The Devil's Serenade

Maddie had forgotten that cursed summer. Now she’s about to remember…

“Madeleine Chambers of Hargest House” has a certain grandeur to it. But as Maddie enters the Gothic mansion she inherited from her aunt, she wonders if its walls remember what she’s blocked out of the summer she turned sixteen.

She’s barely settled in before a series of bizarre events drive her to question her sanity. Aunt Charlotte’s favorite song shouldn’t echo down the halls. The roots of a faraway willow shouldn’t reach into the cellar. And there definitely shouldn’t be a child skipping from room to room.

As the barriers in her mind begin to crumble, Maddie recalls the long-ago summer she looked into the face of evil. Now, she faces something worse. The mansion’s long-dead builder, who has unfinished business—and a demon that hungers for her very soul.

The Devil’s Serenade

Catherine Cavendish

Dedication

For Colin, without whom…

Acknowledgments

As always, I am indebted to my friend and fellow horror writer, Julia Kavan, who reads my work, imparts her wisdom and steers me away from the paths of sheer folly. My thanks too to Shehanne Moore, Sue Roebuck and my fellow Samhain horror writers, for their encouragement, friendship and support. Last, but by no means least, my thanks go to Don D’Auria for believing in me and awarding me my first Samhain contracts and to Tera Cuskaden, Scott Carpenter and all at Samhain Publishing.

I hear it at the same time as the others. A sigh, running through the entire fabric of the house.

Hargest has heard him.

And his master is hungry.

Maddie

Chapter
One

“In addition to the rewiring and a new boiler, those radiators are way past their sell-by date.” Charlie Evans wiped his oily hands on an old rag and pulled the cellar door shut behind him. “I could do a patchwork job, but you might want to consider getting the whole lot done at once. It’ll be more efficient and probably work out cheaper in the long run.”

I grimaced as I handed him a mug of tea. In my old life a new central heating system would have represented a major financial strain. I still couldn’t get used to the fact that I could now afford it without even thinking about it. “When would you be able to do it?”

He set down his mug. “I could start next Monday, if that’s good for you.”

“Next Monday’s fine,” I said. He grinned, showing even white teeth. He smoothed his dark hair, which he wore collar length and neatly trimmed. Even though he was in work clothes, he managed to appear well groomed, despite a morning spent in my dusty cellar.

My
cellar.
My
house. Thanks to my Aunt Charlotte, I was now Mrs. Madeleine Chambers of Hargest House, Priory St. Michael. It had a ring to it and a certain grandeur. Pity
Mr.
Chambers—Neil—wouldn’t be around to share it. Not for the first time, I gave thanks that our divorce and all financial settlements had been finalized two years earlier. I smiled. He wouldn’t see a penny of this. Ever. Not even after my death.

Not that this was a house I would have chosen for myself. Practically every door creaked, and the building’s imposing presence could cast a chill over the sunniest day. Constructed from gray stone and brick, its Gothic towers stood four stories high and the tall windows seemed to hide curious eyes and guard dark secrets. This was a house that truly reflected the man who created it.

Nathaniel Hargest was a wealthy industrialist who made his fortune out of mining Welsh slate. He rode his workforce hard. To him it was all about profit and employees were expendable—conditions were deplorable. Mother rarely spoke of him, but one time she told me he made his regular patrols brandishing a bullwhip, and the loud crack it made when he exercised it proved sufficient deterrent to any slacking. Whether he used it on any of his men, she didn’t know, but they certainly appeared to have believed him capable of it. I never questioned Aunt Charlotte about him. She seemed reluctant to supply me with even the most basic of details.

Hargest built his house in 1908—as ostentatious as any Gothic revival mansion of the period and set in five acres of largely uncultivated land with a river running through it.

By the time war broke out in 1939, Nathaniel was in his late fifties, a wealthy bachelor, living alone. He had few domestic staff and those he did retain didn’t stay long. His temper was meaner than his wages.

Then, in 1955, an attractive twenty-eight-year-old woman named Charlotte Grant came to work as his housekeeper. Local rumor soon grew rife about the true nature of their relationship. In the Welsh border community of Priory St. Michael, the majority of inhabitants attended chapel every Sunday. And most Sundays the gossip was about one subject—Nathaniel Hargest and his bit of fluff.

The old man died in 1970 and a shockwave washed over the good people of the small town when his will was published. He’d left everything to Charlotte.

The Sunday biddies had a field day. Rumors of strange satanic rituals, dating from Hargest’s time, now attached themselves to her. A few weeks short of her eighty-eighth birthday, Charlotte died.

And left everything to me.

Close to three million in cash, stocks, and bonds, this massive house and grounds were all mine. It took some getting used to as I’d been living in a one-bedroom rented apartment.

For all her wealth, in her declining years, my aunt had let things slip and it would take a lot of work and considerable investment to get the old place fixed. The plumbing and electrics were archaic and probably unsafe and to fix that, I needed a reliable person.

I took to Charlie the instant he turned up in answer to my phone call for help. There was something comfortable and reassuring about him that inspired my confidence. He seemed familiar somehow, even though we’d only just met, and I sensed that if Charlie told me something, I could rely on his honesty. In the past couple of hours, I’d learned that he was fifty, divorced ten years earlier, and had lived in Priory St. Michael all his life.

He picked up his toolbox off the floor by the cellar door. “If you want to know anything about anything in this town, ask me. Chances are I’ll be able to point you in the right direction. I’m sure you’ll like it here. We have our drama, but mostly it’s a nice, peaceful sort of place.” He picked his keys up off the table. “Miss Grant was your aunt, you say?”

I nodded. “Yes. I used to spend my summers with her when I was a child. I loved this old house. So many rooms to play in. A perfect playground for a child…”

A memory stirred. Hairs prickled on the back of my neck. In the summer of my sixteenth year, something happened at Hargest House. Something that existed just out of reach in my mind. Something bad. Whatever it was, my mind blocked it out. I never saw Aunt Charlotte again and never returned to the house. Until now.

Of that last summer, no memories remained. Only gaps and that inexplicable feeling of unease I now experienced afresh. I became conscious of Charlie watching me with a slightly curious expression. I cleared my throat and continued.

“You and I are a similar age, so maybe I saw you round the town back then.”

“Quite probably.” Charlie seemed about to say something else, but changed his mind. When he spoke again I was sure it wasn’t what he had planned to say. “I did a little work for Miss Grant now and again. A partial rewiring, a new strip light in the kitchen, that sort of thing. She kept very much to herself. A very private lady.” He frowned. “Right, Mrs. Chambers, I’ll see you on Monday. Eight thirty sharp and you’ll be having lashings of hot water before you know where you are.”

“That’ll be super, Charlie. I’m grateful for my power shower but I do love a good wallow in a nice, deep bath. That poor old boiler isn’t up to the job. Besides, I really can’t be doing with oil. And do call me Maddie, please. ‘Mrs. Chambers’ makes me think you’re talking to my ex-mother-in-law.” I raised my eyes heavenward and he laughed.

“You didn’t get on, I assume?”

“You assume correctly. She was an absolute witch. Hated me for marrying her son and hated me even more when we split up. I couldn’t win.”

He opened the front door and hesitated. “Have you been down to your cellar?”

I shook my head. I’d been too busy sorting out the rooms on the first two floors to venture any higher or lower in this vast house. “What’s the problem?” A horrific thought hit me. “Oh God, don’t tell me I’ve got rats or mice or…
something
.”
An image of a horde of cockroaches flashed into my mind, munching their way through anything they could get their disgusting little jaws into.

“No, no, not that I could see anyway. No, it’s not that. It’s roots.”

I blinked. “Roots? What—tree roots or something?”

He nodded. “Yes, you’ve got some growing down there. You may want to get them dealt with.”

“You mean they’re coming in under the foundation? But there’s no tree close enough for that.”

“Nevertheless you have tree roots growing in your cellar. It’s certainly odd. I mean, the cellar’s a bit damp, but not excessively so.” He hesitated, then shook his head.

His wasn’t the sort of news I wanted to hear. “Thanks for letting me know,” I said as I followed him out to his van. He left with a smile and a wave.

After he’d gone, I stayed outside, looking out over the grounds. In front of me, fifty or so yards away, stood a strangely distorted weeping willow. It had been struck by lightning many years earlier and had grown bent and twisted. The branches hung low and weaved their way across the grass in such a fashion that, as a child, I had christened it “the tentacle tree”. From my angle, I couldn’t even see the lowest one where I used to sit when I was a child. I had loved that tree, but… Some trace of a hidden memory unnerved me. I had no idea what it was and my mind wasn’t letting me anywhere near it, but my hands began to shake. I told myself I was being stupid and turned back into the kitchen.

Once inside, I marched over to the cellar door and opened it. It gave a protesting squeak and I made a mental note to oil the hinges later. Right now I was curious to see this tree phenomenon that so intrigued Charlie.

I had always been possessed of an acute sense of smell. My mother used to comment on it. From what she and everyone else told me over the years, I could detect almost anything way before it reached anyone else’s nostrils. With a pleasant aroma, this was a blessing; with a bad one, a curse. Now, my nose wrinkled at the pungent earthy smell—a sharp contrast with the warm, fresh kitchen. I flicked the light switch and a single, weak bulb illuminated part of the expanse stretching out at the bottom of the flight of wooden stairs. I grasped the banister and began my descent. The farther down I went, the stronger the smell of soil, which had taken on a peaty tinge.

A large flashlight rested on the bottom stair and I switched it on, shining it into the dark corners. There wasn’t a lot to see. A few broken bits of furniture, old fashioned kitchen chairs, some of which looked vaguely familiar, jam jars, crates that may once have held bottles of beer.

The beam caught the clump of gnarled and twisted roots that intertwined with each other, like Medusa’s snakes. I edged closer to it, my heart thumping more than it should. It was only a tree, for heaven’s sake! The nearest one was probably the willow. Surely, that was too far away? I knew little about trees, but I was pretty certain their roots couldn’t extend
that
far.

I examined the growth from every angle in that silent cellar. The roots were definitely spreading along the floor and, judging by the thickness and appearance of them, had been there for many years. Gray, like thick woody tendrils, they reached around six feet along and possibly four feet across at their widest point. I bent down. Close up, the smell that arose from them was cloyingly sweet. Sickeningly so. I put one hand over my nose, rested the flashlight on the steps and reached out with the fingers of my free hand to touch the nearest root. It wriggled against my palm.

I cried out, staggered backward and fell against the stairs. The flashlight clattered to the floor and went out. Only the overhead bulb provided any light, and it didn’t reach this darkest corner. Something rustled. I struggled to my feet, grabbed the torch and ran up the stairs. I slammed the door shut and locked it, leaned against it and tried to slow down my breathing. A marathon runner couldn’t have panted more.

I tapped the flashlight and it flickered into life, seemingly none the worse for its accident. I switched it off and set it on the floor by the cellar door. Whoever came to fix those roots was going to need it.

* * * * *

It proved surprisingly difficult to get anyone to sort out my arboreal problem. A steady procession of self-proclaimed tree surgeons, along with gardeners and builders, drifted through my kitchen and back out again, shaking their heads.

Monday came and Charlie rang the doorbell as my mantel clock chimed the half hour. I told him my difficulty, suppressing the need to share my odd experience when I touched the root.

“While I’m down there, I’ll take a closer look,” he said. “It’s probably a bit tricky, but I would have thought at least one of them could have coped with it. Wouldn’t they even quote?”

I shook my head. “No. They seemed more intent on getting out of my house and on to their next job.” I smiled, but it had struck me as strange how they had all behaved quite casually when they arrived but by the time they left, each seemed a little paler than when they had arrived. None of them wanted to stay and chat. Well, I supposed it wasn’t every day you came across a tree intent on growing horizontally rather than reaching for the sky.

Charlie unloaded the new boiler and radiators. He disappeared down the cellar steps armed with a much more powerful set of lights than I possessed. I asked him to fix the lighting down there and install some more bulbs. I wasn’t running the risk of any repetition of my earlier experience.

I was clearing away after a sandwich lunch when the doorbell rang. Charlie had taken himself off for a bite to eat so I was alone.

A smart, middle-aged lady with short, black hair, dressed in a black skirt, sensible blouse, and practical shoes smiled cheerily at me on my doorstep. In my old jeans and comfortable, much-worn T-shirt, I felt under-dressed. My recently cut hair was mussed and I tucked it behind my ears. At least my new neighbor didn’t seem too shocked at my disheveled appearance, although I could hardly have looked less like anyone’s idea of an heiress.

“Hello, I’m your neighbor, Shona Leslie. I wanted to welcome you to Priory St. Michael.”

I stepped back to let her in. “Nice to meet you. I’m Maddie Chambers.”

“Oh yes, I know who you are.” She followed me inside. “Everyone knows who you are. I’m afraid that’s small towns for you. They probably knew you’d moved in before you did yourself.”

I took to her easy manner instantly. A few minutes later, we settled into my comfortable chairs in Aunt Charlotte’s living room, armed with cups of coffee. We had just sat down when the front door opened and closed.

“Charlie’s back,” I said. The cellar door banged shut, louder than I expected. I jumped.

“Charlie?” Shona asked.

“Evans. I’m having new central heating installed,” I said, as my heart beat returned to normal.

Shona nodded and smiled. She kept glancing at my aunt’s many pictures of storm-tossed landscapes and dark, bleak moorland that decorated every wall.

“Not my taste, I’m afraid,” I said. “I’ll get around to sorting all this out over the next few weeks. I can hardly move in this room for all the furniture and knick-knacks. Aunt Charlotte clearly didn’t like throwing anything away.”

“It’s a generational thing, isn’t it?” Shona said, setting her coffee mug down on a small table I’d cleared for that purpose. “People of her era covered every surface with photographs.”