I.

"I keep wondering if she knows about Us," said the woman with black

button eyes. She played the queen of spades.

The queen of hearts trumped the queen of spades. "You can put your mind

at rest," said the silver-haired woman sweetly, gathering in the trick.

"She doesn't. Tansy Saylor plays a lone hand. Like most women, she

thinks she's the Only One. Co-operation such as ours is rare."

"But I'm afraid of her. Oh, I know she hasn't upset the Balance, and

uses only Protective Procedures. But she isn't our kind. Neither is her

husband. They don't belong."

The silver-haired woman nodded primly, peering through her thick

glasses at the dummy with the empty chair behind it. "I agree. The

Saylors are a disgrace to the Hempnell faculty. Modern. No sense of the

traditional decencies."

"Yes, and she wants to make him president of Hempnell. She wants him to

dictate to our husbands. She wants to condescend to us."

"This talk gets nowhere," broke in the stout, red-haired woman gruffly.

"The point is that her Protective Procedures are effective--many things

would have happened to the Saylors during the last ten years if they

weren't. And she hasn't made the mistake of upsetting the Balance. So

what can we three do about it?"

"Oh, the Balance!" said the woman with black button eyes, throwing down

her last two cards. "Sometimes I think we ought to upset it ourselves."

She evaded the shocked glance of the silver-haired woman. "We've our

Sounds, and our Pictures, and our Numbers, and our Cards. We could

finish the Saylors in a whiff. There's such a neat trick with cards

I've just learned. Here, let me show you--" She slipped a dozen shiny

paste-board oblongs out of her purse. They had the conventional backs,

but their faces bore representations of a cryptic sort.

"Stop that!" The silver-haired woman stretched out fluttering hands.

"Put them away!" ordered the stout woman harshly. She glanced at the

door. "Quickly!"

But the eyes of the little man who ambled in were not inquisitive.

With white beard and amiable smile, he looked almost benign, in an

absent-minded sort of way.

"I don't suppose you played much bridge while I was gone," he observed

with mild joviality.

The silver-haired woman's laughter trilled sweetly. "It's his little

joke. He always pretends that all women are fearful gossips. Well, at

least I made the contract, dear. Four hearts."

His eyes twinkled. "Very commendable." He settled himself in the empty

chair. "Still I imagine the three of you managed to find time for some

very dark and devious plotting--" He chuckled innocently.

* * * * *

Norman Saylor, professor of ethnology at Hempnell College, was not the

sort of man to go snooping around in his wife's dressing room. That was

partly the reason why he did it. He was sure nothing could touch the

security of the relationship between him and Tansy.

The house was very quiet. Spring sunshine and balmy air were sluicing

gently through the bedroom windows. It wasn't five minutes since he

had put in the final staccato burst of typing on his "Negro Recruit"

brochure for the War Office. It looked as if for once they would have a

lazy evening to themselves.

Totem, the cat, rose from her sun-warmed spot on the neatly piled

silk quilt and indulged in a titanic, disruptive-looking yawn, neatly

folded her white paws under her black waistcoat, and stared solemnly

at Norman. Norman copied her yawn, and felt a partial unkinking of the

twelve-work-hours-a-day tension that had traced lines on his chunky

face and smudged shadows under his clear, yellow-brown eyes. Such

moments as this did not come often these days, but when they did come,

they sure felt good.

The door of Tansy's dressing room stood invitingly open. It was a tiny

room, just a big closet, with no windows. But it was more than a rack

of dresses and a creamy dressing table. It was Tansy. On the neat side,

but not fussy. A slight pleasant disorder. Very sane--he wondered why

that particular word came to his mind, but it hit the spot. A faint

perfume conjured up amiable memories.

He studied the photographs on either side of the mirror. One of Tansy

and himself in modified Indian costume, from three summers back when he

had been studying the Yumas. They both looked rather solemn. Another,

slightly faded, of an uproarious Negro baptizing in midriver. That

was from when he had held the Hazelton Fellowship and been gathering

material for his "Social Patterns of the Southern Negro" and his later

"Feminine Element in Superstition." Tansy had done more work than two

secretaries that busy year when he was hammering out a reputation.

There was an ample array of cosmetics--Tansy had been the first of the

Hempnell faculty wives to use lipstick and lacquer her nails; there had

been covert criticism and talk of "setting the students a bad example,"

but she had stuck it out. Flanked by cold-cream jars was a photograph

of himself, with a little pile of small change, dimes and quarters, in

front of it.

Idly he slid out a drawer, scanned the pile of stocking rolls, pushed

it in, pulled at another, which jammed, so he had to give it a sharp

tug. A large cardboard box toward the back caught his eyes. He edged up

the cover and took out one of the tiny glass-stoppered bottles. What

sort of cosmetic would this be? Too dark for face powder. More like a

geologist's soil specimen. An ingredient for a mud pack?

The dry, dark-brown granules shifted smoothly, like sand in an

hourglass, as he rotated the glass cylinder. The label appeared, in

Tansy's clear script. "Julia Trock, Roseland." A cosmetician? Was

Roseland a part of the name, or a place? And why should the idea that

it might be a place seem distasteful? His hand knocked aside the

cardboard cover as he reached for a second bottle, identical with the

first, except that the contents had a somewhat reddish tinge, and the

label read, "Philip Lassiter, Hill." A third, contents same color

as the first: "J. P. Thorndyke, Roseland." Then a handful, quickly

snatched up, of three: "Emelyn Scatterday, Roseland." "Mortimer Pope,

Hill." "The Rev. Bufort Ames, Roseland."

The silence in the house grew thunderous; even the sunlight seemed to

sizzle and fry, as his mind rose to a sudden pitch of concentration on

the puzzle. "Roseland and Hill, Roseland and Hill, Roseland and Hill,"

like a nursery rhyme somehow turned nasty, making the glass cylinders

repugnant to his fingers. "Roseland Hill--"

Abruptly the answer came.

The two local cemeteries.

Graveyard dirt.

Soil specimens all right. Graveyard dirt from particular graves. A

chief ingredient of Negro conjure magic.

* * * * *

With a soft thud Totem landed on the table and began to sniff

inquisitively at the bottles, but sprang away as Norman plunged his

hand into the drawer. He felt smaller boxes behind the big one, yanked

suddenly at the whole drawer, so it fell to the floor. In one of the

boxes were bent, rusty, worn bits of iron--horseshoe nails. In the

other were calling-card envelopes, filled with snippings of hair, each

labeled like the bottles, but some of these names he knew. And in

one--fingernail clippings.

In the third drawer he drew blank. But the fourth yielded a varied

harvest. Packets of small dried leaves and powdered vegetable

matter--so that was what came from Tansy's herb garden along with

kitchen seasonings? Vervain, vinmoin, devil's snuff. Bits of lodestone,

iron filings clinging to them. Goose quills which spilled quicksilver

when he shook them. Small squares of flannel, the sort that Negro

conjure doctors employed for their "tricken-bags" or "hands." A box of

old silver coins and silver filings--strong protective magic; giving

significance to the coins, all silver, in front of his photograph.

But Tansy was so sane--so healthily contemptuous of palmistry,

astrology, numerology and all the other superstitious fads. A

hard-headed New Englander. So well versed, from her work with him, in

the psychological background of superstition and primitive magic. And

yet--

He found himself thumbing through a dog-eared copy of his own

"Parallelisms in Superstition and Neurosis." It looked like the one he

had lost around the house--was it eight years ago? Beside a formula for

conjuration was a marginal notation in Tansy's script: "Doesn't work.

Substitute copper filings for brass. Try in dark of moon instead of

full."

"Norman--"

Tansy was standing in the doorway, her hand stopped in the moment of

drawing off the little half hat of deep-rose felt that matched her trim

dress.

Never before had he had such a feeling that a human face was only an

arbitrary arrangement of curved surfaces and colors. The tapering

chin--an ellipsoid. The full lips--a complex arrangement of cycloids

and other curves. The eyes--white spheres inscribed with gray-green

circles centered with black. Without familiarity or significance. And

yet, in the same instant he felt that it was desperately important that

he spy out a significance. For a faint distortion of those angles and

curves--a distortion so subtle as to be almost indiscernible--might

signify ... yes, why not say it?... insanity.

The ghost of a smile curved Tansy's lips, and familiarity flooded back

into her face.

"So you've found out," she sighed. And although it seemed incredible,

he thought she sighed with relief.

For a moment he stood there confused, like a district attorney caught

arranging evidence. Then he began his cross-examination.

"It all started so foolishly," she was saying soon. "Just before you

came to Hempnell. I felt it was tremendously important that you get

the appointment and just to relieve my nerves--no other reason--I did

silly things. Put mild curses on the two other applicants, to confuse

their thoughts during the interviews. I got the curses from your notes.

I surrounded you with a web of protective magic, charmed the sociology

faculty to make them regard you favorably.

"Well, you got the job, and I forgot all about my stupid private joke.

"Then, when your first book was at the publishers--you remember, Norm,

in 1930--I tried again. We were so sure it would be rejected. I was

planning to tell you all about my idiotic conjures as soon as it came

back, so at least we'd have a laugh. But it was accepted. And I didn't

tell you.

"Then in 1931, when you had pneumonia. I didn't want to, because it was

too serious this time, but you got worse and I couldn't help myself.

And you got well.

"That was the real beginning. Not that I was certain--I've never been

certain--but I didn't dare take chances. Careers hang on such little

strings, and Hempnell can be so vindictive. You know.

"But I wasn't superstitious. No, I wasn't! At least, I didn't have what

you'd call the superstitious feeling. In a twisted logical way, I was

trying to be empirical. I judged everything by results, step by step.

"And of course, when I say empirical, I don't mean experimental. I

didn't dare to omit any charms as a test, because I was too afraid of

something going wrong. You can't be experimental about someone you

love, any more than a sane sociologist would induce fascism in his own

country just to study the consequences."

He listened, his mind working like a telephone exchange during an

emergency, catching a thousand hidden connections in trivial memories

of his life and Tansy's. Whenever she paused, he had a question to

hammer at her.

"Those mirror decorations on your dresses, and belts, and

handbags--why?"

She nodded, tiredly. "Yes, that's it. To ward off evil spirits, by

reflecting them. I got the idea from Tibetan devil masks. Yes, and the

reason I always use hooks and eyes is--you've guessed--to catch evil

spirits that try to get at me."

* * * * *

The room was dark by the time Tansy had finished the catalogue of her

activities at Hempnell, and said, "So you see, I've never been sure.

I've wanted to stop, but there's been too much at stake. It always

worked--or did as soon as I made the proper corrections in the charms.

I've wanted to tell you, but I've never dared. Now that you know, I'm

glad."

The voice was very tired now.

Then, in the darkness he began his argument. It was the old, old

argument of science against primitive ignorance, but he brought it home

to her with careful persuasiveness. The argument which starts out with

a demonstration that superstition is only mistaken empiricism, and ends

with psychoanalysis.

"Didn't it really begin much earlier than Hempnell, Tansy?" he asked at

one point. "I mean, the seeds of it?"

"No. Oh, I don't know. Perhaps. I've childhood memories of dark

moments. Suspicions. Queer things people could do. Hints from I don't

know where. But nothing certain. I just can't remember. I don't know."

Only once did the tired voice grow vehement.

"But I tell you I never tried to kill, or even to injure in a physical

way! Never! Only to confuse or hinder people when they were working

against you. It's terribly important that you understand this, Norman.

Nine tenths of my magic was purely protective. To ward off evil."

He felt pettishly exasperated at this answer. What difference did it

make whether or not she had tried to kill? It was all equally nonsense.

And why should she harp on her efforts to protect him, as if he were

some sort of incompetent? For a moment it occurred to him that, from

one point of view, he _had_ been very lucky in his career. He

abruptly put aside this stray thought, along with his fit of impatience.

At another time she used a similar argument. "I never tried for

anything really big. Like your inheriting a million dollars. Or

becoming president of Hempnell overnight, even if I'd thought you

wanted to. There's a law of reaction or retribution in all conjuring--I

mean, I used to think there was. Like the kick of a gun. I was afraid."

After that there were no more interruptions--only the white smudge of

Tansy's face in the darkness.

When he had finished his voice was tired, too.

There was a pause. Then she said, "I'll do what you want me to. I'll

burn all my stuff. I'll never touch it again."

He snapped on the light, and it seemed to him that science and healthy

skepticism had been created anew from the primeval dark. The hands of

his watch stood at ten thirty. Then he saw that Tansy had begun to cry.

"Darling," she managed to say, "don't you see this is what I've wanted?

Only I'd gotten in so deep I never dared. On your account. You had to

find out and make me stop. That was the only way."

What followed was oddly anticlimactic--the ransacking of the house for

all of Tansy's hidden charms. First the contents of the dressing table.

He found then that he could be generous in his victory because his

trust in Tansy was re-established--he did not demand to look into her

locked little leather-bound diary, when she told him it contained no

relevant material.

Then the rest of the house, Tansy darting from room to room, deftly

recovering flannel-wrapped "hands" from the upholstery of chairs, the

under sides of table tops, the interior of vases, until he marveled

that he had lived in the house for more than ten years without chancing

on any.

"It's rather like a treasure hunt, isn't it?" she observed with a

rueful smile.

There were others outside--under front and back doorsteps, in the

garage, and in the car. With every handful thrown on the roaring fire

he had built in the living room, his sense of relief grew. Finally, she

opened the seams of the pillows on his bed and carefully fished out two

little matted shapes made of feathers bound with fine thread, so they

blended with the fluffy contents of the pillow.

"See, one's a heart, the other an anchor. That's for security," she

told him. "New Orleans magic. You haven't taken a step for years

without being in the range of one of my protective charms."

The feather figures puffed into flame and were gone in an instant.

"There, that's the last one of them," she said. "All gone."

"You're sure?" For a moment his voice grew hard again. "Absolutely

certain you haven't overlooked any?"

"Absolutely certain. There's not one left in the house. I've gone over

it in my mind a dozen times. I'm tired now, really tired. I want to go

straight to bed." Suddenly she began to laugh. "Oh, but first I'll have

to stitch up those pillows, or there'll be feathers all over the place."