of the Void, and it is the Void's faith I embrace.
You would pretend it is an evil, wicked faith. But that is a highly subjective
conclusion. Your faith and mine, like you and I, are not so different. Both
are codifications of the higher power we seek to comprehend and, to the extent
we are able, manipulate. Both can be curative or destructive. Both have their
supporters and their detractors, and each seeks dominance over the other. The
struggle between them has been going on for eons; it won't end today or
tomorrow or the day after or anytime soon."
He stepped forward, kindly face set in a condescending smile that did nothing
to hide the threat behind it. "But one day it will end, and the Word will be
destroyed. It will happen, Miss Freemark, because the magic of the Void has
always been the stronger of the two. Always. The frailties and weaknesses of
mankind are insurmountable. The misguided belief that the human condition is
worth salvaging is patently ridiculous. Look at the way the world functions,
Miss Freemark. Human frailties and weaknesses abound. Moral corruption here,
venal desires there. Greed, envy, sloth, and all the rest at every turn. The
followers of the Word rail against them endlessly and futilely. The Void
embraces them, and turns a weakness into a strength. Pacifism and meek
acceptance? Charity and goodwill? Kindness and virtue? Rubbish!"
"Mr. Gask-"
"No, no, hear me out, young lady. A little of that famous courtesy, please."
He cut short her protestation with a sharp hiss. "I don't tell you this to
frighten you. I don't tell it to you to persuade you of my cause. I could care
less what you feel or think about me. I tell it to you to demonstrate the
depth of my conviction and my commitment. I am not easily deterred. I want you
to understand that my interest in Mr. Ross is of paramount importance. Think
of me as a tidal wave and yourself as a sand castle on a beach. Nothing can
save you from me if you stand in my way. It would be best for you to let me
move you aside. There is no reason for you not to let me do so. None at all.
You have nothing vested in this matter. You have nothing to gain by
intervening and everything to lose."
He paused then, lifting the leather-bound book and pressing it almost
reverently against his chest. "These are the names of those who have opposed
me, Miss Freemark. The names of the dead. I like to keep track of them, to
think back on who they were. I have been alive a very long time, and I shall
still be alive long after you are gone."
He lowered the book and put a finger to his lips. "This is what I want you to
do. You will have no trouble understanding my request, because I will put it
to you in familiar terms. In the terms of your own faith. I want you to deny
John Ross. I want you to cast him out of your heart and mind and soul as you
would a cancer. I want you to shun him as a leper. Do this for yourself, Miss
Freemark, not for me. I will have him anyway, in the end. I do not need to
claim you as well."
Nest was buffeted by so many emotions she could no longer distinguish them.
She had kept quiet during the whole of his noxious, execrable presentation,
fighting to keep herself and an increasingly agitated Wraith under control.
She didn't think Findo Gask knew of Wraith, and she did not want him to
discover Wraith was there unless that became unavoidable. She needed to know
more of what was going on first, because she wasn't for a moment thinking of
acceding to a single demand he had made.
"John Ross isn't here," she managed, gripping the storm-door frame so tightly
with one hand her knuckles turned white.
"I accept that, Miss Freemark," Findo Gask said with a slight dip of his flat-
brimmed hat. "But he will be."
"What makes you so sure?"
She could see in his eyes that he believed he had won her over, that she was
trying to find a way to cooperate with him. "Call it a hunch. I have been
following his progress for a time, and I think I know him pretty well. He will
come. When he does, or even if he tries to make contact another way, don't do
anything to help him."
"What does he have that you want?" she pressed, curious now.
The demon shrugged. "A magic, Miss Freemark. A magic he would attempt to use
against me, I'm afraid."
She nodded slowly. "But that you will attempt to use against him, instead?"
Findo Gask stepped back, reaching up to touch the brim of his hat. "I have
taken up enough of your time. Your Sunday worship awaits. I'll look forward to
your call."
"Mr. Gask," she called to him as he started down the porch steps toward the
walk. He turned back to her, squinting against the bright December sunlight.
"My grandfather kept a shotgun in his bedroom closet for duck hunting. When my
father tried to come back into this house fifteen years ago, my grandmother
used that shotgun to prevent him from doing so. I still have that shotgun. If
you ever step foot on my property again, I will use it on you. I will blow
away your miserable disguise and leave you naked in your demon form for
however long it takes you to put yourself back together and all the while be
hoping to God you won't be able to do so!"
Findo Gask stared at her speechless, and then his face underwent such a
terrible transformation that she thought he might come at her. Instead he
turned away, strode up the walk to the roadway without looking back, and
disappeared.
Nest Freemark waited until he was out of sight, then walked back inside and
slammed the door so hard the jolt knocked the pictures of the Freemark women
askew.
CHAPTER 2
On the drive to church, Nest considered the prospect of another encounter with
John Ross.
As usual, her feelings about him were mixed. For as little time as she had
spent with him, maybe seven days all told over a span of fifteen years, he had
made an extraordinary impact on her life. Much of who and what she was could
be traced directly to their strange, sad relationship.
He had come to her for the first time when she was still a girl, just turned
fourteen and beginning to discover that she wasn't at all who she thought she
was. The secrets of her family were unraveling around her, and Ross had pulled
on the ends of the tangle until Nest had almost strangled in the resulting
knots. But her assessment wasn't really fair. Ross had done what was necessary
in giving her the truth. Had he not, she would probably be dead. Or worse. Her
father had killed her mother and grandmother, and tried to kill her
grandfather. He had done so to get to her, to claim her, to subvert her, to
turn her to the life he had embraced himself long ago. Findo Gask had been
right about him. Her father was a demon, a monster capable of great evil. Ross
had helped Nest put an end to him. Ross had given her back her life, and with
it a chance to discover who she was meant to be.
Of course, he would just as quickly have taken her life had she been turned to
the demon's cause, which was a good part of the reason for her mixed feelings
about him. That, and the fact that at one time she believed Ross to be her
father. It seemed strange, thinking back on it. She had rejoiced in the
prospect of John Ross as her father. She found him tender and caring; she
thought she probably loved him. She was still a girl, and she had never known
her father. She had made up a life for her father; she had invented a place
for him in her own. It seemed to her John Ross had come to fill that place.
Gran warned her, of course. In her own way, without saying as much, she
indicated over and over that her father was not somebody Nest would want to
know. But it seemed as if Gran's cautions were selfish and misplaced. Nest
believed John Ross was a good man. When she learned that he was not her father
and the demon was, she was crushed. When she learned that he had come to save
her if he could but to put an end to her otherwise, the knowledge almost broke
her heart.
Most of her anger and dismay had abated by the time she encountered him again
five years later in Seattle, where he was the victim and she the rescuer. Ross
was the one in danger of being claimed, and if Nest had not been able to save
him, he would have been.
Ten years had passed since then, and she hadn't seen or heard from him.
She shook her head, watching the houses of Hopewell, Illinois, drift past as
she drove her new Taurus slowly along Lincoln Highway toward downtown. The day
was bright and sunny, the skies clear and blue and depthless. Another storm
was predicted for Tuesday, but at the moment it was hard to imagine.
She cracked a window to let in some fresh air, listening to the sound of the
tires crunch over a residue of road dirt and cinders. As she drove past the
post office, the Petersons pulled up to the mail drop. Her neighbors for the
whole of her life, the Petersons had been there when Gran was still young. But
they were growing old, and she worried about them. She reminded herself to
stop by later and take them some cookies.
She turned off Fourth Street down Second Avenue and drove past the First
Congregational Church to find a parking space in the adjoining bank lot. She
climbed out of the car, triggered the door locks, and walked back toward the
church.
Josie Jackson was coming up the sidewalk from her bake shop and restaurant
across Third, so Nest waited for her. Bright and chipper and full of life,
Josie was one of those women who never seemed to age. Even at forty-eight, she
was still youthful and vivacious, waving and smiling like a young girl as she
came up, tousled blond hair flouncing about her pretty face. She still had
that smile, too. No one ever forgot Josie Jackson's smile.
Nest wondered if John Ross still remembered.
"Good morning, Nest," Josie said, falling into step with the younger woman,
matching her long stride easily. "I hear we've got baby duty together this
morning."
Nest smiled. "Yes. Experience counts, and you've got a whole lot more than me.
How many are we expecting?"
"Oh, gosh, somewhere in the low teens, if you count the three- and four-year-
olds." Josie shrugged. "Alice Wilton will be there to help out, and her niece,
what's-her-name-Anna."
"Royce-Anna."
"Royce-Anna Colson." Josie grimaced. "What the heck kind of name is that?"
Nest laughed. "One we wouldn't give our own children."
They mounted the steps of the church and pushed through the heavy oak doors
into the cool dark of the narthex. Nest wondered if Josie ever thought about
John Ross. There had been something between them once, back when he had first
come to Hopewell and Nest was still a girl. For months after he disappeared,
she asked Nest about him. But it had been years now since she had even
mentioned his name.
It would be strange, Nest thought, if he was to return to Hopewell after all
this time. Findo Gask had seemed sure he would, and despite her doubts about
anything a demon would tell her, she was inclined to think from the effort he
had expended to convince her that maybe it would happen.
That was an unsettling prospect. An appearance by John Ross, especially with a
demon already looking for him, meant trouble. It almost certainly foreshadowed
a fresh upheaval in her life, something she didn't need, since she was just
getting used to her life the way it was.
What would bring him back to her after so long?
Unable to find an answer, she walked with Josie down the empty, shadowed
hallway, stained glass and burnished wood wrapping her in a cocoon of silence.
-=O=-***-=O=-
She spent the next two hours working in the nursery, having a good time with
the babies and Josie, doing something that kept her from thinking too much
about things she would just as soon forget. She concentrated instead on diaper
changing, bottle feeding, telling stories, and playing games, and left the
world outside her bright, cheery room of crayon pictures and colored posters
to get on by itself as best it could.
Once or twice, she thought about Paul. It was impossible for her to be around
babies and not think about Paul, but she had found a way to block the pain by
taking refuge in the possibility that she was not meant to have children of
her own but to be a mother to the children of others. It was heartbreaking to
think that way, but it was the best she could do. Her legacy of magic from the
Freemark women would not allow her to think otherwise.
Josie helped pass the time with wry jokes and colorful stories of people they
both knew, and mostly Nest found herself thinking she was pretty lucky.
When the service was over, a fellowship was held in the reception room just
off the sanctuary. After returning her small charges to their proper parents,
Nest joined the congregation in sipping coffee and punch, eating cookies and
cake, and exchanging pleasantries and gossip. She wandered from group to
group, saying hello, asking after old people and children come home for the
holidays, wishing Christmas cheer to all.
"What's the world coming to, young lady?" an indignant Blanche Stern asked
when she paused to greet a gaggle of elderly church widows standing by the
narthex entry. She peered at Nest through her bifocals. "This is your
generation's responsibility, these children who do such awful things! It makes
me weep!"
Nest had no idea what she was talking about.
"It's that boy shooting those teachers yesterday at an outing in
Pennsylvania," Addie Hull explained, pursing her thin lips and nodding
solemnly for emphasis. "It was all over the papers this morning. Only thirteen
years old."
"Takes down his father's shotgun, rides off to school on his bike, and lets
them have it in front of two dozen other students!" Winnie Ricedorf snapped in
her no-nonsense teacher's voice.
"I haven't read the papers yet," Nest explained. "Sounds awful. Why did he do
it?"
"He didn't like the grades they were giving him for his work in some advanced
study program," Blanche continued, her face tightening. She sighed. "Goodness
sakes alive, he was a scholar of some promise, they say, and he threw it all
away on a bad grade."
"Off to his Saturday Challenge Class," Winnie said, "armed with a shotgun and
a heart full of hate. What's that tell you about today's children, Nest?"
"Remember that boy down in Tennessee last year?" Addie Hull asked suddenly.
Her thin hands crooked around her coffee cup more tightly. "Took some sort of
automatic rifle to school and ambushed some young people during a lunch break?
Killed three of them and wounded half a dozen more. Said he was tired of being
picked on. Well, I'm tired of being picked on, too, but I don't go hunting
down the garbage collectors and the postal delivery man and the IRS examiner
who keeps asking for those Goodwill receipts!"
"That IRS man they caught dressing in women's clothes earlier this month, good
heavens!" Winnie Ricedorf huffed, and took a sip of her coffee.
"His wife didn't mind, as I recall," Blanche Stern advised primly, giving Nest
a wink. "She liked to dress up as a man."
Nest excused herself and moved on. Similar topics of conversation could be
found almost everywhere, save where clusters of out-of-season golfers looking
forward to a few weeks in Florida replayed their favorite holes and wrestled
with the rest of the sports problems of the world while the teenagers next to
them spoke movie and rap and computer talk. She drifted from group to group,
able to fit in anywhere because she really belonged nowhere at all. She could
talk the talk and pretend she was a part of things, but she would never be
anything but an outsider. She was accepted because she had been born in
Hopewell and was a part of its history. But her legacy of magic and her
knowledge of Pick's world and the larger life she led set her apart as surely
as if she had just stepped off the bus from New York City.
摘要：

[Version1.0-January8,2002-scanned,OCR'ed,spell-checkedandreformatted.Ifyoufindanyerrors,pleasecorrect,repostandincrementversionnumberby0.1.Ifyoure-post,pleaseuseafile-formatwhichsupportsitalics.Italicsareusedthroughoutthetexttogiveemphasis,ordenotethoughts/dreams.]AngelFireEastbyTerryBrooksSequeltoR...

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