But she did. She got down out of the swing and walked to the end of the yard where the hedgerow was still thin with new growth, slipped through a gap in the intertwined limbs, and stepped onto forbidden ground. She didn’t know exactly what it was that prompted her to do so. It had something to do with thinking about the feeders, with picturing them as they appeared and faded in shadowy patches along the fringes of her yard. She wondered about them constantly, and on this day she simply decided to have a look. Did they conceal themselves on the other side of the hedge, just beyond her view? Did they burrow into the ground like moles? What did they do back there where she couldn’t see? Why, her inquisitive five-year-old mind demanded, shouldn’t she try to find out?
So there she was, standing at the edge of the park, staring out across the broad, flat, grassy expanse of ball diamonds and picnic grounds to where the bluffs rose south and the wooded stretches began east, a pioneer set to explore a wondrous new world. Not that day, perhaps, for she knew she would not be going far on her first try. But soon, she promised herself. Soon.
Her eyes shifted then, and she became aware of the feeders. They were crouched within a copse of heavy brush that screened the Peterson backyard some fifty feet away, watching her. She saw them as you would a gathering of shadows on a gray day, indistinct and nebulous. She caught a glimpse of their flat, yellow eyes shining out of the darkness like a cat’s. She stood where she was, looking back, trying to see them more clearly, trying to determine better what they were. She stared intently, losing track of time as she did so, forgetting where she was and what she was about, mesmerized.
Then a drop of rain fell squarely on her nose, cold and wet against her skin. She blinked in surprise, and suddenly the feeders were all around her, and she was so terrified that she could feel her fear writhing inside her like a living thing.
And, just as suddenly, they were gone again. It happened so fast that she wasn’t sure if it was real or if she had imagined it. In the blink of an eye, they had appeared. In another blink, they had gone. How could they move so quickly? What would make them do so?
She saw Wraith then, standing a few feet away, a dark shape in the deepening gray, so still he might have been carved from stone. She didn’t know his name then, or what he was, or where he had come from. She stared at him, unable to look away, riveted by the sight of him. She thought he was the biggest creature she had ever seen this close up, bigger even, it seemed to her at that moment, than the horses she had petted once on a visit to the Lehman farm. He appeared to be some sort of dog, immense and fierce-looking and as immovable as the massive shade trees that grew in her backyard. He was brindle in color; his muzzle and head bore tiger-stripe markings and his body hair bristled like a porcupine’s quills. Oddly enough, she was not frightened by him. She would always remember that. She was awestruck, but she was not frightened. Not in the way she was of the feeders. He was there, she realized, without quite being sure why, to protect her from them.
Then he disappeared, and she was alone. He simply faded away, as if composed of smoke scattered by a sudden gust of wind. She stared into the space he had occupied, wondering at him. The park stretched away before her, silent and empty in the failing light. Then the rain began to fall in earnest, and she made a dash for the house.
She saw Wraith often after that, possibly because she was looking for him, possibly because he had decided to reveal himself. She still didn’t know what he was, and neither did anyone else. Pick told her later that he was some sort of crossbreed, a mix of dog and wolf. But really, since he was created from and held together by magic, his genetic origins didn’t make any difference. Whatever he was, he was probably the only one of his kind. Pick confirmed her impression that he was there to protect her. Matter of fact, he advised rather solemnly, Wraith had been shadowing her since the first time she had come into the park, still a baby in her stroller. She wondered at first how she could have missed seeing him, but then discovered that she had missed seeing a lot of other things as well, and it didn’t seem so odd.