The Devil Child: A Novela the Crop

By Parley J. Cooper

She was young, strangely pretty, and different. She shared a dilapidated Victorian mansion with her aunt. She was little more than a slave to the old woman. Then one day, something so horrifying happened that she was forced to seek the truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Jun 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781466997547

Parley J. Cooper

Parley Cooper is the author of over twenty-four novels, including the bestseller Dark Desires. He also writes under the bylines Jack Mayfi eld, Alex Nebrensky, William Freytag, and Dorothy McKinney.

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Copyright 2013 Parley J. Cooper.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4669-9753-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-9755-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4669-9754-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013910210

Trafford rev. 06/17/2013

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CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

EPILOGUE

THE CROP

NOVELS by Parley J. Copper

The Feminists

The Inheritance

Marianne’s Kingdom

The Devil Child

My Lady Evil

A Reunion of Strangers

The Shuddering Fair

The Scapegraces

The Studio

Reverend Mama

Moonblood

Dark Desires

Wreck

San Francisco

Restaurant

Golden Fever

The Wives

Grand Deception

Conspiracy

Woman of a Thousand Faces

Dedicated to my sister,

Kathryn Cooper, and to

Carole Quintanar with

Deepest appreciation.

PROLOGUE

I am told that I must train my mind; that I must learn discipline. I must force my restless nature to abide an hour of stillness each morning while my mind rambles through the ashes of Clarke House and my hand scrawls scattered thoughts on clean white sheets of paper.

They tell me that I must write of Aunt Veeva, of the Covenant of Merlin—and even of Arhen.

When all of it has been written, when I have covered all the white pages with the horror of my past, then they tell me I shall be free.

Even my friend tells me that I must do this. Each morning she stops by my room and sits quietly on the edge of my bed, her hair smelling of lilacs and her clothes of soap and starch. She has given me a bottle of cologne because I admired her fragrance, but I have not opened it. The scent belongs to her and to the flowers from which it stole its name. She has also given me many pencils. They stand with their sharpened points exposed over the rim of a blue glass vase. Without asking of my progress, my struggle with words, she glances at the pencils. If their points have not been worn down, she sighs and takes her leave early.

She thinks it is easy to write of past things. It is not. She thinks the morning is a good time to write. It is not. If I could write while I slept there would not be enough pencils to write with or enough paper to hold my thoughts. The nights are filled with ghosts, some dreaded and others deliberately summoned, but they vanish with the first light of morning and refuse to be coaxed forward for capture on paper.

Last night I dreamed of the ring of stones on the hill beyond Clarke House. The daughters of darkness were circling a basin of fire and shrilling incantations to the master of shadows. The ground there is unhallowed and vegetation refuses to grow. Even the birds shun the place, sensing, I suppose, the aura of evil hovering there.

These are the things of which I am expected to write.

But in the mornings I am drawn to the window sill. Beyond the yard, the wheat fields stretch away in a shimmer of gold to touch the river bank. The willows sway in the morning breeze and offer an occasional glance at the remaining chimney of Clarke House. The smell of the river is carried on the wind. When it touches my senses, I am lost.

My new friend does not understand the pull of the river. She has never hidden in the underbrush and watched a doe teach its fawn how to find food beneath the pine needles. She has never seen a beaver at work on a dam or a squirrel searching for winter acorns. She does not understand why it is hard to write in the mornings because she does not understand my love for the river and my daylight rejection of the darker life.

Write of aunt Veeva and of the daughters of darkness—

and even of Arhen!

Arhen, it pains me to share you even on paper, but I must do it to be free. I must share you with my new friend, and she, unaware of her betrayal, will pass the pages on to the doctors and the investigators who have plagued me with questions since I, the Devil Child, came to their attention.

CHAPTER ONE

A t precisely nine o’clock, as if by some prearranged signal, when the clock’s hammer fell the first of its nine blows, the rain began to strike against the house; softly at first, but heavier and heavier still until it became a threat to the aged structure. The windows echoed the sting of the raindrops and the doors, pressed against their hinges, howled the torment of a backing wind.

Although the day had been cold and grey, the storm was entirely unexpected. There had not been time for the shutters to be secured about the windows or the drains to be cleared of summer debris. It was the same, I suppose, with the first storm of each year.

Clarke House stands in a grove of trees, far removed from the village, with desolate roads that never see the headlights of an automobile. The house has a surrounding wall but the trees grow on either side. Oaks and pines nestle against the house and offer protection from the heat during the summer months, but now with the sudden storm upon them, they turn against the wooden sides as if coaxed by unearthly will, beating their branches mercilessly at the command of the wind or some devious demon.

Aunt Veeva, snug in her feather mattress, waited for sleep to claim her, and I, although I am ashamed of it now, buried my face in my pillow and began to cry.

Rain had always frightened me. To be someday caught in it was my greatest fear, for I knew I would melt away to nothingness like the shadowy creatures in the forbidden attic library. Only the clothes I wore would remain as evidence that Lillith Clarke had ever been upon this earth. As the rain drew tears and each clap of thunder drove me further into my pillow, I became conscious despite my fear of a strange pounding resounding through the outer rooms and reaching the bedroom like a distant summons.

Aunt Veeva raised herself to her elbows and stayed motionless, listening. The possibility of her again hearing things in the night temporarily stilled my fright and brought me directly upright, my own ears peeled for a repeating of the sound.

It came again, deadened by a gust of wind, a low hammering from the outer door. It could only have been a summons from the unholy. My mind flew to the desolate hill behind the house and I shook with terror thinking that one of the place’s captured night creatures had managed to escape in the storm.

Aunt Veeva, suppressing a startled cry, turned to face me. I knew without her speaking that she was going to send me off into the outer rooms with no regard for the danger that could be lurking there.

It’s the door, Lilly, she said, her voice too calm and coaxing for me to believe her sham of bravery. The door, she repeated, answer the door, girl! She spoke as if a knock on the lonely door of Clarke House was a common occurrence.

Let them go away, I said. I couldn’t tell her of what my mind had imagined beyond that door, pounding its gnarled fists and waiting to snatch away whoever came in answer to its summons.

Lillith! She made a futile attempt to swing her lifeless legs over the edge of the bed. Movement brought a groan of pain, but she was persistent. She reached for the arm of the chair to support herself, determined to shame me out of my fright.

No! I’ll go! I knew she would only fall. She had not been out of her bed since four Sundays past when a wandering gypsy had stood at the foot of the brass frame, raised his arms, and cried rise, like one who frequently called upon some omnipotent being for favors. She had fallen then and had been torn with pain. I’ll go, I told her weakly. Even if the summons meant my doom it was no worse a fate than being left alone while Aunt Veeva lay helplessly on the floor somewhere between our room and the outer door. No one comes to that door, I said, stating a fact we were both aware of in an effort to stall for precious moments of time. Go away, I willed. Go back to the hell from which you escaped. But the pounding continued, more urgent, demanding. Who… who do you think it is?

Aunt Veeva was silent, raised on her elbows still as if some muscle prevented her from ever again reclining. It’s Arhen! she said suddenly. I know it’s Arhen. He’s come home!

My body turned cold. Arhen come home! She was delirious, struck silly by fear.

It’s Arhen, she continued to cry, and tugged at her blankets as if she were not afflicted by paralysis and would rise.

Even more frightened now, I persuaded her back against the pillows. I tried to mentally accept the homecoming of Arhen, my brother. I tried to visualize him pounding on the door of Clarke House.

Oh, Lilly, Aunt Veeva cried, your brother has come home! Hurry, child, hurry! He’s standing in the rain!

Torn between fear and the thought that Arhen might be summoning me to the door, I came out of the safety of the little room and into the vastness of the house.

Clarke House, no matter how familiar during the day, became as ruthless and frightening as the world beyond our walls when the sun set. Rooms which were intimate when sunlit slipped into the spirit of the darkness. The furniture was a maze of shadows. The watchful corners suggested evil, occupation by things that could not live by light of day. It was a house without warmth, living free of human involvement. If I lived here all my life, it would be as a tolerated guest and never as its mistress. The house did not acknowledge ownership. It stood as it had stood through centuries of Clarkes, watching them snatched away one at a time as Arhen had been and as I would surely be now when I swung open the great door.

The hallway had already taken on the smell of the storm. The musty, sweet odor had penetrated the carpet and rose to sting my nostrils, another of the house’s planned attacks on its inhabitants. I brought my hand to my face and pressed my fingers across my nose. The smell of one’s own body can be appealing when one is faced with unpleasant odors, especially when you know your body is faced with mortal danger any may not exist beyond another moment. I inhaled deeply and stood looking at the door, amazed that I had come so far.

The great door of Clarke House had not been satisfied with a single window. Instead, it had eighteen tiny panes that were inlaid to resemble a checker board. They were dusty now from being left so long to themselves. I wiped the dust away with the sleeve of my gown and looked out. The outside seemed of all but water. The vines hanging from the porch bobbed helplessly in the rain and were an outline of the darker blackness beyond.

Lillith! Open the door, child!"

Aunt Veeva’s voice was far off. I had never realized what a distance it was from our room to the front of the house. If I ran for the safety of her bedroom, it would take far too long to prevent by being snatched up by some evil being the door might reveal.

There’s no one there, I called. There’s just the rain… and the vines… and…

There it was, half hidden in the shadows of the trellis. It had heard my voice. It was coming forward. It would break down the door. I was lost!

I ran backward until I touched the wall, and was pressed there in the grip of the flowery paper when the pounding began again.

Let me in! Veeva! Let me in!

She knew Aunt Veeva’s name, this creature of the storm. She was calling it loud and distinctly, summoning her to the door. It wanted Aunt Veeva, not me. Aunt Veeva, who could not possibly fight back. Aunt Veeva, who lay