"I'm all right," she said finally, repeating his words back to him.
They walked up the road side by side, the old man and the girl, no longer touching, saying nothing, eyes lowered to the pavement. They passed under the bridge and came out of the darkness onto the park's grassy flats. Nest glanced about surreptitiously for the feeders, for their eyes, for some small movement that would signal their presence, but found nothing. She could still feel their hands on her, feel them worming then- way beneath her skin, into her blood and her bones, past all her defenses, deep inside where her fear and rage roiled and they might feed.
She felt violated and ashamed, as if she had been stripped naked and left soiled and debased.
"How did you find me?" she asked, keeping her eyes lowered so he could not see what was reflected there.
"Your friends," her grandfather replied, not looking at her. "They came to the house, brought me out to look for you."
She nodded, thinking now of Danny Abbott and the demon, and she was about to say something more when they heard the heavy boom of a shotgun. Her grandfather's white head lifted. Both stopped where they were, staring out into the darkness. The shotgun fired again. And again. Six times, it roared.
"Evelyn," Nest heard her grandfather whisper hoarsely.
And then he was running through the park for the house.
CHAPTER 25
Evelyn Freemark walked out onto the big veranda porch and watched Robert and the children disappear around the corner of the house, headed for the park in search of Nest. Even when they were no longer in sight, swallowed up by the night's blackness, she stared after them, standing in the yellow halo of the light cast by the porch lamp, motionless as her thoughts drifted back through the years to Nest and Caitlin and her own childhood. She had lived a long life, and she was always surprised on looking back at how quickly the time had passed and how close together the years had grown.
The screen door started to swing shut behind her, and she reached back automatically to catch it and ease it carefully into place. In the deep night silence, she could hear the creak of its hinges and springs like ghost laughter.
After a moment, she began to look around, searching the shadows where the lawn lengthened in a darkening carpet to the shagbark hickories fronting the walk leading in from Woodlawn Road and to the mix of blue spruce and walnut that bracketed the corners of their two–acre lot. She knew already what she would find, but the porch light was blinding her. She reached inside the doorway and shut it off, leaving her in darkness. Better, she thought. She could see them clearly now, the gleaming yellow eyes, dozens strong, too many to be coincidental, too many to persuade her she had guessed wrong about what was going to happen.
She smiled tightly. If you understood them well enough, the feeders could tell you things even without speaking.
Her eyes were fully adjusted to the darkness now, able to trace the angular shapes of the trees, the smooth spread of the lawn, the flat, broad stretch of the roadway, and the low, sprawling roofs of the houses farther down the way. She gave the landscape a moment's consideration, then turned her attention to the porch on which she stood–to its eaves and railings, its fitted ceiling boards, and its worn, tongue–and–groove wooden flooring. Finally her eyes settled on the old peg oak rocker that had been with her from the time of her marriage to Robert. She could trace the events of her life by such things. This house had borne mute witness to the whole of her married life–to the joy and wonder she had been privileged to experience, to the tragedy and loss she had been forced to suffer. These walls had given her peace when it was needed. They had lent her strength. They were part of her, rooted deep within her heart and soul. She smiled. She could do worse than end her life here.
She gave the feeders another quick study, then slipped through the screen door and walked to the back of the house. She would have to hurry. If the demon was coming for her, as she was certain now he was, he would not waste any time. With Robert out of the way, he would hasten to put an end to matters quickly. He would be confident that he could do so. She was old and worn, and no longer a match for him. She laughed to herself. He was predictable in ways he did not begin to recognize, and in the end they would prove his undoing.
She went past her own bedroom and into Robert's. She no longer slept there, but she cleaned for him, and she knew where he kept his things. She clicked on the bedside lamp and went into his closet, the light spilling after her in a bright sliver through the cracked door. In the rear of his closet was a smaller door that opened into a storage area. She found the key on the shelf above, where she knew he kept it, fitted the key in place, and released the lock.
Inside was the twelve–gauge pump–action shotgun he had once used for hunting and now kept mostly out of habit. She removed it from its leather slipcase and brought it into the light. The polished wooden stock and smooth metal barrel gleamed softly. She knew he cleaned it regularly, that it would fire if needed. There were boxes of shells in a cardboard box at the back of the storage area. She brought the box into the closet and opened it, bypassing the birdshot for the heavier double–ought shells that could blow a hole through you the size of a fist if the range was close and your aim true. Her hands were steady as she slid six shells through the loading slot into the magazine and dumped another six in a pocket of her housedress.
She stood motionless then, looking down at the shotgun, thinking that it had been almost ten years since she had fired it. She had been a good shot once, had hunted alongside Robert in the crisp fall days when duck season opened and the air smelled musky and the wind had a raw edge. It was a long time ago. She wondered if she could still fire this weapon. It felt familiar and comfortable in her hands, but she was old and not so steady. What if her strength failed her?
She chambered a shell with a quick, practiced movement of her hands, checked to make certain the safety was on, and smiled wryly. That would be the day.
Shotgun in hand, she exited the closet and moved back through the house. She stopped off in Nest's room long enough to scribble a few words on a piece of notebook paper, which she then tucked under her granddaughter's favorite down pillow. Satisfied that she had done what she could, she advanced down the hallway on mouse paws, listening to the silence, feeling the tension within her beginning to mount. It would happen quickly now. She was glad Robert was not there, that she did not have to worry about him. By the time he returned with Nest, it would be over. She wasn't really worried about the girl, despite the urgency of her admonition to Robert to find her. Nest was better protected than any of them; she had seen to that. The monster that had appeared to threaten her didn't know the half of it.
She emerged from the house with the shotgun pressed against her side where it could not be clearly seen, and she stopped just beyond the screen door to survey the darkness beyond, her senses alert. Nothing had changed. He was not there yet. Only the feeders had gathered. She moved down the
porch to where her rocker was situated, leaned the gun up against the wall in the deep shadows, and settled herself comfortably in place.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil…
The demon would come for her. It would come for her because it hated her for what she had done to it all those years ago and because she was the one human it feared. Odd, that it should still feel this way, now that she was old and frail and virtually powerless. She wondered at the symmetry of life, at the ways the good and the bad of what you did came back to repay you, to reveal you. She had made so many mistakes, but she had made good choices, too. Robert, for openers. He had loved her through everything, even when Caitlin's death had shattered her and her drinking and smoking had left her dissipated and hollowed out and bereft of peace. And Nest, linked to her by blood and magic, the image of herself as a girl, but stronger and more controlled. She closed her eyes momentarily, thinking of her granddaughter. Nest, sweet child, who stood unseeing at the center of the maelstrom that was about to commence.