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.It happened quickly.One day he was just as he had always been, his thickbody massive and bristling, his grey and black tiger-stripe facial markings wicked and menacing.and thenext he was fading away.Like the ghost he had always seemed, but finally become.The last time she saw him, she was walking the park at sunset, and he had appeared unexpectedly fromthe shadows.He was already so insubstantial she could see right through him.She stopped, and hewalked right up to her, passing so cease that she felt his rough coat brush against her.She blinked insurprise at the unexpected contact, and when she turned to follow him, he was already gone,She hadn't seen him since.Neither had Pick.That was almost a year and a half ago.`Where do you think he's gone:' she asked quietly.Pick, riding her shoulder in silence, shrugged.`Can't say'`He was disappearing though, there at the- end, wasn't he?'`It looked that way, sure enough:`So maybe he was all used up:'Maybe'`Except you told me magic never gets used up.You told me it works like energy; it becomestransformed.So if Wraith was transformed, what was he transformed into?'`Criminy, Nest!' Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html`Have you noticed anything different about the park?'The sylvan tugged at his beard, `No, nothing:`So where did he go then?'Pick wheeled on her.'`you know what? It you spent a little more time helping me out around here,maybe you could answer the question far yourself instead of pestering me! Now turn down here andhead for the riverbank and stop asking me stuff!'She did as he asked, still pondering the mystery of Wraith, thinking that maybe because she was grownup and Wraith had served his purpose, he had reverted to whatever form he had occupied before he wascreated to be her protector.Yes, maybe that was it.But her doubts lingered.She reached the riverbank and stopped.The bayou spread out before her, a body of water dammed upbehind the levy on which the railroad tracks had been built to carry the freight trains west out of Chicago.Reeds and cattails grew in thick clumps along the edges of the water, and shallow inlets that eroded theriverbank were filmed with stagnation and debris.There was little movement in the water, the swiftcurrent of the Rock River absent here.She looked down at Pick.`Now what?'He gestured to her right without speaking.She turned and found herself staring right at the tatterdemalion.She had seen only a handful in her life,and then just for a few seconds each time, but she knew this one for what it was right away.It stood lessthan a dozen yards away, slight and ephemeral in the pale autumn light.Diaphanous clothing and silky hairtrailed from its body and limbs in wispy strands, as if on the verge of being carried off by the wind.Thetatterdemalion's features were childlike and haunted.This one was a girl.Her eyes were depthless indark-ringed sockets and her rosebud mouth pinched against her sunken face.Her skin was the colour Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmland texture of parchment.She might have been a runaway who had not eaten in days and was stillterrified of what she had left behind.She had that look.But tatterdemalions were nothing of the sort.They weren't really children at all, let alone runaways.They weren't even human.Are you Nest Freemark?' this one asked in her soft, lilting childlike voice.`I am; Nest answered, risking a quick glance down at Pick.The sylvan was mired in the deepest frownshe had ever seen on him and was hunched forward on her shoulder in a combative stance.She had asudden, inescapable premonition he was trying to protect her.`My name is Ariel; said the tatterdemalion.`I have a message for you from the Lady'Nest's throat went dry.She knew who the Lady was.The Lady was the Voice of the Word.'I have been sent to tell you of John Ross,' Ariel said.Of course.John Ross.She had thought of him earlier that morning for the first rime in weeks.Shepictured him anew, enigmatic and resourceful, a mix of light and dark, gone from Hopewell five yearsearlier in the wake of her father's destruction, gone out of her life.Maybe she had inadvertently wishedhim back into it.Maybe that was why the mention of him seemed somehow inevitable.`John Ross,' she repeated, as if the words would make of his memory something more substantial.Ariel stood motionless in a mix of shadow and sunlight, as if pinned like a butterfly to a board.When shespoke, her voice was reed-thin and faintly musical, filled with the sound of the wind rising off trees heavywith new leaves.`He has fallen from grace; she said to Nest Freemark, and the dark ayes bore into her
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