Read The Third Eye for Free Online Page A

things she was saying were terrible. They were also ridiculous. No one in his right mind would condemn somebody for having hunches.
    “Go away,” she whispered. “Mom, please, go away.”
    The silence that followed lasted for such a long time that Karen was actually beginning to wonder if she
had
gone, when her mother spoke again. This time her voice was softer.
    “Karen,” Mrs. Connors said, “there is something I want you to think about. You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to, but you do have to consider it. It got bad, very bad for our family after the Mickey Duggin thing. There were notes in the mail. There were phone calls. There were odd people turning up on the doorstep, wanting a look at you. It was disturbing enough, even back when you were a five-year-old, that I swore to myself I would never let it happen again.”
    “If it was that bad, you’d think that I’d remember,” Karen said without opening her eyes.
    “It was bad enough,” her mother said, “ that we decided to leave the neighborhood. That’s when we moved here.”

CHAPTER 5
    Karen dreamed that night, and the dreams were not pleasant. Even though she slept the next morning until noon and then fell into bed again immediately after dinner, she was still exhausted on Monday.
    She sat through her first-period history class, struggling to focus her mind on the teacher’s lecture, only to find his words sliding away from her like the Jell-O between Stephanie Zenner’s chubby fingers. When the bell rang at the end of the period, she was startled to realize that an entire hour had gone by and she had no recollection of what material had been covered.
    Tim was waiting in the hall to walk her to English.
    “I tried to call you yesterday,” he said as he fell into step beside her. “You didn’t answer your cell, and when I called the home phone your mom said you were sleeping. Then I triedlast night, and your
dad
said you were sleeping. You must have really zonked out.”
    “I was so tired I couldn’t think straight,” Karen told him. “I still am, actually. That thing with Bobby was a nightmare. When you think about what could have happened…”
    “But it didn’t. The kid’s all right, and no one’s pressing charges.” Tim took her arm. “We came out lucky, so let’s put it behind us. To change the subject—did Lisa get a hold of you?”
    “Lisa Honeycutt?” Karen said. “No. Why?”
    “She’s chairman of the prom committee,” Tim said. “She asked me in homeroom this morning if I thought you’d like to be on it.”
    “She did?” Karen exclaimed. “That’s a surprise. Lisa and I barely know each other. We had a couple of classes together last year, but I didn’t even think she knew my name.”
    “Well, you’re wrong,” Tim said. “She does know it, and she knows that you and I are going out. She asked me to emcee on prom night, and I think she wants you to help decorate.”
    “That would be fun,” Karen said.
    At another time she would have been thrilled. It was tradition that the prom committee was composed of the most popular seniors, and she never imagined that she would ever be considered one of them. Today, however, it was as difficult to become excited by the idea of decorating the gym as it had been to get a grip on the history lecture. All she wanted was to go back home and sleep.
    By lunchtime, Karen was relieved to find the dullnesslessening. Like someone recovering from a long and draining illness, she sat with Tim, nibbling halfheartedly at a sandwich and listening to the conversation going on around her.
    Lisa waved from the far side of the crowded cafeteria and worked her way across the room to join them.
    “I guess Tim’s told you that I’d like to have you on my committee,” she said with a smile. “The prom theme is The Secret Garden and we’re going to fix up the gym like a giant garden. We’re putting trellises covered in vines all around and creating paper flowers to