Even More Short & Shivery

by Robert D. San Souci

  Instantly Kwairyo cut away the sleeve, then wrapped the snarling, snapping half-head in it and tied the bundle tight. When he had locked it in a wooden chest, he set fire to the cottage. Determined that no evil would remain to harm unwary travelers, the priest said a prayer that he hoped would bring the spirits of the Rokuro-Kubi eternal rest.

  Dicey and Orpus

  (United States—African American traditional)

  Back in the old days, there was a girl named Dicey, who was born on a plantation. She was courted by a man named Jim Orpus, a wandering fiddle player who could make music like no one else on earth. Stories went around that when he played a tune, rabbits would come out to dance, and mules in the field would stop dead in the furrows and bray as if they were singing along. If he ever wanted a mess of fish, he’d just sit beside the creek and begin scratching away with his bow. Pretty soon fish were leaping into the air, then flopping on the ground around him. Then he’d set aside his fiddle, pick up what he needed, and throw the rest back.

  Now Orpus was mighty sweet on Dicey, from the moment he saw her. She was shy at first. But when he played a soft, sweet tune for her, she would sing along. If she didn’t know the song, she’d sing whatever words his music brought to mind; and Orpus seemed to like her made-up songs best of all. At first, she couldn’t say how much she loved Orpus, but she sang her feelings clear enough. Soon they were married, all proper and regular.

  Now, all this happened so long ago that the railroad was a brand-new, spick-and-span thing. Not knowing it was dangerous, Dicey sat down on the track one day, waiting for Orpus, because she thought she heard him fiddling in the far-far-away. But what she really heard was the engine whistle. Before anyone could do anything, the engine came whistling and roaring around the bend, and smashed the poor girl.

  After she was buried, Jim Orpus wept and wailed something terrible. He sat himself down on her grave, and he fiddled so sadly that folks for miles around thought their hearts were going to break.

  Then he grew angry because Dicey had been taken away so sudden-like, and he couldn’t do a thing about it. He began to fiddle up such anger that the mountains shook, and the trees splintered, and the ground trembled and crumbled underneath him. Orpus tumbled down into a big, old cave. He walked and he walked through the darkness toward a speck of light. Finally he reached the entrance to the Land of the Golden Slipper, the place where all the good folks go when they die.

  When he got there, he found an angel who spread his wings and wouldn’t let Jim Orpus pass. The angel said that only dead folks could go through the shining door into the Land of the Golden Slipper. Then Orpus carried on something fierce, saying he just had to get his Dicey back, or he might as well be dead.

  At first, the angel wasn’t having any part of this. But Orpus took up his fiddle and played such powerful sweet music that the angel began to weep and holler, and finally he said, “All right, I’ll call Dicey here, and you can lead her back the way you came. But you’ve got to be sure you don’t look back—not once—until you’re both standing in the sunlight again. You’re only going to get this one chance.”

  Well, Orpus agreed to this. He’d have agreed to anything to get his sweet Dicey back. So the angel told him, “Turn around. And don’t you look back, or you’ll be sorry.”

  The angel called Dicey’s name. Pretty soon, Jim Orpus heard her voice behind him, asking what was going on. Though he didn’t dare look, he knew that Dicey had seen him because she kept crying his name over and over and clapping her hands excitedly. Orpus heard the angel say how she could go back with Orpus, provided he didn’t once look back at her till they were both up top again.

  “You go first, Jim,” said Dicey. “I’ll follow.”

  He was so happy to be near her again, he almost turned around then and there. But he remembered what the angel had told him, so he kept looking ahead.

  Back they went the way he had come. All the while, Orpus played a sweet tune, and Dicey sang along with him. At last they reached the place where her grave had crumbled down. He was all set to climb out, but he was so eager to see her, and they were so close to the finish, that his heart got the better of his head. He turned around.

  For just a second he saw her sweet remembered face. Then she gave a terrible cry, and vanished like a comet back into the dark.

  “Dicey!” Jim Orpus cried, and ran after her. But he couldn’t spot the gleam that had led him to the golden gate earlier. And when he turned around, he couldn’t see the place where the grave had crumbled. Not knowing what to do, he just began walking, calling Dicey’s name over and over, and playing his fiddle to ease his misery.

  The next day, when people looked for Jim Orpus, they didn’t find him. Dirt had fallen into the big hole where Dicey’s grave had been, and had filled it up.

  Nobody ever saw Jim Orpus again.

  But folks in those parts say that if you go into a cemetery where only black folks have been laid to rest, and press your ear to the ground, you can hear Jim Orpus’s fiddle way down deep, as he searches for Dicey and the Land of the Golden Slipper.

  Chips

  (British Isles—from Charles Dickens)

  There was once a shipwright named Chips. His father’s name before him was Chips, and his father’s name before him was Chips, so they were all Chipses. Each was a shipwright in his day.

  Now Chips the father had sold himself to the Devil for an iron pot and a bushel of tenpenny nails and half a ton of copper and a rat that could speak; and Chips the grandfather had sold himself to the Devil for the same; and so the bargain had gone on in the family for a long, long time.

  One day, while young Chips was alone in the dark hold of a ship hauled up for repairs, he heard someone say:

  A lemon has pips,

  And a yard has ships,

  And I’ll have Chips!

  Chips looked up and saw the Devil, with huge saucer eyes that struck sparks of blue fire. Over one of his arms, hanging by its handle, was an iron pot, and under that arm was a bushel of tenpenny nails, and under his other arm was half a ton of copper, and sitting on one of his shoulders was a rat that could speak. So the Devil said again:

  A lemon has pips,

  And a yard has ships,

  And I’ll have Chips!

  Chips didn’t say a word; he just went on with his work.

  “What are you doing, Chips?” asked the rat.

  “I am putting in new planks where you and your gang have eaten the old away,” said Chips.

  But the rat said:

  We’ll eat the planking, old and new,

  We’ll let in water to drown the crew,

  And when we do, we’ll eat them, too.

  “That’s as it may be,” Chips said. He ignored the rat, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off the copper and the nails, for these are a shipwright’s delight.

  “I see what you are looking at,” said the Devil. “So take all that I carry and strike the bargain your father and grandfather did.”

  But Chips said, “I like the copper and I like the nails, and I don’t mind the iron pot, but I don’t like the rat.”

  “You can’t have the rest without him,” said the Devil.

  “Very well,” said Chips, afraid of losing the metal. They struck their bargain, and the Devil vanished, leaving Chips with the copper and the nails and the pot and the rat.

  So Chips used the copper and nails, and he prospered. But he could not rid himself of the rat, which made its nest in the iron pot. Time and again he would try to sell the pot, but when the dealers saw the rat inside, that was the end of the matter. Once he dropped the pot with the sleeping rat off the pier, but both were back in his work space when he returned.

  Chips had fallen in love with the corn chandler’s daughter, but she would have nothing to do with him. For every time he spoke to her, the rat would suddenly peep out from under his collar or from his pocket, and the young woman would walk away in disgust.

  One day, while the rat lay sleeping in the
iron pot, a desperate Chips tipped a kettle of scalding pitch into the pot, filling it full. He watched until it cooled and hardened; then he got the smelters to put the pot into their hottest furnace. The pot melted and ran away in white-hot streams, but when the furnace cooled and the door was raised, out scampered the rat, just the same as ever. It looked at Chips, and said with a jeer:

  A lemon has pips,

  And a yard has ships,

  And I’ll have Chips!

  Then it scurried away. For a long time, Chips saw no more of the creature. He began to hope it was gone for good. He even became engaged to the corn chandler’s daughter.

  But one evening, as he left the dockyards to go home, he reached into his pocket and found a rat. Not the one that could speak, but an everyday shipyard rat. In his hat, he found another. And in the sleeves of his coat, two more!

  From that time on, he was never free of rats. They climbed up his legs at work. They sat on his tools when he used them. They got into his lodging and his bed, into his teapot and his boots. When he brushed himself free of them to present the corn chandler’s daughter with a sewing box he had made for her, a large, fat rat jumped out of it and clung to the girl’s skirt. And that was the end of Chips’s engagement.

  Soon after this, he lost his job at the shipyard because of the plague of rats that followed him everywhere. Even when he was penniless, the rats remained his steadfast companions.

  One night, driven nearly mad, he dove into the water and swam for a ship that was just setting sail. When he was hauled on board, dripping and shivering, he offered to work to earn his passage to the West Indies, where the ship was bound.

  On they sailed, and with each passing league, Chips felt more hopeful, though he was made to do the meanest work. Once, the captain ordered Chips lowered on a rope, to scrape the salt from the ship’s carved figurehead. But when Chips was partway down, he discovered that the rat that could speak had gnawed a hole as big as a saucer in the figure’s wooden chest.

  The rat winked at him and said:

  We’ve eaten all the timbers through,

  We’ll let in water and drown the crew,

  And when we do, we’ll eat them, too.

  In the dark space behind the rat that could speak, Chips could make out the red eyes and white teeth of countless other rats. Bellowing and tugging on the rope, he had himself hauled back on deck. Then, pushing aside the sailors, who thought he had gone mad, he shouted at the captain, “The rats! They’re nibbling us away! We’re doomed, unless we make for the nearest port! There is dust and hollowness where solid oak should be! A rat is nibbling a grave for every man on board!”

  But the captain also thought Chips a madman. He had Chips clapped in irons and chained in the hold. There Chips continued to shout his unheeded warnings, pausing only to put his ear to the wall behind him, listening to the gnawing and nibbling within.

  When the ship’s bell sounded midnight, the first snout chewed through the wall beside Chips. Water began to leak from the hole. Then an unstoppable torrent gushed in, and the ship went down with every living soul.

  What the rats (being water rats) left of Chips floated to shore, and sitting on him was an immense rat, laughing, which dived under the waves when the corpse touched land, and never came up.

  There was a lot of seaweed clinging to the remains of Chips. And for a long time, the story lingered that thirteen bits of this seaweed, when dried and burned in a fire, would go off with sounds like these thirteen words:

  A lemon has pips,

  And a yard has ships,

  And I’ve got Chips!

  The Skeleton’s Revenge

  (Mexico)

  In the seventeenth century, in the village of Santiago near Mexico City, there lived a gentle old priest named Don Juan de Nava, who was much beloved by his neighbors. He labored selflessly to settle arguments, guide young people, help the poor, and teach the ways of God to rich and poor alike.

  At the time, Mexico City was situated on a large island surrounded by lakes. A raised road of packed earth, called a causeway, linked Santiago with the capital. Just outside the village, a water-filled ditch cut across the road. This broad gap was spanned by an old stone bridge close to the simple house of Padre Juan.

  Here the old priest lived with his niece, Margarita, whose parents had died. She was a young lady of virtue, intelligence, and great beauty. And she was courted by all the young men of Santiago and Mexico City.

  As it happened, a wealthy young nobleman from the city, Don Duarte, fell madly in love with Margarita. In those days, courtships followed many rules; so the young couple could only exchange soft words or roses or little gifts through the iron grating of a window in Padre Juan’s house. Sometimes Don Duarte strummed a guitar as he sang songs beneath Margarita’s balcony.

  As he watched the growing affection between the two, Padre Juan took upon himself a father’s responsibility for his orphaned niece. Putting on his best cassock and sandals, he walked to Mexico City to learn what he could about Don Duarte. He wanted to be sure that the man would make a proper husband.

  But what he learned greatly upset Padre Juan. One and all told him that Don Duarte lived a shameless, wild life, mocked the laws of God and man, and had broken the hearts of many women—from serving girls to the daughters of the finest families. Heavyhearted, Padre Juan returned home, where he told his niece that she must have nothing more to do with the young man.

  That very night, through her window grille, the weeping Margarita told her suitor that her uncle would not allow them to marry. At this, Don Duarte made such dreadful threats against her uncle that she covered her ears and ran to her bedroom.

  Now, Don Duarte was not a man to give up easily, and he was determined to wed the lovely Margarita. So one night, he waited on the old stone bridge. When Padre Juan returned from visiting an ailing farmer, the young man begged the priest to talk with him. The priest, always anxious to believe that there was hope for every sinner, listened as the young man promised to mend his ways. He swore that he would prove a loving, respectable husband, if only the priest would permit him to wed Margarita.

  But Padre Juan, who had seen the best and worst in the human heart, felt that the words, which came so easily to the young man, were lies. He sensed that there was no honesty, no love, no change in Don Duarte. Even Padre Juan’s generous heart recoiled from what he saw of the man’s true nature. Politely but firmly, the priest refused Don Duarte’s pleading.

  Seeing that his appeal had failed, and enraged to think that he might lose the woman he had set his heart upon, Don Duarte drew his dagger and plunged it almost to the hilt into the skull of Padre Juan. Without a sound, the old priest fell dead upon the stones of the bridge.

  Because the dagger, with its ornate handle, would easily be recognized as his, Don Duarte began to pull on it. But no matter how hard he tugged, he could not budge the blade. Frantic to hide his crime, he tossed the body, with the dagger still in place, off the bridge and into the water. Then he fled into the night.

  The disappearance of Padre Juan caused a great stir throughout the Valley of Mexico. Santiago and the countryside were searched, but no trace of the priest was found.

  Don Duarte, knowing that he could not approach Margarita during the time of mourning, gave himself over even more completely to his reckless, wicked life. But thoughts of Margarita inflamed him. He decided he would visit her. If he could not persuade her to run away with him, he would carry her off.

  Don Duarte returned to Santiago on a stormy night. Heavy clouds were split by bursts of lightning. Rain began to fall in great drops as Don Duarte, his cloak wrapped tightly about him, splashed along the rain-slick causeway.

  When he reached the stone bridge, he heard a strange scraping noise ahead of him. But try as he might, he could see nothing in the rain-swept darkness. Then a flash of lightning revealed a tall skeleton, wrapped in a torn and soaked cassock, coming toward him step by step. Sticking out of the skull at a grotesque angle was t
he murderer’s now-rusty dagger.

  Don Duarte turned to flee, but it was too late.

  At dawn, a farmer crossing the bridge on his way to market found a gruesome sight. Sprawled in a puddle was the body of Don Duarte, an expression of absolute terror on his face. Beside his body, its bony hands locked around his throat, was a weather-beaten skeleton, still clothed in a tattered cassock. A rusty dagger jutted out of its skull, and its jaws were frozen in a horrible grin.

  Lullaby

  (British Isles—England)

  Colonel Ewart was a man who detested riding trains and omnibuses, primarily because he was unhappy sharing space with strangers. Strangers wanted to chat, to ask rude questions, to tell him things that he hadn’t the least desire to hear.

  When business required him to make a trip, he would plan roundabout routes on unpopular trains in the hope that they would be reasonably empty. He didn’t mind the extra time, as long as he could sit and read his paper without interruption.

  Having plotted out just such a rail trip from Carlisle to London, the old soldier congratulated himself when the porter showed him to an empty compartment. His luggage stowed, the colonel happily unfolded his newspaper and settled in for a good read. But he kept one eye anxiously on the door, for fear some late-arriving passenger would intrude. With relief, he heard the whistle blow and felt the train moving out of Carlisle Station.

  The warmth of the day and the rocking of the train soon lulled the colonel to sleep.

  He awoke with a start as the newspaper slid from his lap, hitting the floor with a thump. As he bent to pick it up, he found, to his annoyance, that he was no longer alone. On the seat opposite sat a woman. She seemed well dressed, though her clothes were a bit old-fashioned. Her face was heavily veiled, and she had a shawl draped over her shoulders, which fell down across her forearms. She seemed not to notice him at all.