Demon Child

said, shrugging.
        She bit her lip and looked down at the ground. There were brown pine needles scattered there, residue of a previous autumn.
        The doctor chuckled. “I see,” he said. “You rode her last-before she was killed.” He waited until she nodded agreement. “Well, then,” he said with mock gusto, “the door must have been locked properly! I would never believe otherwise of you. Even if it meant accepting a wolf with hands!”
        She smiled. “But it's not really funny-not if it was my fault and Hollycross died because I-”
        He patted her shoulder with a warm, dry hand, his humor suddenly a brotherly sympathy. “You're worrying too much, Jenny. Hollycross is gone. There is only a slight possibility it was your fault-only slight. And even if it was your fault, self-recrimination will do no good. You strike me as the sort of girl who does everything properly, rarely makes mistakes. But we've all got to be allowed mistakes, and we've all got to be able to deal with our guilt afterward.”
        “You can't make mistakes,” she said, a little too hastily, a little too forcefully. “If you make mistakes, if you aren't careful, it will sneak up on you while you aren't looking.”
        She looked into his ice blue eyes.
        He matched her gaze, said, “What will sneak up on you, Jenny?”
        “I don't know,” she said. “Something. Anything. Whatever you least expect. Death, maybe.”
        “But we can't go through life with our back raised like a cat, sniffing for trouble.”
        His voice was low, soft, almost hypnotic.
        “I have to!” she said. “Mom, dad, grandma-they all failed to keep a good watch. And I have to.” She blinked, looked away from those deep, sparkling eyes.
        “Yes?” he asked, urging her to go on.
        “We're acting like psychiatrist and patient,” she said.
        “We are?”
        She looked back at his eyes, smiled. “You know we are. And you weren't brought here to listen to a flighty girl.”
        “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