Demon Child

bellboy stand, their tops open, their contents on display. Perhaps it had only been polite of Richard to open the cases so that they could air while waiting for her attention. Just the same, she did not like the idea of his taking such a liberty.
        Cora did not seem to notice.
        Am I being too stuffy? Jenny wondered. Why am I acting as if I have something to fear from my own loved ones?
        She vowed, to herself, to try to be a little less suspicious of people who only wished to help her.
        “You have a private bath there, through that door,” Cora said. She was winding a coil of dark hair around her index finger, smiling but not smiling.
        “It's all so wonderful!” Jenny said, meaning it. She was unaccustomed to such luxury.
        Cora stopped fiddling with her hair and took both of Jenny's hands. The woman's grasp was dry and warm. “I'm so very happy that you came here, Jenny,” she said.
        “So am I, Aunt Cora.”
        “No, no, you don't understand,” Cora said, her voice very earnest now. She lead the young girl to the bed, and they both sat on the edge of the thick mattress, not letting go of each other's hands. “I'm not just making pleasant conversation,” Cora said. “I really am glad you came. Richard and Harold and Anna, that's Harold's wife, are good company. I do a lot of charity work in town. I take vacations. But Alex has only been dead two years. There is still a lot of tune to fill in a day.”
        She stopped speaking, stared for a moment, as if looking beyond the veil of this reality into the spirit world where she might find some way to touch her dead husband.
        Jenny waited.
        At last, she said, “You really loved him, didn't you?”
        Cora seemed reluctant to leave her trance, but she said, “Yes. I know the family was always doubtful about the marriage. But it was perfect.” She came fully alive then. “I hope you are as lucky one day, Jenny. I hope you meet someone like Alex.” She squeezed her niece's hands, let go of them. “But let's not get maudlin, huh?”
        Jenny laughed. “I was prepared for anything. A waitress at the bus terminal warned me about the curse.”
        Cora stopped smiling altogether. Jenny fancied that the woman's face abruptly became an ashen gray, though such a rapid change in color could only be imaginary.
        “You've heard, then. You know it all.”
        Jenny felt cold again. The effect of the brandy had worn off. “Not all, Aunt Cora. Just bits and pieces. Richard was starting to explain the situation to me on the way up, but he didn't get to finish it.”
        Cora rose from the bed and walked to the south window of the room, watched the rain sheeting across the green lawn, misting among the trees like tangled webs of hair. Her fingers played on the glass, drawing senseless patterns and leaving trails of quickly evaporating dampness. For a brief moment, it was as if she were a prisoner in her own home, longing for the freedom of the world beyond.
        She turned back to Jenny. “Whatever Richard told you, it was colored by his optimism.”
        “It was?”
        Cora nodded. “He told you the problem was a psychiatric one, didn't he? He told you that Freya needed psychiatric care?”
        Jenny nodded. “And he said you disagree with him. You think it's some family curse.”
        “I don't think so. I know that it is.”
        Jenny said nothing. She could remember the dream on the bus, and she could hear voices, deep inside her, telling her to run, to escape that rambling, dark house for the lights of town.
        A particularly vicious clap of thunder slammed against the house as if the mansion could be lifted from its foundation by the sheer volume of the storm.
        Cora was silhouetted by the lightning, a yellow halo bursting from her hair, her face momentarily lost in the contrasting purple shadows. In her long, green lounging robe, standing there with the dominant blue color scheme of the room about her, she reminded Jenny of some dead-but-risen heroine in an Edgar Allan Poe story.
        Then the lightning was gone, the booming thunder muted and the eerie effect lost. Aunt Cora was merely Aunt Cora and nothing more.
        “I read a great deal,” Cora said. She seemed to be talking to herself as much as to Jenny. “There were many books in the mansion when I came, and I devoured them, reading what classics I had never before had time for