Demon Child

What was this curse that Aunt Cora talked about and which he called a “psychiatric problem"?
        Lightning threw the front of the house into strange shadows; thunder shook the many windows.
        Again, the wind moaned horribly in the eaves.
        That uncontrollable fear of the unknown and the unexpected rose in Jenny. She thought of her mother and father, of Grandmother Brighton. She wished, oh so very much, that she had found something else to occupy her summer. But she realized there was no backing out now.
        She went with Harold into that bleak and foreboding house…

----

    2
        
        If the exterior of the house had been foreboding, the interior made up for that. It was warm and comfortable with an air of well-being that could very nearly be touched. The walls of the entry foyer were richly papered in a gold and white antique print. The closet doors were heavy, dark oak. The few pieces of furniture were all heavy pine styled in a rustic, colonial mode that bespoke usefulness and sensibility. In such a house, one could feel protected, shielded, away from the cares of the rest of the world. The moan of the wind in the eaves was distant and unfrightening.
        Yet, even as she gave less thought to the fears that had bothered her only moments ago, Jenny wondered if this were not a false sense of security that prevailed in the house. At times, you had to be careful, cautious. Just when you turned your back on some danger, smug in your certainty of safety, it might spring up anew and attack you when you least expected it.
         A car on a rain-slicked highway…
         A burst blood vessel in an old woman's brain…
        She shivered.
        “Cold?” Harold asked as he took her coat and hung it in the closet.
        “A little.”
        “A touch of brandy should clear that up,” he said. “Would you like a drop or two in your coffee?”
        Under normal circumstances, Jenny did not approve of liquor. She felt that it was a crutch against the burdens of the world. But at this moment, she could see little harm in giving in to Harold's suggestion. She really was quite cold and nervous. She nodded her consent.
        “Good,” Harold said, slipping his own coat into the closet. “Your aunt should be in the drawing room. Straight down this corridor, on your left through the curtained arch. If you will excuse me, I'll take the back hall to the kitchen and get the coffee ready. You look positively chilled to the bone!”
        He left her standing there, alone in the house for the first time. Abruptly, the front door opened behind her, admitting the throbbing moan of the wind in the eaves and the hiss of rain drumming the driveway. Richard fought inside with the umbrella and the suitcase, set the bag down.
        “One more,” he said.
        “I should have helped you with those!”
        “I've got my bumbershoot,” he said.
        “And it isn't doing you a bit of good.”
        “You hurry along to Cora. She'll be waiting for vou”
        He plunged back into the downpour. The rain slashed under the rim of his umbrella and soaked his clothes.
        She supposed there was nothing she could do for him. She turned and followed the corridor, fascinated by the rich oil paintings hung against the polished mahogany paneling. The frames alone were more expensive than the framed lithographs she had been used to in her own home as a child.
        Cora's family had warned her against the marriage. They had been as opposed to her marrying to a higher station in life as many families might have been against a girl marrying beneath herself. The Brightons had a fierce pride and a stubborn insistence that a Brighton should earn his way and not marry or inherit wealth. Fortunately, Aunt Cora had followed the dictates of her own heart and had ignored them all.
        The marriage had been happy. Alex and Cora Brucker behaved like newlyweds throughout the years, right up until his death two years before. Money was never a problem. Neither was his business, for he had inherited it when it was running smoothly and needed to spend only one or two days a week attending to the larger details. Richard presented no source of conflict for his step-mother. Though not of Cora's blood, he was always polite to her, obedient, free with his love. He remained their only child, and the years passed un-marred.
        Engaged in such thoughts, she came to the archway into the