Read Online The Harrowing by Alexandra Sokoloff - Free Book Online

room was very quiet, everyone looking at Martin. When he spoke, his voice was hypnotic in the moving firelight “You’ve got two intelligent women there. Astute enough to pick up on emotional clues.”
    Now that the danger was past Lisa came to life again, shoved back in her chair, agitated. “Except that I’m not moving that piece of wood .”
    Martin half-smiled, tolerantly, gestured with his pen. “Your subconscious is. That’s the whole point, isn’t it? Induce a high state of concentration, and seemingly uncanny thoughts come out.”
    Is it? Robin wondered. Is that all there is? Could one of us have known—somehow, intuitively—that Patrick wanted to kill his father, that Cain’s mother died badly?
    She looked at Lisa. Lisa caught her eyes, looked quickly away.
    Lisa is smart. Under all that posturing, she doesn’t miss a thing .
    Cain moved forward, his face tense in the half-light. He looked at Robin, then Lisa. “Ask, then. Ask what’s doing it.”
    Lisa scooted her chair back to the table, put her hands on the indicator. After a moment, Robin did, too. Lisa spoke into the dark. “Zachary, are you…reading our minds?”
    Robin tensed as the pointer jerked under their fingers. It circled dreamily, not stopping on anything.
    Teasing , she thought.
    And then at once, decisively, it began to spell. Lisa leaned over the board to read, her hair falling around her face. The pointer scraped through the silence.
    NO ONE WHO CONJURES UP THE MOST EVIL
    Martin’s sharp voice interrupted Lisa’s reading. “I want everybody to come back here.”
    Patrick turned on him, growling. “What the hell—”
    Martin spoke over him. “Just do it.” His face was flushed, excited.
    Patrick stared back at him in mild disbelief, bristling. Cain stood still; even Robin was surprised at the authority in Martin’s voice. But after a moment, everyone stood and walked across the long room to the table beside the bookshelves.
    Martin pointed to the psych text lying open on the tabletop. “Go on, look at the book. And someone read the passage at the top of the page that it’s open to.”
    They all looked at one another, then Robin stepped to the edge of the table and read the small print. “ ‘No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil—’“ She stopped, startled.
    The others crowded in closer behind her to see.
    Robin glanced at Martin, who nodded. She looked back down at the page and read the whole passage out, more slowly.
    “ ‘No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human breast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed.’ ”
    The silence was heavy in the shadowed room. Robin saw Patrick’s eyes dart from Martin to Lisa, wary and appraising.
    Martin turned and faced them. “Freud. I was just reading that passage before I came over.”
    The fire crackled behind them.
    Martin looked at the girls. “Pure thought transference. It was in my mind…and you—one of you—picked it out.”
    Or Zachary did , Robin wanted to say, but she didn’t. The room was spinning; she felt a vertiginous excitement. She could see Martin’s eyes were shining, the detached academic stance gone.
    Cain looked at her across the candlelight. “I heard you say you were in his psych class. You’ve read the same book.”
    His face was cold. Robin felt a rush of indignation. “No, I haven’t.” She stared at him.
    Martin reached across the table for his legal pad. “We’ll test it. We each write something secret about ourselves and leave it back here. Then we ask the board—and see what happens.”
    Cain laughed shortly. “Forget it. I’m out of here.”
    He started for the door, a long, lithe stride.
    Robin faced him, calling out, “I didn’t set this up.”
    Cain turned under the arch of the doorway, looked back at her. Robin stared back at him, and she could feel his hesitation, the question in his gaze.
    But then his face closed