Nest gathered up her toast and juice and sat down. She lathered on some raspberry spread and took a bite. “Good.”
“What are you going to tell your grandfather when he asks you what you were doing in the park?”
Nest shrugged, tossing back her dark hair. “Same as always. I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I decided to go for a run. I tucked the pillows under the covers so he wouldn’t worry.”
Her grandmother nodded. “Good enough, I expect. I told him to leave you alone. But he worries about you. He can’t stop thinking about your mother. He thinks you’ll end up the same way.”
They stared at each other in silence. They had been over this ground before, many times. Caitlin Freemark, Nest’s mother, had fallen from the cliffs three months after Nest was born. She had been walking in the park at night. Her state of mind had been uncertain for some time; she had been a very fragile and mercurial young woman. Nest’s birth and the disappearance of the father had left her deeply troubled. There was speculation that she might have committed suicide. No one had ever been able to determine if she had, but the rumors persisted.
“I’m not my mother,” Nest said quietly.
“No, you’re not,” her grandmother agreed. There was a distant, haunted look in her sharp, old bird’s eyes, as if she had suddenly remembered something best left forgotten. Her hands fluttered about her drink.
“Grandpa doesn’t understand, does he?”
“He doesn’t try.”
“Do you still talk to him about the feeders, Gran?”
“He thinks I’m seeing things. He thinks it’s the liquor talking. He thinks I’m an old drunk.”
“Oh, Gran.”
“Its been like that for some time, Nest.” Her grandmother shook her head. “It’s as much my fault as it is his. I’ve made it difficult for him, too.” She paused, not wanting to go too far down that road. “But I can’t get him even to listen to me. Like I said, he doesn’t see. Not the feeders, not any of the forest creatures living in the park. He never could see any part of that world, not even when Caitlin was alive. She tried to tell him, your mother. But he thought it was all make-believe, just a young girl’s imagination. He played along with her, pretended he understood. But he would talk to me about it when we were alone, tell me how worried he was about her nonsense. I told him that maybe she wasn’t making it up. I told him maybe he should listen to her. But he just couldn’t ever make himself do that.”
She smiled sadly. “He’s never understood our connection with the park, Nest. I doubt that he ever will.”
Nest ate the last bite of toast, chewing thoughtfully. Six generations of the women of her family had been in service to the land that made up the park. They were the ones who had worked with Pick to keep the magic in balance over the years. They were the ones who had been born to magic themselves.
Gwendolyn Wills, Caroline Glynn, Opal Anders, Gran, her mother, and now her. The Freemark women, Nest called them, though the designation was less than accurate. Their pictures hung in a grouping in the entry, framed against the wooded backdrop of the park. Gran always said that the partnering worked best with the women of the family, because the women stayed while the men too often moved on.
“Grandpa never talks about the park with me,” Nest remarked quietly.
“No, I think he’s afraid to.” Her grandmother swallowed down the vodka and orange juice. Her eyes looked vague and watery. “And I don’t ever want you talking about it with him.”
Nest looked down at her plate. “I know.”
The old woman reached across the table and took hold of her granddaughter’s wrist. “Not with him, not with anyone. Not ever. There’s good reason for this, Nest. You understand that, don’t you?”
Nest nodded. “Yep, I do.” She looked up at her grandmother. “But I don’t like it much. I don’t like being the only one.”
Her grandmother squeezed her wrist tightly. “There’s me. You can always talk to me.” She released her grip and sat back. “Maybe one day your grandfather will be able to talk with you about it, too. But it’s hard for him. People don’t want to believe in magic. It’s all they can do to make themselves believe in God. You can’t see something, Nest, if you don’t believe in it. Sometimes I think he just can’t let himself believe, that believing just doesn’t fit in with his view of things.”