Burn, Witch, Burn!

by Abraham Merritt

  I wrenched my gaze away from the tiers of the watching dolls. I looked again at the doll-maker, still placidly sewing… as though she were alone… as though she were unaware of us… as though Ricori's pistol were not pointed at her heart… sewing… singing softly…

  The Walters doll was on the table before her!

  It lay prone on its back. Its tiny hands were fettered at the wrists with twisted cords of the ashen hair. They were bound round and round, and the fettered hands clutched the hilt of a dagger-pin!

  Long in the telling, but brief in the seeing—a few seconds in time as we measure it.

  The doll-maker's absorption in her sewing, her utter indifference to us, the silence, made a screen between us and her, an ever-thickening though invisible barrier. The pungent aromatic fragrance grew stronger.

  McCann dropped the body of the girl on the floor.

  He tried to speak—once, twice; at the third attempt he succeeded. He said to Ricori hoarsely, in strangled voice:

  "Kill her… or I will—" Ricori did not move. He stood rigid, automatic pointed at the doll-maker's heart, eyes fixed on her dancing hands. He did not seem to hear McCann, or if he heard, he did not heed. The doll-maker's song went on… it was like the hum of bees… it was a sweet droning… it garnered sleep as the bees garner honey… sleep…

  Ricori shifted his grip upon his gun. He sprang forward. He swung the butt of the pistol down upon a wrist of the doll-maker.

  The hand dropped, the fingers of that hand writhed… hideously the long white fingers writhed and twisted… like serpents whose backs have been broken…

  Ricori raised the gun for a second blow. Before it could fall the doll-maker had leaped to her feet, overturning her chair. A whispering ran over the cabinets like a thin veil of sound. The dolls seemed to bend, to lean forward…

  The doll-maker's eyes were on us now. They seemed to take in each and all of us at once. And they were like flaming black suns in which danced tiny crimson flames.

  Her will swept out and overwhelmed us. It was like a wave, tangible. I felt it strike me as though it were a material thing. A numbness began to creep through me. I saw the hand of Ricori that clutched the pistol twitch and whiten. I knew that same numbness was gripping him as it gripped McCann and the others…

  Once more the doll-maker had trapped us!

  I whispered: "Don't look at her, Ricori… don't look in her eyes… "

  With a tearing effort I wrested my own away from those flaming black ones. They fell upon the Walters doll. Stiffly, I reached to take it up—why, I did not know. The doll-maker was quicker than I. She snatched up the doll with her uninjured hand, and held it to her breast. She cried, in a voice whose vibrant sweetness ran through every nerve, augmenting the creeping lethargy:

  "You will not look at me? You will not look at me! Fools—you can do nothing else!"

  Then began that strange, that utterly strange episode that was the beginning of the end.

  The aromatic fragrance seemed to pulse, to throb, grow stronger. Something like a sparkling mist whirled out of nothingness and covered the doll-maker, veiling the horse-like face, the ponderous body. Only her eyes shone through that mist…

  The mist cleared away. Before us stood a woman of breath-taking beauty—tall and slender and exquisite. Naked, her hair, black and silken fine, half-clothed her to her knees. Through it the pale golden flesh gleamed. Only the eyes, the hands, the doll still clasped to one of the round, high breasts told who she was.

  Ricori's automatic dropped from his hand. I heard the weapons of the others fall to the floor. I knew they stood rigid as I, stunned by that incredible transformation, and helpless in the grip of the power streaming from the doll-maker.

  She pointed to Ricori and laughed: "You would kill me—me! Pick up your weapon, Ricori—and try!"

  Ricori's body bent slowly, slowly… I could see him only indirectly, for my eyes could not leave the woman's… and I knew that his could not… that, fastened to them, his eyes were turning upward, upward as he bent. I sensed rather than saw that his groping hand had touched his pistol—that he was trying to lift it. I heard him groan. The doll-maker laughed again.

  "Enough, Ricori—you cannot!"

  Ricori's body straightened with a snap, as though a hand had clutched his chin and thrust him up…

  There was a rustling behind me, the patter of little feet, the scurrying of small bodies past me.

  At the feet of the woman were four mannikins… the four who had marched upon me in the green glow… banker-doll, spinster-doll, the acrobat, the trapeze performer.

  They stood, the four of them, ranged in front of her, glaring at us. In the hand of each was a dagger-pin, points thrust at us like tiny swords. And once more the laughter of the woman filled the room. She spoke, caressingly:

  "No, no, my little ones. I do not need you!"

  She pointed to me.

  "You know this body of mine is but illusion, do you not? Speak."

  "Yes."

  "And these at my feet—and all my little ones—are but illusions?"

  I said: "I do not know that."

  "You know too much—and you know too little. Therefore you must die, my too wise and too foolish doctor—" The great eyes dwelt upon me with mocking pity, the lovely face became maliciously pitiful. "And Ricori too must die—because he knows too much. And you others—you too must die. But not at the hands of my little people. Not here. No! At your home, my good doctor. You shall go there silently—speaking neither among yourselves nor to any others on your way. And when there you will turn upon yourselves… each slaying the other… rending yourselves like wolves… like—"

  She staggered back a step, reeling.

  I saw—or thought I saw—the doll of Walters writhe. Then swift as a striking snake it raised its bound hands and thrust the dagger-pin through the doll-maker's throat… twisted it savagely… and thrust and thrust again… stabbing the golden throat of the woman precisely where that other doll had stabbed Braile!

  And as Braile had screamed—so now screamed the doll-maker… dreadfully, agonizedly…

  She tore the doll from her breast. She hurled it from her. The doll hurtled toward the fireplace, rolled, and touched the glowing coals.

  There was a flash of brilliant flame, a wave of that same intense heat I had felt when the match of McCann had struck the Peters doll. And instantly, at the touch of that heat, the dolls at the woman's feet vanished. From them arose swiftly a pillar of that same brilliant flame. It coiled and wrapped itself around the doll-maker, from feet to head.

  I saw the shape of beauty melt away. In its place was the horse-like face, the immense body of Madame Mandilip… eyes seared and blind… the long white hands clutching at her torn throat, and no longer white but crimson with her blood.

  Thus for an instant she stood, then toppled to the floor.

  And at that instant of her fall, the spell that held us broke.

  Ricori leaned toward the huddled hulk that had been the doll-maker. He spat upon it. He shouted, exultantly:

  "Burn witch burn!"

  He pushed me to the door, pointing toward the tiers of the watching dolls that strangely now seemed lifeless! Only dolls!

  Fire was leaping to them from draperies and curtains. The fire was leaping at them as though it were some vengeful spirit of cleansing flame!

  We rushed through the door, the corridor, out into the shop. Through the corridor and into the shop the flames poured after us. We ran into the street.

  Ricori cried: "Quick! To the car!"

  Suddenly the street was red with the light of the flames. I heard windows opening, and shouts of warning and alarm.

  We swung into the waiting car, and it leaped away.

  Chapter 19 - The Dark Wisdom

  "They have made effigies comparable with my image, similar to my form, who have taken away my breath, pulled out my hair, torn my garments, prevented my feet from moving by means of dust; with an ointment of harmful herbs t
hey rubbed me; to my death they have led me—O God of Fire destroy them!"

  Egyptian Prayer

  Three weeks had passed since the death of the doll-maker. Ricori and I sat at dinner in my home. A silence had fallen between us. I had broken it with the curious invocation that begins this, the concluding chapter of my narrative, scarcely aware that I had spoken aloud. But Ricori looked up, sharply.

  "You quote someone? Whom?"

  I answered: "A tablet of clay, inscribed by some Chaldean in the days of Assur-nizir-pal, three thousand years ago."

  He said: "And in those few words he has told all our story!"

  "Even so, Ricori. It is all there—the dolls—the unguent—the torture—death—and the cleansing flame."

  He mused: "It is strange, that. Three thousand years ago—and even then they knew the evil and its remedy… 'effigies similar to my form… who have taken away my breath… an ointment of harmful herbs… to my death they have led me… O God of Fire-destroy them!' It is all our story, Dr. Lowell."

  I said: "The death-dolls are far, far older than Ur of the Chaldees. Older than history. I have followed their trail down the ages since the night Braile was killed. And it is a long, long trail, Ricori. They have been found buried deep in the hearths of the Cro-Magnons, hearths whose fires died twenty thousand years ago. And they have been found under still colder hearths of still more ancient peoples. Dolls of flint, dolls of stone, dolls carved from the mammoth's tusks, from the bones of the cave bear, from the saber-toothed tiger's fangs. They had the dark wisdom even then, Ricori."

  He nodded: "Once I had a man about me whom I liked well. A Transylvanian. One day I asked him why he had come to America. He told me a strange tale. He said that there had been a girl in his village whose mother, so it was whispered, knew things no Christian should know. He put it thus, cautiously, crossing himself. The girl was comely, desirable—yet he could not love her. She, it seemed, loved him—or perhaps it was his indifference that drew her. One afternoon, coming home from the hunt, he passed her hut. She called to him. He was thirsty, and drank the wine she offered him. It was good wine. It made him gay—but it did not make him love her.

  "Nevertheless, he went with her into the hut, and drank more wine. Laughing, he let her cut hair from his head, pare his finger-nails, take drops of blood from his wrist, and spittle from his mouth. Laughing, he left her, and went home, and slept. When he awakened, it was early evening, and all that he remembered was that he had drunk wine with the girl, but that was all.

  "Something told him to go to church. He went to church. And as he knelt, praying, suddenly he did remember more—remembered that the girl had taken his hair, his nail parings, his spittle and his blood. And he felt a great necessity to go to this girl and to see what she was doing with his hair, his nail parings, his spittle, his blood. It was as though he said, the Saint before whom he knelt was commanding him to do this.

  "So he stole to the hut of the girl, slipping through the wood, creeping up to her window. He looked in. She sat at the hearth, kneading dough as though for bread. He was ashamed that he had crept so with such thoughts—but then he saw that into the dough she was dropping the hair she had cut from him, the nail parings, the blood, the spittle. She was kneading them within the dough. Then, as he watched, he saw her take the dough and model it into the shape of a little man. And she sprinkled water upon its head, baptizing it in his name with strange words he could not understand.

  "He was frightened, this man. But also he was greatly enraged. Also he had courage. He watched until she had finished. He saw her wrap the doll in her apron, and come to the door. She went out of the door, and away. He followed her—he had been a woodsman and knew how to go softly, and she did not know he was following her. She came to a crossroads. There was a new moon shining, and some prayer she made to this new moon. Then she dug a hole, and placed the doll of dough in that hole. And then she defiled it. After this she said:

  "'Zaru (it was this man's name)! Zaru! Zaru! I love you. When this image is rotted away you must run after me as the dog after the bitch. You are mine, Zaru, soul and body. As the image rots, you become mine. When the image is rotted, you are all mine. Forever and forever and forever!'

  "She covered the image with earth. He leaped upon her, and strangled her. He would have dug up the image, but he heard voices and was more afraid and ran. He did not go back to the village. He made his way to America.

  "He told me that when he was out a day on that journey, he felt hands clutching at his loins—dragging him to the rail, to the sea. Back to the village, to the girl. By that, he knew he had not killed her. He fought the hands. Night after night he fought them. He dared not sleep, for when he slept he dreamed he was there at the cross-roads, the girl beside him—and three times he awakened just in time to check himself from throwing himself into the sea.

  "Then the strength of the hands began to weaken. And at last, but not for many months, he felt them no more. But still he went, always afraid, until word came to him from the village. He had been right—he had not killed her. But later someone else did. That girl had what you have named the dark wisdom. Si! Perhaps it turned against her at the end—as in the end it turned against the witch we knew."

  I said: "It is curious that you should say that, Ricori… strange that you should speak of the dark wisdom turning against the one who commands it… but of that I will speak later. Love and hate and power—three lusts—always these seem to have been the three legs of the tripod on which burns the dark flame; the supports of the stage from which the death-dolls leap…

  "Do you know who is the first recorded Maker of Dolls? No? Well, he was a God, Ricori. His name was Khnum. He was a God long and long before Yawvah of the Jews, who was also a maker of dolls, you will recall, shaping two of them in the Garden of Eden; animating them; but giving them only two inalienable rights—first, the right to suffer; second, the right to die. Khnum was a far more merciful God. He did not deny the right to die—but he did not think the dolls should suffer; he liked to see them enjoy themselves in their brief breathing space. Khnum was so old that he had ruled in Egypt ages before the Pyramids or the Sphinx were thought of. He had a brother God whose name was Kepher, and who had the head of a Beetle. It was Kepher who sent a thought rippling like a little wind over the surface of Chaos. That, thought fertilized Chaos, and from it the world was born…

  "Only a ripple over the surface, Ricori! If it had pierced the skin of Chaos… or thrust even deeper… into its heart… what might not mankind now be? Nevertheless, rippling, the thought achieved the superficiality that is man. The work of Khnum thereafter was to reach into the wombs of women and shape the body of the child who lay within. They called him the Potter-God. He it was who, at the command of Amen, greatest of the younger Gods, shaped the body of the great Queen Hat-shep-sut whom Amen begot, lying beside her mother in the likeness of the Pharaoh, her husband. At least, so wrote the priests of her day.

  "But a thousand years before this there was a Prince whom Osiris and Isis loved greatly—for his beauty, his courage and his strength. Nowhere on earth, they thought, was there a woman fit for him. So they called Khnum, the Potter-God, to make one. He came, with long hands like those of… Madame Mandilip… like hers, each finger alive. He shaped the clay into a woman so beautiful that even the Goddess Isis felt a touch of envy. They were severely practical Gods, those of old Egypt, so they threw the Prince into a sleep, placed the woman beside him, and compared—the word in the ancient papyrus is 'fitted'—them. Alas! She was not harmonious. She was too small. So Khnum made another doll. But this was too large. And not until six were shaped and destroyed was true harmony attained, the Gods satisfied, the fortunate Prince given his perfect wife—who had been a doll.

  "Ages after, in the time of Rameses III, it happened that there was a man who sought for and who found this secret of Khnum, the Potter-God. He had spent his whole life in seeking it. He was old and bent and withered; but the desire for women was still st
rong within him. All that he knew to do with that secret of Khnum was to satisfy that desire. But he felt the necessity of a model. Who were the fairest of women whom he could use as models? The wives of the Pharaoh, of course. So this man made certain dolls in the shape and semblance of those who accompanied the Pharaoh when he visited his wives. Also, he made a doll in the likeness of the Pharaoh himself; and into this he entered, animating it. His dolls then carried him into the royal harem, past the guards, who believed even as did the wives of Pharaoh, that he was the true Pharaoh. And entertained him accordingly.

  "But, as he was leaving, the true Pharaoh entered. That must have been quite a situation, Ricori—suddenly, miraculously, in his harem, the Pharaoh doubled! But Khnum, seeing what had happened, reached down from Heaven and touched the dolls, withdrawing their life. And they dropped to the floor, and were seen to be only dolls.

  "While where one Pharaoh had stood lay another doll and crouched beside it a shivering and wrinkled old man!

  "You can find the story, and a fairly detailed account of the trial that followed, in a papyrus of the time; now, I think, in the Turin Museum. Also a catalogue of the tortures the magician underwent before he was burned. Now, there is no manner of doubt that there were such accusations, nor that there was such a trial; the papyrus is authentic. But what, actually, was at the back of it? Something happened—but what was it? Is the story only another record of superstition—or does it deal with the fruit of the dark wisdom?"

  Ricori said: "You, yourself, watched that dark wisdom fruit. Are you still unconvinced of its reality?"

  I did not answer; I continued: "The knotted cord—the Witch's Ladder. That, too, is most ancient. The oldest document of Frankish legislation, the Salic Law, reduced to written form about fifteen hundred years ago, provided the severest penalties for those who tied what it named the Witch's Knot—"

  "La Ghana della strega," he said. "Well, do we know that cursed thing in my land—and to our black sorrow!"