The Girl from the Well Read Online Free PDF Page B

Tarquin?”
    The boy looks back at her, and some of the anger leaves his face. “No. I’ve never hated her.”
    â€œAre you afraid of what she might do to you?”
    â€œOnly because what she does appears to be catching.” A pause. “I killed someone, you know.”
    The therapist sounds calm and unworried despite this admission. “Who did you kill?”
    â€œSome boy at school.”
    â€œWas he a friend?”
    â€œOnly if you’re the kind of masochist that enjoys being beaten up by ‘friends.’”
    â€œI was told by your father that the police investigated what happened to you at your old school. They said there was no possible way that you were responsible for that.”
    â€œStill my fault he’s dead.” The boy shifts. “I really don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
    â€œThat’s all right. I don’t want you talking about anything that makes you uncomfortable. How about telling me something about your relatives here in Applegate, instead?”
    â€œYou mean Callie? She’s great. She and Aunt Linda are the sanest and nicest people I know, which is another reason Dad decided to take the job and move here.”
    â€œI’ve heard she works as a teaching assistant at Perry Hills Elementary.”
    â€œIt’s something you’d expect someone like Callie to do. Callie loves kids. At least three times a year they visit us in Maine, despite weather that can freeze your toes off, and she never complains. We’ve always been close, for two people who live several hundred miles away from each other. She’s like the big sister I never had. Callie’s always taken care of me, even back then.”
    â€œHow so?”
    â€œShe gets me out of trouble, for one thing.”
    â€œAnd are you often in trouble?”
    â€œGot a knack for it. When I was six, I decided to eat crayons—I wanted to see if it would, uh, come out the other end in different colors, and my repeated failures made me all the more determined—and she made me barf them all out every time I did, before I could get sick. Another time I nearly sliced off my thumb making dinner, and she got me to a hospital before I was done hyperventilating. Little things like that.” The boy smiles faintly at the memory. “I always joked that she was born old. She said it’s because one of us had to grow up, and it wasn’t likely to be me. I’d always been a stupid kid. Probably still am.”
    The boy pauses again. The woman is quick to pick up on the sudden change in his manner.
    â€œHave you asked her for help recently?”
    â€œNot…not recently, no. I decided not to.”
    â€œAnd why not?”
    Again he hesitates. His eyes drift back to the painting. Ninety-eight, I count. Ninety-nine. One hundred.
    â€œBecause she won’t believe me.”
    â€¢ • •
    But the young woman has a strong capacity for belief.
    â€œThey’re kids, Callie,” her friend objects, a woman with short, black hair and a round face, nearly six years older. They are preparing to leave for the day, the school corridors empty of the students who swarmed out only hours before. “Of course they’re going to say they see dead people. Didn’t you watch the movie?”
    The teenager is far from amused. “I’m serious, Jen. There’s something strange going on.”
    â€œSandra’s one of my students, too, remember? She’s always been a little spaced out. I don’t think she’s been weaned off imaginary friends yet. There’s one of those in every class.”
    â€œNo. I mean, yes, she’s a little unusual, but I meant Tarquin.”
    â€œYour cousin, the Halloway boy? The one they say has all those tattoos on his arms? Poor kid. The one with the crazy mother? No offense,” she adds quickly, but Callie shakes her head.
    â€œI’ve never met Aunt Yoko. Uncle Doug told me