The Devil's Serenade by Catherine Cavendish

subject. I would have to find someone else or leave it in its current, shabby state when I had hoped to brighten it up for the theater group.
    After he’d gone, I decided to ring the only person I knew who might be sympathetic. Shona.
    She laughed when I told her Pete’s reaction. “Oh, I can tell you what that was about. The local tabbies have the story that Mr. Hargest and your aunt’s satanic rituals took place either at the tree or in one of the rooms on that floor. The top floor was allegedly used for sacrifices. Not human ones. Chickens mainly. Although there were some rumors during Mr. Hargest’s time, but that was just people’s weird imaginations again. Someone goes missing and straightaway it has to be down to the most unpopular person in town. He was never charged with anything, and nether was she.”
    “ What? Seriously? They really believe this stuff?”
    “Oh yes. Very superstitious lot around here.”
    “Have you told the Am Dram Group that they’ll be rehearsing up there?”
    “I’ve mentioned it. One or two hesitated a bit, but I think they believe they’ve got safety in numbers, and a couple of them are relatively new to the area anyway and won’t have any truck with such stuff.”
    “The thing is, my Aunt Charlotte was such a kind, gentle person. She was very free and easy about my comings and goings and great fun to be with. If I’m honest, far more than my own mother, who always seemed to be wrapped up in her work, my father and their safaris to really notice what I was doing.” I realized I was revealing far more about myself than I ever did. And to someone I hardly knew. Over the phone! “Anyway, suffice it to say that the Aunt Charlotte I knew was hardly the type to indulge in devil worship.”
    There was a pause on the other end of the line.
    “Shona? Are you still there?”
    “Yes, I’m here. Sorry. Look, you didn’t see your aunt for many years, Maddie. People change, you know. Maybe she got involved with an occult group of some kind. A cult perhaps.”
    I thought for a moment. “Well, anything’s possible, I suppose.” Into my mind flashed image after image of Aunt Charlotte laughing, smiling, running her fingers through her ash blonde hair which may, or may not, have owed something to a hairdresser’s coloring skills. I pictured her embroidering tablecloths, or reading. Nevil Shute was her favorite author. Then there was her music. That old gramophone upstairs and her piano. She would play a little Chopin, or more modern tunes. She could read music, but could also play by ear and thought nothing of attempting some song that was riding high in the charts at the time. I remembered singing “Ebony and Ivory”with her andDexys Midnight Runners’ “Come on Eileen”. Song after song. She only had to hear it a couple of times before she could play it. Sometimes we’d sing some of the songs from her youth. But she always came back to her favorite—“Serenade in Blue” — and when she did, a wistful look used to come into her eyes . Now, of course, I knew why. Freddie. An image of the dusty record on the turntable shot into my mind and a shiver coursed through my veins. I had no idea why I should repeatedly have such a reaction to a song I had learned had held such romantic significance for my aunt.
    “I can’t see it, Shona. I cannot equate Aunt Charlotte with some madwoman slicing the heads off chickens and prancing around nude in the garden. It doesn’t make sense.”
    Shona sighed. “I’m sure you’re right and it’s all a lot of nonsense. Anyway, we’ll look forward to our first rehearsal next Monday.”
    I rang off soon after. I wandered out into the hall and looked upward, to the landing at the top of the staircase. I heard a noise and caught my breath. A child’s laughter. The sound of running feet.
    Terrified, I gripped the banister and crept up the stairs. The farther I climbed, the louder the laughter. I reached the first floor and heard it again. It