The electrician arrived shortly afterward, a big, burly fellow named Mike who looked at the ruined breaker box, shook his head, and wanted to know how in the hell something like that could have happened. His words. Nest told him the house had been broken into and all sorts of damage had been done that didn't seem to have any purpose. Mike shrugged and went to work, apparently accepting her explanation. The phone repairman showed up while she was feeding the rest of the doughnuts and the hot chocolate and some apple juice to Harper and Little John, and fixed the line in about two minutes. The phone guy, unlike Mike, didn't seem all that concerned with being given an explanation. He simply repaired the damage and left.
Nest called the police then to report Bennett missing, making the call out of the children's hearing. This was easier than she had anticipated because Little John had gone back to ignoring her. She had hugged him on waking, and he had barely responded, eyes distant once more, that thousand-yard stare back in place. He sat on the sofa and looked into the park until she led him into the kitchen to eat, then stayed in his seat when he was done, lost in his own private world. She was too busy to be upset yet, but she knew she would be later if he didn't come back to her from wherever he had gone.
The police took down her report and said they would stay in touch. They didn't have any news at their end, which was probably all to the good. Nest still hoped that Bennett would walk through the door on her own, high on drugs or not. She still believed she could help Bennett without involving the police.
But then, while hanging up her coat, which she had tossed aside last night on coming in, she found Bennett's note in the pocket.
Dear Nest,
I am sorry to run off like this, leaving Harper with you, but I have to get away. I used last night, and I know I will use again in a little while. I don't want to, but I can't help myself. I guess I am hopeless. I don't like Harper to be around me when I am using, so I am leaving her with you. I guess maybe I planned to leave her with you all along. I can't take care of her anymore, and I can't leave her with strangers either. Guess that leaves you. Please take care of her, big sister. I trust you. Harper is all 1 have, and I want to keep her safe and not have her grow up like me. When I am better, I will come back for her. Tell her I love her and will think of her every day. I'm sorry for causing so much trouble. I love you.
Bennett
Nest read the note several times, trying to think what to do. But there was really nothing she could do. Bennett could be anywhere, with anyone. She didn't like to speculate on the possibilities. She did not have any difficulty with the idea of looking after Harper, although she had no way of knowing how the little girl would react when she found out her mother had left her. It had happened before, but that didn't mean it would make things any easier this time.
Mike the electrician wandered up from the basement long enough to announce that he would have everything up and running within the hour, so she left the children in Ross's care, put on her parka, and went out into the park in search of Pick.
He wasn't hard to find. As she trudged across her backyard and into the snowy expanse of the ballpark flats, he soared out of the deep woods east aboard Jonathan. The sky was iron gray and hard as nails. The clouds settled low and threatening above the earth, as if snow might reappear at any moment. Mist filtered through the woods from off the frozen river, long tendrils snaking about the trunks and branches and wandering off into the bordering subdivisions and roadways. The park was empty this day, leaving Nest a solitary watcher as the dark specks that were Pick and Jonathan slowly took on definition with their approach.
The owl swung wide of Nest, then settled in an oak bordering the roadway. Pick climbed off and began to make his way down the trunk. He moved with quick, jerky motions, like a foraging squirrel, dropping from branch to branch, circling the trunk when a better path was needed, stopping every so often to look around. Jonathan folded his broad wings into his body, tucked his head into his shoulders, and became a part of the tree.
Nest walked over and waited until Pick was low enough to jump from the branches onto her shoulder, where he sat huffing from the effort.
"Confound that owl, anyway!" he complained. "You'd think he'd be willing to land on a lower branch, wouldn't you? For an owl, he's a bit on the slow side."
She turned around and sat down in the snow with her back against the tree. "I need your help."
"So what's new?" The sylvan chuckled, pleased with his attempt at humor. "Can you think of a time when you didn't need my help?"
He chuckled some more. It was a rather frightening sound, given that it emanated from a stick figure only six inches high.
Nest sighed, determined not to be baited into an argument. "I need you to concoct some antidemon magic. Something on the order of what you use to protect the trees in the park when there's something attacking them."
"Whoa, wait a minute!" Pick straightened abruptly, suddenly all business. His twiggy finger stabbed the air in her direction. "Are we talking about Findo Gask?"
"We are."
"Well, you can stop right there!" Pick threw up his hands. "What do I look like, anyway? I'm just a sylvan, for goodness sake! I don't have that kind of magic! You've got a real live Knight of the Word living under your roof. Use him! He's got the kind of magic you're talking about, the kind that can strip the skin off a maentwrog in the blink of an eye. What do you need with me when you've got him?"
"Will you calm down and listen to me for a minute?" she demanded.
"Not if the rest of the conversation is going to be like this!" Pick was on his feet, arms windmilling. "I'm a sylvan!" he repeated. "I don't fight demons! I don't charge off into battle with things that eat me for lunch! All I do is take care of this park, and believe me, that's work enough. It takes all of my energy and magic to handle that little chore, Nest Freemark, and I don't need you coming around and asking me to conjure up some sort of. .."
"Pick, please!"
"... half-baked magic that won't work on the best day of my life against a thing so black..."
"Pick!"
He went silent then, breathing hard from his tirade, glaring at her from under mossy brows, practically daring her to say anything more about the subject of demons and sylvan magic.
"Let me start over," she said quietly. "I don't really expect you to conjure up antidemon magic. That was a poor choice of words."
"Humph," he grunted.
"Nor do I expect you to sacrifice your time and energy in a cause where you can make no difference. I know how hard you work to protect the park, and I wouldn't ask you to do something that would jeopardize that effort."
Her attempt at calming him seemed to be working, she saw. At least he was listening again. She gave him her best serious-business look. It wasn't all that hard considering what she had to say. She told him about what had happened during the snowstorm, with the disappearance of Bennett Scott and the attack by the black thing hiding in her basement. She told him about Wraith coming out to defend them, and of his struggle with their attacker.
"Findo Gask, for sure!" Pick snapped. "You can't mistake demon mischief for anything but what it is."
"Well, you'll understand then when I tell you I am more than a little on edge about all this." She relaxed a hair, but kept her eye on him, waiting for his mercurial personality to undergo another shift. "I can't have this sort of thing hanging over my head every time I walk through the door. I have to find a way to prevent it from happening again. John Ross says he should take the gypsy morph and leave Hopewell. But if he does that, we lose all chance of finding a way to solve its riddle. It will last a few more days, then break apart and be gone. The magic will be lost forever."