Demon Child Read online

  "Uh-huh," he said. "You're not a flighty girl."

  "Just the same," she said, "let's not talk about it."

  "Okay," he said. He was a good psychiatrist. He knew when to stop pressuring, when to let a subject drop.

  As they turned their attention back to the frisky squirrels, there was a low, animal moan far back in the forest. Whether it was a wolf or not, Jenny could not discern. But whatever it was, it was large and sounded disagreeable.

  Hobarth seemed most surprised, starting slightly where he sat by her side.

  "Maybe we'd better go inside," Jenny said.

  He recovered his calm in short order. "Not necessary. If there is a wolf about, it won't come out in the daylight, not where we can see it, at least. Like any animal, the wolf is basically a coward. It only attacks what it knows it can defeat. And if it's been around these parts long enough, its learned enough about men to know it can't defeat them."

  "Just the same," she said, "I think I'll go inside. I want to freshen up for dinner, and I don't want to miss the news."

  "Do you mind if I don't escort you back?" he asked.

  "No," she said. "Please enjoy yourself; the woods are beautiful. And the squirrels can be hysterically funny at times."

  She stood and turned, brushing pine needles from her jeans, and she saw Richard Brucker standing on the rear veranda of the mansion. He was staring along the four-hundred yards of lawn to the spot where they sat by the trees. When he realized that she was watching him in turn, he left the patio with a sharpness of manner that might either have indicated anger or haste, and he disappeared into the large house.

  When she reached the rear door, she could not see her cousin anywhere nearby.

  She turned and looked back at Walter Hobarth. He sat in the same place, staring intently into the forest, his head cocked as if he were listening for something. She thought that he was not watching the squirrels but searching deeper into those leafy shadows, trying to catch a glimpse of something else altogether.

  At supper, the doctor gave them a far more detailed report on his first session with Freya. Jenny found it fascinating to listen to the techniques he used and planned to develop in this case. His grasp of the human mind, of what made people what they were, was somehow reassuring. People were so much more understandable once he explained them to you. Human actions seemed so much less mysterious, exceedingly more rational than she had come to believe they were.

  She wished he could explain Richard to her, though. All through the meal, snatches of the young man's brooding nature returned, though the doctor's good humor kept Richard from growing as surly as he had been on previous occasions. Often, as they ate, she caught Richard watching her with an odd, mystified expression on his face.

  What, she wondered, was on his mind?

  Hobarth excused himself around a quarter of ten by explaining that he wished to tape-record his impression of this morning's session so that he would not lose his early viewpoint as he continued the study. Cora went into the kitchen, shortly afterward, to speak with Anna about something. That left Jenny alone with her cousin.

  He spoke almost immediately, as if he had been waiting for such an opportunity at privacy all evening. "Did you hear a wolf this afternoon when you were down by the woods?" he asked.

  She did not think that he really wanted to ask that. It appeared as if it was only some bit to break the ice with.

  "I don't know if it was a wolf or not," she said. She tried to force the pleasant tone that she had once used naturally with him, but she could not manage it very well. She hoped that he did not see how ill at ease she was with him.

  "Lee Symington is coming around tomorrow," he said. "That's the veterinarian to whom I took Hollycross."

  She saw that she was expected to carry on this exchange. "What on earth for?" she asked. "What could he find here?"

  "I don't know. But anything would help. Maybe he could find clues as to what sort of wolf it is."

  "What good would knowing the species do?"

  He frowned. "It might do a great deal of good. But I can't tell you what I mean yet. I just-just wanted you to know Lee would be around. No one else knows. Not even Cora. I want to keep it that way, if at all possible."

  Then why tell me? she wondered. Why confide in me all of a sudden?

  It was a bit of the unexpected. A small fragment, to be sure, but enough to make her wary.

  "Do you like Hobarth?" he asked.

  She nodded. "He's very nice. When he gets in a story-telling mood at dinner, he's marvelous."

  "I think he'll do Freya some good," he said. But the tone of his voice was somber, not hopeful.

  "He seems to think he can break through her shell," she agreed.

  For a moment, neither of them spoke.

  The sounds of pots and pans echoed from the kitchen. Upstairs, a water tap was run, reverberating the pipes throughout the house.

  "Listen, Jenny-" he began, leaning forward on his chair in a conspiratorial manner.

  But Cora returned, interrupting him.

  Shortly after that, Jenny excused herself and went upstairs to her room where, as was becoming customary with her, she sifted through the events of the day, totaling the debits and credits.

  There were a lot of credits under Hobarth's name. The more she saw of the man, the more she respected him. She had not been so attracted to another human being in her life, so pleased to be in the same room with him, pleased to hear him talk and explain.

  Explain...

  Yes, that was what she liked the most about him. He could so simply and concisely explain another human being's motivations. He was so secure in his hold on the world and his relationship to the rest of society that he was like a rock, a post that could not be budged. When he was around, she had a sense of security that she experienced at no other time. She intuitively sensed that she could not be surprised by any disaster so long as she was near him.

  She could not have put any of this into such uncomplicated sentences. She only felt it all as an indefineable but comforting force that simmered at the back of her mind and eluded description.

  And how did Hobarth feel about her?

  She was almost certain that there was a special tenderness in his regard for her. He had waited with her while she finished breakfast. He had come to sit with her and watch the squirrels. Surely, that meant something.

  But she wouldn't hope. She wouldn't want anything. Because, when you wanted something and hoped for something, you never got it.

  When she was nearly prepared for sleep, someone knocked softly on her door. She knew it wasn't Cora when the knock came the third time, for Cora would have let herself in after a second knock.

  Slipping on a robe over her pajamas, she opened the portal just a crack and looked at Walter Hobarth. He was smoking a pipe; the tobacco smelled like cherries, pleasant and not at all as obnoxious as most kinds of smoke were.

  "I didn't wake you?" he asked solicitously.

  "No. Not at all," she said.

  "I saw how interested you were in psychiatric techniques at dinner," he said. "It just occurred to me that you might enjoy sitting in on tomorrow's session with Freya."

  "Really?" she asked. The prospect excited her, partly because it showed he trusted her.

  "Really," he said, smiling.

  "Won't that put Freya off-to have an outsider there?"

  "Not at all. She'll be hypnotized for the main part of the session."

  "Well, if you're sure-"

  "I'm sure," he said. "One o'clock, in the library tomorrow? I find the library better suited than a bedroom, because it has less the connotation of sickness. Scares the child less."

  "One o'clock," she said. "I'll be there."

  "Good," he said. "Pleasant dreams."

  Then he turned and walked down the corridor towards his own room.

  She closed the door and threw the lock on it, out of habit, feeling as if she had just had some of Harold's brandy. Add one more credit to the day's
list. This was a definite sign that Walter was more interested in her than mere good manners said he should be.

  She sat on the bed, not at all ready for sleep now. She had more thinking to do. It was time, she supposed, to face her feelings about the young psychiatrist.

  She had heard and read a great deal about love, of course. It was everyone's favorite subject. Great love stories made the bestseller list. Love songs were always in the top ten. But she had never, before this moment, experienced anything that she thought might be the equivalent of what those novelists wrote about, of what those musicians composed.

  Oh, yes, she had loved her parents and Grandmother Brighton. To a smaller degree, she loved Cora and Richard. But that was another sort of love from this one. Not a lesser love, merely a different kind.

  Then, like the stab of a dagger, she remembered where those other loves had ended. In death. And just because this was a different sort of love did not mean it would be terminated any differently.

  She refused to indulge herself in more romanticism.

  She finished preparing for bed, cooling her enthusiasm with a list of things that might possibly happen to shatter any dreams she had started to build. Pessimism had always been her byword. Now was not the time to change.

  Still, the invitation to tomorrow's session was a credit.

  She could not deny that.

  Before she turned off the lights (all but the tiny nightlight which glowed until morning) she went to the windows to draw the drapes tight across the glass. Harold always pulled them back in the morning and replaced the restraining golden cord. She made a note to tell him that was unnecessary.

  As she let the first panel of velvet down, she froze, her heart beating quicker in her breast, her palms suddenly cold and damp. Out there, on the late night lawn, a man was sneaking along a row of hedges leading from the house to the stables, trying his best to conceal himself.

  She eased herself behind the unfurled drape so that she could watch without being seen.

  He was moving away from the house, not toward it. He took his time passing through the deepest areas of shadow, but he scurried quickly through those patches where the estate's pole lights cast some illumination. Just ahead of him, there was a wide expanse of rather brilliantly lighted ground. When he came to that, he walked briskly across it, his shoulders hunched, his head hung between them.

  It was Richard.

  She watched him steal to the stables until he was out of sight. She stood there for fifteen minutes, hoping she would see him return and perhaps shed some clue on his strange behavior. But he did not come back.

  Why had he been so furtive? The stables belonged to him. He could certainly walk openly to them if he wished.

  She waited another twenty minutes.

  Still, there was no sign of him.

  At last, she closed the rest of the drapes, turned out the lights and crawled into bed. She added another debit to the events of the day.

  She wished Walter had seen this. He would have been able to make it all seem ordinary and unfrightening.

  No wolves howled the first half of the long night. She was positive of that, for it took her half the night to finally fall asleep.

  * * *

  8

  The following morning, as Jenny was again taking breakfast in the company of Walter Hobarth, Richard entered the kitchen, looking agitated, the car keys jingling in his hand. Hobarth broke off a long and delightful tale about his experiences as an army psychiatrist in North Carolina and said good morning to the young Brucker heir.

  Richard replied tersely, as if he did not have enough energy to give a completely civil answer. It was not that he was being consciously rude, but as if he had too much pressing on him to concern himself with minor things of life like etiquette.

  He turned to Jenny. "I'd like to ask a favor of you," he said. He chose his words carefully, as if he wished he did not have to speak with her in front of Anna and Hobarth, though neither appeared to be trying to eavesdrop.

  "What's that?" she asked.

  Was this the confidence he had been about to impart the previous evening when Cora had returned from the kitchen, interrupting them?

  "My friend's coming around at eleven," Richard said.

  She looked blankly at him.

  "The one I mentioned last evening, remember?"

  She remembered something about the veterinarian and nodded.

  He smiled nervously. "Most likely, he won't need to leave his work area. But if he should need anything, I've told him to ask for you. Would that be all right?"

  "What could I possibly do to help him?" she asked, somewhat bewildered by all this.

  Richard jingled the keys in his hand. "Like I said, he probably won't need any help. But if he should, I'd like you to assist him. I would myself, but I've got to be in town for lunch with the family banker. Today's one of those investment counseling sessions. Will you?"

  She could not understand the reason for the veterinarian in the first place, but she said, "Yes. I guess so."

  "Thanks very much, Jenny," he said. He nodded to Hobarth who was finishing his eggs. "Sorry to disturb you, doctor."

  "That's okay," Hobarth said to Richard's back as the younger man turned and left the room.

  Jenny drank some coffee to settle her nerves. Richard seemed able to destroy a pleasant mood and put her on edge every time he showed up.

  "Strange young man," Hobarth observed.

  She nodded. She did not want to say anything against her own cousin, no matter how much she might agree with the doctor.

  Hobarth chuckled. "His friend sounds like some cloak and dagger agent with the FBI!"

  She laughed too. In a way, Richard's actions were rather comical, melodramatic and silly. "Just a veterinarian," she said.

  "Oh?"

  She remembered that Richard wanted to keep the vet's visit a secret. Perhaps she should have kept her lips sealed with Hobarth. Yet what harm could be done by sharing the joke? She told him about Richard's effort to search the stall where Hollycross died for a clue that might show what species of wolf had attacked the horse.

  "I wish we could just forget about that terrible scene," Anna said, shivering. "Every time I think of that poor mare's throat-"

  She didn't have to finish.

  "Richard's emotionally upset over these recent events," Hobarth said. "It's easily understandable. I think, perhaps, he genuinely cares for the twins-cares for them a great deal. But, perhaps, mixed with that love, there is a bit of jealousy."

  "Jealousy?" Anna asked.

  "With his own mother dead at an early age, he may have come to feel more strongly about Cora than either he or she realizes. Now that new children are in the house and now that his father has gone, he may feel as if his own place of affection has been usurped."

  "That doesn't sound like Richard!" Anna said, as ready to defend him as if he were her own.

  Jenny was not so sure. She thought she saw a good deal of sense in what Hobarth had said.

  "Oh, don't misunderstand me!" the doctor said, suddenly more diplomatic than professional. "I don't think Richard consciously feels jealous about the twins. Unconsciously, yes. And it's no slur to his character, Anna. The same feelings would rise in anyone in similar circumstances. He's just going through a difficult period, that's all."

  Now that it seemed the doctor was sympathizing with Richard, Anna was all in agreement.

  At one o'clock, Jenny rapped on the library door where Freya and Walter Hobarth waited for her. Lee Symington, the veterinarian, had not come to the house; if he was even at the stables, he had arrived there in a very covert manner. She had all but forgotten about him and about Richard. She was anxiously looking forward to the experience at hand, watching Walter work his psychiatric charms on Freya.

  "Ah," Hobarth said, "just on time. That's what I would have expected of you, Jenny."

  "Are you analyzing me, doctor?"

  He smiled. "Forgive me if I seem to be. It's an occu
pational hazard. We keep prying at everyone we know, friends and relatives and casual acquaintances alike. And, please call me Walt."

  She thought, perhaps, she was blushing, though she was trying very hard to look cool and collected. But being asked to use his first name was, she decided, a credit on the day's list worth being at least a little excited about.

  "Come in," he said, ushering her into the library and closing the door behind her. "Take that seat, behind the couch."

  "Hello, Freya," Jenny said.

  " 'Lo," the child answered. She was lying on a black leather couch, trying not to look frightened. But her posture was stiff and unnatural, evidence of her underlying fear.

  Walter took a chair directly beside the couch and talked to Freya for a while, mostly about inconsequential things. He wanted to know what her favorite television show was, what kind of music she liked, what games she preferred to play, what foods she most enjoyed eating. When she said that she liked spaghetti, he told a very funny story about the first time he had tried to cook the Italian dish. He had not realized how the spaghetti swelled when it was cooked, and he had ended up with enough food for sixteen people. When he had finished, Freya was giggling and at ease.

  "Now," Walter said, picking up some odd piece of equipment from his open satchel beside his chair, "Let's play the game we played yesterday."

  "Okay," she said.

  Jenny could see, now, that the thing he held was a foot square piece of thick pasteboard. On one side, there was a geometric design that tempted the eye to follow it. It made Jenny's eyes cross just looking at it for a brief moment. On the other side of the pasteboard square, there was a handle by which he could hold and maneuver the thing.

  As he talked to Freya, he began to slowly move the square in and out, pushing it toward her face, drawing it away, pushing it toward. The geometric design seemed to move, to whirl faster and faster as he began to move the device at a more rapid speed. The black and green lines spun around one another, whipped and whirled, lead the eye deeper and deeper into the ink maze...