CHAPTER 21
Nest was awake by six o'clock the next morning, dressed and ready to go. She walked up the road in the still, cold darkness to the pay phone at the all-night gas station on Lincolnway and spent twenty minutes arranging for repairmen from the electrical and phone companies to make unscheduled early morning stops at her home. Because she had lived in Hopewell all her life, she knew who to call to make this happen. Not that it was all that easy to persuade the people she knew to change things around on the day before Christmas, but in the end she got the job done.
She had taken the time to determine the extent of the damage last night before finally going off to sleep. The phone line was cut where it came into the house, so that wasn't a big deal. But the entire circuit-breaker box had been ripped out of the wall, and she had no idea how difficult it would be to fix that.
She carried back a box of doughnuts and styrofoam cups of hot chocolate and coffee, thinking that they would at least have that for sustenance. The snow had stopped and the wind had died, so the world around her was still and calm. The children were sleeping, exhausted physically and emotionally from last night's events. It had taken her a long time to get them to sleep, especially Little John, who had done a complete one hundred eighty degree turn toward her. Instead of distancing himself as he had before, going off to a private world to contemplate things hidden from her, he had attached himself so completely that it seemed any sort of separation would break his heart. She could barely get him to release her long enough to greet John Ross, who came through the door less than half an hour after her battle with the thing in the basement and found the gypsy morph clinging to her like a second skin.
She was pleased by Little John's change, but puzzled as well. He had called her Mama twice, but said nothing more since. He seemed devastated by her failure to understand what he wanted. She held him and cooed to him and told him it was all right, that she was there and she loved him, but nothing seemed to help. He was disconsolate and bereft in a way she could not understand.
"It has something to do with Wraith," she had told John Ross.
They sat together on the living room couch in the aftermath of the night's events, the children asleep at last and the house secured as best it could be. It was cold in the house and growing colder without any heat, and she had tucked the children into sleeping bags in front of the fireplace and built a fire to keep them warm.
She whispered so as not to wake them. "When he saw me standing there, while Wraith was still across the room, he had such excitement and hope in his eyes, John. But when Wraith came back to me, he was devastated."
"Maybe he was frightened by what he saw." Ross was looking at the sleeping boy, brow furrowed. "Maybe he didn't understand."
Nest shook her head. "He is a creature of magic. He understood what was happening. No, it was something else. It was Wraith that bothered him so. Why would that be? Wraith has been there all along."
"And the gypsy morph hasn't wanted anything to do with you the entire time." Ross looked at her meaningfully.
"No," she agreed.
"Maybe you are being asked to make a choice."
"Between magics? Or between lives? What sort of choice?"
"I don't know. I'm just speculating. Give up one magic for another, perhaps?" Ross shook his head.
She thought about it again, walking home from the gas station. Apparently the gypsy morph couldn't find a way to tell her what it wanted. Little John was a boy, but he wasn't altogether a real boy, rather something like Pinocchio, wooden and jointed and made out of fairy dust. Perhaps he did want her to choose him over Wraith. But how was she supposed to do that? It wasn't as if she hadn't thought of ridding herself of the ghost wolf, of her father's demon magic, time and again. She didn't want that magic inside her. She was constantly battling to keep it under control. Last night she had failed, forced to release it because of a demonic presence. She knew she would never be at peace as long as Wraith stayed locked away inside her. But it wasn't as if the choice was hers.
Snowplows rumbled past her, clearing Woodlawn and the surrounding side streets, metal blades scraping the blacktop hi a series of long, rasping whines. Lights glimmered from streetlamps and porches, from solitary windows and passing headlights, but the darkness was still thick and unbroken this Christmas Eve day. The solstice was only just past, and the short days would continue well into January. It would not be light until after eight o'clock, and it would be dark again by four. If the sun appeared at all, they would be lucky. Not much comfort there, if she hoped to find any. Head lowered in thought, she walked on.
Ross was awake and waiting on her return, standing in the kitchen, staring out the window. The children were still asleep. She gave him coffee and a doughnut, took the same for herself, and they sat at the kitchen table.
"I've been awake almost all night," he told her, his gaze steady and alert nevertheless. "I couldn't sleep."
She nodded. "Me, either."
"I should never have gone to Josie's. I should have stayed with you and Little John."
She leaned forward. "It wouldn't have changed anything. You know that. We would have lost Bennett anyway. And if you had been here to protect us from that thing in the basement, Wraith might not have come out and Little John might not have responded to me in the way he did. John, that was the first time he's given me a second look. That was the first positive reaction I've gotten out of him. I'm this close to breaking through. I can feel it."
"If there's time enough left." He shook his head. "I don't know, Nest. This has gotten entirely out of hand. Findo Gask is all over the place, just waiting for a chance to attack us in some new way. I'm sure he was responsible for that thing in the basement. He's probably responsible for Bennett's disappearance as well."
Nest was silent a moment. "Probably," she admitted.
"Did you call the police to report her missing?"
She shook her head. "Not yet. She was gone the night before last, too, and came home on her own. I keep hoping she'll do so now." She exhaled warily. "But if she isn't back by the time the phone is fixed, I'll make the call."
Ross brought the black staff around in front of him and tightened his grip on it. "It's too dangerous for me to be here any longer," he said softly. "I shouldn't have come in the first place. I have to take Little John and get out of here before anything else happens—before some other horror shows up in your basement or your bedroom closet or wherever, and this time you aren't quick enough to save yourself."
Nest sipped at her coffee, thinking the matter through. Outside, the darkness was beginning to lighten. The world glimmered crystalline and white in a faint wash of gray. She replayed last night's battle with the black thing, experiencing again the terror and rage that had overcome her, remembering how it had felt for Wraith to come out of her once again, after so long, after she had worked so hard to keep it from happening. She saw Little John's anguished look of loss and betrayal. She couldn't forget that look. She couldn't stop thinking about what it meant.
"I have an idea, John," she said finally, looking over at him again. "I'll have to talk to Pick about it, but it might give us some breathing space."
Ross did not seem convinced. "If I take Little John and go, it will give you more breathing space."
"If you take Little John and go, we will have given up. Not to mention what effect it would have on him." She held his gaze firmly with her own. "Just let me talk to Pick. Then we'll see. Okay?"
He nodded wordlessly, but didn't look happy. She got up to check on the children before he could say anything else.