Running with the Demon (Word & the Void) by Terry Brooks

Author:Terry Brooks [Brooks, Terry]
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Fantasy, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Illinois
ISBN: 9781857236071
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2010-03-18T04:00:00+00:00

Nest watched her grandfather shake his head and finish the last of his coffee. "Ready, Nest?"

She nodded and rose, gathering her dishes to carry to the sink. "Leave them," Gran called after her. "I'll clean up while you're gone."

"Sure you don't want to come?" Old Bob pressed gently. "It would be good for you."

Gran gave him a sideways look. "It would be good for the church gossips, maybe. You go on. I'll work on the picnic lunch." She paused long enough to take a hard drag on her cigarette. "You might want to give some more thought to inviting that boy, Robert. He's not what you think."

Her meaning was plain. Nest placed her dishes in the sink and waited for someone to speak. When no one did, she left the room and went down the hall to brush her teeth and give her hair a final comb. In the kitchen, she could hear her grandparents' voices, low and deliberate, arguing over John Ross.

She rode downtown in the pickup with her grandfather, neither of them saying anything, the windows rolled down so that Old Bob could smell the trees and flowers. It was just after ten o'clock, so the Illinois heat was not yet unbearable and there was still a hint of night's cool. Traffic on Lincoln Highway was light, and the parking lot at the supermarket as they turned off Sinnissippi Road was mostly empty. Nest breathed the summer air and looked down at her hands. She felt oddly disconnected from everything, as if she had been taken away from the home and the people she had always known and relocated to another part of the country. She felt she should be doing something- she had already been enlisted in the fight against the demon- but she had no idea where she ought to begin.

She looked at her reflection in the windshield and wondered if she really was only fourteen or if she was in fact much older and had missed some crucial part of her life while she slept.

Old Bob parked the pickup on Second Avenue in front of Kelly's Furniture directly opposite the First Congregational Church. They got out and crossed the street, stopping momentarily on the sidewalk to say hello to a handful of others on their way inside. Effusive compliments were extended to Nest on her achievements in running, sprinkled with comments concerning the depth of her competition, the state of her health, and the nature of the town's expectations for her. Nest smiled and nodded dutifully, suffering it all as graciously as she could, all the while looking around without success for John Ross.

Then they were inside the church, passing through wide, double doors into a vestibule that wrapped the sanctuary on two sides. It was cool and dark, the intense heat kept at bay by central air, the burning sunlight filtered by ribbons of stained glass. Greeters stood at, each door, waiting to shake hands with those entering, and to pin flowers on the men's coats and the women's dresses.

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