Burn, Witch, Burn!

by Abraham Merritt

  "Mollie is apt to be restless, and she still sleeps in a low crib so she can't fall out. The crib is in our bedroom, in the corner beside one of the two windows. Between the two windows is my dressing table, and our bed is set with its head against the wall opposite the windows. We both stopped and looked at Mollie, as we always do… did. She was sound asleep with the doll clasped in one arm, its head on her shoulder.

  "John said: 'Lord, Mollie—that doll looks as alive as the baby! You wouldn't be surprised to see it get up and walk. Whoever posed for it was some sweet kid.'

  "And that was true. It had the sweetest, gentlest little face… and oh, Dr. Lowell… that's what helps make it so dreadful… so utterly dreadful… "

  I saw the fear begin to creep back into her eyes.

  McCann said: "Buck up, Mollie!"

  "I tried to take the doll. It was so lovely I was afraid the baby might roll on it or damage it some way," she went on again quietly, "but she held it fast, and I did not want to awaken her. So I let it be. While we were undressing, John took the knotted cord out of his pocket.

  "'That's a funny looking bunch of knots,' he said. 'When you hear from Tom ask him what it's for.' He tossed the cord on the little table at his side of the bed. It wasn't long before he was asleep. And then I went asleep too.

  "And then I woke up… or thought I did… for if I was awake or dreaming I don't know. I must have been a dream—and yet… Oh, God, John is dead… I heard him die… "

  Again, for a little time, the tears flowed. Then:

  "If I was awake, it must have been the stillness that awakened me. And yet—it is what makes me feel I must have been dreaming. There couldn't such silence… except in a dream. We are on the second floor, and always there is some sound from the street. There wasn't the least sound now… it was as though… as though the whole world had suddenly been stricken dumb. I thought I sat up, listening… listening thirstily for the tiniest of noises. I could not even hear John breathing. I was frightened, for there was something dreadful in that stillness. Something living! Something wicked! I tried to lean over to John, tried to touch him, to awaken him.

  "I could not move! I could not stir a finger! I tried to speak, to cry out. I could not!

  "The window curtains were partly drawn. A faint light showed beneath and around them from the street. Suddenly this was blotted out. The room was dark—utterly dark.

  "And then the green glow began—

  "At first it was the dimmest gleam. It did not come from outside. It was in the room itself. It would flicker and dim, flicker and dim. But always after each dimming it was brighter. It was green like the light of the firefly. Or like looking at moonlight through clear green water. At last the green glow became steady. It was like light, and still it wasn't light. It wasn't brilliant. It was just glowing. And it was everywhere—under the dressing table, under the chairs… I mean it cast no shadows. I could see everything in the bedroom. I could see the baby asleep in her crib, the doll's head on her shoulder…

  "The doll moved!

  "It turned its head, and seemed to listen to the baby's breathing. It put its little hands upon the baby's arm. The arm dropped away from it.

  "The doll sat up!

  "And now I was sure that I must be dreaming the strange silence the strange green glow… and this…

  "The doll clambered over the side of the crib, and dropped to the floor. It came skipping over the floor toward the bed like a child, swinging its school books by their strap. It turned its head from side to side as it came, looking around the room like a curious child. It caught sight of the dressing table, and stopped, looking up at the mirror. It climbed up the chair in front of the dressing table. It jumped from the chair seat to the table, tossed its books aside and began to admire itself in the mirror.

  "It preened itself. It turned and looked at itself, first over this shoulder and then over that. I thought: 'What a queer fantastic dream!' It thrust its face close to the mirror and rearranged and patted its hair. I thought: 'What a vain little doll!' And then I thought: 'I'm dreaming all this because John said the doll was so life-like he wouldn't be surprised to see it walk.' And then I thought: 'But I can't be dreaming, or I wouldn't be trying to account for what I'm dreaming!' And then it all seemed so absurd that I laughed. I knew I had made no sound. I knew I couldn't… that the laugh was inside me. But it was as though the doll had heard me. It turned and looked straight at me—

  "My heart seemed to die within me. I've had nightmares, Dr. Lowell—but never in the worst of them did I feel as I did when the doll's eyes met mine…

  "They were the eyes of a devil! They shone red. I mean they were—were—luminous… like some animal's eyes in the dark. But it was the—the—hellishness in them that made me feel as though a hand had gripped my heart! Those eyes from hell in that face like one of God's own angels…

  "I don't know how long it stood there, glaring at me. But at last it swung itself down and sat on the edge of the dressing table, legs swinging like a child's and still with its eyes on mine. Then slowly, deliberately, it lifted its little arm and reached behind its neck. Just as slowly it brought its arm back. In its hand was a long pin… like a dagger…

  "It dropped from the dressing table to the floor. It skipped toward me and was hidden by the bottom of the bed. An instant and it had clambered up the bed and stood, still looking at me with those red eyes, at John's feet.

  "I tried to cry out, tried to move, tried to arouse John. I prayed—'Oh, God, wake him up! Dear God—wake him!'

  "The doll looked away from me. It stood there, looking at John. It began to creep along his body, up toward his head. I tried to move my hand, to follow it. I could not. The doll passed out of my sight…

  "I heard a dreadful, sobbing groan. I felt John shudder, then stretch and twist… I heard him sigh…

  "Deep deep down… I knew John was dying… and I could do nothing… in the silence in the green glow…

  "I heard something like the note of a flute, from the street, beyond the windows. There was a tiny scurrying. I saw the doll skip across the floor and spring up to the windowsill. It knelt there for a moment, looking out into the street. It held something in its hand. And then I saw that what it held was the knotted cord John had thrown on his table.

  "I heard the flute note again… the doll swung itself out of the window… I had a glimpse of its red eyes… I saw its little hands clutching the sill… and it was gone…

  "The green glow… blinked and… went out. The light from the street returned around the curtains. The silence seemed… seemed… to be sucked away.

  "And then something like a wave of darkness swept over me. I went down under it. Before it swept over me I heard the clock strike two.

  "When I awakened again… or came out of my faint… or, if it was just a dream, when I awakened… I turned to John. He lay there… so still! I touched him… he was cold… so cold! I knew he was dead!

  "Dr. Lowell… tell me what was dream and what was real? I know that no doll could have killed John!

  "Did he reach out to me when he was dying, and did the dream come from that? Or did I… dreaming… kill him?"

  Chapter 12 - Technique of Madame Mandilip

  There was an agony in her eyes that forbade the truth, so I lied to her.

  "I can comfort you as to that, at least. Your husband died of entirely natural causes—from a blood clot in the brain. My examination satisfied me thoroughly as to that. You had nothing to do with it. As for the doll—you had an unusually vivid dream, that is all."

  She looked at me as one who would give her soul to believe. She said:

  "But I heard him die!"

  "It is quite possible—" I plunged into a somewhat technical explanation which I knew she would not quite understand, but would, perhaps, be therefore convincing—"You may have been half-awake—on what we term the borderline of waking consciousness. In all probability the entire dream was suggested by what you heard. Your subconsciousness tried t
o explain the sounds, and conceived the whole fantastic drama you have recited to me. What seemed, in your dream, to take up many minutes actually passed through your mind in a split second—the subconsciousness makes its own time. It is a common experience. A door slams, or there is some other abrupt and violent sound. It awakens the sleeper. When he is fully awake he has recollection of some singularly vivid dream which ended with a loud noise. In reality, his dream began with the noise. The dream may have seemed to him to have taken hours. It was, in fact, almost instantaneous, taking place in the brief moment between noise and awakening."

  She drew a deep breath; her eyes lost some of their agony. I pressed my advantage.

  "And there is another thing you must remember—your condition. It makes many women peculiarly subject to realistic dreams, usually of an unpleasant character. Sometimes even to hallucinations."

  She whispered: "That is true. When little Mollie was coming I had the most dreadful dreams—"

  She hesitated; I saw doubt again cloud her face.

  "But the doll—the doll is gone!" she said.

  I cursed to myself at that, caught unawares and with no ready answer. But McCann had one. He said, easily:

  "Sure it's gone, Mollie. I dropped it down the chute into the waste. After what you told me I thought you'd better not see it any more."

  She asked, sharply:

  "Where did you find it? I looked for it."

  "Guess you weren't in shape to do much looking," he answered. "I found it down at the foot of the kid's crib, all messed up in the covers. It was busted. Looked like the kid had been dancing on it in her sleep."

  She said hesitantly: "It might have slipped down. I don't think I looked there—"

  I said, severely, so she might not suspect collusion between McCann and myself:

  "You ought not to have done that, McCann. If you had shown the doll to her, Mrs. Gilmore would have known at once that she had been dreaming and she would have been spared much pain."

  "Well, I ain't a doctor." His voice was sullen. "I done what I thought best."

  "Go down and see if you can find it," I ordered, tartly. He glanced at me sharply. I nodded—and hoped he understood. In a few minutes he returned.

  "They cleaned out the waste only fifteen minutes ago," he reported, lugubriously. "The doll went with it. I found this, though."

  He held up a little strap from which dangled a half-dozen miniature books. He asked:

  "Was them what you dreamed the doll dropped on the dressing table, Mollie?"

  She stared, and shrank away.

  "Yes," she whispered. "Please put it away, Dan. I don't want to see it."

  He looked at me, triumphantly.

  "I guess maybe I was right at that when I threw the doll away, Doc."

  I said: "At any rate, now that Mrs. Gilmore is satisfied it was all a dream, there's no harm done."

  "And now," I took her cold hands in mine. "I'm going to prescribe for you. I don't want you to stay in this place a moment longer than you can help. I want you to pack a bag with whatever you and little Mollie may need for a week or so, and leave at once. I am thinking of your condition—and a little life that is on its way. I will attend to all the necessary formalities. You can instruct McCann as to the other details. But I want you to go. Will you do this?"

  To my relief, she assented readily. There was a somewhat harrowing moment when she and the child bade farewell to the body. But before many minutes she was on her way with McCann to relations. The child had wanted to take "the boy and girl dolls." I had refused to allow this, even at the risk of again arousing the mother's suspicions. I wanted nothing of Madame Mandilip to accompany them to their refuge. McCann supported me, and the dolls were left behind.

  I called an undertaker whom I knew. I made a last examination of the body. The minute puncture would not be noticed, I was sure. There was no danger of an autopsy, since my certification of the cause of death would not be questioned. When the undertaker arrived I explained the absence of the wife—imminent maternity and departure at my order. I set down the cause of death as thrombosis—rather grimly as I recalled the similar diagnosis of the banker's physician, and what I had thought of it.

  After the body had been taken away, and as I sat waiting for McCann to return, I tried to orient myself to this phantasmagoria through which, it seemed to me, I had been moving for endless time. I tried to divest my mind of all prejudice, all preconceived ideas of what could and could not be. I began by conceding that this Madame Mandilip might possess some wisdom of which modern science is ignorant. I refused to call it witchcraft or sorcery. The words mean nothing, since they have been applied through the ages to entirely natural phenomena whose causes were not understood by the laity. Not so long ago, for example, the lighting of a match was "witchcraft" to many savage tribes.

  No, Madame Mandilip was no "witch," as Ricori thought her. She was mistress of some unknown science—that was all.

  And being a science, it must be governed by fixed laws—unknown though those laws might be to me. If the doll-maker's activities defied cause and effect, as I conceived them, still they must conform to laws of cause and effect of their own. There was nothing supernatural about them—it was only that, like the savages, I did not know what made the match burn. Something of these laws, something of the woman's technique—using the word as signifying the details, collectively considered, of mechanical performance in any art—I thought I perceived. The knotted cord, "the witch's ladder," apparently was an essential in the animation of the dolls. One had been slipped into Ricori's pocket before the first attack upon him. I had found another beside his bed after the disturbing occurrences of the night. I had gone to sleep holding one of the cords—and had tried to murder my patient! A third cord had accompanied the doll that had killed John Gilmore.

  Clearly, then, the cord was a part of the formula for the direction of control of the dolls.

  Against this was the fact that the intoxicated stroller could not have been carrying one of the "ladders" when attacked by the Peters doll.

  It might be, however, that the cord had only to do with the initial activity of the puppets; that once activated, their action might continue for an indefinite period.

  There was evidence of a fixed formula in the making of the dolls. First, it seemed, the prospective victim's free consent to serve as model must be obtained; second, a wound which gave the opportunity to apply the salve which caused the unknown death; third, the doll must be a faithful replica of the victim. That the agency of death was the same in each case was proven by the similar symptoms.

  But did those deaths actually have anything to do with the motility of the dolls? Were they actually a necessary part of the operation?

  The doll-maker might believe so; indeed, undoubtedly did believe so.

  I did not.

  That the doll which had stabbed Ricori had been made in the semblance of Peters; that the "nurse doll" which the guards had seen poised on my window-ledge might have been the one for which Walters had posed; that the doll which had thrust the pin into Gilmore's brain was, perhaps, the replica of little Anita, the eleven-year-old schoolgirl—all this I admitted.

  But that anything of Peters, anything of Walters, anything of Anita had animated these dolls… that dying, something of their vitality, their minds, their "souls" had been drawn from them, had been transmuted into an essence of evil, and imprisoned in these wire-skeletoned puppets… against this all my reason revolted. I could not force my mind to accept even the possibility.

  My analysis was interrupted by the return of McCann.

  He said, laconically: "Well, we put it over."

  I asked. "McCann—you weren't by any chance telling the truth when you said you found the doll?"

  "No, Doc. The doll was gone all right."

  "But where did you get the little books?"

  "Just where Mollie said the doll tossed 'em—on her dressing table. I snaked 'em after she'd told me her story. She hadn't notic
ed 'em. I had a hunch. It was a good one, wasn't it?"

  "You had me wondering," I replied. "I don't know what we could have said if she had asked for the knotted cord."

  "The cord didn't seem to make much of a dent on her—" He hesitated. "But I think it means a hell of a lot, Doc. I think if I hadn't took her out, and John hadn't happened home, and Mollie had opened the box instead of him—I think it's Mollie he'd have found lying dead beside him."

  "You mean—"

  "I mean the dolls go for whichever gets the cords," he said somberly.

  Well, it was much the same thought I had in my own mind.

  I asked: "But why should anybody want to kill Mollie?"

  "Maybe somebody thinks she knows too much. And that brings me to what I've been wanting to tell you. The Mandilip hag knows she's being watched!"

  "Well, her watchers are better than ours." I echoed Ricori; and I told McCann then of the second attack in the night; and why I had sought him.

  "An' that," he said when I had ended, "Proves the Mandilip hag knows who's who behind the watch on her. She tried to wipe out both the boss and Mollie. She's onto us, Doc."

  "The dolls are accompanied," I said. "The musical note is a summons. They do not disappear into thin air. They answer the note and make their way… somehow to whoever sounds the note. The dolls must be taken from the shop. Therefore one of the two women must take them. How did they evade your watchers?"

  "I don't know." The lean face was worried. "The fish-white gal does it. Let me tell you what I found out, Doc. After I left you last night I go down to see what the boys have to say. I hear plenty. They say about four o'clock the gal goes in the back an' the old woman takes a chair in the store. They don't think nothing of that. But about seven who do they see walking down the street and into the doll joint but the gal. They give the boys in the back hell. But they ain't seen her go, an' they pass the buck to the boys in front.

  "Then about eleven o'clock one of the relief lads comes in with worse news. He says he's down at the foot of Broadway when a coupe turns the corner an' driving it is the gal. He can't be mistaken because he's seen her in the doll joint. She goes up Broadway at a clip. He sees there ain't nobody trailing her, an' he looks around for a taxi. Course there's nothing in sight—not even a parked car he can lift. So he comes down to the gang to ask what the hell they mean by it. An' again nobody's seen the gal go."