Conjure Wife

by Fritz Leiber

  “No, Norman,” she said, “we must talk. There is a great deal I have to tell you, and there may not be much time.”

  He looked around the bedroom. For a while his glance rested on the creamy door of Tansy’s dressing-room. Then he nodded heavily and sat down on the bed. The opium-dream feeling was stronger than ever and Tansy’s oddly brisk voice and brittle manner seemed part of it.

  “Back of everything, is Mrs. Carr,” she began. “It was she who brought Mrs. Gunnison and Evelyn Sawtelle together, and that one act speaks volumes. Women are invariably secret about their magic.

  They work alone. A little knowledge is passed from the elder to the younger ones, especially from mother to daughter, but even that is done grudgingly and with suspicion. This is the only case Mrs. Gunnison knew of — I learned most of this from watching her soul — in which three women actually cooperated. It is an event of revolutionary importance, betokening heaven knows what for the future. Even now, I have only an inkling of Mrs. Carr’s ambitions, but they involve vast augmentations of her present powers. For almost three quarters of a century she has been weaving her plans.”

  Norman torpidly absorbed these grotesque statements. He took a swallow of his second drink.

  “She seems an innocent and rather foolish old lady, straitlaced yet ineffectual, girlish but prudish,” she continued. Norman started for he fancied he caught in her voice a note of secret glee. It was so jarringly incongruous that he decided it must be his imagination. When she resumed, it was gone. “But that’s only part of a disguise, along with her sweet voice and jolly manners. She’s the cleverest actress imaginable. Underneath she’s hard as nails — cold where Mrs. Gunnison would be hot, ascetic where Mrs. Gunnison would be a slave to appetites. But she has her own deeply hidden hungers, nevertheless. She is a great admirer of Puritan Massachusetts. Sometimes I have the queerest feeling that she is planning by some unimaginable means, to re-establish that witch-ridden, so-called theocratic community in this present day and age.

  “She rules the other two by fear. In a way they are little more than her apprentices. You know something of Mrs. Gunnison, so you will understand what it means when I say that I have seen Mrs. Gunnison’s thoughts go weak with terror because she was afraid that she had slightly offended Mrs. Carr.”

  Norman finished his drink. His mind was slipping away from this new menace, instead of grasping it firmly. He must whip himself awake, he told himself unwillingly. Tansy pushed her drink over toward him.

  “And Mrs. Gunnison’s fear is justified, for Mrs. Carr has powers so deadly that she has never had to use them except as a threat. Her eyes are the worst. Those thick glasses of hers — she possesses that most feared of supernatural weapons, against which half the protective charms in recorded magic are intended. That weapon whose name is so well known throughout the whole world that it has become the laughing-stock of skeptics. The evil eye. With it, she can blight and wither. With it, she can seize control of another’s soul at a single glance.

  “So far she has held back, because she wanted the other two punished for certain trifling disobediences, and put into a position where they would have to beg her help. But now she will act quickly. She recognizes in you and your work a danger to herself.” Tansy’s voice had become so breathlessly rapid that Norman realized she must be talking against time. “Besides that, she has another motive buried in the darkness of her mind. I hardly dare mention it, but sometimes I have caught her studying my every movement and expression with the strangest avidity —”

  Suddenly she broke off and her face went white.

  “I can feel her now… . I can feel her seeking me out… . She is breaking through — No!” Tansy screamed. “No, you can’t make me do it! … I won’t! … I won’t!” Before he knew it, she was on her knees, clinging to him, clutching at his hands. “Don’t let her touch me, Norman,” she was babbling like a terrified child. “Don’t let her come near me.”

  “I won’t,” he said sharply, suddenly stung awake.

  “Oh… but you can’t stop her… . She’s coming here, she says, in her own body, that’s how much she’s afraid of you! She’s going to take my soul away again. I can’t tell you what she wants. It’s too repulsive.”

  He gripped her shoulders. “You must tell me,” he said. “What is it?”

  Slowly she lifted up her white, frightened face, until her eyes were looking into his. And she never once looked away as she whispered, “You know how Mrs. Carr loves youth, Norman. You know her ridiculous youthful manner. You know how she always wants to have young people around her, how she feeds on their feelings and innocence and enthusiasms, Norman, hunger for youth has been Mrs. Carr’s ruling passion for decades, She’s fought off age and death for a long time, longer than you think, she’s nearer ninety than seventy, but they’re relentlessly closing in. It isn’t so much that she’s afraid of death, but she’d do anything, anything, Norman, to have a young body.

  “Don’t you see, Norman? The others wanted my soul, but she wants my body. Haven’t you ever noticed the way she looks at you, Norman? She desires you, Norman, that foul old woman desires you, and she wants to love you in my body. She wants to possess my body and to leave my soul trapped in that withered old walking-stick body of hers, leave my soul to die in her filthy flesh. And she’s coming here now to do it, she’s coming here now.”

  He stared in dull horror at her terrified, unwinking, almost hypnotic eyes.

  “You must stop her, Norman, you must stop her in the only way she can be stopped.” And without taking her eyes off his, Tansy rose and backed out of the room.

  And perhaps there was something truly hypnotic about her eyes, some queer effect of her own terror, for it seemed to Norman that she had no sooner left the room than she was back at his side, pressing something angular and cold into his hand.

  “You must be very quick,” she was saying. “If you hesitate for the tiniest instant, if you give her the slightest opportunity to fix you with her eyes, you’ll be lost — and I’ll be lost forever. You know the cobra that spits venom at its victim’s eyes — it’s like that. Get ready, Norman. She’s very close.”

  There were hurried steps on the walk outside. He heard the front door open. Suddenly Tansy pushed her body against his so that he felt her breasts. Her moist lips felt for his own. Almost brutally he returned her kiss. She whispered into his lips, “Only be quick, darling.” Then she slipped away.

  There were steps in the hail. Norman lifted the gun. He realized that it was unnaturally dark in the bedroom — Tansy had pulled the shades. The bedroom door was pushed inward. A thin form in gray silk was silhouetted against the light from the hall. Beyond the sight of the gun he saw the faded face, the thick glasses. His finger tightened on the trigger.

  The silver-haired head gave a little shake.

  “Quick, Norman, quick!” The voice from beside him rose nervously.

  The gray figure in the doorway did not move. The gun wavered, then swung suddenly around until it pointed at the figure beside him.

  “Norman!”

  21

  Small restless breezes stirred the leaves of the oak standing like some burly guard beside the narrow house of the Carrs. Through the overlapping darkness gleamed the white of the walls — such a spotless, pristine white that neighbours laughingly vowed the old lady herself came out after everyone had gone to sleep and washed them down with a long-handled mop. Everywhere was the impression of neatly tended, wholesome old age. It even had an odor — like some old chest in which a clipper captain had brought back elegant spices from his voyages in the China Trade.

  The house faced the campus. The girls could see it, going to classes, and it called to their minds afternoons they had spent there, sitting in strait-backed chairs, all on their best behavior, while a wood fire burned merrily on the shining brass andirons in the white fireplace. Mrs. Carr was such a straitlaced innocent old dear! But her innocence was all to the good — it was no trouble at all to pull the wool
over her eyes. And she did tell the quaintest stories with the most screamingly funny, completely unconscious points. And she did serve the nicest gingerbread with her cinnamon tea.

  A light came on in the ball, casting a barred pattern through the fanlight onto the old wooden scrollwork of the porch. The six-paneled white door below the fanlight opened.

  “I’m going, Flora,” Professor Carr called. “Your bridge partners are a bit tardy, aren’t they?”

  “They’ll be here soon.” The silvery voice floated down the hall. “Good-by, Linthicum.”

  Professor Carr closed the door. Too bad he had to miss the bridge. But the paper young Rayford was going to read on the Theory of Primes would undoubtedly be interesting, and one couldn’t have everything. His footsteps sounded on the pebbly walk with its edging of tiny white flowers, like old lace. Then they reached the concrete and slowly died away.

  Somewhere at the rear of the house a car drew up. There was the sound of something being lifted; then heavy, plodding footsteps. A door at the back of the house opened, and for a moment against the oblong of light a man could be seen carrying slung over his shoulder a limp and bulky bundle that might have been a muffled-up woman, except that such mysterious and suspicious goings-on were unthinkable at the Carr’s, as any neighbor would have assured you. Then that door closed, too, and for a while longer there was silence, while the breezes played with the oak leaves.

  With thriftless waste of rubber a black Studebaker jerked to a stop In front. Mrs. Gunnison stepped out.

  “Hurry up, Evelyn,” she said. “You’ve made us late again. You know how she hates that.”

  “I’m coming as fast as I can,” replied her companion plaintively.

  As soon as the six-paneled door swung open, the faded spicy odor became more apparent.

  “You’re late, dears,” came the silvery, laughing voice. But I’ll forgive you this once, because I’ve a surprise for you. Come with me.

  They followed the frail figure in faintly hissing silk into the living room. Just beyond the bridge table, with its embroidered cover and two cut-glass dishes of sweets, stood Norman Saylor. In the mingled lamplight and firelight, his face was expressionless.

  “Since Tansy is unable to come,” said Mrs. Carr, “he’s agreed to make a fourth. Isn’t that a nice surprise? And isn’t it very nice of Professor Saylor?”

  Mrs. Gunnison seemed to be gathering her courage. “I’m not altogether sure that I like the arrangement,” she said finally.

  “Since when did it matter whether you liked something or not?” came the sharp answer. Mrs. Carr was standing very straight. “Sit down, all of you!”

  When they had taken their places around the bridge table, Mrs. Carr ran through a deck, flipping out certain cards. When she spoke, her voice was as sweet and silvery as ever.

  “Here are you two, my dears,” she said placing the queens of diamonds and clubs side by side. “And here is Professor Saylor.” She added the king of hearts to the group. And here am I.” She placed the queen of spades so that it overlapped all three. “Off here to the side is the queen of hearts — Tansy Saylor. Now what I intend to do is this.” She moved the queen of hearts so that it covered the queen of spades. “You don’t understand? Well, it isn’t what it looks like and neither of you is especially bright. You’ll understand in a moment. Professor Saylor and I have just had ever so interesting a talk,” she went on. “All about his work. Haven’t we, Professor Saylor?” He nodded. “He’s made some of the most fascinating discoveries. It seems there are laws governing the things that we women have been puttering with. Men are so clever in some ways, don’t you think?

  “He’s been good enough to tell all those laws to me. You’d never dream how much easier and safer it makes everything — and more efficient. Efficiency is so very important these days. Why, already Professor Saylor has made something for me — I won’t tell you what it is, but there’s one for each of you and one for someone else. They aren’t presents, because I’ll keep them all. And if one of you should do something naughty, they’ll make it ever so easy for me to whisk part of you away — you know what part.

  “And now something is going to happen that will enable Professor Saylor and me to work together very closely in the future — how closely you could never imagine. You’re to help. That’s why you’re here. Open the dining-room door, Norman.”

  It was an old-fashioned sliding door, gleaming white. Slowly he pushed it aside.

  “There,” said Mrs. Carr. “I’m full of surprises tonight.”

  The body was lashed to the chair. From over the gag, the eyes of Tansy Saylor glared at them with impotent hate.

  Evelyn Sawtelle half rose, stifling a scream.

  “You needn’t get hysterics, Evelyn,” said Mrs. Carr sharply. “It’s got a soul in it now,”

  Evelyn Sawtelle sank back, lips trembling.

  Mrs. Gunnison’s face had grown pale, but she set her jaw firmly and put her elbows on the table. “I don’t like it,” she said. It’s too risky.”

  “I am able to take chances I wouldn’t have taken a week ago, dear,” Mrs. Carr said sweetly. “In this matter your aid and Evelyn’s is essential to me. Of course, you’re perfectly welcome not to help, if you don’t want to. Only I do hope you understand the consequences.”

  Mrs. Gunnison dropped her eyes. “All right,” she said. “But let’s be quick about it.”

  “I am a very old woman,” began Mrs. Carr with tantalizing slowness, “and I am very fond of life. It has been a little dispiriting of or me to think that mine is drawing to a close. And, for reasons I think you understand, I have something more to fear in death than most persons.

  “But now it seems that I am once more going to experience all those things that an old woman looks upon as forever lost. The unusual circumstances of the last two weeks have helped a great deal, in preparing the ground. Professor Saylor has helped too. And you, my dears, are going to help. You see, it’s necessary to build up a certain kind of tension, and only people with the right background can do that, and it takes at least four of them. Professor Saylor — he has such a brilliant mind! — tells me that it’s very much like building up electrical tension, so that a spark will be able to jump a gap. Only in this case the gap will be from where I am sitting to there” — and she pointed at the bound figure. “And there will be two sparks. And then, when it’s over, the queen of hearts will exactly cover the queen of spades. Also, the queen of spades will exactly cover the queen of hearts. You see, tonight, dears, we’re positively fourth-dimensional. But it’s the things you can’t see that are always the most important, don’t you think?”

  “You can’t do it!” said Mrs. Gunnison. “You won’t be able to keep the truth hidden!”

  “You think not? On the contrary, I won’t have to make an effort Let me ask you what would happen if old Mrs. Carr claimed that she were young Tansy Saylor. I think you know very well what would happen to that dear, sweet, innocent old lady. There are times when the laws and beliefs of a skeptical society can be so very convenient.

  “You can begin with the fire, Norman. I’ll tell the others exactly what they are to do.”

  He tossed a handful of powder on the fire. It flared up greenly, and a pungent, cloying aroma filled the room.

  And then — who knows — there may have been a stirring at the heart of the world and movement of soundless currents in the black void. Upon the dark side of the planet, a million women moved restlessly in their sleep, and a few woke trembling with unnamed fears. Upon the light side, a million more grew nervous, and unaccustomed daydreams chased unpleasantly through their minds; some made mistakes at their work and had to add again a column of figures, or attach a different wire to a different tube, or send a misdrilled piece of metal to salvage, or re-mix the baby’s formula; a few found strange suspicion growing mushroomlike among their thoughts. And perhaps a certain ponderous point began to work closer and closer to the end of the massive surface supporting it, not unli
ke a top slowly wobbling toward the edge of a table, and certain creatures who were nearby saw what was happening and skittered away terrified through the darkness. Then, at the very edge, the weird top paused. The irregularity went out of its movement, and it rode steady and true once more. And perhaps one might say that the currents ceased to trouble the void, and that the Balance had been restored… .

  Norman Saylor opened the windows at top and bottom so the breeze might fan out the remnants of pungent vapor. Then he cut the lashings of the bound figure and loosened the gag from its mouth. In a little while she rose, and without a word they started from the room.

  All this while, none of the others had spoken. The figure in the gray silk dress sat with head bowed, shoulders hunched, frail hands dropped limply at her side.

  In the doorway the woman whom Norman Saylor had loosed turned back.

  “I have only one more thing to say to you. All that I told you earlier this evening was completely true, with one exception —”

  Mrs. Gunnison looked up. Evelyn Sawtelle half turned in her chair. The third figure did not move.

  “The soul of Mrs. Carr was not transferred to the body of Tansy Saylor this evening. That happened much earlier — when Mrs. Carr stole Tansy Saylor’s soul from Mrs. Gunnison and then occupied Tansy Saylor’s bound and empty-brained body, leaving the captive soul of Tansy Saylor trapped in her own aged body — and doomed to be murdered by her own husband in accord with Mrs. Carr’s plan. For Mrs. Carr knew that Tansy Saylor would have only one panic-stricken thought — to run home to her husband, And Mrs. Carr was very sure that she could persuade Norman Saylor to kill the body housing the soul of his wife, under the impression that he was killing Mrs. Carr. And that would have been the end of Tansy Saylor’s soul.

  “You knew, Mrs. Gunnison, that Mrs. Carr had taken Tansy Saylor’s soul from you, just as you had taken it from Evelyn Sawtelle, and for similar reasons. But you dared not reveal that fact to Norman Saylor because you would have lost your one bargaining point. This evening you half suspected that something was different from what it seemed, but you did not dare make a stand.