The Moonlit Mind by Dean Koontz

Author:Dean Koontz
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780345530134
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 2011-11-28T05:00:00+00:00

12

Crispin is nine and under the influence of a malign spell following Mirabell’s flight to Paris.…

Only much later will he think of himself as spellbound, but whether that is the truth of his condition or not, he passes August and September that year in a curious state of detachment, with little energy for a boy his age.

He reads books that he enjoys, but days later he can barely remember the stories.

He plays board games and card games with Harley, but he doesn’t care—or recall—who wins.

He sleeps a lot, daydreams when he isn’t sleeping, and finds himself some nights and afternoons in Harley’s room, sitting bedside, watching his brother sleep.

Mr. Mordred still homeschools them, but he teaches with less diligence than ever and requires of them no homework. Sometimes Crispin feels as if the tutor does not intend to educate them, only to maintain a pretense of education, that there is nothing for which they will need an education.

For a while, Harley continues to search for the three white cats, but by mid-August, he loses interest in that quest.

Crispin sees little of his mother, less of his stepfather. Those infrequent encounters support the exceedingly bizarre perception he has that Theron Hall is much larger than its official square footage and that it is growing bigger all the time.

He sees much of Nanny Sayo, both waking and in dreams. In the waking world, she is always affectionate toward him and respects her role as a surrogate parent. In dreams, she is usually the same as in real life, though now and then a sudden wildness overcomes her and she springs on him, tearing at his clothes and nipping at his throat without breaking the skin, all in such a way that frightens Crispin but also strangely excites him.

Sometimes the dream nanny looks exactly like the real woman. But at other times she will have one different feature: this time, the yellow eyes of a lizard; the next time, reptilian teeth or scaly hands with beautiful pearly claws.

Mirabell telephones again from Paris, once in late August and once in mid-September. She speaks with her mother, with Harley, with Nanny Sayo, and even with Mr. Mordred. The first time that she calls, Crispin is sleeping late, and no one thinks to wake him. On the second occasion, he is in bed with the mysterious fever that never lasts more than a day but that comes upon him every few weeks.

When eventually he flees Theron Hall, he will marvel that so many clues to the truth of that place and its denizens were offered to him without triggering his suspicion, let alone his alarm. If he was spellcast, it must have been a spell disabling his ability to make even obvious connections, to reason from evidence, and to hold in memory proofs of the conspiracy in the web of which he was caught.

Two days after Mirabell disappears, Crispin comes out of the miniature room and sees the matriarch, Jardena, crossing from the elevator to the door of her suite.

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