Ross shook his head anew. “I can’t do this. I haven’t the … I’m not strong enough, not…”
“Give me your hand.”
She held forth her own, shimmering like quicksilver in the starlight. Ross flinched away, unwilling to do as she asked. His eyes lowered, and he tried to hide. The Lady waited, her hand held forth, her body still. She had approached to within a yard of him now, so close that he could feel the heat of her, an invisible fire that burned somewhere deep within. Although he tried not to, he could not help himself. He looked at her.
“Oh, my God, my God,” he whispered in awe and fear.
“Give me your hand,” she repeated.
He did so then, compelled by the force of her voice and the recognition that he could not escape what was about to happen. He placed his hand of flesh and blood within her own of heat and light, and the shock of the contact dropped him instantly to his knees. He threw back his head and tried to scream what he was feeling, but no sound would come from his mouth. He closed his eyes and waited to die, but found instead that it was not death that had come to claim him, but life. Strength filled him, drawn from the well of his heart. Visions flooded his mind, and he saw himself as he could be, as he must be, a man become new again, a man reborn. He saw his future in the Lady’s service, saw the roads he would travel down and the journeys he would make, saw the people whose lives he would change and those he might save. In the mix of passion and heat that twisted and built within the core of his being, he found the belief the Lady had foreseen.
She released him then, and he sagged forward, gasping for air, feeling the cool dampness of the earth against his knees and palms, feeling the power of her touch rush through him.
“Rise,” she whispered, and he did, surprised to find that he could do so, that there was within him, sparking like flint on stone, the promise that he could do anything.
“Embrace me,” she whispered, and he did that as well, without hesitation or deliberation, casting off his doubt and fear and taking on the mantle of his newfound certainty and belief, reaching for her, committing himself irrevocably and forever to her service.
CHAPTER 15
With twilight deepening to night and the park emptying of its last visitors, John Ross walked Nest Freemark home again. He had finished his tale, or as much of it as he wished to confide in her, and they were speaking now of what had brought him to Hope well. Pick had joined them, come out of nowhere to sit all fidgety and wide-eyed on the girl’s shoulder, trying his best not to appear awestruck in the presence of a vaunted Knight of the Word, but failing miserably. Pick knew of the Word’s champions-knew as well what having one come to Hopewell meant. It was vindication, of a sort, for his frequently expressed suspicions.
“I told you so!” he declared triumphantly, over and over again, tugging at his mossy beard as if to rid himself of fleas. “I knew it all along! A shift in the balance this extreme could only be the work of something purposefully evil and deliberately ill-intentioned! A demon in the park! Criminy!”
He was the guardian of Sinnissippi Park, and therefore entitled to a certain amount of respect, even from a Knight of the Word, so John Ross indulged his incessant chatter while struggling to complete his explanation to Nest. He had been tracking this particular demon for months, he continued, momentarily silencing Pick, He had sought to bring him to bay on countless occasions, had thought he had done so more than once, but each time had failed. Now he had tracked him here, to Hope-well, where the demon meant to precipitate an event of such far-reaching consequence that it would affect the entire country for years to come. The event itself would not necessarily be dramatic or spectacular enough to draw national attention; that was not how things worked. The event would be the culmination of many other events, all leading to the proverbial last straw that would tip the scales in the demon’s favor. Of small events are great catastrophes constructed, and it would be so here.