THE WITCHES OF WORM

Worm, the skinny gray crocodile-eyed cat, must be possessed by a demon; what else, Jessica reasons, could make her do all those nasty things — pushing Brandon's trumpet out the window, throwing her mother's fur trimmed dress in the washing machine and scaring Mrs. Post with that story about a prowler. While everyone else realizes that rejection, not possession, is Jessica's real problem, and Jessica herself has read how Ann and the other girls of Salem learned "how much power they could have by making people believe that nothing they did was their fault." But the solution when it comes begins with an exorcism, not her visit to the psychiatrist, and Jessica's tears, which prove that she's not a witch, are also a form of self therapy. There's some danger that adults will be as spooked by Jessica as she is by Worm's evil eye, but the cat's bewitchment proves a perfect medium for a sensitive, sympathetic probing of a disturbed child's fears and anger — and for a story that economically, seemingly effortlessly, captures the elusive eeriness of the supernatural.