"For may not the divell send to their fantasie, their senses being
dulled and as it were asleep, such hills and glistering courts
whereunto he pleaseth to delude them?"--KING JAMES' "DEMONOLOGY."
Now I have to record how I walked into the oldest snare in the world.
Perhaps it was the sense of her near presence brought home to me by her
hand-print on the table so close to where my hand rested; perhaps it was
her speech of presently leaving me to return no more. Or perhaps both
these joined in urging on my determination to learn more of Desire
Michell before some unknown bar fell between us. I only know that I
passed into a mood of trapped exasperation at my helplessness and lack
of knowledge. It seemed imperative that I should act to save us both,
act soon and surely; yet inaction was bound upon me by my ignorance. Who
was she? Where did she live? What bond held her subject to the Thing
from the Barrier? What gates were to close between us? Why could she not
put her hand in mine, any night, and let me take her away from this
haunted place? Why, at least, not come to me in the light, and let me
see her face to face? I was a man groping in a labyrinth while outside
something precious to him is being stolen.
For the first time I found myself unable to work, unable to share our
household life with Phillida and Vere, or to find relaxation in driving
about the countryside. Anger against Desire herself stirred at the
bottom of my mind; Desire, who hampered me by the word of honor in which
she had netted me so securely.
It was then that my enemy from the unknown places began to whisper of
the book.
I encountered that enemy in a new mood. We did not meet at the breach in
the mighty wall, confronted in death conflict between Its will and mine.
Instead, night after night It crept to my window as at our first
meeting. I started awake to find Its awful presence blackening the
starlight where It crouched opposite me, Its intelligence breathing
against mine. As always, my human organism shrank from Its unhuman
neighborhood. Chill and repugnance shook my body, while that part of me
which was not body battled against nightmare paralysis of horror. But
now It did not menace or strive against me. It displayed a dreadful
suavity I might liken to the coiling and uncoiling of those great snakes
who are reported to mesmerize their prey by looping movements and
figures melting from change to change in the Hunger Dance of Kaa.
There was a book that held all I longed to know, It whispered to me. A
book telling of the woman! She did not wish me to read, for fear I
should grow overwise and make her mine. The book was here, in my house.
I might arise and find--if I would be guided by It----!
I thrust the whispers away. How could I trust my enemy? If such a book
existed, which seemed improbable, there was a taint of disloyalty to
Desire in the thought of reading without her knowledge.
The Thing was not turned away. How could I do harm by learning what she
was, unless she had evil to conceal? Did I fear to know the truth? As
for the book's existence, I had only to accept guidance from It----?
I persisted in refusal. But the idea of the book followed me through my
days like a wizard's familiar dogging me. Where could such a volume be
hidden, in what secret nook in wall or floor? How came a book to be
written about the girl I supposed young, unknown and set apart from the
world? Was I letting slip an opportunity by my fastidious notions of
delicacy?
Indecision and curiosity tormented me beyond rest. Phillida and Vere
began to consider me with puzzled eyes. Cristina developed a habit of
cooking individual dishes of especial succulence and triumphantly
setting them before me as a "surprise"; a kindness which of course
obliged me to eat whether I was hungry or not. I suspect my little
cousin abetted her in this transparent ruse. I pleaded the heat as an
excuse for all. We were in late August now. Cicadas sang their dry chant
in the fields, where the sun glared down upon Vere's crops and painted
him the fine bronze of an Indian. Our lake scarcely stirred under the
hot, still air.
It was after a day of such heat, succeeded by a night hardly more cool,
that the lights in my room quietly went out. I was sitting at my table,
some letters which required answers spread before me while I brooded,
pen between my fingers, upon the mystery which had become my life. For
the moment I attributed the sudden failure of light to some accident at
the powerhouse.
Not for long! The hateful cold that crept like freezing vapor into the
room, the foul air of damp and corruption pouring into the scented
country atmosphere, the frantic revolt of body and nerves--before I
turned my eyes to the window I knew the monster from the Frontier
crouched there.
"Weakling!" It taunted me. "Puny from of old, how should you prevail? By
your fear, the woman stays mine. Miserable earth-crawler, in whose hand
the weapon was laid and who shrinking let it fall unused, the end
comes."
"The book?" I gasped, against my better judgment.
"The book was the weapon."
"No, or you would not have offered it to me."
"Coward, believe so. Hug the belief while you may. The offer is past."
Past? A madness of bafflement and frustrated curiosity gripped and shook
me.
"I take the offer," I cried in passion and defiance. "If there is such a
book, show it to me!"
The Thing was gone. Light quietly filled the lamps--or was it that I had
opened my eyes? I gripped the arms of my chair, waiting. For what? I did
not know. Only, all the horror I ever had felt in the presence of the
Thing was slight compared to the fear that presently began to flow upon
me as an icy current. There in the pleasantly lighted room, alone, I
sank through depths of dread, down into an abyss of despair, down----
A long sigh of rising wind passed through the house like a sucked breath
of triumph. Windows and doors drew in and out against their frames with
a rattling crash, then hung still with unnatural abruptness. Absolute
stillness succeeded. I felt a very slight shock, as if the ground at my
feet was struck.
I fled from the terror for the first time. Yes, coward at last, deserter
from that unseen Frontier's defense, I found myself in the hall outside
my room, leaning sick and faint against the wall. Behind me the door
shut violently, yet I felt no current of air to move it.
From the other side of the house there sounded the click of latch, then
a patter of soft-shod feet. Phillida came hurrying down the hall toward
me. She was wrapped in some silky pink-flowered garment. Her short hair
stood out around her head like a little girl's well-brushed crop. She
presented as endearingly natural a figure, I thought, as any man could
seek or imagine. The wisdom of Ethan Vere who had garnered his love
here!
"Cousin?" she exclaimed. "The hall light is so dim! You almost
frightened me when I glimpsed you standing there. Did the wind wake you,
too? I think we are going to have a thunder storm, it is so hot and
gusty. I heard poor Bagheera mewing and scratching at the door, so I was
just going down to let him in before the rain comes."
"Yes," I achieved. Then, finding my voice secure: "I will let in the
cat. Where is Vere?"
"He did not wake up, so I tiptoed out. Why?"
"I do not like to have you going about the house alone at this hour."
Her eyes widened and she laughed outright.
"Why, Cousin Roger! What a funny idea to have about our very own house!
I have one of the electric flashlights you bought for us all; see?"
What could I tell her of my vision of her womanly softness and timidity
brought to bay by the Thing of horror, down in those empty lower rooms?
How did I know It stalked no prey but me? Its clutch was upon Desire
Michell. These were Its hours, between midnight and dawn.
"Tramps," I explained evasively. "Give me the light."
But she pattered down the stairs beside me, kimono lifted well above her
pink-flowered slippers, one hand on the balustrade. The light glinted in
the white topaz that guarded her wedding ring, a richer jewel than any
diamond in the sight of one who knew the tender thought with which she
had set it there. No! The horror was not for her, clothed in her
wholesome goodness as in armor of proof. Surely for such as she the
Barrier stood unbreached and strong.
When I opened the front door, Bagheera darted in like a hunted cat. A
drift of mist entered with him. Looking out, I saw the night was heavy
with a low-hanging fog that scarcely rose to the tree tops; a
ground-mist that eddied in smoke-like waves of gray where our light fell
upon it. Such mists were common here, yet I shivered and shut it out
with relief. While I refastened the lock, Bagheera purred around my
ankles, pressing caressingly against me as if thanking me after the
manner of cats. I remembered this was not the first time he had shown
this anxiety and gratitude for shelter.
"Bagheera does love you," Phillida commented, stooping to pat him.
"Isn't it funny, though, that he never will go into your room? He is
always petting around you downstairs. When Cristina or I are doing up
your quarters, he will follow us right up to the door-sill, but we can't
coax him inside. Perhaps he doesn't like that perfume you always have
about."
A qualm ran through me, recalling the night I had taken the cat there by
force and its frantic escape. But I snapped the key fast and
straightened myself with sharp self-contempt. Had I fallen so low as to
heed the caprices of a pet cat? Was it not enough that I had fled from
my enemy after accepting the knowledge It had striven so long to force
upon me?
For I had that knowledge. When I had halted in the passage outside my
room, in the moment before Phillida had joined me, there had been
squarely set before my mental sight the place to seek the book.
"Phillida, there was a bookcase in this house when it was bought," I
said. "I believe it stood in my room before the place was altered. A
small stand; I remember putting my candle on its top the first night I
slept here. Have you seen it?"
Some tone in my question seemed to touch her expression with surprise as
she lifted her eyes to mine; or perhaps it was the hour I chose for the
inquiry.
"Oh, yes," she answered readily. "I supposed you had noticed it long
ago; I mean, where it stands. The quaintest bit, a genuine antique! And
holding the stuffiest collection of old books, too! I believe they may
be valuable, out-of-print, early editions. If," her voice faltered
wistfully, "if Father ever forgives me for being happy with Ethan, and
comes to visit us, he would love every musty old volume. Do you think
Mother and he ever will, Cousin Roger?"
"I am sure they will, Phil. Feuds and tragic parents are out of date.
They must adjust themselves gradually when they realize Vere
is--himself. Before you go upstairs to him, will you tell me where to
find that bookcase?"
"Now? Why, of course!"
She led me across the hall to her sewing room. I cannot say that she
sewed there very much, but she had chosen that title in preference to
boudoir or study as more becoming a housewife. She had assembled here a
spinning-wheel from the attic, some samplers, a Hepplewhite sewing-table
and chairs discovered about the house. Her canaries' cage hung above a
great punch-bowl of flowered ware in which she kept gold-fish. A pipe of
Vere's balanced beside the bowl showed that his masculine presence was
not excluded.
In a corner stood the bookcase. Phillida pulled the chain of a lamp
bright under a shade of peacock chintz, and watched me stoop to look at
the faded bindings.
"Thank you, Phil," I said. "It may take some time to find the book I
want. You had better hurry back to bed before Vere comes hunting for a
missing wife."
"Are you going to stay and hunt for the book tonight, then?"
"Unless you are afraid I shall disturb your canaries?"
She did not laugh. Drawing nearer, she stroked my sleeve with a
caressing doubt and remonstrance.
"But you have not been to bed at all, and soon it will be morning! Do
you have to write your lovely music at night, Cousin Roger? You have
been growing thin and tired, this summer. Are you quite well? You are so
good that you should be happy, but--are you?"
"Good, Phil?" I wondered, touched. "Why, how did your lazy,
tune-spinning, frivolous cousin get that reputation in this branch of
the family?"
"You are so kind," she said simply. "Ethan says so. You know, Cousin
Roger, that I was over-educated in my childhood; my brain choked with
little, little stupid knowledge that hardly matters at all. We went to
church Sundays because that was the correct thing to do. But I was
almost a heathen when Ethan married me. He doesn't trouble about church.
He doesn't trouble about the past, or life after death, or punishment
for sin. He believes if one tries to be kind and straight, the big
Kindness and Straightness takes care of everything. So I have learned to
feel that way, too. It is a--a calm sort of feeling all the time, if you
know what I mean. And that is the way you are good, although perhaps you
never thought of it."
"Thank you, Phillida," I acknowledged; and walked with her to the foot
of the stairs.
When her pink-clad figure had vanished behind her bedroom door, I went
back to the sewing room and drew up a chair before the case of books.
Phillida had not unreasonably stigmatized them as stuffy. They were a
sober collection. Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy," an ancient copy of
the Apocrypha, and a three-volume Life of Martin Luther loaded the first
shelf. I looked at the second shelf and found it filled with the bound
sermons of a divine of whom I had never heard.
The lowest shelf held strange companions for the sedate volumes above.
Erudite works on theosophy, magic, the interpretation of dreams and
demonology huddled together here. Not all of them were readable by my
humble store of learning. There was a Latin copy of Artemidorus,
Mesmer's "Shepherd," Mathew Paris, some volumes in Greek, and some I
judged to be Arabian and Hebrew. At the end of the row stood a thin,
dingy book whose title had passed out of legibility. I took it out and
opened the covers.
Fronting the first page was a faded woodcut, the portrait of a woman.
Beneath in old long-s type, dim on the yellowed paper, was printed the
legend:
"_Desire Michell, ye foule witch._"
Closing the book, I forced reason to come forward. I was resolved that
panic should not drive me again nor my defense fall from within its
walls. Master of my enemy I might never be; master of my own inner
kingdom I must and should be. But I was glad to be here instead of
upstairs while I read; glad of the interlude in Phillida's company, and
of the presence of the three sleepy canaries who blinked down at the
disturbing lamp.
The date stamped into the back of the book in Roman numerals was of a
year in the seventeen hundreds. What connection could its Desire Michell
have with the girl I knew? Perhaps she had adopted the name to mystify
me. Or at most, she might be of the family of that unfortunate woman
branded witch by a bigoted generation.
Reopening the book, I studied the dim, stiff portrait. The face was
young, delicate of line, with long eyes set wide apart; eyes that even
in this wretched picture kept a curious drowsy watchfulness. The
inevitable white Puritan cap was worn, but curls clustered about the
brow and two massive braids descended over either shoulder. The perfumed
bronze-colored braid up in my drawer----?
The volume was entitled "Some Manifestations of Satan in Witchcraft in
Ye Colonies," by Abimelech Fetherstone. Disregarding the satanic
manifestations set forth in the other four chronicles, I turned to "Ye
Foule Witch, Desire Michell."
As I began to read, another breath of wind sighed through the house,
sucking windows and doors in and out with the shock of sound, instantly
ended, that is produced by a distant explosion. I thought a flash of
lightning whipped across my eyes. But when I glanced toward the windows
I saw only the smoke-like fog banked in drifts against the panes.