by Terry Brooks
“Yeah, go on,” Ray Hapgood urged, drawing up a chair across from her.
What Nest Freemark wanted to do most right then was to get out of there. The room felt impossibly close and airless, the fluorescent light hot and revealing, and the presence of these people she didn’t know a weight she could barely shoulder. What was happening inside her was indescribable. The uneasiness had taken on a life of its own, and it was careening about in her chest and throat like a pinball, shrieking unintelligibly and battering her senses. It was taking all her energy to keep it from getting completely out of control, to prevent it from breaking free in a form she could only begin to imagine. She had never experienced anything like it before. She was frightened and confused. She was wishing she had never come looking for John Ross.
“Come on, Nest, tell us something,” Stefanie Winslow urged cheerfully.
“He was in love with my mother,” she blurted out, saying the first thing that came to mind, not caring if it was true or not, just wanting to shift their focus to something else. What in heaven’s name was wrong with her?
There was a flicker of uncertainty in Stefanie Winslow’s eyes. Then Ray Hapgood said, “Her mother died some years ago, Stet This was a college romance, I’d guess.”
“It was,” Nest agreed quickly, realizing what Stefanie Winslow must be thinking. “It happened a long time ago.”
“Let’s get you some coffee, Nest,” Hapgood announced. “I don’t want Della on my case for not keeping my promises.”
He stood up and walked over to the coffee machine and drew down a cup and filled it. “Cream or sugar?”
Nest shook her head. She no longer wanted the coffee. She thought if she drank it, she would throw it right back up. She was physically sick to her stomach, her head was throbbing, and there was a buzzing in her ears. But it was the uneasiness that roiled through her like a riptide that commanded her focus.
“Nest, you don’t look well,” Carole Price said suddenly, concern shadowing her blunt features.
“I am a little queasy,” she admitted. “I think maybe it was something I ate at breakfast.”
“Do you want to lie down for a little while? We’ve got some beds that aren’t in use, up on two.”
Nest shook her head. “No, I just need to … you know, maybe what I need is to go back up and get some fresh air for a moment.”
Carole Price was on her feet instantly. “Here, I’ll take you right up. Ray, forget about that coffee. I don’t think it’s what she needs just now. C’mon, Nest, come with me.”
She took Nest’s arm and led her toward the elevator. “Nice meeting you, Nest,” Stefanie Winslow called after her. “Maybe I’ll see you later.”
“Bye, Nest,” Ray Hapgood said. “You take care.”
Carole Price had her almost to the elevator when the doors opened and Simon Lawrence stepped out. She knew him right away from his pictures in the magazine articles and books. He was dressed in jeans with the sleeves of his plain blue workshirt rolled up, but there was something polished and elegant about the way he held himself as he stepped out of the lift and smiled at her.
He held out his hands. “Here, here, what’s this? Carole, where are you taking her? She just got here. I haven’t even met her yet. Is everything all right?”
“She’s feeling a little queasy, that’s all,” Carole replied, slowing. “I was taking her up for some air.”
Simon Lawrence took Nest’s hands in his own and held them. “Well, we can’t have you getting sick,” he said. “You go on upstairs, Nest, and we’ll talk later. I want you to know that I’m very pleased you’ve come to see us. I didn’t realize you were a friend of John’s, but I certainly know who you are.”
Everyone stared at them, confused. Simon Lawrence laughed. “You don’t recognize her, do you?” He shook his head. “I have got to get you out of the office more, all of you. Or at least reading the papers about something besides the homeless once in a while. Ray, I’m especially disappointed in you.” He squeezed Nest’s hands. “This young lady is the best college distance runner in the nation—maybe in the world. She’s been written up in any number of articles as the next Mary Decker Slaney—except that Nest isn’t going to fall when she runs in the next Olympics, are you, Nest? You’re going to win.”
Nest knew she was expected to say something, but she couldn’t think of what it should be. Finally she said, “It’s a long way off yet.”
Simon Lawrence laughed and released her hand. “Good point, young lady. We shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. But you’ll do fine, I know. It’s very nice to meet you. Now you go on up with Carole, and I’ll see you later.”
He walked past Nest with a smile, already back to kidding Ray Hapgood about his failure to recognize Nest Freemark when he was such an avid sports fan. Stefanie Winslow was on her feet, grinning and joking, as well. Nest stepped into the elevator with Carole Price and let the doors close behind them.
She rode back up to the ground floor with something approaching panic, but she made it down the hall past a wondering Della Jenkins and out the front door, where she stood with Carole holding on to her while she took huge gulps of fresh air in an effort to steady herself. The deep breathing seemed to work. The nausea and headache went away. Her uneasiness lingered, but gradually it began to lessen. Her insides quit churning, and the whispers and buzzing receded into the sounds of the city about her.
“Are you feeling better?” Carole asked her after a few minutes.
Nest nodded. “I am, thanks. Much better.” She straightened, gently freeing herself from Carole’s proprietorial grip. She tried out a fresh smile. “I didn’t come here to get underfoot. I know you must have work to do, and I’m fine now. I’ll just wait out here for John. Maybe I’ll come back inside in a few minutes.”
Carole seemed uncertain, but Nest reassured her, and the other woman left her alone. Nest leaned against the wall of the building and stared out at the people and traffic, trying to make sense of what had happened. She could not account for it. This odd uneasiness was an entirely new experience. It was like having a sudden bout of flu coupled with a good scare. It didn’t make any sense. The feeling had started when she entered the building and talked with the people who worked there. Was it something connected with that? Was it her magic, reacting to something? If so, her magic was taking a new direction; it hadn’t ever done anything like this before.
She whispered Ariel’s name as she stood with her back against the building wall, thinking that the tatterdemalion might appear and reveal to her the source of her discomfort. But Ariel stayed hidden.
Nest stood to one side of the doorway and considered the matter from every angle she could imagine, but the answer she was seeking eluded her.
She was still deliberating when a taxi pulled up in front of her and the man she had come to Seattle to find stepped out.
Chapter 12
John Ross.
She recognized him immediately. Even though it had been five years since she had seen him last and she had been only a girl at the time, she recognized him. He didn’t look as if he had changed at all. His boyish face was still weathered and rugged, still all planes and angles, still the face of the boy next door grown up. He still wore jeans and a blue denim shirt with worn walking shoes and a silver-buckled belt, looking as if he might be one meal or one paycheck from being homeless himself. He still wore his long brown hair tied back from his face with a bandanna, and he still carried the heavy black staff.
It was as if he had been frozen in time, and while she had changed, grown into a young woman, he had remained exactly the same.
She watched him climb gingerly from the taxi, leaning heavily on the staff, reach back to pay the driver, then start toward the front door of Fresh Start. She straightened and moved away from the wall. He looked at her without recognition and smiled pleasantly.
Then surprise shadowed his face and turned quickly to astonishment mingled with something else. He stared at her, slowing, then came fo
rward again, an uncertain smile chasing the feelings back into hiding.
“Nest?” he asked carefully. “Is that you?”
“Hello, John,” she greeted.
“I don’t believe it,” he said.
He stopped in front of her and stood there awkwardly, shaking his head, the smile broadening. His clear green eyes looked her up and down, assessing her, comparing her with what he remembered. She could read everything in his expression—how much she had changed, and at the same time, how familiar he found her.
She started to extend her hand, then stopped, feeling it wasn’t enough. He glanced down, then up again, meeting her gaze, and their arms extended toward each other at the same moment and they embraced warmly.
“Nest, Nest, Nest,” he whispered, and he said it with such tenderness that it made her want to cry.
She drew back after a moment and grinned. “Guess I’ve changed a bit from what you remember.”
He returned her grin. “Guess you have. You look good, Nest. You look … terrific.”
She blushed in spite of herself. “Well, gee.” She shook her head in embarrassment. “You look pretty terrific yourself.”
They stood in the middle of the sidewalk staring at each other. People walked by, a few glancing over curiously, but neither one paid the least attention. For Nest, it was as if time had stopped completely. She wasn’t prepared for how good it was to see him. She wasn’t prepared for how good it made her feel. She had come looking for John Ross because she believed she must if she did not want his death on her conscience, and not because she felt she needed to see him. She had lived five years with such ambivalent feelings about him that she could not come to terms with whether she ever wanted to see him again. Now, in an instant’s time, five years of uncertainty were swept away, and she knew that coming to find him, that seeing him, was exactly the right thing.
“I just can’t believe that you’re standing here.” He opened his arms to emphasize the extent of his amazement. “I suppose I should have written you or called, but I wasn’t sure … well, that you would want to speak to me.
She smiled sadly. “Neither was I. Not until right now.”
“How did you ever find me?”
She shrugged. “I had some help.”
“I didn’t think anyone knew where I was. I haven’t talked to anyone, told anyone here about …”
“I know. They told me you’ve kept your life a mystery.”
“You’ve been inside already?” He glanced toward the doorway. “You met Simon?” She nodded. “And Stef?” She nodded again. “Ray, Carole, all the others?”
“Some of them, anyway. The lady at the reception desk, Della, sent me downstairs to wait for you. I met everyone there. They were amazed you had any friends from the past.” She gave him a meaningful look. “They were amazed you even had a past.”
He nodded slowly. “I expect so. I don’t ever talk about it.” He hesitated. “I don’t know what to say. Or where to begin. Things have changed for me, Nest. A lot of things.”
“I know that, too,” she said.
He looked closely at her now, and suddenly there was suspicion as well as curiosity mirrored in his eyes. “I’ve read some articles about you,” he said, his words tentative, cautious. “I know you’re a student at Northwestern University, that you’re still running competitively, that you’re good enough that you’re expected to represent the United States in the next Olympics.” He hesitated. “Is that why you’re here?”
She waited a heartbeat, meeting his intense gaze. “No. I came here looking for you. I was sent. By the Lady.”
He stared at her, astonishment filling his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was unsteady. “The Lady sent you?”
“Is there somewhere we could talk about it?” she asked, no longer comfortable standing out in the open where they could be heard. “Just for a little while.”
He seemed distracted, uncertain. “Sure, of course.” He glanced toward the building.
“No, not in there,” she said quickly. “Somewhere else, please.”
He nodded slowly. “All right. It’s almost noon. Why don’t we go down to the waterfront, and I’ll buy you a northwest kind of lunch. Some clam chowder, some fish and chips. How would that be?”
“That would be good,” she said.
He didn’t bother with going in to tell anyone he was leaving. He didn’t even pause to consider doing so. He simply motioned her toward the direction from which she had come, and they began to walk. They crossed Second Avenue, passed by Waterfall Park, and moved over to the island platform in the center of Main where the trolley stopped on its way down to the waterfront. They sat together on the wrought-iron bench and stared out over the cobblestones of Occidental Park, waiting.
“Do you know what I do now?” he asked after a minute. His tone of voice was distant and weary, as if he were at the start of a long journey.
“I know you work for Simon Lawrence at Fresh Start,” she replied. “I know about the work Fresh Start does.”
He nodded. “It’s important work, Nest. The most important work I’ve done in a long time. Maybe ever.” He paused. “Did the Lady tell you about me?”
Nest nodded, saying nothing.
“Then you know I’m no longer a Knight of the Word?”
She nodded a second time. It’s what you believe anyway, she thought, but she didn’t speak the words.
They didn’t say anything further for a time, wrapped in their separate thoughts amid the jumbled noise of traffic and people’s voices. This is going to be hard, Nest thought. He was not going to want to hear what she had to say. Maybe he would simply refuse to listen. Maybe he would just walk away. She could see him doing that. He had walked away already from the most important part of his life.
“Do you still live on the park?” he asked finally. “Yes.” She glanced at him “But Grandpa died last May, so I live there alone.”
She could see the pain reflect in his face. He was remembering the time he had spent in their house, pretending to be someone he was not. He was remembering how he had left things with her grandfather. “I’m sorry he’s gone,” he said finally. “I liked him very much.”
Nest nodded. “Everybody did. Pick is still there, looking after the park. He wants me to come back and help him like I used to.”
“That would be very hard for you now, I expect,” he said.
“It is,” she agreed.
“Things change. Life changes. Nothing stays the same.”
She wasn’t sure she agreed with this, but she nodded anyway, not wanting to get into a debate about it.
A few moments later, the trolley arrived and they boarded. Ross gave the conductor two tokens, and they took a seat near the front. They rode the trolley down a hill between rows of buildings, under a two-tiered viaduct that supported an expressway, over some railroad tracks, and then turned right on Alaskan Way to follow the waterfront north. It was too noisy inside the open-air trolley for conversation, so they rode in silence.
At the Madison Street stop, they got off and walked across Alaskan Way to the piers. Orange cranes stretched steel limbs skyward at the edges of the loading docks along Elliott Bay, dominating the skyline. Huge container ships piled with freight sat at rest beneath their cabled lifts, some being unloaded of the shipments they had brought from abroad and others loaded with whatever was being exported. Trawlers were tied up at the ends of several piers, winches cinched, nets drawn up and folded. To their immediate left, a terminal buttressed by huge clumps of wooden pilings provided docking slips for the ferries that serviced the islands and the Olympic Peninsula. Tour boats filled with passengers nosed their way along the waterfront, poking into the channels that ran back to the ends of the docking slips of Harbor Island and into the Duwamish River. Small sailboats with brightly colored, wind-filled spinnakers rode the crest of the silver-tipped blue waves, and tiny fishing boats dotted the bay, straddling the shipping lanes on the open water.
The piers c
losest to where they departed the trolley were dominated by long, wooden buildings housing shops and restaurants. The one to which John Ross took Nest was painted yellow with red letters that identified it as Pier 56. They navigated the noonday crowd strolling the walkways out front and pushed through the doors of a glassed-in entryway beneath a sign that announced they were guests of Elliott’s Oyster House. The entryway was stuffy and hot. A hostess greeted them and led them to a booth near the back of the dining area, further out on the pier toward the water. Nest seated herself across from Ross and looked out at the view. The sun shone brightly through scattered clouds, and the sky was azure and depthless. In the distance, beyond the bay and the sound, the peaks of the Olympics gleamed whitely against the horizon.
The waitress brought them water and menus and asked if they were ready to order. Nest glanced at the menu, then at Ross, arching one eyebrow. “Two bowls of chowder, two orders of the fish and chips, and two iced teas,” he told the waitress, and she picked up the menus and left.
Nest looked out the window again. “This is a wonderful city,” she told him.
“People who visit when it’s not raining always say that,” he advised, shrugging.
“I guess I’m lucky to be here now.”
“Stay a few more days, and you can see what it’s like the rest of the time.”
She looked out at the tour boats, which were anchored right next to where they were sitting. A small crowd of tourists was boarding one of two tied up in the docking slips, filing through the interior and out onto the upper and lower decks. They were bundled up against the chill, and they all carried cameras at the ready. Nest thought she would like to be going out with them. She would like to look back at the city from the water, see if the view was as spectacular from that direction. Maybe she would do so later.
“So you like your new life,” she said to him, looking for a place to start.
He nodded slowly. “I like what I do at Fresh Start. I like Simon Lawrence and the others who work for him. I’ve met someone I’m very much in love with, and who is very much in love with me—something I thought would never happen. Yes, I like my life. I’m happy.”