Running with the Demon Read Online Free PDF

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.”
    Nest was silent a moment, thinking. “Mom believed, though, didn’t she?”
    Her grandmother nodded wordlessly.
    “What about my dad? Do you think he believed, too?”
    The old woman reached for her cigarettes. “He believed.”
    Nest studied her grandmother, watched the way her fingers shook as she worked the lighter. “Do you think he will ever come back?”
    “Your father? No.”
    “Maybe he’ll want to see how I’ve turned out. Maybe he’ll come back for that.”
    “Don’t hold your breath.”
    Nest worried her lip. “I wonder sometimes who he is, Gran. I wonder what he looks like.” She paused. “Do you ever wonder?”
    Her grandmother drew in on the cigarette, her eyes hard and fixed on a point in space somewhere to Nest’s left. “No. What would be the point?”
    “He’s not a forest creature, is he?”
    She didn’t know what made her ask such a question. She startled herself by even speaking the words. And the way her grandmother looked at her made her wish she had held her tongue.
    “Why would you ever think that?” Evelyn Freemark