“That’s what you called him,” the girl said, barely audible. “A
counselor.”
“Yeah. Dr. Hannaby.”
“Aunt Faye, Uncle Keith, everyone called him a counselor. Or sometimes
a doctor.”
“That’s what he was. He was there to counsel you, to show you how to
deal with your grief over your mom’s death.”
The girl shook her head: no. “One day, when I was in his office,
waiting for him . . . and he didn’t come in to start the session
right away . . . I started to read the college degrees on his wall.”
“And? ”
With evident embarrassment, Penny said, “I found out he was a
psychiatrist. Psychiatrists treat crazy people. That’s when I knew I
was a little bit . . . crazy.”
Surprised and dismayed that such a misconception could have gone
uncorrected for so long, Jack said, “No, no, no. Sweetheart, you’ve got
it all wrong.”
Rebecca said, “Penny, for the most-part, psychiatrists treat ordinary
people with ordinary problems.
Problems that we all have at one time or another in our lives. Emotional
problems, mostly. That’s what yours were. Emotional problems.”
Penny looked at her shyly. She frowned. Clearly, she wanted to
believe.
“They treat some mental problems, too, of course,” Rebecca said. “But
in their offices, among their regular patients, they hardly ever see
anyone who’s really, really insane. Truly crazy people are hospitalized
or kept in institutions.”
“Sure,” Jack said. He reached for Penny’s hands, held them. They were
small, delicate hands. The fragility of her hands, the vulnerability of
an eleven-year-old who liked to think of herself as grown-up-it made his
heart ache. “Honey, you were never crazy. Never even close to crazy.
What a terrible thing to’ve been worrying about all this time.”
The girl looked from Jack to Rebecca to Jack again.
“You really mean it? You really mean lots of ordinary, everyday people
go to psychiatrists?”
“Absolutely,” he said. “Honey, life threw you a pretty bad curve, what
with your mom dying so young, and I was so broken up myself that I
wasn’t much good at helping you handle it. I guess . . . I should
have made an extra-special effort. But I was feeling so bad, so lost,
so helpless, so darned sorry for myself that I just wasn’t able to heal
both of us, you and me. That’s why I sent you to Dr. Hannaby when you
started having your problems. Not because you were crazy. Because you
needed to talk to someone who wouldn’t start crying about your mom as
soon as you started crying about your mom. Understand?”
“Yeah,” Penny said softly, tears shining in her eyes, brightly suspended
but unspilled.
“Positive? ”
“Yeah. I really do, Daddy. I understand now.”
“So you should have come to me last night, when the thing was in your
room. Certainly after it poked holes in that plastic baseball bat. I
wouldn’t have thought you were crazy.”
“Neither would I,” Davey said. “I never-ever thought you were crazy,
Penny. You’re probably the least craziest person I know.”
Penny giggled, and Jack and Rebecca couldn’t help grinning, but Davey
didn’t know what was so funny.
Jack hugged his daughter very tight. He kissed her face and her hair.
He said, “I love you, peanut.”
Then he hugged Davey and told him he loved him, too.
And then, reluctantly, he looked at his wristwatch.
Ten-twenty-four.
Ten minutes had elapsed since they had come into the brownstone and had
taken shelter in the space under the big staircase.
“Looks like they didn’t follow us,” Rebecca said.
“Let’s not be too hasty,” he said. “Give it another couple of minutes.”
Ten-twenty-five.
Ten-twenty-six.
He didn’t relish going outside and having a look around. He waited one
more minute.
Ten-twenty-seven.
Finally he could delay no longer. He eased out from the staircase. He
took two steps, put his hand on the brass knob of the foyer door-and
froze.
They were here. The goblins.
One of them was clinging to the glass panel in the center of the door.
It was a two-foot-long, wormlike thing with a segmented body and perhaps
two dozen legs. Its mouth resembled that of a fish: oval, with the