Demon Child Read Online Free PDF

the rolls.”
        She hurried into the kitchen, came back with the rolls, plunked them down next to Jenny. “If I don't serve correctly,” she told Jenny, “it's because that's usually Harry's job. But nobody cooks better.”
        With that, she was gone.
        “She's great, isn't she?” Richard asked.
        “She sounds wonderful,” Jenny agreed. Anna's bragging was not the outgrowth of some enlarged ego. She could cook well, and she knew it. Her bragging was based on accomplishment and a pride in tasks well done.
        “She won't let me in the kitchen,” Cora said. “But I'd look foolish trying to compete with her anyway.”
        “I hope Harold isn't ill,” Jenny said. She remembered how he had brought the umbrella to her in the storm this afternoon. A man his age should not be about in such miserable weather.
        “No, no,” Cora said. “He's fine.”
        Richard watched his mother as he dished green beans onto his plate. When she was obviously not about to say anything more, he passed the serving bowl to Jenny and said, “Freya has had one of her attacks. Harold is upstairs sitting by her bedside. It's a precaution we try to take most times it happens. One or two nights a week, one of us loses a night's sleep.”
        Jenny said nothing. She knew, now, what the argument must have been about just before she came into the room. Richard had been trying to persuade Cora to let him take Freya to a psychiatrist, and Cora had been sticking to her guns, as before.
        Aside from a few comments about the marvelous quality of the food, no one said much for the first fifteen minutes of the meal. Silverware clanked. Ice cubes rattled in glasses. They made chewing sounds. Gentle background music came from hidden speakers. Nothing else.
        Then Richard spoke, as if there had not been a break in his argument with Cora, as if twenty minutes had not passed since Jenny had entered the room. His eyebrows were drawn close together, his brow wrinkled. “At least,” he said to Cora, “let me take her into the city for a few days of tests.”
        Cora put her fork down, dismayed that the scene should be picked up again just when she thought the curtain had been rung down for the night. “I have already said no, Richard.”
        “But why? If there's something physically wrong with Freya, we must-”
        “There isn't anything physically wrong,” Cora said.
        “How can you be sure?”
        “Dr. Malmont assures us.”
        “He's only one doctor.”
        Cora sighed. “Richard, don't try to make me look like a villain in front of Jenny. You know perfectly well that we had Freya in the hospital for an entire week a month ago. They ran every test on her imaginable. She is in perfect health. There aren't even any allergies, obvious ones at least, to account for these things.”
        For a brief moment, he looked mollified. Then he said, “I should still take her to another doctor.”
        “You mean a psychiatrist,” Cora said.
        “Why not?”
        “Because, I know how frightened Freya was in the hospital. The child cried when she came home and asked me not to send her back there again. I do not want her, in her present state, to have to face the ordeal of another session with a doctor.”
        “All children are frightened of doctors,” Richard said. “But that doesn't mean they shouldn't be taken for their vaccinations just the same.” His tone of voice had gotten progressively less respectful until it was now little more than a grumble of anger.
        Jenny continued to eat, trying to remain out of this. She did not approve, in the least, of the way Richard was speaking to his mother.
        “Love and understanding will help Freya,” Cora said. “Good food and a good home. It's the life she remembers with her mother that still bothers her. You know how bad she had it with Lena.”
        “Love?” Richard asked. “Is that what it tells you in your