And by then, of course, it would be too late to save her.
CHAPTER 5
Nest Freemark went down the back steps two at a time, letting the screen door slam shut behind her. She winced at the sound, belatedly remembering how much it irritated Gran. She always forgot to catch the door. She didn't know why, she just did. She skipped off the gravel walk and onto the lawn, heading across the yard for the park. Mr. Scratch lay stretched out in the shade beneath the closest oak, a white and orange torn, his fluffy sides rising and falling with each labored breath. He was thirteen or fourteen, and he slept most of the time now, dreaming his cat dreams. He didn't even look up at her as she passed, his eyes closed, his ragged ears and scarred face a worn mask of contentment. He had long ago forfeited his mouser duties to the younger and sprier Miss Minx, who, as usual, was nowhere to be seen. Nest smiled at the old cat as she passed. Not for him the trials and tribulations of dealing with the feeders of Sinnissippi Park.
Nest had always known about the feeders. Or at least for as long as she could remember. Even when she hadn't known what they were, she had known they were there. She would catch glimpses of them sometimes, small movements seen out of the corner of one eye, bits and pieces of shadow that didn't quite fit in with their surroundings. She was very small then and not allowed out of the house alone, so she would stand at the windows at twilight, when the feeders were most likely to reveal themselves, and keep watch.
Sometimes her grandmother would take her for walks in the stroller in the cool of the evening, following the dark ribbon of the roadway as it wound through the park, and she would see them then as well. She would point, her eyes shifting to find her grandmother, her child's face solemn and inquisitive, and her grandmother would nod and say, "Yes, I see them. But you don't have to worry, Nest. They won't bother you."
Nor had they, although Nest had never really worried about it much back then. Not knowing what the feeders were, she simply assumed they were like the other creatures that lived in the park–the birds, squirrels, mice, chipmunks, deer, and what have you. Her grandmother never said anything about the feeders, never offered any explanation for them, never even seemed to pay them much attention. When Nest would point, she would always say the same thing and then let the matter drop. Several times Nest mentioned the feeders to her grandfather, but he just stared at her, glanced at her grandmother, and then smiled his most indulgent smile.
"He can't see them," her grandmother told her finally. "There's no point talking about it with him, Nest. He just doesn't see them."
"Why doesn't he?" she had asked, mystified.
"Because most people don't. Most people don't even know they exist. Only a lucky few can see them." She leaned close and touched the tip of Nest's small nose. "You and me, we can. But not Robert. Not your grandfather. He can't see them at all."
She hadn't said why that was. Her explanations were always like that, spare and laconic. She hadn't time for a lot of words, except when she was reading, which she did a lot. On her feet she was all movement and little talk, losing herself in her household tasks or her gardening or her walks in the park. That was then, of course. It wasn't the same anymore, because now Gran was older and drank more and didn't move around much at all. Small, gnarled, and gray, she sat at the kitchen table smoking her cigarettes and drinking her vodka and orange juice until noon and, afterward, her bourbon on the rocks until dusk. She still didn't say much, even when she could have, keeping what she knew to herself, keeping her explanations and her secrets carefully tucked away somewhere deep inside.
She told Nest early on not to talk about the feeders. She was quite emphatic about it. She did so about the same time she told the little girl that only the two of them could see the feeders, so there wasn't any point in discussing them with her grandfather. Or with anybody else, she amended soon after, apparently concerned that the increasingly talkative child might think to do so.
"It will just make people wonder about you," she declared. "It will make them think you are a bit strange. Because you can see the feeders and they can't. Think of the feeders as a secret that only you and I know about. Can you do that, Nest?"
Pretty much, she found she could. But the lack of a more thorough explanation on the matter was troubling and frustrating, and eventually Nest tested her grandmother's theory about other people's attitudes on a couple of her friends. The results were exactly as her grandmother had predicted. Her friends first teased her and then ran to their parents with the tale. Their parents called her grandmother, and her grandmother was forced to allay their concerns with an overly convoluted explanation centered around the effects of fairy tales and make–believe on a child's imagination. Nest was very thoroughly dressed down. She was made to go back to her friends and their parents and to apologize for scaring them. She was five years old when that happened. It was the last time she told anyone about the feeders.
Of course, that was just the first of a number of secrets she learned to conceal about the creatures who lived in the park. Don't talk about the feeders, her grandmother had warned, and in the end she did not. But there were a lot of other things she couldn't talk about either, and for a while it seemed there was something new every time she turned around.
"Do you think the feeders would ever hurt me, Gran?" she asked once, disturbed by something she had seen in one of her picture books that reminded her of the furtiveness of their movements in the shadows of summer twilight and the dismal gloom of midday whiter. "If they had the chance, I mean?"
They were alone, sitting at the kitchen table playing dominoes on a cold midwinter Sunday, her grandfather ensconced in his den, listening to a debate over foreign aid.
Her grandmother looked up at her, her bright, darkly luminescent bird's eyes fixed and staring. "If they had the chance, yes. But that will never happen."
Nest frowned. "Why not?"
"Because you are my granddaughter."
Nest frowned some more. "What difference does that make?"
"All the difference" was the reply. "You and I have magic, Nest. Didn't you know?"
"Magic?" Nest had breathed the word in disbelief. "Why? Why do we have magic, Gran?"
Her grandmother smiled secretively. "We just do, child. But you can't tell anyone. You have to keep it to yourself."
"Why?"
"You know why. Now, go on, it's your turn, make your play. Don't talk about it anymore."
That was the end of the matter as far as her grandmother was concerned, and she didn't mention it again. Nest tried to bring it up once or twice, but her grandmother always made light of, the matter, as if having magic was nothing, as if it were the same as being brown–eyed or right–handed. She never explained what she meant by it, and she never provided any evidence that it was so. Nest thought she was making it up, the same way she made up fairy tales now and then to amuse the little girl. She was doing it to keep Nest from worrying about the feeders. Magic, indeed, Nest would think, then point her fingers at the wall and try unsuccessfully to make something happen.