“Actually, it wasn’t a dream,” she said suddenly. “About Gran, I mean. It was a vision. An Indian named Two Bears showed it to me. He took me to see the spirits of the Sinnissippi dance in the park last night after you left. He says he is the last of them.” She paused. “What do you think?”
A chill passed over John Ross in spite of the heat. O’olish Amaneh. “Was he a big man, a Vietnam vet?”
She looked over at him quickly. “Do you know him?”
“Maybe. There are stories about an Indian shaman, a seer. He uses different names. I’ve come across people who’ve met him once or twice, heard about some others.” He could not tell her of this, either. He could barely stand to think on it. O’olish Amaneh. “I think maybe he is in service to the Word.”
Nest looked away again. “He didn’t say so.”
“No, he wouldn’t. He never does. He just shows up and talks about the future, how it is linked to the past, how everything is tied together; then he disappears again. It’s always the same. But I think, from what I’ve heard, that maybe he is one of us.”
They pushed through a tangle of brush that had overgrown the narrow trail, spitting out gnats that flew into their mouths, lowering their heads against the shards of sunlight that penetrated the shadows.
“Tell me something about Wraith,” John Ross asked, trying to change the subject.
The girl shrugged. “You saw. I don’t know what he is. He’s been there ever since I was very little. He protects me from the feeders, but I don’t know why. Even Gran and Pick don’t seem to know. I don’t see him much. He mostly comes out when the feeders threaten me.”
She told him about her night forays into the park to rescue the strayed children, and how Wraith would always appear when the feeders tried to stop her. Ross mulled the matter over in his mind. He had never heard of anything like it, and he couldn’t be certain from what Nest told him if Wraith was a creature of the Word or the Void. Certainly Wraith’s behavior suggested his purpose was good, but Ross knew that where Nest Freemark was concerned things were not as simple as they might seem.
“Where are we going?” Ross asked her as they crested the rise and moved into the shadow of the deep woods.
“Just a little farther,” she advised, easing ahead on the narrow path to lead the way.
The ground leveled and the trees closed about, leaving them draped in heavy shadow. The air was fetid and damp with humidity, and insects were everywhere. Ross brushed at them futilely. The trail twisted and wound through thick patches of scrub and brambles. Several times it branched, but Nest did not hesitate in choosing the way. Ross marveled at the ease with which she navigated the tangle, thinking on how much at home she was here, on how much she seemed to belong. She had the confidence of youth, of a young girl who knew well the ground she had already covered, even if she did not begin to realize how much still lay ahead.
They passed from the thicket into a clearing, and there, before them, was a giant oak. The oak towered overhead, clearly the biggest tree in the park, one of the biggest that Ross had ever seen. But the tree was sick, its leaves curling and turning black at the tips, its bark split and ragged and oozing discolored fluid that stained the earth at its roots. Ross stared at the tree for a moment, stunned both by its size and the degree of its decay, then looked questioningly at the girl.
“This is what I wanted you to see,” she confirmed.
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Exactly the question!” declared Pick, who materialized out of nowhere on Nest Freemark’s shoulder. “I thought that you might know.”
The sylvan was covered with dust and bits of leaves. He straightened himself on the girl’s shoulder, looking decidedly out of sorts.
“Spent all morning foraging about for roots and herbs that might be used to make a medicine, but nothing seems to help. I’ve tried everything, magic included, and I cannot stop the decay. It spreads all through the tree now, infecting every limb and every root. I’m at my wits’ end.”