Terry Brooks - A Knight of the Word

They reached the chain–link fence and, without pausing to debate the matter, scrambled over. Holding the flowers for Nest while she completed the climb, Robert gave them a cursory sniff before handing them back. Side by side, the two made their way down the paved road that wound through the rows of tombstones and markers, feeling the October sun grow warmer against their skin as it lifted into a clear autumn sky. Summer might be behind them and winter closing fast, but there was nothing wrong with this day.

She felt her thoughts drift like clouds, returning to the past. She had acquired new friends in high school but they lacked the history she shared with the old, and she couldn't seem to get past that.

Of course, the Petersons still lived next door and Mildred Walker still lived down the street. Reverend Emery still conducted services at the First Congregational Church, and a few of her grandfather's old cronies still gathered for coffee at Josie's each morning to share gossip and memories. Once in a while, she even saw Josie, but she could sense the other's discomfort, and understanding its source, kept her distance. In any event, these were people of a different generation, and their real friendships had been with her grandparents rather than with her.

There was always Pick, though. And, until a year or so ago, there had been Wraith …

Robert left the roadway to cut through the rows of markers, bearing directly for the gravesites of her grandparents. Isn't it odd, she thought, trailing distractedly in his wake, that Hopewell should feel so alien to her? Small towns were supposed to be stable and unchanging. It was part of their charm, one of their virtues, that while larger communities would almost certainly undergo some form of upheaval, they would remain the same. But Hopewell didn't feel like that to her. It felt altered in ways that transcended expectation, ways that did not involve population growth or economic peaks. Those were substantially the same as they had been five years earlier. It was something else, an intangible that she believed might have influenced only her.

Perhaps it was her, she pondered. Perhaps it was she who had changed and not the town at all.

They walked up to her grandparents' graves and stopped below the markers, looking down at the mounds that fronted them. Gran's was thick and smooth with autumn grass; the grass on Old Bob's was still sparse and the earth less settled. Identical tombstones marked their resting places. Nest read her grandmother's. EVELYN OPAL FREEMARK. BELOVED WIFE OF ROBERT. SLEEP WITH ANGELS. WAKE WITH GOD. Old Bob had chosen the wording for Gran's marker, and Nest had simply copied it for his.

Her mother's gravestone stood just to the left. CAITLIN ANNE FREEMARK. BELOVED DAUGHTER & MOTHER.

A fourth plot, just a grassy space now, was reserved for her.

She studied it thoughtfully for a moment, then set about dividing up the flowers she had brought, arranging them carefully in each of the three metal vases that stood on tripods before the headstones. Robert watched her as she worked, saying nothing.

`Bring some water,' she said, pointing toward the spigot and watering can that sat in a small concrete well several dozen yards off.

Robert did, then poured water into each vase, being careful not to disturb Nest's arrangements.

Together, they stood looking down at the plots, the sun streaming through the branches of the old shade trees that surrounded them in curtains of dappled brightness.

`I remember all the times your grandmother baked us cookies; Robert said after a minute. 'She would sit us down at the picnic table out back and bring us a plate heaped with them and glasses of cold milk. She was always saying a child couldn't grow up right without cookies and milk. I could never get that across to my mother. She thought you couldn't grow up right without vegetables'

Nest grinned. 'Gran was big on vegetables, too. You just weren't there for that particular lecture:

`Every Christmas we had that cookie bake in your kitchen. Balls of dough and cookie sheets and cutters and frosting and little bottles of sprinkles and whatnot everywhere. We trashed her kitchen, and she never blinked an eye'

`I remember making cookies for bake sales.' Nest shook her head. `For the church, for mission aid or something. It seemed for a while that I was doing it every other weekend. Gran never objected once, even after she stopped going to church altogether:

Robert nodded. `Your grandmother never needed to go to church. I think God probably told her she didn't have to go, that he would come to see her instead'

Nest looked at him. `That's a very nice thing to say, Robert'

He pursed his lips and shrugged. `Yeah, well, I'm just trying to get back into your good graces. Anyway, I liked your grandmother. I always thought, when things got a little rough at home, that if they got real bad I could move in with you if I really wanted to. Sure, you and your grandfather might object, but your grandmother would have me in an instant. That's what I thought'

Nest nodded. `She probably would have, too.

Robert folded his arms across his chest. `You can't sell your house, Nest. You know why? Because your grandmother's still there'

Nest was silent for a moment. `I don't think so:

`Yes, she is. She's in every room and closet, in every corner, and under every carpet, down in the basement and up in the attic. That's where she is, Nest. Where else would she be?'

Nest didn't answer.

`Up in Heaven playing a harp? I wouldn't think so. Too boring. Not floating around on a cloud either. Not your grandmother. She's in that house, and I don't think you should move out on her.'

Nest wondered what Robert would say if he knew the truth of things. She wondered what he would say if he knew that Gran's transgressions years earlier had doomed her family in ways that would horrify him, that Gran had roamed the park at night like a wild thing, that she had run with the feeders and cast her magic in dangerous ways, that her encounter with a demon had brought about both her own death and the death of Nest's mother. Would he think that she, belonged in an afterlife of peace and light or that perhaps she should be consigned to a place where penance might be better served?

She regretted the thought immediately, a rumination both uncharitable and harsh, but she found she could not dispel it entirely.

Still, was Robert's truth any less valid in determining the worth of Gran's life than her own?

Robert cleared his throat to regain her attention. She looked at him. 'I'll think about it; she said.

`Good. 'Cause there are a lot of memories in that house, Nest'

Yes, there are: she thought, looking off into the sun–streaked trees to where the river was a blue glint through the dark limbs. But not all the memories were ones she wanted to keep, and perhaps memories alone were not enough in any case. There was a lack of substance in memories and a danger in embracing them. You did not want to he tied too closely to something you could never recapture.

`I wouldn't sell if it was me, you know,' Robert persisted. `I wouldn't sell unless I didn't have a choice'

He was pushing his luck, irritating her with his insistence on making the derision far her, on assuming she couldn't think it through as carefully as he could and needed his advice. It was typical Robert.

She gave him a look and dared him to speak. To his credit, he. didn't. `Let's go' she said.

They walked bade through the cemetery in silence, climbed the fence a second time, and crossed the park. The crossbar was raised now, and a few cars had driven in. One or two families were playing on the swing sets, and a picnic was being spread in a sunny spot across from the Sinnissippi burial mounds. Nest thought suddenly of Two Bears, of O'olish Amaneh, the last of the Sinnissippi. She hadn't thought of him in a long time. She hadn't seen him in five years. Now and then she wondered what had become of him. As she wondered what had become of John Ross, the Knight of the Word,

The memories flooded through her.

At the hedgerow bordering her yard, she leaned over impulsively and gave Robert a kiss on the cheek. `Thanks for coming by. It was sweet of you'

Robert looked flustered. He was being dismissed, and he wasn't ready for that. `Uh, are you, do you have any plans for the rest of the day? Or anything?'

`Or anything?' she repeated.

`Well, lunch, maybe. You know what I mean:

She knew exactly. She knew better than he did. Robert would never change. The best thing she could do for them both was not to encourage him.

`I'll call you if I get some time later, okay?'

It had to be okay, of course, so Robert shrugged and nodded. `If it doesn't work out, I'll see you at Thanksgiving. Or Christmas'

She nodded. `I'll drop you a note at school. Study hard, Robert. I need to know you're out there setting an example for the rest of us'

He grinned, regaining a bit of his lost composure. `It's a heck of a burden, but I try: He began to move away into the park. `See you, Nest: He tossed back his long blond hair and gave her a jaunty wave.

She watched him walk down the service road that ran behind her backyard, then cut across the park toward his home, which lay beyond the woods at the east end. He grew smaller and less distinct as he went, receding slowly into the distance. It was like watching her past fade before her eyes. Even when she saw him again, it would not be the same. She knew it instinctively. They would be different people leading different lives, and there would be no going back to the lives they had lived as children.

Her throat tightened, and she took a deep breath. Oh, Robert!

She waited a moment longer, letting the memories flood through her one final time, then turned away.

As Nest pushed through the hedgerow into her backyard, Pick dropped from the branches onto her shoulder with a pronounced grunt.

`That boy is sweet on you. Sweet, sweet, sweet'

Pick's voice was harried and thin, and when he spoke he sounded like one of those fuzzy creatures on Sesame Street. Nest thought he wouldn't be so smug if he could hear himself on tape sometime.

`They're all sweet on me' she said, deflecting his dig, moving toward the picnic table. `Didn't you know?'

`No, I didn't. But if that one were any sweeter, he could be bottled for syrup.' Pick sniffed. 'Classic case of youthful hormonal imbalance.'

She laughed `Since when did you know anything about "youthful hormonal imbalance"? Didn't you tell me once that you were born in a pod?"

`That doesn't mean I don't know about humans. I suppose you don't think I've learned anything in my life, is that it? Since I'm roughly ten times your age, it's probably safe to assume I've learned a great deal more than you have!'

She straddled one of the picnic bench seats, and Pick slid down her arm and jumped onto the table in front of her, hands on hips, eyes defiant. At first glance, he looked like a lot of different things. A quick glimpse suggested he was some sort of weird forest flotsam and jetsam, shed by a big fir or blown off an ageing cedar. A second look suggested he was a poorly designed child's doll made out of tree parts. A thick layer of bark encrusted him from head to foot, and tiny leaves blossomed out of various nooks and crannies where his joints were formed. He was a sylvan, in fact, six inches high and so full of himself Nest was sometimes surprised he didn't just float away on the wind. He never stopped talking and, in the many years she had known him, had seldom stopped moving. He was full of energy and advice, and he had a tendency to overwhelm her with both.