The Devil's Serenade (17 page)

Charlie smiled and shook his head. “Far from it. Church every Sunday morning and Sunday school in the afternoon. I was even a Boy Scout. Got the badges to prove it.”

He grew serious again. “Last night, I couldn’t sleep. I got up to make a hot drink and, from out of nowhere, memories flooded back of that summer when you were sixteen and I had just turned eighteen. I remembered how beautiful you looked in the sunshine, down by the river. I had to kiss you. Couldn’t help myself. Of course, back then, I had no idea we were related. But then…
it
…appeared. I tried to protect you, but you saw it. You ran away screaming and I never saw you again. Until you answered the door a few weeks ago. ”

That was it. The last piece of the infernal jigsaw. I tried to take it all in. Charlie, my old summer friend. My cousin! Hard to take in as I’d imagined then we would become boyfriend and girlfriend. But that all ended that dreadful summer. More memories drifted back into my mind. My mother screaming, hurling abuse at Aunt Charlotte. My father having to restrain her, holding her arms so she couldn’t hit her sister, who already had a bleeding and swelling eye where a paperweight had sliced her eyebrow.

I had watched the tirade as if through a veil. I’d curled into fetal position on Aunt Charlotte’s settee as it all came back to me. My parents had been summoned back early from their safari. Snatches of the terrible row I had suppressed in my mind for so long returned to me.

My mother crying, “What have you done to her?”

Aunt Charlotte standing there. Silent. Her eyes closed as if in prayer.

“Answer me, you
bitch.
The doctor said she was in shock. Something terrible happened. Something so terrible, her brain has shut down. She could be like this for weeks. Months. Maybe…”

My father trying to comfort her. “Hush, Marjorie. You’ll make yourself ill.”

My mother choking back sobs. “You’ll never see her again…do you hear me, bitch?
Never.
From now on, we are dead to you.
Dead.
You don’t contact us. You don’t come near us.”

They didn’t take me home at first.

“I ended up in some sort of sanatorium I suppose. I’d blocked that from my mind too, but now I remember a procession of doctors and nurses, needles, and drugs to keep me from feeling anything. Afterwards I didn’t remember anything about that summer. But there were some anomalies. Like, I could never listen to Glenn Miller again. I never realized why until now.”

Charlie took my hand and I became aware again of our surroundings. Still holding his hand, I looked around. “Where are we?”

“Haven’t you guessed?”

I shook my head.

“The tree. It’s protecting us.”

I stared at him. “Are you seriously telling me we are inside that willow tree by the river? Are you crazy?”

Charlie held me at arm’s length. His eyes burned into mine. “You have to understand, your Aunt Charlotte has done everything she can to protect you from Hargest’s evil. She’s trying to put right the terrible wrong she did, even from beyond the grave. That’s why she sent
them
. She thought they might comfort you.”

“If, by ‘them’ you mean the imaginary family I created, they frightened the bloody life out of me. Then the first time I saw them as they really are…”

“Like a pure version of Hargest. But still scary. They are elemental spirits. They’ve walked this earth since before time, their form and ability to move between dimensions is alien to us because it’s not something we humans are prepared for. It’s beyond our understanding but, in time…”

“So do we become like them? Do we die?”

Charlie shrugged. “I don’t have any answers either. And there’s something else.” He shook his head. “Something I don’t understand yet…”

His voice tailed off and I stared at him. The searing pain of fear had been almost swamped by the revelations Charlie had shared with me. Now, though, the terror flooded back. “My God, Charlie, how do we get out of here?”

He put his arm around me and drew me close. “For now, we don’t. We wait.”

“For what?”

Charlie sighed. “I haven’t a clue.”

We sat together on the dirt floor, each wrapped up in our own thoughts. My body overflowed with unshed tears, but my eyes—like his—remained dry. My emotions were too tautly strung to spill out in the relief of sobbing.

I glanced at my watch, but it had stopped. Stuck at twelve fifteen. I guessed that must have been the exact time I had been transported here. Wherever “here” was. I could hear nothing, except a distant creaking, as if of branches swaying in a stiff breeze. Were we really in the tree itself? Or had it created some sort of protective shield around us in the cellar? I had no answers, only question after question, while hopeless despair gnawed at my gut.

Maybe through exhaustion, or through the exercise of some strange force, I fell asleep…

Chapter
Seven
teen

…and awoke with a start. My mind was in a fog. For a second I couldn’t think where I was. Slowly, the mist cleared. Somehow, I was lying on the settee in my living room and Shona was bending over me. Her frown transformed into a smile as I blinked at her.

“Where’s Charlie?” I said and drew myself up.

“At home I should imagine. It’s six o’clock. I didn’t expect to find you here, but I came early to get things ready for tonight’s rehearsal. Are you all right? You’re so pale.”

I improvised. “I had the strangest dream,” I said, but stopped short of telling her about it.

Shona’s eyes bored into me. I looked away, fearful she could read my thoughts somehow and guess the truth.

She sat down opposite me. “I didn’t think you were ever coming back here.”

“I wasn’t.” I swung my legs over onto the floor and rubbed my eyes. Yet again, I hadn’t a clue how I’d got there. More tricks, bending dimensions or whatever it was the tree spirits did? “I don’t even understand what I’m doing here. Except I went to look for Charlie…” My voice faded as I caught Shona’s continuing intense gaze. I broke eye contact.

“I was going to make a coffee,” she said. “Would you like one?”

“Yes, please. It might help.”

She left me alone with my muddled thoughts. When she returned five minutes later, I was still no clearer on what I had experienced. I had no memory of lying down on the settee and all the thoughts in my head were of Charlie and me in that strange place. Somehow, impossibly, within that tree.

Shona handed me a mug of coffee and I set it down on the small table next to me. I could never take my drinks boiling hot.

She sat opposite me and sipped hers, then pointed at my mug. “You want to get that down you. Perk you up.”

I tried a feeble smile. “Why? Have you put a little something in it?”

She choked, coughing and spluttering, as tears streamed down her face.

“Are you okay? Did it go down the wrong way?”

She nodded, still unable to speak, still coughing. Something wasn’t right about her behavior since I had woken up. It bothered me. I suppose I’ll never be sure of any more than that, why I decided to sniff my drink before tasting it. Maybe I was expecting a whiff of brandy, or alcohol of some other kind.

I didn’t expect the distinctive aroma of bitter almonds.

Shona was preoccupied with wiping her streaming eyes on a tissue. She didn’t see me wrinkle my nose. When I “accidentally” knocked the mug over, she leaped to her feet.

“I’ll go and get a cloth,” she said.

“No need,” I said. “I’ll get one. Later.”

“But it’ll stain,” she said.

“I’m sure it will,” I said. “But why should I care? I’m leaving here anyway.”

She stared at me. And, at that moment, I knew she realized I’d guessed.

“Why, Shona? Who are you really?”

But, of course, by then I had worked it out.

Her short black hair grew down her back; the woman toppled onto all fours, the seams of her smart navy suit stretched and split and her hair became a glossy coat of fur. I backed away, heading for the door as her eyes flashed red. Canine teeth sprouted from her rapidly lengthening snout and a low rumbling growl bounced off the walls.

I had to get out of there before her transformation was complete. I made it outside, just as I heard the stomping of paws behind me. I slammed the front door shut and there was a splintering crash as the huge black dog made contact with the heavy wood. Several of the glass panels shattered and a massive black paw scrabbled through the hole. My car stood outside, but I didn’t have my keys.

I ran down the drive. A white van hurtled toward me, its brakes screeching as the driver pulled up inches from me.

“Maddie. Get in!” Charlie threw open the passenger door and I scrambled inside, barely aware of what I was doing.

The tires squealed as he spun the wheel and made off. Behind us, the animal had made it through the door and was charging after the van. Charlie shot out onto the High Street, narrowly missing a lorry. The angry horn blasts faded into the distance, and we sped up the street, past the apartments and out of the town.

Only then dared I draw a complete breath.

I glanced over at Charlie. His knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel, turning the van right and left down narrow country lanes.

“Where are we going?”

“To the only place you’ll be safe.”

“I’ll be safe anywhere but here.”

“No you won’t.”

“I only know that before I came here, I was fine. I had a normal life. I can have that again. Take me away from here, Charlie.
Please
.” I had never begged for anything so hard in my life, but his blank expression meant I had no idea if he had even heard me.

Charlie turned the van once more and we were driving over a field. My head kept hitting the roof as the vehicle bumped and struggled over the uneven ground. Charlie spoke and his voice was emotional. Full of regret. “No, Maddie. You can never have that again. I’m so sorry.”

“She tried to poison me. Shona. She put cyanide in my coffee. I smelled it. Bitter almonds. And then she changed. She…”

“I knew her—or one of her kind—as Suzannah.”

“I’ve heard that name before.”

“Back when the social club was still here, she posed as a barmaid but really she was a cambion—a creature that is neither human nor spirit, but an evil spawn of both that can change shape at will. In her case, Suzannah could transform into a black dog. I remember how it was on the night of the unholy fire. That dog—the one Shona became—it will hunt you down, and through it, Nathaniel will find you and bring you to his master. It’s already killed at least once. That poor old woman, Mrs. Lloyd. I’m certain she didn’t simply die of a heart attack. She died of fright. I think she guessed what Shona really was and confronted her.”

His face contorted and he slammed on the brakes. The van screeched to a halt. My seatbelt stopped me from being thrown through the windscreen, but my ribs hurt like hell.

“Charlie!”

He thumped his head on the steering wheel. He looked at me with reddened eyes, tears streaming down his face, but something in those eyes scared me.

“I’m so, so sorry, Maddie. I’m sorry I ran away and left you in the house on your own. I saw you come out, looking for me, and I hid. When you’d gone, I drove off. I was so scared. He got to me, Maddie. Hargest. At the house. He got inside my head. But I had to come back. I have to do this while I still can. Before
he
takes over.”

Nathaniel Hargest. Reborn in the son? A chill spread through my body. “No, Charlie, no. You’re Aunt Charlotte’s son too. Call on her. She saved you before, remember? She can save you again.”

“No, he’s too strong. I tricked them. The spirits. I told them who I was and made them believe I needed protection too. That’s why they let me be with you in the tree, but they found out. They sensed what was growing inside me. I know you can’t remember. They blanked your memory. They were going to cast me out, but I took you with me. I had to do it. He made me.”

I stared at him, horrified. Tears flowed freely down Charlie’s face. “I can feel him growing. Like a cancer. In my brain. In my very soul. I have to end this, but you…I have to make sure you’re safe. For all time. He must not have you. Charlotte was wrong to trade you for me. She failed anyway. All she did was buy time. He is too powerful.”

A soft tapping came from the window behind my head.

Charlie nodded toward the sound. “Go with them. They will protect you. I’ll give him what he wants. You’ll be safe then.”

“No, Charlie. You can’t do this! I won’t let you die!” I let go my feelings for him. The love I refused to acknowledge, but which had been hidden inside me since a warm summer day so many years ago.

Charlie raised eyes that already held a hellish flame.

Tom spoke to me. “Time to leave. You must come with us. Before it is too late.”

A powerful rotting smell invaded my nostrils and I fumbled for the door catch. Many hands took my arms. Tom, Thelma, Sonia, and Veronica reached inside and helped me out. I realized where we were. Charlie had driven around in an elaborate circle. We were back under the willow. Over by the house, the black dog paced up and down. It stopped, sniffed the air and looked over to me. Our eyes met for a second, and I looked into reflections of pure evil.

That was the moment of resignation. Some might call it my epiphany. I had lost Charlie as certainly as I had lost my old life. I could never go back. I took one last look at him. Already, the flame in his eyes was growing stronger. Soon he wouldn’t be able to contain it.

“Goodbye, Charlie.”

“Goodbye, Maddie.” But his voice sounded different. More gruff. More like the long-ago voice that had chilled that summer day in my sixteenth year. When “Serenade in Blue”
became the devil’s serenade.

I let my imaginary siblings lead me. They took my arms and steered me to the tree. They showed me how to place my hands on the bark and lean into it and when I was safely cocooned inside, they led me to the place I remain. My physical body floated down the river. Maybe it was found. Maybe it drifted out to sea. Food for the fishes. I have no need of it now. My spirit moves easily between the dimensions, although I can never be as my companions are.

I’m safe here. He can’t get me—not in the dimension I inhabit—but I can never move out of it. I’m not lonely because my friends keep me company. They appear as themselves, in all their natural beauty. With their help, I can see what is happening in the world around me. It’s as if I watch it through a mist or fine gauze. They have taught me so much. Especially about this house, about Hargest and his evil. Long ago, the willow tree grew with forces of good and evil at its roots. The night it was struck by lightning, the evil escaped. It needed a host and found a willing one in the young Nathaniel Hargest. The boy worked at the mill downriver, sweeping floors day and night for pennies. Every night he went to bed hungry, but when he welcomed the evil spirit into his body and pledged his soul to it, his fortunes changed.

He took the evil into the house he built, even supervising the manufacture of the bricks so he could weave demonic power into the fabric of the building. But the good in the tree remained strong, and reached out with its roots. It couldn’t destroy the demon and its acolytes, but it could contain them. At least a little. Enough to save my soul, and my aunt’s. She passed over long ago. I don’t know when, or if, my time will come to move toward the light that is, so far, shielded from me.

My concept of time has vanished. I have no idea how long I have been here. The long empty, unloved house is up for sale. I died to the world outside without leaving a will so, with no relatives to stake a claim, my property will have been repossessed by the State. I suppose they’ll sell it one day. They’re certainly trying, but people come and go. No one wants to take on such a big venture, especially now the roof is falling in.

Today something disturbing is happening. A couple are viewing the house. She is pregnant. I feel the unborn presence. My spirit friends are restless. They tell me something is different this time. And I can feel it too. The couple love the house. They want to buy it.

So far I have felt them, but not seen them. My spirits help me soar up from the cellar, unnoticed except that the young woman brushes her ear. Maybe she has felt me, like baby breath. I see the backs of the couple. He is much older than her. The smartly dressed estate agent is expounding the virtues of the dilapidated house. He couldn’t care less about these people as long as he gets his commission.

“I’ll leave you to have a wander around,” he says, at last. “I’ll nip outside for a smoke. My only vice.” He laughs. I’ve heard that line from him and his predecessors a hundred times before. These days, I don’t even crack a smile.

When the estate agent has gone, the man turns and I gasp. I am unprepared for an encounter with my ex-husband. Neil has aged. But I remind myself I have no idea how much time has elapsed. From the look of him he could be twenty years older than when I last saw him. His receding hair is white, but his suit is expensive, his shoes, highly polished black leather. The watch is, if I’m not mistaken, a Rolex. Neil has come into money.

“So, what do you think, Heather darling? Do you think you could be happy here?”

She’s a pretty little thing. All blonde hair extensions, designer mini-skirt and fluttering eyelashes. Oh…and the baby bump. She really shouldn’t be wearing five-inch heels when she’s carrying all that. It must be due anytime soon. So my ex-husband has bagged himself a trophy wife young enough to be his granddaughter.

She speaks in her Barbie-clone voice. Her voice is tragically eager. “Oh yes, I can’t wait, Neily baby. Let’s buy it today and it’ll be ours before the baby is born.”

Neil puts his arms around her and kisses her fully on the lips. She giggles. “We’re going to be so happy here. I’ll make it so pretty.”

“I’m sure you will, Heather, darling. I’m sure you will. I came here once before you know. When the previous owner lived here.”

“Really?” His young wife looks around and wrinkles her nose at the dusty, mildewed smell. “That must have been a long time ago.”

“It was. She was my ex-wife actually.”

“Oh.” Heather’s lips turn down.

Neil laughs. “She threw me out, but I was glad to go. I really thought I’d seen something horrible in the downstairs toilet.”

Heather giggles. I can see which direction her mind works.

“No, not that, silly girl.” Neil can still be condescending. “It must have been the Prozac I was on at the time, giving me hallucinations. I thought I saw some horrible monster. It scratched me. I told Maddie and that’s when she threw me out.”

Heather giggles again. She probably does that a lot.

“She did me a favor anyway. If I’d stayed with her, I would never have cracked that Saudi contract and you, my little darling, wouldn’t be the wife of a rich and successful businessman.”

Neil grasps her around the waist and I feel as nauseous as I am now capable of.
Well, good for you, Neil.