Child of Satan House

By Ruby Jean Jensen

Andrea is confused and frustrated. Her mother—on her deathbed—told Andrea that she was not her real mother, and made her promise to seek out her real parents. Upon arriving at their home, she received mixed signals from her “real parents”. She had to uncover the secrets that seemed to surround her, and began to wonder if one of the secrets was a past murder. Who could she trust as she struggled to get to the bottom of this mystery?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ruby Jean Jensen
• Release date: Apr 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781951580766

Ruby Jean Jensen

Ruby Jean Jensen (1927 – 2010) authored more than 30 novels and over 200 short stories. Her passion for writing developed at an early age, and she worked for many years to develop her writing skills. After having many short stories published, in 1974 the novel The House that Samael Built was accepted for publication. She then quickly established herself as a professional author, with representation by a Literary Agent from New York. She subsequently sold 29 more novels to several New York publishing houses. After four Gothic Romance, three Occult and then three Horror novels, MaMa was published by Zebra books in 1983. With Zebra, Ruby Jean completed nineteen more novels in the Horror genre.Ruby was involved with creative writing groups for many years, and she often took the time to encourage young authors and to reply to fan mail.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The doctor came into the waiting room where Andrea had been sent while he was with her mother, and the expression on his face only increased the loss Andrea had begun to feel when she knew her mother’s chance of living through this last illness was hopeless. In desperate conviction she had not given up hope—until now.

Miss Reid, he said softly calling her to him.

She felt weak and reluctant. She didn’t want to hear him say it. Stiffly she rose and went toward him.

He touched her shoulder, a hand warm with sympathy. Your mother insists on talking to you. She says she has something extremely important to tell you and is showing a surprising amount of strength in this—

Is she getting better? The butterfly of hope fluttered again, but quickly died when the doctor shook his head.

There’s nothing we can do. I’ve told the nurses that you and your mother are to have some time alone now, as Mrs. Reid demands. You can go to her now.

He gave her a last pat and turned away, and she hurried down the hall toward room 314. The nurse at her mother’s side moved away when Andrea entered.

Andrea lifted the thin hand and whispered, Mama? It’s Andrea. I’m here n-now. She bit her lip. Her mother had worried enough about leaving her alone in the world at the age of eighteen, and must not see the tears that would come if she kept talking.

Andrea— there’s something I have to tell you. Don’t stop me. I—have to—do this.

Andrea nodded. She sensed the time had come when her mother was to be allowed to exert herself if this was what she wanted. At this moment there could be no more telling her she must rest and gain strength and get well. No more.

"Andrea—your name is not—as I’ve told you.

Your birthday is not February 10,1960, it’s October first, f-fifty-nine. You’re really not—not my child. You’re really Stephanie Winfield, the daughter of the wealthy Winfields of Fernwood ... where I once worked—"

Andrea stared at her mother, the beginning of shock moving through her in small waves. She closed both hands over her mother’s.

"Mama, it doesn’t matter who I am. I love you. You’re my—"

No! Listen to me. I can’t give you anything, Andrea. No money, no family, I cheated you—do you hear? I took you after I worked for the Winfields and I cheated you of family, wealth—go back, please. Promise me.

Andrea stared into her mother’s eyes, her past life of living alone with her mother flashing through her mind in bits. It had been a safe and secure life, until now. She couldn’t change and be someone else, no matter if it were true.

It doesn’t matter, Andrea said again. I’m Andrea Reid, and I—

Promise me, her mother demanded. You must. Promise me you’ll go back to them now. The eyes closed again, and Roberta Reid’s voice became weak suddenly, and far away. I can’t rest until you do.

Andrea didn’t try to stop the tears this time. "Yes. All right. I promise. Mother?"

I’m still here. But her hand fell limp in Andrea’s. A letter—I prepared it for you. It’s in my trunk.

There was a sigh then, and slow, heavy breathing. Andrea pushed the nurses’s button and the door almost immediately opened. Andrea turned to look at the nurse, and when she turned back again her mother had stopped breathing.

The nurse simply came to the opposite side of the bed and looked across at Andrea without speaking. Then she came on around the bed to Andrea, took her arm and led her from the room.

---

Andrea didn’t try to find the letter until after the small funeral was over and she had returned to the emptiness of the small apartment she and her mother had shared. The trunk was the only real possession that had always been with them through the years of little money and no home roots. The promise lay heavily in Andrea’s mind as she sat on the floor and slowly opened the lid of the trunk. How could she not keep the promise, and yet how could she possibly go to the home of strangers with the story her mother had told her?

She slowly and reluctantly went through the contents of the trunk. Her school pictures, all of them, from the first grade to her graduation from secondary school. Other small keepsakes of herself that her mother had chosen to keep, from babyhood on. And finally, in the bottom, an envelope heavy with pages written by her mother’s hand. On the outside was marked the strangely ominous word, Urgent. To Andrea.

Andrea removed the pages and found that two letters had been enclosed and one of them was written to her, while the other was written to Mr. and Mrs. Winfield of Fernwood, Anderson, La.

---

"My darling Andrea, I am writing this because I'm afraid I won’t have the courage to tell you. It’s cowardly of me, but I can’t bear the thought of seeing your face change from its bright and serene natural expression to one of shock and incredulity. Yet it’s something that you must know. Now, at the last, I can give you nothing but this. I ask only that you remember I loved you, will always love you, and even though it may seem my love was a selfish one, I will do what I can now to make it up to you.

You remember I told you that I once worked on a large estate called Fernwood, caring for a woman who was pregnant and not well. Fernwood is near a small town called Anderson in the upper part of the state. I told you also that my lover, your father, was killed overseas before we could marry, and you were born illegitimately. I lied to you, my darling. The truth is you were born October 1, 1959, and you were born to the Winfields of Fernwood, not to me. Your name was Stephanie Winfield, and five months after you were born you were kidnapped. By me; yes, I took you. And I brought you to New Orleans and then told you that you were mine. My only excuse is I was torn apart by the death of my fiancé and I had no one in the world. You were a darling, beautiful baby, and it seemed to me the Winfields had everything and I had nothing. So I took you. And I loved you more than I loved anyone, ever. But I cheated you of your birthright.

Take this letter that I have written to the Winfields, and go and stay with them. Perhaps then I can rest, knowing that you are safe."

---

Andrea held the letter long after the last few words of endearment had blurred into a shimmering haze before her eyes. Her hands trembled when she tenderly folded it and laid it aside. She pressed the tears from her eyes. Her hands still trembled when she unfolded the letter to the Winfields.

---

Mr. and Mrs. Winfield: I will be brief and succinct. My name is Roberta Reid and I worked in your household the summer of 1959, during my vacation from college. I was not there when your baby daughter was kidnapped, that you knew of. However, I did go back, long enough to take her from her nursery. I have reared her as my own illegitimate child. But now I am dying, and she needs you. Perhaps there is some kind of test that can by this time be done to destroy any doubt you may have. All I ask is that you accept and love her. I don’t expect forgiveness for myself. I have loved and taken good care of your child. Sincerely, Roberta Reid.

---

Andrea’s eyes were dry and hot as she quickly reread the letter. A test to prove ...? As a registered nurse, her mother knew there was no definite test to prove parenthood. Why had she said that? And when had she written the letters? The irregularity of the script indicated that it had been recent, and of course it had to be since her mother had discovered the horrible truth of her illness that resisted all treatment.

Andrea numbly put the letter to the Winfields back into the envelope, and the letter to herself she put in her small jewelry box. Then she began silently to pack.

Preparing to move from one furnished apartment to another was a simple matter. The clothes to pack, a few boxes of bedding and the small supply of dishes and other small personal items picked up over the years.

When she had finished, she made arrangements with the building superintendent to leave the boxes in a storage room until later, when she could return for them. Leaving the apartment was not difficult. It would have been more difficult to stay now that she was alone. However, going to the bus depot and buying a ticket for Anderson was one of the most difficult things she had ever done, and if she hadn’t assured herself that she must do it, for her mother, she would at the last moment have turned away and gone into another part of the city in search of a new place to live.

She had no job to leave. There had been high school to finish, and although during the last semester she had noticed that her mother was becoming very thin, she had not known until after graduation night that her mother was dying. Her mother’s career as a nurse was over. For one month then there had been the hospital where her mother was a patient.

In one month Andrea had come from the happy and carefree life of a popular high school senior who also looked forward to a career of nursing, to a girl whose world had fallen out from under her.

Stephanie Winfield? Who was she? It couldn’t be the dark-haired, dark-eyed, petite and slender girl whose reflection she saw in the glass wall that separated the interior from the exterior of the bus depot. No. That girl was Andrea Reid. Andrea Reid. Andrea Reid.

She felt suddenly that if she couldn’t get out of there she would start screaming and never stop.

The reflection stopped her cold as she started out, and with people pushing behind her she took a long look at the girl who stared back at her. As though she had never seen the reflection before, she stared. Dark hair and dark eyes. A heart-shaped face. Small nose. Pretty, well-defined lips that needed no makeup. Eyelashes that needed nothing, they were so long and so thick. The dark hair, pulled tightly back from the face and gathered by a barrette high on the back of her head, showed off the shape of the face to its perfection.

And in her mind was the face of her mother. Although Roberta Reid too was petite, her hair was blond, her face oval. There was no resemblance. It had never disturbed her before to know she didn’t resemble her mother—it was just one of those things. But now suddenly a cold fear was pushing itself into her consciousness because she hadn’t faced yet the possibility that her mother had told her the actual facts of her birth. It had gone over her as though it belonged to someone else. But now she saw ... there was no resemblance to the mother she had known, and it terrified her.

Who was she then? Stephanie Winfield? No, oh please no. She couldn’t change from the girl she had been to a—to someone who was a stranger to her.

She turned away, to run, to leave and be alone, and the words her mother had written flashed before her mind. Perhaps then I can rest—

Andrea stopped, drew a deep breath, and turned resolutely back to the doors and went out to the bus that was waiting for her. For my mama, she whispered to herself to gather courage. For mama.

Many hours later the bus pulled up at a service station in an area that seemed to be all trees. The sun had gone down and night was well on its way.

Anderson, the driver called and opened the doors.

Andrea followed him out and stood waiting on the graveled drive as her luggage was unloaded. When the long, heavy bus drove back onto the nearly deserted highway she looked around for the town of Anderson, and still saw nothing but the service station, the shadowy overhanging forest, and the deserted highway. The sound of the bus drifted into the sounds of millions of summer insects and frogs and Andrea felt as though she had been dumped on an unknown planet, alone.

She saw the man suddenly, but it only increased her growing panic, for he leaned in the darkened doorway of the station watching her. She returned his stare for a moment, then saw his nod of greeting. He straightened and removed his hands from his pockets.

Andrea approached him slowly. Hello. Is—where is the town?

He nodded toward the trees across the road. That way. Down the street. Round the bend. Quiet this time of day.

She looked in the direction he had indicated and noticed for the first time the narrow black-topped road that disappeared into the forest.

Oh.

Where’re you from? he asked as he came toward her, a long, lean man about thirty, wearing a flopped-brim hat.

New Orleans.

For the first time he released a smile, and suddenly he looked human and friendly. He even laughed a little. "Well you won’t find what you’d probably call a town here. Just a street and a few stores. You coming here to see someone? Was someone supposed to meet you?’

Yes, and no. Yes I’ve come to see someone, but they ... She stopped. Why should she tell a stranger these things? If you’ll just call me a cab—

He had started shaking his head long before she mentioned cab, as though he knew what her request was going to be.

No taxi service here. But if you’re headed for someone’s house in Anderson, it’s no problem. The whole town ain’t more’n three blocks long and two blocks wide. Just a spot in the road. I can direct you to any house in Anderson, and you can reach any of them from here, walking, in five or ten minutes time at the most.

All right. Thank you. I’m looking for a place called Fernwood.

The expression change was an instant thing. He seemed astonished. Or horrified. One hand went up to push back his hat. Then the word exploded back at her. "Fernwood!"

She watched him, wondering. His surprise in turn generated a sense of surprise in her. There was a mystery in his attitude concerning Fernwood. There is a place here called Fernwood, isn’t there?

Oh ...yeah.

She waited for the directions he said he could give, but nothing came. He continued to stare at her. To look down over her and back up again still with the face of astonishment.

Suddenly he said, My name is Carl. I own this place.

She smiled slightly but didn’t offer her own name. The sun has gone down, it will soon be dark, so if you don’t mind I’d like to know how I can reach Fernwood before I’m caught in the dark.

He shook his head. Ain’t possible. Fernwood is two miles out of town.

Two miles! He might as well have said a hundred, it would not have made her feel more hopeless. She looked toward the thick foliage that overhung and shadowed the road that disappeared into it and thought of walking two miles into a jungle like that. And at night? She turned back to him. Well, is there a motel or hotel where I can spend the night?

A long sigh escaped from him. Sorry, miss. Anderson ain’t much of a town, and being off the main highway it never needed anything like that, I reckon.

Then there was nothing for her to do but go on. She obviously couldn’t stand on the graveled strip all night.

Where can I find Fernwood, please?

"You aimin’ to go on?"

I have no choice.

After looking hard at her a moment longer, he stretched out one arm and pointed toward the rapidly darkening street. Just follow that street. Go on through town and take the first road to your left. You’ll find the road about a half-mile from the end of town. Fernwood is a big place. I mean, the people that own the place have a lot of acreage around it, and the lane that turns off the main road there winds along for a good mile and a half before it reaches the mansion. He said again, It’s a big place. Big house. Lots of land. Some swamp. Be careful where you walk. Stay in the road. It’s narrow, but it’s blacktopped.

Thank you.

She picked up both suitcases and started across the highway. A car was coming slowly, but it was far enough away that she hurried on across. When she had reached the trees on the other side from the station she heard the man’s voice call after her.

"Be