She looked at the house. There was nothing different about it; she felt nothing different inside. She was taking this entire warning system business on faith, but where Pick was concerned, faith was enough. Certainly the demons would detect the system’s presence. Maybe that would be enough to keep them at bay for a day or so. Maybe that would be time enough for her to find out what it was that would unlock Little John’s secret.
She found herself wondering suddenly how she had ever gotten to this point in her life. She was trapped in her home with a creature she did not understand and under attack from demons. She was struggling with her own magic and with the magics of other beings, the combination of which threatened to overwhelm her at any moment. She was hiding secrets that could destroy her. She was twenty-nine years old, adrift in both the purpose and direction of her life, her future uncertain.
What was her reason for being? Her gift of magic seemed pointless. Her life appeared to have led nowhere. She had been special since birth, but nothing of who she had been gave her insight into who she was meant to be. She was at an impasse, and the events of these past few days only pointed up how thoroughly lost she was.
If Gran were still here, would she be able to tell me what I ought to do? Would she understand the reason for all that has happened in my life? Or would she be as lost as I am ?
Likely, she would just tell me to get on with it.
There was no steadying influence in her life. No parents, grandparents, husband, or children. No family. There were friends, but that wasn’t the same thing. She felt the lack of an anchor, of a touchstone that would give her a sense of belonging. The house had provided that once. And the park. All the places she had grown up in, the tapestry of her journey out of childhood. But somehow they weren’t enough anymore. They served only to trigger memories that locked her in the past.
She stood thinking on the matter for a long time, staring off into space, traveling distances too far to be seen clearly.
Then the door opened, and John Ross stepped out onto the back steps. “Better come inside, Nest,” he said quietly. “The sheriff’s office is on the phone. They’ve found Bennett Scott.”
CHAPTER 22
As she drove to Community General Hospital, nosing the Taurus between the dirt-and-cinder-encrusted snowbanks plowed up from the streets, Nest found herself reflecting on the cyclical nature of life. Her thinking wasn’t so much about the fact of it—that was mundane and obvious— but about the ways in which it happened. Sometimes, in the course of living, you couldn’t avoid ending up where you began. You might travel far distances and experience strange events, but when all was said and done, your journey brought you right back around to where everything started.
It was so in an unexpected way for Bennett Scott. She had almost died on the cliffs at Sinnissippi Park fifteen years ago, when she was only five. Nest had been there to save her then, but not this time. It made Nest wonder if the manner of Bennett’s death was in some way predetermined, if saving her from the cliffs the first time had only forestalled the inevitable. It was strange and troubling that Bennett should die this way, after escaping once, after it seemed that whatever else might threaten, at least she was safe from this.
Thinking on the cyclical nature of Bennett Scott’s life and death reminded Nest of her mother. Caitlin Anne Freemark had also died at the bottom of the cliffs in Sinnissippi Park, shortly after Nest was born. For years, there had been questions about how she had died—whether she had slipped and fallen, wandered off by mistake, or committed suicide. It wasn’t until Nest had confronted her demon father that she had discovered the truth. He had instigated the events and emotional trauma that had led to her mother’s death. Call it suicide or call it a calculated orchestration, the cause and effect were the same.