by Andre Norton
I could understand nothing of what she said. Her language was a thick and gutteral one, some of the words delivered with a hissing intonation. But it must have included dismissal as all three men left.
Now she peered straight at me. Around her gaunt neck was a chain of small polished bones and from this dangled a huge spike, like a monster tooth. Her skin was very black, but had a grayish overtinge as if powdered with ashes, adding to her appearance of extreme age. She raised a claw finger, crooked it to beckon.
“Come!” She croaked in French.
I was drawn forward like a dog on a tight leash. We went out of the kitchen into a much smaller room in which there was only a large packing case placed against one wall. To that she pointed with the order: “Sit.”
Again that which held me made me obey. She hobbled back toward the kitchen, having made no attempt to secure me. Apparently she was confident that I remained a helpless prisoner.
The men returned, were fed by bowls of the pottage and rounds of coarse bread. Having eaten, they did not again go outside, but passed into another section of the house, that behind the boarded shutters.
Time dragged slowly. But I began to feel that weird bondage was waning. With great concentration of will I was able to make a single finger on my right hand respond to my bidding. A finger, then my hand raised an inch or so from where it lay helplessly on my knee.
So spurred by a small victory I strove to move my toes within the wrecks of my shoes. If I could stand, walk—I could get out, for I did not believe that the old woman had the physical strength to oppose me.
Only, before I could achieve more than a small beginning, she came back, one of the men behind her carrying a large hamper. Dismissing him with a jerk of the chin (he scuttled away as if he were very glad to go), the hag began to unpack the hamper. There were gourds with stoppers, a length of white cloth she did not unfold, a bowl which she placed on the floor, getting down on her knees with a grunt of pain to do so.
Into the bowl she sifted the contents of several small packets, stirring them together with the care of a master cook, using a white paddle instead of a spoon. Each of the packets she so emptied was hung with feathers and pieces of yellow bone.
Having finished, she arose swiftly to her feet and came to me, gesturing me to stand. My freedom was still too limited to defy her. There was a noise at the door and two of the men came, tugging a tin bath in which water sloshed. She pointed to a position on the floor not far from the bowl. They set it there and retreated as quickly as their comrade.
Now the crone caught at the torn draperies of my dress. “Off—all off,” she ordered.
Not lingering to see if she was obeyed, she went to the bowl, stooped to pick up a gourd, drew out its stopper, and sniffed the contents.
My fingers fumbled at the pins in my torn bodice. In spite of all my awakening will I could not resist her order. Slowly, clumsily, I dropped my clothing piece by piece, revolted by my own actions, unable to stop.
Meanwhile she poured into the bath the contents of more than one gourd. The odor arising from the inter- mingling of those liquids was sickly sweet.
I dropped my last garment, standing as I never had in anyone's company during my adult life. And I was hot with shame.
The woman had brought out a paddle with a longer | handle, stirred the water vigorously, the cloud of scent rising. Nor did that dissipate, but seemed to hang directly above the bath like a fog.
“Come—” Again she crooked a finger.
I went unwillingly, the spell (which was all I could term it) still holding.
“In—”
I stepped into the bath. The water was warm, oily against my shrinking skin. At another sign I squatted down and she came closer with a white cloth. So armed, she bathed me, washing even my hair, and I had to endure it, though her touch, like that of the water, aroused in me a sick revulsion.
When she seemed satisfied with her labors, she left me sitting in the water, the scent now wedded to my skin, my hair, so I feared I would never be free of it. With its cloying intensity it carried a suggestion of evil so pronounced I felt myself stained and defiled.
The crone left the room, to return with a lighted splinter of wood which she inserted into the bowl, blowing at it in small puffs. A strong smell of incense aroused. When this was alight to her satisfaction, she ordered me out of the bath and brought me to the bowl, standing me directly over it, the basin between my feet, the curling yellow smoke weaving an envelope about my body. As the water before it, it made me feel unclean.
She made no effort to dry me; perhaps the smoke was intended to do that. Leaving me imprisoned in its cloud, she shook out the folded cloth she had earlier taken from the hamper. It was a garment of sorts, very wide and loose, sewn to it at random bunches of feathers both black and white. While on the front was traced a crude design in black paint.
The smoke was dying away, but she left me there until the substance in the bowl was only ashes. She checked now and then so I felt as if I were a pot on the boil. When the last tendril of smoke vanished she lifted the bowl from the floor, holding it with a black cloth between it and her fingers.
Into the warm ashes the crone dipped a brush made of black feathers tied together, catching up the powdery stuff. With that she painted my breasts, outlined below those symbols I did not understand, working until all the ashes were used. The marks clung paint-wise to my still-damp body.
Having so completed her task, she withdrew a step or two to view her handiwork. Whatever she saw must have pleased her, for she set aside bowl and brush, to pick up the white garment. With the ease of one who had done this action more than once, she spun this over my head. It was so loose she had no difficulty in lifting one of my inert arms after the other to insert into the wide sleeves. With a little grunt she withdrew a second time, to survey me up and down. Then she clapped her hands and called out.
As if they had been waiting, two of the men returned to lug out the bath, while she repacked the hamper. Both men made a wide circle around me, avoided even looking in my direction—as if I were now an object to inspire fear and awe.
When they had gone the crone shuffled to the pile of my discarded clothing. She picked it up and searched each piece, finding my money, weighing also the handkerchief I had tied around the bracelet, but not opening that. Rather she made a sound of pleasure and stowed the purse in the front of her blouse.
But as she stooped once more the handkerchief clattered to the floor and unwound so that the spider bracelet lay in plain sight. Spying it, the woman started back, her mouth gaping open to show toothless gums.
She did not reach to pick it up; rather she went into the kitchen and returned with that large spoon she had used earlier. Creaking to her knees, she made hard work of catching the loop of the bracelet around the spoon bowl.
Once obtained without touching it, she held it close to her eyes. Then she placed it, spoon and all, on the top of the case and came over to me. Grabbing one sleeve of the robe, keeping the material between her hands and flesh, she raised my right arm, bared it, and sniffed along the skin. I felt her whistling breath. Letting that fall, she did the same with the other.
“You wear z'araignée—”
She did not seem to expect an answer. Now she stood, plucking at her lower lip. Then, muttering to herself, she went back to the case and reached for the spoon handle.
“Z'araignée,” she repeated. From her own neck she took the bone necklace, rattled it furiously over the bracelet. Her muttering held the cadence of a chant as, from somewhere within her clothing, she produced a length of thong, looped that through the bracelet, turning the ornament into a large, awkward pendant.
Back at my side she flipped up the robe to drop the thong about my neck, settling the bracelet between my breasts before she covered me again. Once more I was then ordered back to the box. My head was still swimming from the effects of the incense. This time as she left the room she closed the door, but I did not think she l
ocked it
Only I was not alone. I watched, and could not escape, horrors which crept from the corners to squat before me, gibbering, pointing with hands which were not hands, mewing noises which were never speech.
I thought I had gone mad, or would soon. But some hard core deep within me repeated over and over that these were but illusions, things born out of that vile smoke.
Things like demons from old Bibles illustrated by Doré capered there, the darkest fears of childhood put on life. I closed my eyes, yet still they were imprinted on my lids. Also—when I dared not watch, surely they crept closer. So I must look again to make sure—
I was far past tears. Fear tensed my body into one rigid ache, and the garment I wore might have been spun of ice I was so cold. I do not know how I continued to keep a small fingerhold on sanity. But I fought in the only way I knew—first with the memory of my life with my father. Instead of seeing phantoms, I tried to picture him standing on guard as he had so often during the savagery of a storm. And this time another was shoulder to shoulder with him. Deepening into life for me came Alain Sauvage, for he was of the same breed.
With Jesse Penfold's blood in me, the shaping of my childhood his, how could I not fight? I forced myself to center my attention upon a single one of those demons born of fear and hallucination. Then I willed to see through its misshapen body to the wall of the room, to remember who I was and that I could not be so vanquished by the tricks of devil worshippers.
Whether I had some innate barrier against complete surrender to their drugs, I do not know. I have since heard that the reactions of unbelievers cannot be as enduring as those of true worshippers who expect to see and feel what is not of this world.
I did not break, if that was what they expected. Rather I gained command of myself. Once more I could raise my hands, though those shook and trembled so I could not use them. But my legs remained numb and lifeless.
They came for me when it was dark—save for candles a man standing just outside the door held in either hand. The crone had put away her bright clothing. Now she wore a loose robe of black, caught in about her middle with a blue sash. Her headcloth, however, was the same. The man with her was bare of body save for a blue cloth about his loins.
One on either side they took me under the arms, pulled me up, and marched me forward, the man with the candles in the lead. So we came into a much larger room. Here was light from torches thrust into iron rings set in the walls. Under those stood a number of people, the women wearing robes of white or blue, the men only pantaloons. And some of that company were as white of skin as I.
The center of the room was bare and marked out there on the floor was that symbol I had seen on the crumpled scrap of paper in Victorine's room—a black heart with a sword wreathed by a yellow serpent. To one side was a hogshead, one end covered with a tautly drawn skin. Sitting astride this crude drum, two long bones in his hands to be plied as sticks, was the third man who had brought me here. He was flanked by another holding a chain on which had been strung a number of bells, on the other side by a woman holding a large gourd.
Beyond the design on the floor was a long table draped with black; pinned to that many of the same bunches of feathers as were on my robe, as well as bones. On the surface of the improvised altar lay two cocks, one white, one black, their feet cruelly bound. The wretched birds were alive and kept up a frenzied crowing.
My guards led me past the heart, being very careful not to set foot on its tracing. We passed beyond the altar to one of the pillars supporting the roof of this great room. As if they were no longer sure that their stupefying hold would continue, my captors lashed me to this upright.
On the floor behind the altar, perhaps not visible to those gathered at the other end of the chamber, was a big basket which shook of itself now and then as if something was imprisoned within.
Our entrance signaled the beginning of the rite. The man seated on the drum began to beat softly in a strange rhythm, accented at intervals by a ring of the bells, a rattling as the woman shook the gourd.
Then followed a chant, low at first, gathering volume. The crone moved to the fore of the altar, raising her arms, wrinkled leather drawn over bone, uttering sharp cries as if to summon someone—or something.
From the shadows at this end of the room where there were no torches advanced another group. Two tall men, wearing only pantaloons, supported between them a third who walked haltingly, his head lolling forward on his chest. His slender body was bare save for a scarlet cloth, and about both his ankles and his limp wrists were chains of gold hung with bells. His head was bound with a bandage and I caught sight of his pale face as they passed me.
D'Lys! Then he was not dead!
His supporters brought him to the altar, raised him to be laid upon it, the struggling, squawking birds at his head and feet. While the tempo of the drum quickened, until its beat shook my body, willing me to some action I did not understand.
A shrill cry broke from the crone, echoed by those in the chamber.
“L'appe vine, le Grand Zombi.”
“L'appe vine, pour le gris-gris!”
There was a wild leap out of the shadows, the figure clearing both the altar and the man upon it, to land in the exact center of that symbol on the floor. Her ivory body was almost entirely nude, her hair loose on her shoulders. This Victorine had no kinship with the girl I had known.
Around her waist was a belt of small bones clacking together at her every move, and at her throat the serpent necklace glinted. She began to dance, hardly moving her feet, but so twisting and swaying her body that the obscenity she suggested was clear to me, even though I had never seen such before. The crone scurried to open the basket.
She returned carrying a snake, such as I had never believed could exist. It writhed upward to coil about her shoulders until she staggered under its weight. Slowly she came to Victorine, halting only at the edge of the symbol.
Victorine turned, held out her arms. The snake reared its head, lifted the forepart of its body from the crone, stretching to meet the girl. Then it seemed to flow to her through the air. As it came into her grasp she held its head level with her face, the forked tongue darting at her cheeks. There was a shout from the watchers:
“Ah—yah—Ezili Coeur-Noir!”
The snake moved its head as if it whispered in her ear. I saw her laugh and nod. Grasping it firmly, she jerked its full length to her.
Though it had made the old woman a heavy burden, to Victorine it could have been the lightest cord. She used it like a whip, holding it behind the head, snapping its length out toward the others. They swayed from side to side, mimicking the serpent. Three times she lashed it, then she allowed it to coil about her waist, its head resting on her shoulder.
She finally made a quick dart to the side of the altar, loosened the hold of the snake, making it caress with flicking tongue the face and breast of D'Lys. Finally the reptile flowed from her to the floor, to coil by its basket, its head still swaying to the rhythm of the drum. Victorine whirled and caught up the black cock—
I will not allow myself to remember what she did, I dare not. She could not have been wholly human in those moments, rather possessed by a devil. For now I can accept that evil incarnate can walk this world. What most men dismiss as superstition—that I have seen!
There was blood on D'Lys’ body, not his own. Blood on her mouth and hands—
She faced the worshippers. “Ahhhhh!” she screamed. “Here stands Ezili Coeur-Noir. She is mam'bo!”
“Mam'bo!” they wailed. They had crept closer and their eyes had a glazed stare. They were flushed as if drunk. Here and there one of the women had thrown off her robe.
“Here lies our houn'gan!” Victorine pointed to D'Lys. “He is not dead, he is possessed by Baron Samedi of the Grave. Ahhh—let him rise, rise, rise!” She screamed louder and louder.
“What do we bring to Baron Samedi that our houn'gan may live, may have breath within his nostrils, feel the beat of his
heart, be a man again—what do we bring?”
“Ahhhhh—” the others moaned.
“We bring the white goat without horns. Tender flesh for his tearing, for his eating. Ahhh—the goat without horns do we bring!”
She made another of those leaps, this carrying her to me. At the same time someone behind the pillar cut free my hands. There was a flash of light in the air, Victorine now held a knife. With that she made a lightning thrust I could not dodge. But that blow had not been intended to kill, rather my slashed robe fell to the floor.
“Behold the white goat without horns,” she cried. “Let it come that its blood be the drink, its flesh the food, and our houn'gan rise again.”
She beckoned as if she expected me to walk forward and have my throat cut. I did not move. Her face contorted into a devil's grimace.
“Come!” She backed to the altar beckoning.
Perhaps what saved me was that instinct which makes ns all fight death, perhaps part of it was my victory over the earlier hallucinations. Though compulsion urged me forward, I had the strength and will to stand fast.
The beat of the drum, the clash of the bells, the rattling of the gourd made a hellish noise. Within me there was that which continued to fight
“Come!”
I needed some weapon—there was none to hand. When would she grow impatient and use the knife? I raised my hands to cover my breasts in useless defense.
So I touched the dangling bracelet. What aid it could be—? I ducked my head, drew off the cord, swung it in my hand. So poor a thing, but all I had.
“Come!” Victorine cried for the third time. There were flecks of foam on her lips. Her eyes were not sane.
I did not move. Though the pack could easily pull me down. Behind Victorine I saw the crone draw near.
She screamed some injunction into the girl's ear. Why they did not rush me I did not understand. At any moment I expected them to seize me, drag me to that altar, and use the knife. Yet now I was more clear-headed than I had been for hours, as if fear had burned the last of their poison from my mind.