Demon Child by Dean Koontz Page B

undisciplined cursing, and she felt herself grow hot with anger that Richard should subject his mother to such things.
        In a short while, the shouted conversation stopped with the abruptness of a slammed door.
        Then a door really did slam somewhere in the house.
        Feet pattered hurriedly across an uncarpeted floor.
        Distantly, she could hear Cora crying.
        What on earth was happening in this house?
        She started to climb out of bed and then thought better of that idea. She could not do anything to help. She might only walk in on something which was none of her business. Instead of moving from the comfort of the warm bed, she snuggled even deeper into the heavy covers that were draped across her.
        She turned the television back up and tried to get interested in whatever was on. In twenty minutes, she had flipped to all the channels on the cable and was still unsatisfied. It was growing more and more difficult to shut out of her mind all the strange events that transpired in this house and on the grounds surrounding it.
        The red bindings on the bookshelf caught her eye. She stared at them for a long while, then finally got out of bed and took the witchcraft volumes down from the shelf. Back in bed, she opened them, skimmed through them, and finally began reading in earnest.
        There was only one way to abolish fear-and that was through knowledge. It was difficult to be frightened of anything that you understood. She checked the subject index of the volumes and began absorbing everything they had to say about curses and werewolves.
        At eight-thirty, Harold came to collect her tray and to ask if she would be wanting anything to snack on later. The commotion downstairs seemed not to have interested or bothered him in the least. He was the same dignified old man as he had been before.
        Twice, she gave him openings to talk about the ruckus between Cora and Richard.
        Twice, he pretended not to catch what she was hinting at, as if the argument had been of little note, even though the volume of it had suggested some degree of bitterness.
        At last, she realized that the only way to find out what she wanted was to bluntly ask him.
        “The fight,” she said. “What were they arguing about?”
        “Fight?” Harold asked, raising snowy eyebrows.
        “I heard parts of it,” Jenny told him.
        “Oh,” Harold said, “you mean the discussion between Mrs. Brucker and young Richard?”
        He was too much the gentleman to admit that his employers had been engaged in the next thing to a donnybrook.
        “That's it,” Jenny agreed, smiling to herself.
        “It was over Miss Freya,” Harold said.
        He picked up her tray, looked about for a misplaced glass or napkin, found nothing.
        “And?” Jenny asked.
        “Mrs. Brucker has agreed to allow a psychiatrist to come live here in the mansion and treat the child. Richard has been busy, since, arranging that with Dr. Malmont.”
        She sensed that the old man did not want to speak about things of this nature, that he considered it some minor betrayal of confidence, even though Cora and Richard's argument had been so loud. When he ascertained that she was not wanting anything, he departed with the dinner tray.
        For a time, Jenny lay there wondering about the wisdom of subjecting a child so young to the grueling experience of psychotherapy. She tended to side with Cora. Love alone might do the job, with much less of a drain on the little girl than cold, professional treatment might be.
        She told herself there was nothing she could do about it.
        She returned to the books she had been reading. These disturbed her more than they helped. If she had been pre-disposed to laugh off the idea of werewolves and the supernatural, the book gave her material for second thoughts. It was unsettling to discover that the Church in Europe did