Demon Child

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 occupational 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…
        Jenny realized that she was beginning to grow very sleepy. The movement of the card had begun to hypnotize her!
        She looked away from it, shook herself, finally regained her full awareness.
        Walter talked smoothly, slowly, deeply, lulling the child into a trance.
        Finally, the psychiatrist stopped moving the square of cardboard, stopped speaking altogether. The sudden silence in the room seemed to have a weight all its own. He placed the device in his satchel, took a moment to look up at Jenny and smile. When she had returned his smile, he looked at Freya once more. In a gentle, quiet voice, he said, “Are you asleep, Freya?”
        “Yes,” she said.
        “Are you happy?”
        “I am.”
        “You can't hear anything but my voice. Is that right?”
        “Yes.”
        “Soon, I will want you to be able to go to sleep whenever I ask you to. Do you think you'll be able to do that?”
        “I'll try.”
        “Sure you will. You're a good girl, aren't you.”
        “No,” she said.
        That startled Jenny, but it seemed not to upset Walt in the least, as if he had been expecting just such a response.
        “You aren't a