The Analyst Read Online Free PDF Page A

and outraged, and was unlikely to have the ability to recognize a departure from the truth for some time.
    Timothy Graham was silent for a moment. “I will kill him,” he said coldly. “Mindy has been in tears all day. She thinks there’s someone out there who wants to rape her. She’s just fourteen and never hurt a soul in her life and is impressionable as hell and she’s never been exposed to that sort of filth before. It seems like only yesterday she was still into teddy bears and Barbie dolls. I doubt she’ll sleep much tonight, or for the next couple of days. I just hope that the fright hasn’t changed her.”
    Ricky didn’t say anything, and the history teacher continued after pausing to catch his breath.
    “Is that possible, Uncle Frederick? You’re the damn expert. Can someone have their life changed that quickly?”
    Again he didn’t reply, but the question echoed within him.
    “… It’s awful, you know. Just awful,” Timothy Graham burst out. “You try so hard to protect your children from how sick and evil the world really is, then let your guard down for a second and blam! It hits you. Maybe this isn’t the worst case of lost innocence you’ve ever heard of Uncle Frederick, but, then, you’re not listening to your beloved little girl who never hurt a single soul in her entire life, crying her eyes out on her fourteenth birthday because someone somewhere means her harm.”
    And with that, the history professor hung up the telephone.
    Ricky Starks leaned back at his desk. He let a long, slow breath of air whistle between his front teeth. In a way, he was both upset and intrigued by what Rumplestiltskin had done. He sorted through it rapidly. There was nothing spontaneous about the message he’d sent to the teenage girl; it was calculated and effective. He’d obviously put in some time studying her as well. It also showed some skills that Ricky guessed he would be wise to take note of. Rumplestiltskin had managed to avoid security at a school, and had the burglar’s ability to open a lock without destroying it. He was able to leave the school equally undetected and then travel straight down the highway from Western Massachusetts to New York City to leave his second message in Ricky’s waiting room. The timing wasn’t difficult; the drive wasn’t long, perhaps four hours. But it denoted planning.
    But that wasn’t what bothered Ricky. He shifted about in his seat.
    His nephew’s words seemed to echo about in the office, rebounding off the walls, filling the space around him with a sort of heat:
lost innocence.
    Ricky thought about these words. Sometimes, in the course of a session, a patient would say something that had an electric quality, because they were moments of understanding, flashes of comprehension, insights that were bristling with progress. These were the moments any analyst searched for. Usually they were accompanied by a sense of adventure and satisfaction, because they signaled achievements along the path of treatment.
    Not this time.
    Ricky felt an unruly despair within him, one that walked at the side of fear.
    Rumplestiltskin had attacked his great-niece at a moment of childish vulnerability. He had taken a moment that should be filed in the great vault of memories as one of joy, of awakening-her fourteenth birthday. And then he’d rendered it ugly and frightening. It was as profound a threat as Ricky could imagine, as provocative as he could envision.
    Ricky lifted a hand to his forehead as if he suddenly felt feverish. He was surprised not to find sweat there. He thought to himself: We think of threats as something that compromises our safety. A man with a gun or a knife and a sexual obsession. Or a drunk driver behind the wheel of a car accelerating down the highway carelessly. Or some insidious disease, like the one that killed his wife, starting to worry away at our insides.
    Ricky rose from his chair and started pacing nervously about.
    We fear being killed. But what