Demon Child

fairness as her aunt. The Brightens must all be lovely people.”
        “Thank you,” Jenny said.
        Then Anna entered with an extra dessert and coffee. The doctor's attention was directed at these until they were all but gone, the beauty of Cora's niece utterly forgotten.
        “How was she?” Richard asked when Malmont was finished.
        The doctor daubed at his lips with a napkin, rinsed the sweetness of dessert from his mouth with a swig of black coffee. “The same as the other times. I couldn't stir her. Breathing well, all life systems in good condition. I am more certain than ever that it has nothing to do with the vitamin deficiency. They are two separate problems.”
        “Do you think she needs to go to the hospital again?” Cora asked.
        “Good Lord, no!” Malmont said. “That child is fragile, Cora. She isn't a tough number like her brother. They didn't find anything at the hospital before. They won't find anything again. As long as her condition remains stable, with one or two of these spells a week, I think we should be satisfied that the original diagnosis was correct: she is physically well.”
        “What about a psychiatrist?” Richard asked.
        “I would tend-though I know this will upset you, Cora-to recommend a psychiatrist.”
        “You see!” Richard cried.
        “Hold, hold!” Malmont said to Richard. “I was about to say that I would wait a while yet. The child has had a potentially damaging infancy, with a mother who was indifferent to her, moving from hotel to hotel, from one nanny and part-tune governess to another. Much of that time, she was even in different countries where people spoke to her in constantly changing languages. That alone would be enough to disconcert her. I think we should give her a little more time in a stable environment such as this to see whether or not she requires actual professional analysis.”
        It was just the suggestion Cora wanted. She looked triumphant
        Richard merely sulked.
        “I trust I haven't stepped into a family argument,” Malmont said.
        “You have,” Richard said. “But at least you haven't supported this crazy notion of a family curse dating from 1860! If Freya merely needs love and stability, it is to counteract what her mother did to her-it is not to exorcise some wicked demon that has possessed her.”
        “What does it matter?” Cora asked. “Whether it is psychological or a curse-or a little of both. If love cures it, what does it matter?”
        “It matters a great deal!” Richard said. He dropped a fist on the table, made dishes rattle. “We will damage the child by helping her to nourish such superstitious folderol. There is no such thing as a Brucker family curse!”
        Almost as if on cue, the conversation was interrupted by the long, mournful howl of a large wolf…

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    4
        
        Jenny had come to the Brucker estate on Tuesday. Wednesday morning, the bad weather broke. The gray clouds tore apart and let the blue sky through around their jagged edges. By afternoon, the blue was dominant over the gray and the night's rain had mostly evaporated from the earth. The air was fresh. The gloom and the sense of impending disaster seemed to flee along with the storm.
        She spent most of the afternoon riding and walking a mare named Hollycross from one end of the grounds to the other. She found every corner beautiful, save for the dozen or so acres near the north-east corner of the Brucker land where limestone sinkholes pocked the earth like scars, where the trees were scraggly and awful and the field grass barely managed to keep a toehold in the heavily-limed soil.
        On Thursday, she rode Hollycross along the east border of the estate, watching the construction work on the superhighway which was not too distant. It displeased her to see nature ripped and destroyed, replaced with concrete and macadam.
        Lunch that day was pleasant, taken on the veranda behind the house with Cora, the breezes crisp. They talked of inconsequential things. The problem of Freya's comas seemed to have receded until Jenny could barely remember the intensity of the fear she had felt on her first night in this place.
        Near three o'clock, she took her nail kit down to the pond and perched upon an outgrowth of limestone near the shore from which she could watch the few, graceful ducks gliding across the placid waters. Her nails were a disgrace.