The Boy Who Could See Demons Read Online Free PDF

trousers with thick turn-ups at the hems, a man’s tartan tie, and black school shoes that had been carefully polished. Slung over the sofa I spotted a waistcoat and blazer. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I’d spotted a cane and pipe. Alex had clearly been independent for a long time, and was trying to be much older than his years. To support his mother, I guessed. I was anxious to work out whether this was a manifestation of another personality, or if he was just plain eccentric. The room was filled with the smell of onions.
    Michael pulled a chair close to the door and sat down, careful not to intrude on my meeting with Alex. I walked towards the table.
    ‘Very cosy in here, isn’t it?’
    Alex watched me, nervously. ‘Is my mum OK?’ he asked. I glanced back at Michael, who nodded.
    ‘I believe she’s safe and sound, Alex,’ I said, choosing my words carefully: it is always my utmost resolve to be honest with my patients, but when it comes to young children, tact is highly important. Though Alex had seen me hesitate and glance at Michael, and the smile he offered back was fractured with worry. This was not surprising, given what he had been through. It is rare for me to work with children who have had pleasant childhoods, yet despite the catalogue of traumatic life stories I’ve racked up so far I still find it upsetting to become part of yet another narrative that is marred by so much harm at such a young age. Too many times I know the ending outright, and I can never erase the faces of those children from my memory. I find myself mulling over their life experiences in my sleep.
    But Alex did not appear what we in the psychiatry field call ‘flat’. His eyes were lively, questioning, and haunted.
    A psychiatry consultation is a little like an interview with a celebrity: it moves in inward-bound spirals, circling the crucial issue through a series of related topics. Only, a psychiatry consultation needs to achieve that by allowing the interviewee to steer the conversation. I looked for cues. On the whiteboard beside the doll’s house, a fresh picture of a house had been sketched in blue marker with noticeable care. I pointed at it.
    ‘What a beautiful drawing. Is this your house?’
    Alex shook his head adamantly.
    ‘Is it a house you’ve seen before?’
    He got up from his seat and walked carefully towards the whiteboard.
    ‘It’s the house I’d buy my mum if I had enough money,’ he explained, rubbing a stray line around the carefully arched front door. ‘It’s got a yellow roof, and there’s flowers in the front garden and lots of bedrooms.’
    I was keen to pursue this topic, seeing his shoulders begin to lower. ‘How many bedrooms?’ I asked.
    ‘I’m not sure.’ He picked up his blue marker and continued adding to the house with surprising artistic skill – a cockerel-shaped weather vane on the roof, two small bay trees beside the front door, a dog running up the garden path. I watched on, saying nothing, mentally taking notes.
    He drew a small circle in the front garden of the house and filled it with dots – a strawberry patch, he said, because his granny used to grow strawberries to make jam. His final addition to the drawing was a huge set of wings at the top of the picture, in the sky.
    ‘What’s that?’ I asked.
    ‘An angel,’ he said. ‘To protect us from bad things. Though I’ve never seen an angel.’ As soon as he said it he appeared to shut off, withdrawing eye contact and raising a hand to his mouth, as if he was afraid he’d given something away.
    I asked Alex if it would be OK for me to open a window. I find an open window often acts as a reassurance to patients that they are not trapped, that there’s a physical exit, should they require it, even though it would take a set of ladders and a Spider-Man dexterity to climb out these windows. He nodded and took a deep breath. Already, he was relaxing. Step one.
    I sat cross-legged on the multi-coloured foam floor