Demon Child

drawing room before she realized it. Aunt Cora was placing a silver tray of sandwiches and chips upon a low cocktail table, engrossed in making the decorative garnish as well-placed as possible. Behind her, on a deep green sofa, two blonde-haired and blue-eyed children sat. Though one was a boy and one a girl, they were quite obviously twins. They saw her in the doorway and stared at her. They did not smile or speak, but watched her cautiously.
        Like shy children, she told herself.
        Yet she couldn't stop wondering if their silence and their inspection of her were more than that.
        But what?
        Neither Freya nor Frank looked like a child who was supposedly under the sinister influence of some mysterious family curse-nor like a child with deep psychological problems. They were healthy, tending toward chubbiness, with eyes that were quick and alert and almost too blue to be real. She smiled at them to show her own desire to make friends.
        Neither child returned her smile.
        In that instant, Cora caught sight of her and stood abruptly erect, startled. She was a lovely woman who looked a decade younger than her fifty-one years. Her dark hair was tinted with gray that she chose not to conceal with some artificial rinse. There were no wrinkles in her face, no weariness of age in her eyes. She took three quick steps from the table and embraced her niece.
        For the first time in months, Jenny felt as if she were safe. Here were arms to encircle her and someone to love and be loved by. Since Grandmother Brighton's death, the world had seemed more and more inhospitable as time went by. She had the silly, impossible wish never to have to leave the Brucker Estate again.
        Richard joined them when he had changed to dry clothes, and they had a delightful mid-afternoon tea with cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, wedges of cheese, crackers and potato chips. Frank and Freya, the twins, seemed to come out of their cocoons somewhat, offered a few words of response to questions she asked them. They even smiled once or twice. She decided that their original coolness was more the result of their training in manners and behavior than it was any conscious effort to make her feel ill at ease.
        At last, shortly after four o'clock, Cora said, “But we're being very rude to you, dear. You've had a long bus ride. You'll want a bath and a few hours of rest before supper. Harold serves us at seven-thirty in the small family room just a few steps further down the corridor.” She turned to Richard. “Have you put her bags upstairs?”
        “In the blue room, Cora,” he said, finishing his tea.
        “Come along then, Jenny,” Cora said. “I'll show you where you'll be spending these summer nights.”
        As they walked up the long, central staircase from the entrance foyer, Jenny began to notice, for the first time, the barely checked case of bad nerves in her aunt. Cora played with her long, dark hair as she walked, winding strands of it in her fingers, releasing those strands, winding others. She spoke too quickly, with a nervous, forced gaiety that could no longer be attributed to her seeing her niece for the first time since Grandmother Brighton's funeral.
        Too, for the first time since she had entered the house, Jenny was aware of the storm again. It banged on the slate roof. It pattered rain against the windows. Flickers of lightning played through the glass and danced on the dark steps for brief, unpleasant moments.
        “We'll do some riding this summer,” Cora said as they topped the stairs and left them for the second floor corridor. “Do you like horses?”
        “I've ridden them once or twice,” Jenny said. “But you'll make me look like a city slicker in the saddle.”
        “Richard is marvelous with horses,” Cora said. “He can teach you what you don't know. He handles the family business, but it leaves him a great deal of spare time.”
        At the end of the corridor, Cora opened a heavy, dark-stained pecan door which had been hand-carved with the forms of dragons and elves. It might once have been destined to be a child's room. It was large, airy, with two windows curtained with umber velvet. The bed was large, spread over with a white satin quilt. There were two dressers, a full-length mirror, a night-stand and two bookcases half filled with various kinds of books, from classic to modern fiction.
        Her bags waited on a