Abraham Merritt - Burn, Witch, Burn!

The loot of the doll–maker from a dozen lands!

The dolls seemed to be poised to leap. To flow down upon us. Overwhelm us.

I steadied my thoughts. I forced myself to meet that battery of living dolls' eyes as though they were but lifeless dolls. There was an empty cabinet…another and another…five cabinets without dolls. The four dolls I had watched march upon me in the paralysis of the green glow were not there nor was Walters.

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!