Demon Child

seconds before complete silence returned.
        Only then did Jenny allow herself to go down to breakfast.
        Richard was having a cup of coffee at the long, gleaming kitchen worktable where Anna made most of her culinary masterpieces. Neither the cook nor her husband were about. Cora had probably not gotten to sleep until late and was still in her room. The twins would be out playing somewhere on the large estate grounds.
        She and Richard were alone.
        “Good morning,” she said. She tried to sound bright and cheerful, but she was afraid that her uneasiness showed through.
        “Big day today,” he said.
        She poured herself coffee from the automatic percolator. “Oh?”
        “Dr. William Hobarth is arriving by car, sometime after noon. He's going to treat Freya.”
        “I heard Cora agreed to a psychiatrist,” she said carefully.
        “You did?” He looked at her across the rim of his cup. She could not help but feel that his eyes contained a cunning calculation that was adding her up to see what she equaled in his plans.
        “Harold told me last night, when I asked,” she said.
        “I see.”
        She wanted to ask him who he had been talking to on the phone moments earlier. What the conversation about killers and drugs had been all about. But she sensed that such an inquiry might be a deadly one…
        “Not riding today?”
        “No. Not today.”
        “Just prowling the house, eh?”
        She felt uneasy, as if he were leading her to some question he especially wanted to ask. “Reading, I think,” she said.
        “I'm so used to hearing the cleats of riding boots that you managed to sneak up on me this morning.” He smiled. “I didn't hear you until you were in the kitchen.”
        She knew he was wondering whether she had missed his phone conversation by moments-or whether, perhaps she had heard it while waiting on the stairs. What would he do to her if he knew the truth? Anything? Or was she misinterpreting all this?
        “You didn't hear me nearly break my neck on the stairs?” she asked. It surprised her how swiftly a lie had formed itself in her mind.
        “You hurt yourself?” he asked, though he did not seem as concerned as he might have.
        “Oh,” she said, “now I know you're putting me on. You heard, and you're teasing me about it. These darn slippers have extra toe room. One of them bent under and nearly pitched me down the last five steps. I kept my feet, but not without some clattering.”
        He relaxed visibly. “Get yourself a new pair. Or borrow another pair from Cora if your feet match. Those stairs are steep enough to make an accident permanent if you tripped near the top of them.”
        “I'll ask her what size she wears,” Jenny said.
        He finished his coffee, rose. “If you'll excuse me, I have some affairs to attend to in town, before Dr. Hobarth's arrival. If he gets here before I'm back, he gets the walnut-paneled room on the east wing.”
        “He's staying then?” Jenny asked.
        “That's one of the benefits of Brucker wealth. We can have the head-shrinker come to our couch instead of going to his.” He smiled. It was a winning, boyish smile, but she could not be assured by it. “Seriously, though, we expect two or three weeks here ought to do it. He's one of these modern psychiatrists who use hypnosis to make the subject recall things he wouldn't ordinarily want to. With a child Freya's age, it won't take him very long to examine her past memories. Especially under the intensive daily sessions he plans. Besides, Cora was adamant. She won't send Freya away from the house again. The doctor had to come to us, or there wasn't going to be any doctor. Fortunately, Malmont persuaded Dr. Hobarth that the case was unique enough to warrant such an expenditure of his time. I think the fee we offered had something to do with it as well.”
        “Do you think that a psychiatrist is what Freya needs? Do you think she'll be helped?”
        He watched her a moment, his expression clouding from a rather forced good humor to a dark uncertainty. But he spoke with stern assurance. “Of course she'll be helped. Of course it's psychological, Jenny. What on earth- Do you mean you're beginning to swallow some of this supernatural drivel that Cora dotes on?”
        “No, no,” she said.
        But she was not sure whether she had accepted the existence of curses and