The Girl from the Well Read Online Free PDF

the strange face. The one with Mister Tarquin. She scares me.”
    She skips out, leaving the young woman staring after her, and on her face I can read her terror.
    There is a crackling sound. Something is on the floor, trapped underneath a table leg. It is a piece of paper from the tattooed boy’s binder.
    The young woman picks this up with shaking hands. Unlike the other detailed drawings the boy has drawn, this is a mass of uneven loops and spirals. It is a rough drawing of a lady in black wearing a pale white mask, one half-hidden by her long, dark hair.

CHAPTER FOUR
Black and White
    The therapist is named Melinda Creswell. That is the name written on a small golden plaque on the door: Melinda J. Creswell and, underneath that, Psychotherapist. Past the door is a room with two armchairs, two footrests, one couch, and one long table filled with folders. Two windows look out onto the busy street below. There are three certificates framed on the wall and one leafy plant in the corner.
    The tattooed boy walks in with an air of expecting to be pounced on and devoured. He stares at a large painting of a summer meadow like he believes a wild beast is lying in wait for him amid the painted weeds.
    Melinda Creswell herself is smaller than the room implies. She has graying curly hair and a rosebud mouth, and she is pouring tea the wrong way into two small, unadorned cups. She uses no bamboo whisks or caddies, and so the steam rising from the resulting mixture is of unsatisfactory sweetness. Finally, she smiles at him. “Hello, Tarquin. How was school today?”
    The boy says nothing. He slumps into one armchair, and the woman sits across from him in the other, offering a cup and a plate of small, round cookies that he halfheartedly accepts. I begin counting the books behind her, which fill numerous shelves spanning from one wall to the next.
    â€œI’ve just had a talk with your father,” the therapist says, “and I understand you’ve been having difficulty adjusting to Applegate since moving here. Do you want to talk about it?”
    The boy blows noisily into his cup and takes a small sip. Then he sets the tea to one side.
    â€œAll right. Let’s cut to the chase.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œMy dad paid you money to get me sitting in this chair—probably overpaid you, too, since his solution to every problem is to throw money in its face until it chokes from taxes. I’m pretty sure you have all my vital statistics—height, weight, eye color, allergies, my favorite breakfast cereal. You know we’re from northern Maine, which is the coldest part of the United States except Alaska. There should be a government mandate preventing anyone other than yetis and hobbits from living in northern Maine, that’s how cold I think it is.
    â€œAnd now we’re in Applegate, where the sun is actually doing its job but where the people are all so. Damn. Friendly. I can’t take two steps without someone asking how I’m doing, or what my name is, or why I’m wearing thick clothes in this kind of weather, as if they’re all required by the government to introduce themselves to everyone else like friendly, neighborhood child molesters.
    â€œWe’re here because Dad found a bigger and better-paying white-collar job—you’d think he was the only investment banker up north the way he carries on—and so we could be closer to my mother, who is clearly crazy and who has on occasion declared her undying love for her only son by nearly strangling me to death. So yes, I am thrilled at the prospect of putting myself within spitting distance for her to try again. And the absolutely mind-blowing conclusion you’ve reached is that I may be having ‘difficulty adjusting since moving to Applegate’? Really, Sherlock?”
    The woman waits placidly until he is done with his spiel before speaking again. “Do you hate your mother,