THIS MUST BE THE CASTLE OF THE DEMON KING, JENNIFER thought.

Her mother said no. Her mother said it was only a hospital—St. Agnes Hospital—for sick people. But Jennifer had her suspicions.

The building loomed darkly against the dark gray sky like a castle in a movie. And who would live in such a dark, dark castle but a dark, dark demon king?

That’s what Jennifer was thinking—but she didn’t say it to her mother, of course. Her mother would just tell her these thoughts were crazy. Her mother would say she had to ignore them or make them stop. And Jennifer did try to make them stop. She tried to force them out of her mind the way you would force intruders out of your house. But they wouldn’t go. Even when she managed to silence them, she felt the bad thoughts standing like black shadows on the moonscape of her mind, staring at her, waiting for their chance to speak again.

“I had a long chat with the doctor on the phone and she sounded very nice,” Jennifer’s mother said.

They were walking up the front path now. Every time Jennifer looked up, the castle—the hospital—got larger and larger, spreading over her the way a monster would spread over you just before it snapped down on top of you and devoured you whole.

But it was not a monster, not a castle, Jennifer told herself. Just a great brick building of a St. Agnes Hospital where the doctor sounded nice on the phone.

“She told me she just wants to ask you a few questions,” Jennifer’s mother said. “Nothing scary is going to happen.”

Jennifer glanced at her mother, trying to gauge whether or not she was telling the truth. Jennifer wanted to believe her, to trust her, but maybe she was in league with the demons. Maybe that’s why she kept telling Jennifer there were no demons. A trick. To throw her off track. A trick-track.

But no, her mother just looked saggy and old, like a paper bag Jennifer had seen once blowing across the Shop N Save parking lot.

Shop N Save. Hopkins Save. Sam Hopkins Saved Me. Saggy and baggy at the Hopkins Save, Jennifer thought.

That seemed very clever to her, very insightful. She wanted to tell the joke to her mother. But she knew it would only make her mother look confused and worried, so she kept silent.

They pushed through the castle’s—the hospital’s—big glass doors.

Run away, Jennifer!

The voice spoke very suddenly, very clearly in her mind. It wasn’t a whisper at all. It was a voice so clear that at first she almost thought it was her mother speaking again beside her.

Something terrible is going to happen . . .

Jennifer shook herself, like a dog throwing off water. She threw off the voice, tossed it right out of her mind.

“Sam Hopkins,” she whispered aloud.

“What, sweetheart?” said her mother. “Oh yes, the Hopkins boy. He was very brave, wasn’t he?”

“He’s my friend,” said Jennifer, shivering.

“That’s nice,” said her mother, weary and baggy like the bag blowing at the Shop N Save.

Inside the castle they waited in plastic chairs in a big room. There were lots of other people waiting too.

Jennifer looked at a magazine. She looked at it very hard because she was afraid if she looked up she would see the demons watching her. In the magazine, there were pretty girls with bright smiles. Jennifer stared at them and the girls sent thoughts telepathically into her mind.

Don’t look up, Jennifer.

If you don’t see them, they can’t hurt you.

Jennifer stared at the pretty smiling girls and didn’t look up and didn’t see anyone she shouldn’t.

Only at the end of their wait, only after the nurse came and said Jennifer could go in and see the doctor now, only when she had left her mother behind in the chair, her mother smiling saggy-baggy in her chair, only as Jennifer followed the nurse to the door did she glance back over her shoulder and catch one glimpse of one terrible creature standing darkly among the other people who were waiting and reading their magazines. The terrible creature seized on the moment of Jennifer’s glance and whispered across the big room to her—whispered silently with its eyes:

Run away, Jennifer. Something terrible is going to happen soon. You have to tell Sam. You have to warn Sam Hopkins, your friend.

Jennifer gasped, then forced herself to look away and followed the nurse through the door.

Now she was in the doctor’s office.

The doctor—if she really was a doctor—and of course she was; her mother had told her she was and she had sounded nice on the phone. Why would her mother lie to her? Unless she was one of them . . .

The doctor was a small woman with a nice face.

Nice face, rice cakes, ice skates, Jennifer thought.

She was wearing a black sweater and a gray skirt. She came around her desk and held out her hand to Jennifer. It was a very small hand, like a child’s. Jennifer shook it.

“I’m Dr. Fletcher,” the doctor said. “You must be Jennifer.”

Yes, Jennifer thought, I must be. Because if I could be anyone else, I would!

Dr. Fletcher and her rice-cakes-nice-face sat in the swivel chair to one side of the desk. Jennifer sat in the armchair across from her. Dr. Fletcher held a yellow pad on her skirt. She held a pen in her hand. This worried Jennifer. Was Dr. Fletcher going to write down what she said? Was she going to report her to the demon king of St. Agnes . . . or someone?

“Your mother says you’ve been having some frightening experiences lately,” Dr. Fletcher said.

Jennifer hesitated. She was afraid. She was afraid if she told the truth, the doctor would think she was crazy and lock her in a padded room wearing a straitjacket. But on the other hand, she was afraid of the whispers in the night and the coffin under the tree and the creature who had stared at her across the room outside.

“Something terrible is coming. Soon.”

Maybe the doctor could help make these things go away.

“Sometimes I get afraid,” Jennifer said.

“What makes you afraid, Jennifer?”

Jennifer wasn’t sure what to say. She shook her head.

“Are there unusual things happening in your life?” Dr. Fletcher asked her. She swiveled in the chair. She held the notepad on her skirt. She held the pen in her tiny, childlike hand, waiting to write down Jennifer’s answers. “Are there things happening that haven’t happened before?”

Jennifer nodded cautiously.

“Do you see things that worry you?” the doctor asked. “Do you see things that other people can’t see?”

“Sometimes, yes,” Jennifer managed to say. Rice cakes, ice skates, mice on skates. Mice on skates—that was a funny idea—but she knew she couldn’t say it out loud or the doctor really would think she was crazy.

“Do you hear voices other people can’t hear?”

Jennifer bit her lip and nodded. How did the doctor know? Who was she? Who was she really?

Dr. Fletcher reached out with one of her small hands and touched the knee of Jennifer’s jeans. “It’s all right,” she said, with her nice-rice face. “I know you’re scared. What’s happening to you feels very frightening.”

“What’s happening to me?” Jennifer blurted out, her voice cracking. She had worried about this so much, so long, she could hardly bear to ask the question out loud. She clamped her lips shut to keep from saying anything else.

Dr. Fletcher had brown hair, but she was too old to have brown hair so it must’ve been dyed. Was it a disguise? Dyes disguise from eyes that spy. Was the so-called doctor hiding from someone?

“I’m not sure yet what’s happening to you, Jennifer,” Dr. Fletcher said, taking her small hand back from Jennifer’s knee. “We’re going to try to find out. Then I hope we’ll be able to help you feel better.”

In spite of her suspicions, Jennifer liked the doctor. In spite of her fear, she wanted to trust her. She confided in her: “I’m afraid something terrible is about to happen.”

“Something terrible like what?”

Jennifer shook her head. She wasn’t sure. “Soon,” she said.

“You feel you can predict the future? That you know what’s going to happen before it happens?”

Jennifer’s eyes roamed over the walls, looking for any signs that the demons had been here. Had they put the wallpaper up just for her, just before she came in? It was flower wallpaper. And there were flowers on the doctor’s desk. And there was a calendar next to the flowers.

“Sunday,” Jennifer said. When she looked at the calendar, the word came into her head like a sound.

“Sunday?” the doctor asked.

“Something terrible is going to happen Sunday.” Suddenly she knew this. She did not know how she knew it, but she did.

“Did the voices tell you this?”

Jennifer nodded.

“And did you see who was speaking?”

“I saw the thing in the coffin. It reached up to grab me.” Jennifer saw no point in hiding the truth anymore. “In the hallway under the tree. I have to warn Sam. It’s Sunday. Sunday. I remember now.”

Dr. Fletcher took the notepad off her skirt. She laid it down on a lampstand next to her. “All right,” she said. “We’re going to have to do some tests.”

“Tests?” Jennifer said. Her heart beat hard. She was afraid. What kind of tests would they do? Would they have to take pieces out from inside her to study them?

“It’s all right,” the doctor said. “It won’t be painful. We’re just going to take some pictures of your brain to make sure there’s nothing wrong in there.”

“You won’t have to take it out, though?” Jennifer asked. “My brain, I mean. You won’t have to remove it to take the pictures?”

Dr. Fletcher gave her a kind rice-cake smile. “No. We’ll just take pictures of it. We won’t take out your brain.”

Jennifer pretended to laugh. “I knew that. I was only joking.”

Dr. Fletcher stood up. “All right,” she said. “You wait right here and I’m going to arrange to have the pictures taken. Don’t be afraid, Jennifer. We’re going to take good care of you, all right?”

Dr. Fletcher went out of the room, closing the door behind her. So now Jennifer was alone in the office. Swallowing hard, she looked around.

The office was a big room. There were bookshelves on the opposite wall. There was the desk with a great big window behind it. There were also the two chairs: the swivel chair and the one Jennifer was sitting in.

The lights were on in the office, but the office was shadowy—maybe because the venetian blinds on the big window behind the desk were closed. Jennifer wondered why the blinds were closed when it was only afternoon. Was there something out there she wasn’t supposed to see?

She turned back to the door. Still shut. Where had Dr. Fletcher gone? What were these tests she was going to take? She said they weren’t going to take Jennifer’s brain out, but that didn’t make sense. How could they take pictures of her brain without taking it out?

Jennifer bit her lip and her eyes filled with tears. Any minute, the doctor would come back and then the tests would begin.

She glanced at the window again. Maybe the demons were just outside the window, getting the testing machines ready. And the knives . . .

She couldn’t stand the suspense. She got up from her chair. Quickly she went around the desk to the big window. She opened the slats on the venetian blinds and peeked out through the glass.

There were no machines out there that she could see. There was just the parking lot. Right there, right outside. She could see the road beyond. The gray sky through a line of trees.

But the machines were waiting. The knives were waiting. Somewhere. Any moment, the doctor would come back and take her away for her tests.

Brain. Pain. Windowpane.

Something terrible is going to happen. Soon. Sunday.

Run, Jennifer!

The voice spoke again, loudly, right beside her, and almost before Jennifer knew what she was doing, she had seized the rope that worked the venetian blinds and yanked it down, drawing the blinds up to expose the window. The window lock was easy to work, even with her fingers trembling. Then the window was open wide.

Jennifer started climbing out. Her heart pounded in her chest so hard she thought it would explode. Any moment, she thought, the doctor would come back in and catch her and call the demons to put her in a straitjacket and take her away so they could cut her brain out. She knew her mother would tell her that was a crazy thought, that she shouldn’t have thoughts like that . . .

But maybe that was because her mother was one of them.

All this flashed through her mind so fast she hardly knew what was a fantasy and what was real. She just knew that something terrible was going to happen and she had to get out, she had to escape, she had to run, run, run away.

And so that’s exactly what she did.