Dance with the Devil

tiny fruit-nut cakes by Patricia. Somehow, without later being able to recall just what had lead her into it, Katherine mentioned the strangled, tortured cat and the Satanic markings she had found on the barn floor.
        “How awful!” Lydia said. “It's the worst possible welcome I can imagine.”
        “Michael Harrison warned me to be careful of such things,” she said. “He said that if I ever came across anything like that I was not to hang around it for fear the Satanists would return.”
        “Silliness!” Lydia said. “What would they return for?”
        “Perhaps they wouldn't appreciate my mucking around in their chalk drawings and disturbing the body of their sacrifice-”
        “Don't listen to Harrison,” Alex said. The disdainful tone had come back into his voice, stronger than it had been before. “These so-called Satanists are probably a few local teenagers playing some silly games to keep the adults up in the air.”
        “But killing animals is more than a game-that's ugly mischief.”
        “Still, some teenagers can be ugly when they want,” Lydia said.
        “I suppose.”
        Lydia picked up one of the last pieces of cake and took a dainty bite from it. When she had chewed and swallowed, she said, “Anyway, even if it isn't a prank, one can hardly take Satanists seriously. I mean, all those ghostly chants at midnight, drawing chalk circles and trying to summon demons, selling their souls… It's so absurd that it's nearly funny.”
        “I guess,” she said, though she did not like the way they were so quick to belittle the notion of danger.
        “Don't let Harrison upset you,” Alex said, smiling at her over the last of his coffee, white trails of steam rising in front of his face so that it looked, at odd moments, as if he were staring at her through an ethereal veil. “He never has been one for responsibility. His approach to the Satanists pretty much matches his irresponsible behavior in other ways.”
        “Really, Alex,” Lydia said, “you don’t have to be that hard on the boy, do you?”
        “I don't like him,” Alex said flatly. His dark eyebrows pressed together over his nose as he frowned, and his lips were compressed as tightly as two pencil lines.
        “I think he seems a fine, capable young man,” Lydia said imperiously, as if the subject were now closed.
        “You're generous with everyone,” he said. “Far too generous.”
        Katherine wished she could derail this most recent line of the conversation and get back to more pleasant topics. She had noticed, all through the evening, that Alex Boland tended to look upon the gloomy side of things, tempering his mother's bright and cheerful outlook on nearly every subject. His put-down of Michael Harrison, whom Katherine had liked a good deal, was like a black cherry on the top of his vaguely unpleasant fault-finding.
        Lydia looked at her wristwatch for the first time that evening and said, somewhat surprised, “Goodness, it's going on eleven o'clock!” She smiled at Katherine and said, “I guess that's s certain proof that we are going to get along well together-I didn't notice a dull, dragging moment all evening long.” She stood up, dusting her hands together. “And I'm afraid that I have not been at all thoughtful. You haven't even been shown your quarters yet-or given a chance to rest. You must be enormously weary after a day of driving in this weather.”
        “I do feel ready for bed,” Katherine admitted.
        “I'd imagine the covers are turned down,” Lydia said. “Your private bath contains extra linen and towels, but Yuri can show you all of that.”
        “One thing,” Katherine said.
        “Yes?”
        “I'd like to know what time I'm expected to be up and around in the morning and if-”
        Lydia said, “No trouble there. I rise at eight-thirty or nine o'clock in the morning-neither country-early nor rich-late.” She chuckled, a sixty-four-year-old woman who looked fifty and acted thirty-five. “I'm usually ready to dictate a few letters or clear up some other business by ten-thirty or so. If you're available then, that's fine.”
        “Marvelous!” Katherine said, unable to contain her enthusiasm for the relaxed schedule.
        In the orphanage, the morning began promptly at seven o'clock, rain or shine, no matter what the season, except for Saturday when there was no school, no crafts and no church services. Then, you