Demon Child (6 page)

    Jenny realized that Cora wanted to justify her own reluctance to bring in a psychiatrist.

    “If it's a psychological problem, love will handle it. I
know
it will, Jenny. That's what neither of the twins ever had before they came here. Lena was-well, not much of a mother for them.”

    Jenny just nodded agreement. She sensed that Cora did not expect her to reply yet. She only wanted a sympathetic ear to which she could talk for a while. It might seem odd, to some people, that an older and more sophisticated woman would wish to confide to a sympathetic, unexperienced girl. But, darn it, they were both women. And there were certain times, certain feelings that a woman could only explain to another woman, regardless of their respective ages.

    “They were shunted around like furniture,” Cora went on. “They weren't given affection except, maybe, by passing governesses who changed as fast as Lena got angry with them. And Lena is always getting angry with someone.”

    “You give them plenty of love,” Jenny said. “They'll be far happier here. From what I understand, there's little chance of Lena wanting to take them back full time.”

    “Very little,” Cora agreed. She stared out the one uncurtained window at the darkness beyond. After a few minutes of silence, she said, “Do you think Freya should see a psychiatrist?”

    “I could hardly say,” Jenny said. “I haven't been around long enough to tell.”

    “She's such a fragile child. She cried every night in that hospital. I don't think it would be best to have a stranger probing at her, trying to tear down her defenses.”

    “She's very quiet, sort of shy,” Jenny said, remembering that Frank had done most of the talking that afternoon while the little girl had watched and listened like an outsider.

    “Exactly,” Cora said. “She opens up with me. But it has taken nearly a year to get her to. If I can have a few more months to love her and make her feel wanted, I think the fainting spells will pass. I think this is what she needs-love.”

    Jenny smiled and took one of the older woman's hands. “Then it really isn't a curse?” she asked, trying to inject a bit of humor into this, to lift some of the gloom.

    But the question had exactly the opposite effect. Cora paled and shivered all over. “I've long been interested in the occult,” Cora said. “I would never refute any possibility. Even a curse. It's possible. And if you could have seen the dead rabbit that was found on the front porch-and the blood on the window where the thing must have stood, looking in…”

    “Just because there was a wolf lose on the grounds doesn't mean it was anything supernatural. There must be lots of wolves in woods like these when-”

    “That's just it,” Cora interrupted. “There haven't been wolves in this part of Pennsylvania for almost twenty years. They've been killed off by bounty hunters, just like most of the mountain lions.”

    
Run, run, run, Jenny.,.

    Cora shook herself, squeezed her niece's hand and let go of it. “Never mind me. I just wanted to let you know that I do care about Freya. And I wanted to tell you not to hold Richard's ways against him. He has only been so surly because he, too, is concerned. He loves the twins. He wants the best for them. We just disagree on what is best, that's all. He's a fine boy.”

    She stood. “Even if it is a curse,” she said, “my plan should work best. I've read a great deal on the subject. Before- Before this happened to Freya, and since. And I know that many curses can be broken by love, by a great deal of love.” Then she smiled vacantly and left the room.

    Jenny had trouble sleeping that night, thinking of poor Freya in her coma, fighting off real or imagined demons. Twice, on the verge of sleep, with restful blackness closing around her, she was awakened by what sounded like the distant, mournful howling of a lone wolf. But she could not be sure…

    When she finally did sleep, she had bad dreams. She was in the cemetery again, before the tombstones. Again, her dead parents and Grandmother Brighton warned her to run, to escape. Again she heard footsteps on the flagstone walk. The only difference was that she could see her pursuer this time. It was a great, black wolf with red eyes like hot coals, a slavering tongue that flicked across the sharpest, whitest teeth she had ever seen…

    She woke from that dream, muttering deep in her throat. Even when the dream had left her, she sat in bed, heart thumping, short of breath. Beyond the window, the Friday morning sky was mostly covered with flat, gray clouds, though the sun managed to burn its way through the covering most of the time. She opened the other curtain which had remained closed since her first night in this room, letting as much light as possible into the room.

    She showered, brushed her hair dry, dressed for riding and went downstairs.

    There was no routine for breakfast. Though the others had been up and around for some time, Anna wanted to make her eggs and bacon. She managed to talk Anna into letting her have just a roll and orange juice, and the cook lectured her on the importance of a good breakfast while she ate her meager one.

    Outside, though the sky was overcast, she felt better. It was as if the nightmares were locked in the house and only her optimism was permitted to come outside with her.

    She took her time on the long walk down to the stables, absorbing the fine country morning. Birds wheeled across the sky, settled into trees, chirped loudly from their hidden perches behind clusters of leaves. A squirrel paused on the rough bark of a sycamore tree, something held tightly in its jaws so that its furry face was swollen. It pretended to be a statue until she had passed by.

    When she finally did reach the stables, she saw that Hollycross' door was wide open. It was a latching half-door, and the lock was stiff. She always made certain it was properly latched, but it looked as if she might have forgotten to double-check it yesterday.

    She hurried forward, afraid that the animal had broken loose during the night. Richard had told her what a rugged game it was to catch a runaway horse, even when it could not go beyond the fenced grounds of the estate. She didn't want to be responsible for putting him through an ordeal of that nature.

    When she reached Hollycross' stall in the line, she stepped through the open half-door, calling the horse's name.

    The animal lay in its straw.

    For a moment, Jenny thought it was ill.

    Then she saw the blood.

    In the dim light of the stables, with the smell of crisp straw in her nostrils and with birds singing somewhere behind her, she saw the ruined throat of the once-proud mare. It had been clawed and chewed open. Blood had dried in the chestnut coat.

    The eyes were open and staring.

    There were other signs of violence. All of them had been made by teeth and claws. It looked much as if a large and cunning wolf had trapped the mare and had worked its evil temper on her.

    Before she could realize what she was doing, Jenny had back-stepped out of the stall and was screaming at the top of her voice…

    

    Aunt Cora had wanted her to try to nap until they could reach Dr. Malmont and fetch him to the house, but Jenny would not take the sleeping tablet offered her. In sleep, there were nightmares. She would not even drink the drollop of brandy which Harold wanted to give her, for fear that she would grow drowsy under its influence. It was just not the proper moment for sleep.

    Not after seeing Hollycross crumpled in the straw in the dimly lighted stall.

    She would not permit the room to be darkened, but kept both windows uncurtained and kept the reading lamp burning as well. She never again wanted to be anywhere that there wasn't enough light. She hoped she would not ever again have to go out at night or sleep without a lamp burning.

    In darkness, things could creep up on you without your knowledge, surprise you unpleasantly.

    Anna sat across the room, preparing next week's menu. She seemed almost unaffected by what had happened. Yet, now and again, Jenny caught the old woman staring into space, her attention diverted from steaks, vegetables and desserts. The incidents at the Brucker house had finally come between the cook and her profession, and that meant the situation had grown serious.

    Jenny's eye fell on the red spines of the witchcraft books. She looked quickly away.

    Could there really be a curse? And if there could be, she thought, is it possible that
I
am the one who is cursed? It seemed like everyone or everything she loved met with grief or death before long. First her parents. Then Grandmother Brighton, just as Jenny was growing old enough to truly appreciate the depths of that old woman. Then, when she was beginning to grow fond of Hollycross and of their daily rambles about the estate, the horse had died. And, again, the death had been a violent one. Perhaps Freya was not the possessed soul. Perhaps it was Jenny Brighton who drew disaster like a lightning rod.

    These and other terrible thoughts fled across her mind. She knew they were doing her no good, but she could not ignore them.

    At that moment, the door opened. Cora came in, closed it gently behind her. “Are you feeling better, Jenny?” she asked. She looked very haggard herself.

    “A little,” Jenny lied.

    Cora sat on the foot of the bed, patted her niece's knee where it rested beneath the blanket. “We've gotten in touch with Dr. Malmont. He'll be along in about fifteen minutes now.”

    The woman sounded so achingly exhausted that Jenny felt a little guilty about adding to her aunt's concerns. She sat up a little straighter in the bed and brushed her dark hair back from her face. She tried a smile, then opted for a bland expression when she realized the smile must look very forced.

    “You look tired,” she told Cora. “You should have Dr. Malmont give you something.”

    “I'll be all right. But, I swear, if any more of those real estate brokers come around, I'm going to beat them off with a broom!” She wiped a hand across tired eyes, smiled. “I guess they're only trying to do their job. But we've told them again and again that we don't want to sell the estate. Can you picture all this lovely woodland built up with motels and gas stations to service that ugly superhighway of theirs? That picture, on top of our present troubles, is enough to make me sick!”

    “What has Richard done about-about Hollycross?” Jenny asked.

    “He called a veterinarian in town. They just got finished putting her in the vet's truck. Richard's acting quite mysterious about it, won't let anyone enter the stable, won't let Harold clean it out. In fact he gave Harold express orders to leave everything as it is.”

    That seemed odd. The sooner the blood was cleaned up and fresh straw put down, the sooner the stables would lose the aura of horror that it now held for all of them.

    “We're having top halves put on the other three stall doors. Richard plans to chain lock them tonight and keep the keys in his room. He believes someone had to open the door for the-wolf, or whatever.”

    “Not if it was a-well
that
kind of a wolf,” Jenny said. “Then no one would have had to open the door for it, would they?”

    “But Richard doesn't believe in curses,” Cora said.

    Anna did not join in the conversation at all, but kept her head tilted, busily juggling the following week's menu again.

    “But you still do,” Jenny said.

    “Yes. I believe.”

    Jenny couldn't say for certain what she herself believed. There were too many conflicting terrors loose in her mind to be able to pick one that was dominant.

    “For one thing,” Cora said, staring out the window at the noon sun, “we didn't hear anything last night. In all that terrible battle between Hollycross and the- the thing, we heard nothing. Hollycross seems not even to have whinnied. And if she tried to return the attack, there's no sign of it. Her hooves did not deal any damage out there.”

    Jenny had just long enough to contemplate the meaning of these details before Dr. Malmont arrived, huffing and puffing, cursing the number of steps from one floor of the Brucker mansion to another.

    “People must have been healthier in the previous century,” he said, his face scarlet as he dropped his bag on a chair beside Jenny's bed. “You'd have to have the constitution of an ox to go up and down those stairs every day of the week!”

    He was such a comical character-perhaps intentionally-that he helped to take Jenny's mind off the dark and unexplainable affairs of the household. His tie was askew, his shirt collar slightly open.

    She said, “Maybe people in the last century didn't ride everywhere in a car and didn't drink too many martinis or eat too many high calorie foods. Did they have potato chips back then, for instance?”

    Malmont looked down at his bulging paunch, then up at Jenny with mock consternation on his face. “Young lady, are you inferring that I have not kept myself physically fit?”

    “Oh, no!” Jenny said, exaggerating her response.

    Malmont shrugged. “Well, perhaps I haven't followed my advice to the letter. But I make certain my patient's do!”

    He took her temperature, blood pressure. He checked the size of her pupils, listened to her heart, took her pulse. He was swift and economical in his movements, handling the instruments of his profession as if they were somehow outgrowths of his own body.

    “Perhaps a little shock,” he said. “But you're fine. My recommendations are a big, hot meal for supper, a little earlier than is the Brucker norm. Have it in bed. Will that be too much of an inconvenience, Anna?”

    The cook looked up, surprised that she had been addressed. “No trouble at all, doctor.”

    “Fine. Then, some light television or light reading. No melodrama. And early to bed after two of these.” He took a small bottle of sleeping capsules from his case.