by Peggy Gaddis
Shocked, incredulous, Shelley said swiftly, “Sue-Ellen, I don’t believe a word of that! You’re just making it up!”
“I am not. Good grief, everybody within miles of the place knows it. Of course it happened a long time ago, almost thirty years back, but it happened just as I’ve told it. There was a trial, of course, but under the circumstances, can you imagine any verdict except ‘not guilty’ for a gal like Selena Durand? I suppose everybody felt that since she was supposed to be in love with him, her conscience would furnish suitable punishment. But I am reliably informed that from that day on, all marriageable young men detoured around her so widely that she never got another proposal. After all, who can blame them? Who’d want to marry a sharp-shooting virago, as she had proved herself to be?”
Shelley sat very still. So that could explain why Selena had pursued Hastings so relentlessly, so shamelessly, yet with such caution that only Hastings himself and his devoted wife knew about it.
“So you see, Shelley, why I am puzzled and not too happy about the way Selena feels toward you,” said Sue-Ellen, unexpectedly serious. “If you’ve done anything to annoy her seriously, I feel you should be on your guard. Lock your doors at night, and try not to be alone in dark alleys or lonely woods.”
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake,” Shelley laughed.
“Okay, chum.” Sue-Ellen rose. “My conscience is clear. I warned you. From here on out, you’re on your own. Anyway, I’ve an idea that Jim is going to be keeping a couple of eyes on you, now that I am about to take myself definitely out of the picture. I’m about to land the guy I’ve really wanted all the time. It was a tough battle, because he was a bit on the wary side, and I had to fight my family, as well as his. Of course, his mother feels I’m not good enough for him; I’m not, actually, but I resent her thinking so. But now that I’ve got him, by using the good old psychology of waving another fellow in his face, and yammering, ‘If you don’t want me, there’s them as does’—well, I’m taking my claim off Jim. I know he’ll be pleased, and I expect you to be, too. Of course, it’s a secret for a little while longer; then with the usual fanfare of breathless excitement and ‘surprise, surprise,’ it’ll be broadcast.”
Shelley offered congratulations and Sue-Ellen went off, very pleased with herself.
She had left Shelley with a good deal to think about. She knew that Selena was driven by fear that even now, at this late date, Shelley might be able to prove her own guilt where Hastings was concerned. And that fear, in a woman as lawless, as arrogant as Selena, could be dangerous.
But she put such dark thoughts away from her at last as she saw Marian enter the drive, and went to meet her. Marian was, as always, full of cheerful chatter, amusing anecdotes of the day’s activities; and with Rufus purring happily around their ankles, they went up to the little house.
They had their supper, and fed Rufus the shrimps he adored, carefully free of mayonnaise which he loathed and with which they had adorned their own.
It was after eleven when Shelley was ready for bed. She turned out the light and in her nightgown and slippers went to open the windows wider and draw back the shades. And caught the faintest possible flicker of movement in the shrubbery outside the windows. For a moment she stood perfectly still, too startled to move, a little creepy feeling chilling her spine. Had one of those tall shrubs near the window stirred just a little on that calm, almost windless night? Had there been a shadow lurking there? And then she laughed at herself, though the laugh was slightly shaky.
This was all the after-effect of Sue-Ellen’s crazy warning, of course. And she ought to know Sue-Ellen well enough by now to discount more than half her light-hearted chatter.
She saw to it that the screen was secure and then she went back to the bed, turning back the light cover. A dark blur against the whiteness of the sheet puzzled her, and she put out a fumbling hand for the little lamp on the table.
In the thin yellow light from the small bedside lamp, she stood rigid, staring down at that small dark splotch against the white sheet. It was no longer than her hand, a narrow, dark thing—and for a moment she could only look at it in shocked amazement and incredulity.
For it was a small doll that looked as though it had been made of something like melted wax. A tiny thing wrapped in a scrap of dark cloth that she identified as a part of a dress she had given to someone, at the moment she couldn’t remember who; perhaps the wash-woman, or her daughter who came once a week to do the cleaning. The doll had wisps of hair, too, and a tiny blob of a face, with eyes and mouth pricked into the soft wax. And running through the doll, where the heart would have been had it been anything but a blob of wax, were two small sharp needles, crossed.
At first she was too dazed, too incredulous, to realize fully what the ugly little thing was. Such an absurd, ridiculous thing to find in her bed.
She could not bring herself to touch it. There was something loathsome, unclean about it.
She went back to the window at last, and strained her ears to listen; her eyes to pierce the darkness. But there was only silence. A silence that was intensified rather than broken by the ceaseless murmuring of the pines, a sound to which she had by now become so accustomed that she was only conscious of it when she made herself listen for it.
Suddenly, as she stood there, she was shaken by an anger so deep that it surprised her. The whole thing was so unutterably silly, so childish. That she could be frightened away from Harbour Pines by finding a hideous little voodoo doll in her bed!
She whirled back to the bed, still unable to touch the filthy-looking little thing. She caught up a pair of eyebrow tweezers from the dressing table, lifted the doll with it and went to the window. She unlatched the window and flung it as far as she could out into the darkness. And heard, startlingly close at hand, a sudden slight unmistakable movement that rustled the tall shrubs and something that sounded like a gasp, a caught breath. And it was then that a momentary terror wiped out her anger and her feeling of outrage.
Swiftly she fastened the screen once more, and without stopping to try to rationalize her terror, closed the window and turned the lock on it. Then she dropped into a chair, put her face in her hands and tried hard to laugh at her momentary fright.
But the effort wasn’t a success. For she could not quite rid her mind of the memory of bits and pieces of what she had heard about Minnie-Ola and her “kunjurs.” Jim had said that when someone hated an enemy and wished to destroy him, he had Minnie-Ola make a small wax image of the enemy, and thrust pins into it; and the enemy sickened and died.
Shelley forced a laugh at such a thought. Yet Jim had said that queer things happened and that people had been unable to explain them, and that, because of the efficacy of her charms and voodoo, Minnie-Ola was the most powerful person in the community.
Of course, Shelley told herself as her nerves once more grew quiet, the only enemy she had in Harbour Pines was Selena; and surely no sane person could possibly believe that Selena Durand, the self-elected “great lady” of Harbour Pines, would stoop to traffic with an old Negro kunjur-woman.
Still, the doll had been real; and it had not got into her bed alone and unaided. There had been some human agency, both to create the small, hideous thing and to place it where she had found it. She was convinced that the doll had been the work of Minnie-Ola; but at whose order it had been created and placed where she had found it, she could not guess. She went to bed at last, but not to sleep until well into the small hours.
Chapter Twelve
She was out in the side yard the next morning when Marian came into the kitchen. Leaning from the kitchen window, Marian called, “Hi, what’s up? Lose something?”
Shelley straightened, convinced that the doll was gone. She had thrown it from her window, and it must have fallen somewhere nearby, but though she had combed the area, there was no trace of it. So there had been someone lurking in the shrubbery last night, who had watched her fling the doll out of the window and who had carried it away. Shelley w
as no longer frightened, in the warm golden morning; but her anger was burning deep as she came into the kitchen and faced a wide-eyed Marian.
“Did you ever hear of Minnie-Ola, the kunjur-woman?”
Marian’s eyes went wider than ever.
“Well, of course. I’ve also heard of many other well known characters in these parts. Although I wouldn’t want it to get around so the school board would be likely to hear it, I’ve had my fortune told by the old girl. She’s a wiz. The things that creature told me no one in the world save myself in person could have known.”
“Did you ever see one of her voodoo dolls?”
“No, thanks, and I’d just as soon not. I hear they’re pretty vile.”
“They are. I can assure you of that. I found one in my bed last night.”
“Heavens to Betsy!” gasped Marian, almost dropping the coffee percolator. “Whose toes have you been stepping on, to get old Minnie-Ola on your trail?”
“I am not quite sure.”
Marian eyed her sharply.
“See here, Shelley, the whole thing is just a mass of silly superstition.”
“Of course. You don’t think I’m frightened, do you?”
“Well, I think I’d be.”
“I’m so angry I could explode, that’s all.”
“Well, here, pull yourself together and have some coffee.”
“I threw the thing out of the window, Marian, but it isn’t there now.”
“Well, of course not. Whoever put it in your bed hung around to watch your reaction, and when you threw it out of the window, they simply retrieved it and took it away.”
There was an uneasy note in her voice and Shelley looked at her sharply.
“You think, don’t you, that whoever put it there simply took it away to await a chance to stick it around somewhere where I won’t be so likely to find it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Afraid?”
“Oh, now don’t fly off the handle, Shelley. I agree with you that the whole thing is silly and all that. It provokes anger instead of fear in people like us who have been educated above belief in such superstitions. But just the same, there are a lot of people in these parts that believe profoundly in Minnie-Ola’s ‘powers of darkness.’ Her services aren’t cheap; she’d ask a lot for one of those dolls and the evil charm that guarantees its success. Whoever bought it from her in the first place isn’t going to throw it away without at least giving its voodoo another chance to work. I’d say it would turn up again where you least expect it.”
“I got the same idea,” Shelley admitted grimly.
“Shelley,” Marian burst out impulsively, “who could possibly hate you enough to want Minnie-Ola to ‘cross the fingers’ at you?”
“I don’t know,” Shelley admitted. “But I intend to find out.”
She turned toward the door and Marian said swiftly, “Hi, sit down here and drink your coffee or I won’t let you go a step outside this house.”
Obediently, Shelley sipped the coffee and Marian watched her worriedly.
“Look here, Shelley, promise me you won’t do anything foolish?” she begged impulsively. “After all, Harbour Pines isn’t exactly a city, and there’s only a handful of white people here entirely untouched by the superstitions of Minnie-Ola and her devotees. Do be careful!”
“Why, Marian, you silly!” Shelley stared at her and laughed. “Of course I’ll be careful. I just want to find out something. And how dare you doubt our police protection? There’s Jim, you know.”
“Sure, and he’s an elegant guy and I like him. But he’s one man!”
“You run along to school and look after all the little fractions and decimals and things. I’ll be all right.”
“You’ll tell me all about it tonight?”
“Of course. Only, Marian, let’s keep this strictly between ourselves, shall we? I’d rather it didn’t get out. I’d feel such a fool.”
“You’re not going to tell Jim?”
“Of course not.”
“I think you should.”
“Later. Mind if I borrow Jessamine, since you’re riding herd in the school bus today anyway?”
“Oh, Lord, that’s right. It is my day to ride the bus and try to keep the kids from falling out. Sure, take Jessamine, by all means. And for Pete’s sake, watch yourself,” pleaded Marian. “Remember, there are plenty of people—not all black, either—in Harbour Pines who, if they received a billet-doux from Minnie-Ola, would read it en route somewhere else but fast!”
Shelley waved to her as she drove away.
She had no difficulty in finding Minnie-Ola’s cabin. It would have been difficult to live in Harbour Pines any length of time without knowing where Minnie-Ola lived: on a narrow winding lane, at the very edge of the black, mysterious-looking swamp, with its ancient cypress trees. A most fitting spot, Shelley told herself grimly as she parked in front of the cabin, for a witch to live.
It was a cabin like all the others occupied by Negroes in and around Harbour Pines, neither better nor worse. To Shelley, a long line of freshly washed clothes flapping in the brisk morning air behind the cabin added a homely incongrous note to all the dark things she had heard about Minnie-Ola.
As she sat in her car in fromt of the cabin, the open door was suddenly filled with a woman whose appearance made Shelley gasp. For she must have stood close to six feet tall. She was gaunt; her skin was stretched tightly over prominent cheekbones, and in color was a deep, almost golden yellow. Her eyes were enormous and dark and piercing. She was dressed as the other Negro women dressed, in neat percale and an apron; but her enormous feet were bare and there was an unexpected arrogance in her as she strode down to the gate and stood looking at Shelley, an impish, almost malevolent merriment in her eyes.
“Are you Minnie-Ola, the kunjur-woman?” demanded Shelley.
A flicker of mirth touched the ugly yellow face.
“I’s Minnie-Ola, de washwoman. I don’t know whut yo’ mean ’bout no kunjur. Whut’s white folks doin’ messin’ wid kunjur?” Her tone was insolent. “Say me yo’ name, white gal.”
“I’m Miss Kimbrough and I publish the newspaper in Harbour Pines. And I come to tell you that I very much resent your idiotic attempt to frighten me with one of your ridiculous voodoo dolls in my bed. If anything like that ever happens again, I shall see to it that you are punished severely. Do you understand?”
The woman’s eyes were derisive, mocking.
“Doan’ know whut yo’ talkin’ ’bout, white gal,” she said contemptuously. “Seems to me lak’ yo’ too old to be playin’ wid dolls.”
“The kind of doll that was put into my bed is not the kind one plays with.”
“How come you’ say I put it in yo’ bed? How come I wan’ botheh yo’ when I ain’t neveh seed yo’ befo’?”
“I don’t think you put the doll there, Minnie-Ola.” Shelley forced herself to speak as calmly as she could. “I feel quite sure you didn’t, though I’m equally sure you made it. If you’ll tell me whom you made it for—”
Once again there was that flicker of derision on the yellow face.
“How come somebody wan’ cross de fingehs at yo’, white gal? Who yo’ been gettin’ rile up? Yo’ steal some gal’s man?”
“The only enemy I have in these parts who would stoop to such a thing or would hate me enough to want to is Selena Durand,” Shelley said. And for just a fleeting instant there was a startled look in Minnie-Ola’s eyes that told her she had guessed right.
“De Lawd he’p mah soul an’ body.” Minnie-Ola was piously shocked. “Yo’ sho’ crazy, white gal! Whut Miss S’lena want wid voodoo? Whut she wan’ wid yo’? She wan’ git shet o’ anybody she jes’ tell him to tek’ his foot in his hand and trabbel!”
“I don’t scare easily, Minnie-Ola.”
“Effen it was me and’ I thought Miss S’lena was atter me, I’d be long time gone.”
“If there are any voodoo manifestations, Minnie-Ola—”
Anger blacked out Minnie-Ola’s derision and she took a threatening forward step, her hands doubled menacingly.
“Whut yo’ gwine do, white gal? I tells yo’. Nuthin’. I owns mah place hyeh; an’ nobody gwine mek’ me move lessen I wants to—and I don’. Now git movin’ fo’ I gits mad.”
Shelley hated herself for it, but she could not control the tremor of fear that swept her at the woman’s sheer malevolence. It was an added cause of humiliation that as she drove away she heard Minnie-Ola laughing boisterously. …
She was halfway back to town before on a sudden impulse she turned the car about and headed toward Pinelands. She did not stop to consider, to think, to reach a decision. She knew now, fantastic as it seemed, that somehow Selena was mixed up in the business of the voodoo doll. And she was too ashamed of her flight from Minnie-Ola to stop and reconsider. She was determined to get to the bottom of the business without more ado.
She went up the steps of the once handsome old house at Pinelands and rang the bell, though the door stood open in the friendly hospitable fashion of the community.
It was Selena herself who came to the door. Her face went taut and gray at sight of Shelley, and Shelley could have sworn there was a momentary flash of something that might have been fear in her eyes.
“What do you want?” she asked sharply.
“Good morning,” said Shelley politely, but the anger that had burned in her heart since first she had seen that vile little doll kept her voice harsh. “I’ve just come from Minnie-Ola’s, Miss Durand.”
There was shock in Selena’s eyes but her voice steadied.
“Really? I’m amazed that one of your education should waste time with a kunjur-woman,” said Selena icily.
“I’m not so sure that the time was wasted,” said Shelley. “I went to see her about that hideous little voodoo doll I found in my bed last night.”
Selena’s thin-lipped mouth curled in a little smile that was derisive, mocking.