She thought back to what Pick had told her years ago when she had asked about the feeders. Her grandmother had avoided the subject for as long as Nest could remember, but Pick was more than willing to address it.
"Your grandmother won't talk about them? Won't say a single word about them? Not a single word? Well, now. Well, indeed!" He'd scrunched up his moss–bearded face and scratched at the side of his head as if to help free up thoughts trapped in his cranium. "All right, then, listen up. First off, you need to understand that feeders are an anomaly. You know what that word means, don't you?"
Since she'd been only eight at the time, she hadn't the slightest idea. "Not really," she'd said.
"Criminy, your education is a mess! Don't you ever read?"
"You don't read," she'd pointed out.
"That's different. I don't have to read. I don't need it in my line of work. But you, why, you should be reading volumes of…"
"What does anoma–whatever mean?" she'd pressed, unwilling to wait through the entirety of Pick's by–now–familiar lecture on the plight of today's undereducated youth.
He had stopped in midsentence, harrumphed disapprovingly at her impatience, and cleared his throat. "Anomaly. It means 'peculiar.' It means 'different.' It means feeders are hard to classify. You know that guessing game you used to play? The one where you start by asking, 'Animal, mineral, or vegetable?' Well, that's the kind of game you have to play when you try to figure out what feeders are. Except feeders aren't any of these things, and at the same time they're all of them, because what they are is determined to a large extent by what you are." She'd stared at him blankly.
He'd frowned then, apparently deciding that his explanation was lacking. "Let's start at the beginning," he'd declared, scooting closer to her atop the picnic table in her backyard.
She'd leaned forward so that her chin was resting on her hands and her eyes were level with his. It was late on a spring' afternoon, and the leaves of the trees were rustling with the wind's passing, and clouds were drifting across the sun like cottony caterpillars, casting dappled shadows that wriggled and squirmed.
"Feeders," he'd said, deepening his voice meaningfully, "don't come in different sizes and shapes and colors. They don't hardly have any faces at all. They're not like other creatures. They don't eat and sleep. They don't have parents or children or go to school or elect governments or read books or talk about the weather. The Word made feeders when he made everything else, and he made them as a part of the balance of things. You remember what I told you about everything being in balance, sort of like a teeter–totter, with some things on one end and some on the other, and both ends weighing the same. Feeders, they're part of that. Frankly, I don't know why. But, then, it's not my place to know. The Word made the decision to create feeders, and that's the end of it. But having said that, having said that it's not my place to know why these feeders were made, it is my place to know what they do. And that, young lady, is what's interesting. Feeders have only one purpose in this world, only one, single, solitary thing that they do."
He'd moved closer then, and his wizened face had furrowed with delight and his voice had lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. "Feeders, my young friend, devour people!"
Nest's eyes had gone wide, and Pick the sylvan had laughed like a cartoon maniac.
She still remembered him saying it. Feeders devour people. There was more to the explanation, of course, for the complexity of feeders could never be defined so simply. There was no mention of the feeders as a force of nature, as sudden, violent, and inexorable as a Midwest twister, or of their strange, symbiotic relationship with the humans they destroyed. Yet it was hard to get much closer to the heart of the matter. Pick's description, provocative and crude, was still the most accurate Nest had ever heard. Even now, six years later, his words resonated with truth.
The pungent smell of spruce filled her nostrils, borne on a momentary breeze, and the memories faded. She turned and jogged quickly to the end of her yard, slipping smoothly into the gap in the hedgerow. She was almost through when Pick appeared on her shoulder as if by magic, springing out of hiding from the leafy branches. At six inches of height and nine ounces of weight, he was as small and light as a bird. He was a wizened bit of wood with vaguely human features stamped above a mossy beard. Leaves grew out of his head in place of hair. His arms and legs were flexible twigs that narrowed to tiny fingers and stubby toes. He looked like a Disney animation that had been roughed up a bit. His fierce eyes were as hard and flat as ink dots on stone.
He settled himself firmly in place, taking hold of her collar. "What have I told you about provoking the feeders?" he snapped.
"Not to," she answered dutifully, swinging west down the service road toward the park entrance.
"Why don't you listen to me, then?"
"I do. But it makes me angry to see them nosing about when it's still light out." She darted a quick look at the ballplayers to make certain that Danny Abbott wasn't among them. "They didn't used to be like that. They never showed themselves when the sun was shining, not even where the shadows were deepest. Now I see them everywhere."
"Times change." Pick sounded disconsolate. "Something's happening, that much is sure, but I don't know what it is yet. Whatever it is, it's caused the balance of things to tip even further. There's been a lot of bad things happening around here lately. That's not good." He paused. "How's the little Scott girl?"
"Fine. But George Paulsen stole her cat, Spook." Nest slowed to a walk again. "I promised Bennett I'd try to find it. Can you help me?"
Even without being able to see him, she knew he was tugging on his mossy beard and shaking his leafy head. "Sure, sure, what else have I got to do but look for someone's lost cat? Criminy!" He was silent a moment as they passed behind the backstop. The spectators grouped at the edge of the ball field were drinking beer and pop and cheering on their favorite players. "Batter, batter, batter–swing!" someone chanted. No one paid any attention to Nest.
"I'll send Daniel out, see if he can find anything," Pick offered grudgingly.
Nest smiled. "Thanks."
"You can thank me by staying away from the feeders!" Pick was not about to be mollified. "You think your magic and that big dog are enough to protect you, but you don't know feeders the way I do. They aren't subject to the same laws as humans. They get to you when you're not expecting it!" She could feel him twisting about angrily on her shoulder. "Creepers! I don't know why I'm telling you this! You already know it, and I shouldn't have to say another word!"
Then please don't, she thought, hiding a grin. Wisely, she swallowed her words without speaking them. "I'll be careful, I promise," she assured him, turning up the blacktop road toward the cliffs.
"See that you do. Now, cut across the grass to the burial mounds. There's an Indian sitting up there at one of the picnic tables, and I want to know what he's up to."
She glanced sideways at him. "An Indian?"
"That's what I said, didn't I?"
"A real Indian?"
Pick sighed in exasperation. "If you do like I told you, you can decide for yourself!"
Curious now, wondering if there really was an Indian or if the sylvan was just making it up, she stepped off the roadway into the grass and began to jog steadily toward the cliffs.
CHAPTER 8
The Indian was sitting at a picnic table on the far side of‑1- the playground just across the roadway from the burial mounds. He was all alone, having chosen a spot well back in the tangle of pines and spruce that warded the park's northern boundary against the heavy winter storms that blew down from Canada. He sat with his back to the roadway and the broad expanse of the park, his gaze directed west toward the setting sun. Shadows dappled his still, solitary form, and if she had not known to look for him, Nest might have missed seeing him altogether.