Running with the Demon (34 page)

He paused. “She would have done it, too. She was very determined, very tough-minded, your grandmother.” He scratched his mossy beard. “Anyway, the demon was convinced. He backed down from her. He hated her for that afterward. Hated himself, too. By the time she was finished with him, he didn’t want anything to do with her anymore.”

Nest tried to imagine Gran confronting the demon, threatening to kill him if he refused to leave her alone. Frail, weary old Gran.

“Now, that’s all I’m saying on the subject,” Pick interjected heatedly. “If you want to know anything more, ask your grandmother. But I’d think twice about it, if I were you. Just my opinion. Some things are better left alone, and this is one of them. Take my word for it. Let it be.”

“The Beatles, 1969?”

“What?”

“Never mind.” Nest was sick of the whole subject. Nothing she had heard was making her feel any better. Pick was just irritating her with his refusal to talk about it, but she guessed that he was right, that it should come from Gran. Maybe it was time
to ask about her father, too. Maybe it was time to insist on an answer. There were too many secrets in her family, and some of them needed revealing. Didn’t she have a right to know?

“I have to be going,” Pick announced, rising to his knees on her shoulder. She stopped and looked at his narrow face. His fierce eyes stared back at her. “Just make sure you bring John Ross to the maentwrog’s tree so he can have a look for himself at what’s happening.”

Nest nodded. “I’ll bring him up after the picnic.”

She lowered Pick to the ground, and he disappeared without a word, vanishing into the grass as if he were an ant. “ ’Bye,” she murmured at the space he left behind.

She walked on across the grass into the parking lot that fronted the toboggan slide, kicking at rocks and staring at the ground as it passed beneath her feet. Her skin was hot and sticky already. She brushed at her curly damp hair, moving it off her forehead and away from her eyes. She felt awkward and stupid. She hated who she was. She wondered what she could do to change things.

Someone yelled at her from the ball field, and she glanced over. A group of boys was standing by home plate looking at her; she thought it was one of them who had called to her. Worse, she thought it was Danny Abbott. She looked away and kept on walking.

She crossed the parking lot to the toboggan slide and saw Cass and the others grouped at a picnic table under one of the big oaks. Behind them, down the hill, the river flowed with sluggish indifference beyond the levy. A few boats bobbed gently on its surface, their occupants hunched over fishing poles and cans of bait. She strolled over to her friends, trying to appear casual, trying to make herself believe that nothing was different. They were all there—Cass, Brianna, Robert, and Jared. They looked up as she approached, and she had the feeling they had been talking about her.

“Hey,” she said.

“Pete and Repeat are out walking,” said Robert, straight-faced. “Pete goes home. Who’s left?”

“Elvis?” she asked, squeezing in between Cass and Brianna.

“Nice try. Two guys walk into a bar. One’s got a Doberman, the other a terrier. Bartender says …”

“Robert!” snapped Brianna, cutting him short. “Geez!”

“Enough with the jokes,” Cass agreed. “They weren’t funny the first time, back when Washington was president.”

“Oh, big yuck.” Robert looked annoyed. “All right, so what are we going to do, then? And don’t tell me we’re going to spend the day trying to heal any more sick trees.” He gave Nest a pointed look. “Especially since we didn’t do so well with the last one.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean, it looks terrible.” He pushed up his glasses on his nose and brushed back his blond hair. “We walked by it on the way over, and it looks like it’s a goner. Whatever we did, it didn’t help.”

“We could go swimming,” Brianna suggested brightly, ignoring him.

Nest shook her head. “I can’t. I have to be back by two. How bad is it, Robert?”

“The bark’s all split open and oozing something green and there’s dead leaves everywhere.” He saw the look on Nest’s face and stopped. “What’s going on? What’s this sick-tree business all about?”

Nest took a deep breath and bit her lower lip. “Someone is poisoning the trees in the park,” she said, giving a slight edge of truth to what was otherwise an outright lie.

They stared at her. “Why would anyone do that?” Cass asked.

“Because …” She shrugged. “Because they’re nuts, I guess.”

Robert frowned. “How do you know this?”

“Grandpa told me. He heard it from the park people. I guess it’s happened in some other places, too.” She was rolling now, sounding very sure of herself. “It’s one guy that’s doing it. He was seen in another park, so they got a description. Everyone’s been looking for him.”

Robert frowned some more. “This is the first I’ve heard of it. My dad never said anything about anyone poisoning trees in the parks. You sure about this?”

Nest gave him a disgusted look. “Of course I’m sure. Why would I say it if I wasn’t?”

“So they know what this guy looks like?” Jared asked quietly. He looked tired, as if he hadn’t been sleeping well.

“Yep.” She glanced at them conspiratorially. “I’ll tell you something else, too. Grandpa thinks he might be in the park this weekend. See, sometimes he dresses like a park maintenance man in order not to be noticed. That’s how he gets away with poisoning the trees.”

“He might be in the park this weekend?” Brianna parroted, her porcelain features horror-struck.

“Maybe,” Nest advised. “So we have to watch for him, keep an eye out. This is what he looks like.” She provided a careful description of the demon, from his pale eyes to his bland face. “But if you see him, don’t try to go near him. And don’t let him know he’s been seen. Just come get me.”

“Come get you?” Robert repeated suspiciously.

“So I can tell Grandpa, because he knows what to do.”

Everyone nodded soberly. Nest held her breath and waited for more questions, but there weren’t any. Way to go, she thought, not knowing whether to laugh or cry at her subterfuge. You can lie with the best of them, can’t you? You can lie even to your friends.

They walked through the park for a while afterward, killing time. Nest watched her friends surreptitiously checking faces as if they might really find the tree poisoner, and she pondered if she had done the right thing. She needed any help she could get, and this would give her friends something to do besides wonder why she was acting odd, but it made her feel ashamed of herself anyway. She didn’t believe any of them would find the demon. She thought only John Ross could do that, and she wasn’t sure of him. What persuaded her that she should even try to do something was her memory of the morning’s encounter in the church kitchen, of the murder, of the pale eyes studying her, of the calm, even voice talking to her about the way the world would end. She could rationalize what had happened from now until Christmas, but she still felt desperate, almost hopeless.

The park was beginning to fill with families come to picnic and participate in the games the Jaycees were running prior to this evening’s community dance. There would be softball, badminton, horseshoes, and footraces of various sorts for adults and children both. Members of the club were already preparing for the events. Food and drink stands were being set up. The smells of hot dogs and hamburgers wafted in the thick July air, and smoke curled lazily from the brick chimneys of the cook centers in the pavilion. Bushy-tailed red squirrels scampered along the limbs of the big oaks, and a few dogs chased after balls. Laughter and shouts rose from all about.

A slight breeze wafted off the river, causing Nest to glance skyward. A thin lacework of clouds drifted across the blue. She had heard her grandfather say there was a chance of rain for the Fourth.

She left the others then, promising to meet up with them later on in the afternoon when family obligations were satisfied. Robert was having a cookout in his backyard with his parents and some cousins. Cass and Brianna were going to a church picnic. Jared had to go home to watch the younger kids while his mother and George Paulsen came over to the park so that George could compete in the horseshoe tournament.

Jared and Nest walked back across the park, neither of them saying anything. Jared seemed preoccupied, but she liked being with him no matter what his mood. She liked the way he was always thinking things over, giving careful consideration to what he was going to say.

“You going to the dance tonight, Nest?” he asked suddenly, not looking at her.

She glanced over in surprise. “Sure. Are you?”

“Mom says I can go for a while. The kids are staying at Mrs. Pinkley’s for the night, except Bennett is going to Alice Workman’s. You know, the social worker. George and Mom are going out somewhere, then coming back to watch TV.”

They walked on, the silence awkward. “You want to go to the dance with me?” he asked after a minute.

Nest felt a warm flush run down her neck. “Sure.”

“Cool. I’ll meet you about seven.” He was so serious. He
cleared his throat and shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. “You don’t think this is weird or anything, do you?”

She smiled in spite of herself. “Why would I think that?”

“Because it would be you and me, and not all of us. Robert and Cass and Brianna might think it’s weird, us not including them.”

She glanced quickly at him. “I don’t care what they think.”

He thought about it a moment, then nodded solemnly. “Good. Neither do I.”

She left him on the service road and slipped through the gap in the bushes at the edge of her backyard, feeling light-headed from more than just the heat.

J
ohn Ross rode out to Sinnissippi Park with the desk clerk from the Lincoln Hotel, who was having Sunday dinner with his brother and sister-in-law just to the north. The man dropped him at the corner of Third Street and Sixteenth Avenue, and Ross walked the rest of the way. The man would have driven him to the Freemarks’ doorstep—offered to do so, in fact—but it was not yet two o’clock and Ross was not expected until three and did not want to arrive too early. So instead he limped up Third to Riverside Cemetery, leaning heavily on his black staff, moving slowly in the heat, and found his way to Caitlin Freemark’s grave. The day was still and humid, but it was cool and shady where he walked beneath the hardwood trees. There were people in the cemetery, but no one paid any attention to him. He was wearing fresh jeans, a pale blue collared shirt, and his old walking shoes. He had washed his long hair and tied it back with a clean bandanna. He looked halfway respectable, which was as good as it got.

He stood in front of Caitlin Freemark’s grave and looked down at the marble stone, read the inscription several times, studied the rough, dark shadow of the letters and numbers against the bright glassy surface,
CAITLIN ANNE FREEMARK, BELOVED DAUGHTER & MOTHER
. He felt something tug at him, a sudden urge to recant his lies and abandon his subterfuge, to lay bare to the Freemarks the truth of who he was and what he was doing. He looked off toward their house, not able to see it through the trees, visualizing it instead in his mind. He pictured their faces looking back at him. He could not tell them the truth, of course. Gran knew most of it anyway, he suspected.
She must. And Robert Freemark? Old Bob? Ross shook his head, not wanting to hazard a guess. In any case, Nest was the only one who really mattered, and he could not tell her. Perhaps she did not ever need to know. If he was quick enough, if he found the demon and destroyed it, if he put an end to its plans before it revealed them fully …

He blinked into the heat, and the image of the Freemarks faded from his mind.

Forgive me
.

He walked on from there into the park, skirting its edges, following the cemetery fence to Sinnissippi Road, then the road past the townhomes to the park entrance and beyond through the big shade trees to the Freemark residence. Old Bob greeted him at the door, ebullient and welcoming. They stood within the entry making small talk until Gran and Nest joined them, then gathered up the picnic supplies from the kitchen. Ross insisted on helping, on at least being allowed to carry the blanket they would sit on. Nest picked up the white wicker basket that contained the food, Old Bob took the cooler with the drinks and condiments, and with Gran leading the way they went out the back door, down the steps past a sleeping Mr. Scratch, across the backyard to the gap in the bushes, and into the park.

The park was filled with cars and people. Picnickers already occupied most of the tables and cooking stations. Blankets were spread under trees and along the bluff, softball games were under way on all the diamonds, and across from the pavilion the Jaycee-sponsored games were being organized. There was a ring toss and a baseball throw. The horseshoe tournament was about to start. Carts dispensing cotton candy and popcorn had been brought in, and the Jaycees were selling pop, iced tea, and lemonade from school-cafeteria folding tables. Balloons filled with helium floated at the ends of long cords. Red, white, and blue bunting hung from the pavilion’s rafters and eaves. A band was playing under a striped tent, facing out onto the pavilion’s smooth concrete floor. Parents and children crowded forward, anxious to see what was going on.

“Looks like the whole town is here,” Old Bob observed with a satisfied grin.

Ross glanced around. It seemed as if all the good places had been taken, but Gran led them forward determinedly, past the diamonds, the pavilion, the games, the cotton candy and popcorn, the band, and even the toboggan slide, past all of it and down the hill toward the bayou, to a grassy knoll tucked back behind a heavy stand of brush and evergreens that was shaded by an aging oak and commanded a clear view of the river. Remarkably, no one else was there, save for a couple of teenagers snuggling on a blanket. Gran ignored them and directed Ross to place the blanket in the center of the knoll. The teens watched tentatively as the Freemarks arranged their picnic, then rose and disappeared. Gran never looked at them. Ross shook his head. Old Bob caught his eye and winked.