Word & Void 02 - A Knight of the Word (17 page)

Nest stopped thinking about it, went back to her room, brushed her teeth, put on her heavy windbreaker and scarf, and went out to greet the day.

She had looked up the address to Fresh Start and consulted a map of Pioneer Square, so she pretty much knew where she was going. The map was tucked in her pocket for ready reference. She walked down First Avenue, retracing her steps from the night before, until she reached the triangular open space where she had heard the death screams of the demon’s victims. She stood in the center of the little concrete park and looked around. No one acted as if anyone had died. No one seemed to think anything was amiss. People came and went along the walk—workers, shoppers, and tourists. A few sad-looking homeless people sat with their backs to the walls of buildings fronting the street, holding out hand-lettered cardboard signs and worn paper cups as they begged for a few coins. The former mostly ignored the latter, looking elsewhere as they passed, engaging in conversations that kept their eyes averted, acting as if they didn’t see. In a way, she supposed, they didn’t. She thought that was an accurate indicator of how the world worked, that people frequently managed to find ways of ignoring what troubled them. Out of sight, out of mind. Maybe that was how the demon got away with killing homeless people; everyone was ignoring them anyway, so when a few disappeared, no one even noticed.

Maybe that was the cause that John Ross had taken up in joining forces with Simon Lawrence. Maybe that was his passion now that he was no longer a Knight of the Word. The thought appealed to her.

She walked on, doing her best to turn away from the gusts of cold wind that blew at her. Winter was coming; she didn’t like to think of her world turning to ice and snow and temperature drops and wind-chill factors. She didn’t like thinking of everything turning white and gray and mud-streaked. She glanced back at the people begging. How much worse it would be for them.

At the corner of Main, she turned east and walked through a broad open space that was marked on her map as Occidental Park. It wasn’t much of a park, she thought. Cobblestones and concrete steps, with a few shade trees planted in squares of open earth, a scattering of bushes, a few scary totem poles, some benches, and a strange steel and Plexiglas pavilion. Clusters of what looked to be homeless were gathered here, many of them Native Americans, and a couple of police officers on bicycles. She followed the sidewalk east and found herself at the entrance to an odd little enclosure formed of brick walls and iron fencing with a sign that identified it as Waterfall Park. The space was filled with small trees, vines, and tables and chairs, and was backed by a thunderous manmade waterfall that cascaded into a narrow catchment over massive rocks stacked up against the wall of the building it attached to.

She glanced back at Occidental Park, then into Waterfall Park once again. The parks here weren’t much like the parks she was familiar with, and nothing like Sinnissippi Park, but she supposed you made do with what you had.

She crossed Second Avenue and began to read the numbers on the buildings. There was no sign identifying Fresh Start, but she found the building number easily enough and went through the front door.

Once inside, she found herself in a lobby that was mostly empty. A heavyset black woman sat at a desk facing the door, engaged in writing something on a clipboard, and a Hispanic woman sat holding her baby on one of a cluster of folding chairs that lined the windowless walls of the room. Behind the black woman and her desk, a hallway led to what looked like an elevator.

Almost immediately, Nest experienced an odd feeling of uneasiness. She glanced around automatically in an effort to locate its source, but there was nothing to see.

Shrugging it off, she walked up to the desk and stopped. The black woman didn’t look up. “Can I help you, young lady?”

“I’m looking for John Ross,” Nest told her. “Does he work here?”

The black lady’s eyes lifted, and she gave Nest a careful once-over. “He does, but he’s not here right now. Would you like to wait for him? He shouldn’t be gone long.”

Nest nodded. “Thanks.” She looked around at the empty seats, deciding where to sit.

“What’s your name, young lady?” The black woman regained her attention.

“Nest Freemark.”

“Nest. Now, that’s an unusual name. Nest. Very different. I like it. Wish I had a different name like that. I’m Della, Nest. Della Jenkins.”

She stuck out her hand and Nest shook it. The handshake was firm and businesslike, but warm, too. “Nice to meet you,” Nest said.

“Nice to meet you, too,” Della said, and smiled now. “I work intake here at the center. Been at it from the start. How do you know John? Isn’t anyone ever came in before that knows John. I was beginning to think he didn’t have a life before he came here. I was beginning to think he was one of those pod people.” She laughed.

Nest grinned. “Well, I don’t know him very well. He was a friend of my mother’s.” She shaded the truth deliberately, unwilling to give anything away she didn’t have to. “I was in town, and I thought I ought to stop in and say hello.”

Della nodded. “Well, how about that? John was a friend of your mother’s. John doesn’t talk much about his past life with us. Hardly at all. A friend of your mother’s. How about that.” She seemed amazed. Nest blushed. “Oh, now, don’t you be embarrassed, Nest. I’m just making conversation to hide my surprise at anybody knowing John from before him coming here. You know, really, he spends all his time with Stef—that’s Stefanie Winslow, his … oh, what do you call it, I always forget? Oh, that’s right, his ‘significant other.’ Sounds so awkward, saying it like that, doesn’t it? His significant other. Anyway, that’s what Stefanie is. Real pretty girl, his sweetheart. Do anything for him They came here together about a year ago, and neither one of them talks hardly at all about what went on before.”

Nest nodded, distracted. The uneasiness was stealing over her again, a persistent tugging that refused to be ignored. She couldn’t understand where it was coming from. She had never experienced anything like it.

Della stood up abruptly. “You want a cup of coffee while you wait, Nest? Tell you what. Why don’t you come with me, and I’ll introduce you to a few of the people who work here, some of John’s friends, let them catch you up on what he’s been doing? He’s downtown at the Seattle Art Museum checking things out for tomorrow night. Big dedication party. Simon’s giving a speech John wrote, thanking the city and so forth for the building, their support and all. You probably don’t know about that, but John can fill you in later. C’mon, young lady, right this way.”

She led Nest around the intake desk and down the hallway toward the elevator. Nest followed reluctantly, still trying to sort out the reason for her discomfort. Was Ariel responsible? Was the tatterdemalion trying to communicate with her in some way?

As they reached the elevator doors, a tall, lean, mostly balding black man walked through a doorway from further down the hall and came toward them.

“Ray!” Della Jenkins called out to him at once. “Come over here and meet Nest Freemark. Nest is an old friend of John’s, come by to say hello.”

The black man strolled up, grinning broadly. “We talking about John Ross, the man with no past? I didn’t think he had any old friends. Does he know about this, Nest, about you being his old friend? Or are you here to surprise him with the news?”

He held out his hand and Nest took it. “Ray Hapgood,” he introduced himself. “Very pleased to meet you, and welcome to Seattle.”

“Ray, you take Nest on down and get her some coffee, will you? Introduce her to Stef and Carole and whoever, and keep her company until John gets back.” Della was already looking over her shoulder at the lobby entrance as the elevator doors opened. “I got to get back out front and keep an eye on things. Go on now.”

She gave Nest a smile and a wave and walked away. The doors closed, leaving Nest alone with Ray Hapgood.

“What brings you to Seattle, Nest?” he asked, smiling.

She hesitated. “I was thinking of transferring schools,” she said, inventing a lie to suit the situation.

He nodded. “Lot of good schools in Washington. You’d like it out here. So tell me. You know John a long time? I meant what I said; he never talks about his past, never mentions anything about it.”

“I don’t know him all that well, actually.” She glanced up at the floor numbers on the reader board. “Mostly, my mother knows him. Knew him. She’s dead. I didn’t know him until a few years ago, when he came to visit. For a few days, that’s all.”

She was talking too much, giving up too much, but her uneasiness was increasing with every passing moment. She was beginning to hear voices—vague whispers that might be coming from her, but might also be coming from someone else.

“Oh, I’m sorry about that. About your mother.” Ray Hapgood seemed genuinely embarrassed. “Has she been gone a long time?”

Nest suddenly felt trapped in the elevator. She thought that if she didn’t get out right away, right this instant, she might start to scream. She was racked with shivers and her skin was crawling and her breathing was coming much too quickly. “She’s been dead since I was little,” she managed.

The elevator doors opened, and she burst through in a near panic, feeling stupid and frightened and confused all at the same time. Ray Hapgood followed, looking at her funnily. “I don’t like close places,” she lied.

Oh
, he mouthed silently, nodded, and gave her a reassuring smile.

They were in a basement room filled with long, multipurpose tables and folding chairs, a coffee machine, shelves with dishes, and storage cabinets. There were mingled smells of cooking and musty dampness, and she could hear a furnace cranking away from behind a closed door at the back of the room. Fluorescent lighting from low-hung fixtures cast a brilliant white glare over the whole of the windowless enclosure, giving it a harsh, unnatural brightness. A young man sat alone at a table to one side, poring through a sheaf of papers. Two women sat together at another table close to the coffee machine, talking in low voices. The women looked up as Nest appeared with Ray Hapgood. One was middle-aged and unremarkable, with short blond hair and a kind face. The other was probably not yet thirty and strikingly beautiful. Nest knew at once that she was Stefanie Winslow.

“Ladies,” Ray greeted, steering Nest toward their table. “Say hello to Nest Freemark, an old friend of John’s. Nest, this is Carole Price, our director of operations here at Fresh Start, and Stefanie Winslow, the boss’s press secretary and all-around troubleshooter.”

Nest shook hands with each in turn, noting the looks of surprise that appeared on both faces when Ray mentioned her connection to Ross. It was becoming clear that when John Ross had ceased to be a Knight of the Word, he had turned his back on his past entirely. The women smiled at Nest, and she smiled back, but this whole business of her relationship with Ross was growing awkward, and she wished he would just hurry up and get back so that she could get this visit over with.

“Sit down, Nest,” Carole Price suggested, pulling out a chair. “I can’t believe we have someone here who actually knows John from … well, from when?”

“A long time ago,” Nest answered, trying not to sound evasive. She sat down. “It was my mother who knew him, really.”

“Your mother?” Carole Price prompted.

“They went to school together.”

“Good heavens!” Carole Price seemed amazed. “Even Stef doesn’t know much about our boy from those days.”

Stefanie Winslow shook her head in quick agreement. “He never talks about himself, about what he was doing or who he was before we met.” Her smile was dazzling. “Tell us something about him, Nest. Before he gets back. Tell us something he won’t tell us himself.”

“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.”