Demon Child

was humming a currently popular song, eager to whip up more hotcakes and eggs. She absolutely delighted in her skill with food.
        “Will you start today?” Jenny asked. “With Freya?”
        “One o'clock,” he said. “I talked to her last night before supper. Tucked her in and told Frank and her a bedtime story. We seemed to hit it off very well.”
        “I would imagine so,” Jenny said. She knew he would be wonderful with all children. But on top of that, Freya was after all a female. And Hobarth was the sort to enchant girls and women from one to one hundred.
        “Oh?”
        She blushed and felt stupid for it. “You were so entertaining last night,” she explained. “I imagine you tell a children's bedtime story as well as you tell dinnertime anecdotes.”
        “Did I talk too much?” he asked, cutting his eggs with the edge of his fork.
        “No, no! Last night was one of the most enjoyable dinners we've had here since I came.”
        By the time Anna had brought Jenny's breakfast, Hobarth was finished with his own. He had another cup of coffee and talked with her while she ate, a courtesy that pleased her.
        Or was it just a courtesy? Was he paying her special attention?
        Think negatively, she told herself. There's much less room to be hurt that way.
        She saw him, late in the afternoon, after his first session with Freya. She was down by the woodline, behind the house, watching the squirrels that skittered from tree to tree. He came up and sat beside her with such stealth that he startled her, but not the squirrels.
        “How did it go?” she asked after they had watched the squirrels for a time.
        “She's tight, like a drum. Very keyed up little girl. I think it was very wise to get professional help for her now, before her condition could deteriorate.”
        “Cora thought love and attention could make the difference.”
        Hobarth frowned, shook his head. “It's more complicated than that. Her fears, her neuroses, if you wish, are too deeply ingrained. I had her hypnotized today, for almost an hour and a half. It was only a preliminary probe, of course. Still, I couldn't find even a chink in her armour; she actually believes this curse business.”
        “How do you mean?” Jenny asked, though she felt pretty certain that she knew exactly what he meant.
        “Even under hypnosis,” Hobarth said, “she sticks to the story of the werewolf.”
        Jenny turned to look directly at him. “Isn't that unusual-to hold up while hypnotized like that?”
        “Rather,” he said. “Of course, I didn't expect a cure immediately, nothing like that. But I hoped to see at least a little doubt in her. But she is very positive about her supernatural powers. She leaves her body, certain nights, she says, and prowls as a wolf.”
        They said nothing for a while.
        The squirrels scampered from tree to tree, played tag in these early days of summer while there was yet leisure time before the business of storing food for winter took their full attention.
        At last, Jenny said, “You've heard about the wolf loose on the estate, have you?”
        “Some of it.”
        “And about the horse? Hollycross?”
        “Just snatches of it,” he said. “I gather it was grisly. Was it you who found her?”
        “Yes,” she said, shivering in the moment of recollection. Briefly, she told him about it, though she did not detail the hideous condition of the mare's corpse.
        “Most interesting,” Hobarth said.
        “Then you don't think there's-”
        “What?” he asked.
        “Any connection?”
        A bird chirped in a tree nearby, held its note deep in it's throat, warbling to it's mate.
        “Between the wolf and Freya's delusion?” he asked. He smiled, though not patronizingly. “There's an indirect relationship, of course. Purely coincidental, true. But since the child already had the seeds of this silly superstition in mind, the presence of a real wolf roaming the property only served to strengthen her beliefs. It was a most unfortunate coincidence.”
        “Richard says that a wolf, alone, couldn't have opened Hollycross' door,” Jenny said. She mentioned Richard reluctantly. She did not know what Hobarth's opinion of the young man was, and she didn't want him to think she approved of Richard's more impulsive traits.
        “Then the door wasn't closed properly,” Hobarth