Абрахам Меррит - Burn, Witch, Burn!

"Okay then," said Bill.

I turned out all the lights except that beside the nurse's table. I stretched myself in her chair and adjusted

the lamp so my face could be plainly seen. That little white cap I had picked from the floor had shaken

me-damnably! I drew it out and placed it in a drawer. The guard Jack took his station beside Ricori. Bill

drew up a chair, and sat facing me. I thrust my hand into my pocket and clutched the knotted cord,

closed my eyes, emptied my mind of all thought, and relaxed. In abandoning, at least temporarily, my

conception of a sane universe I had determined to give that of Madame Mandilip's every chance to

operate.

Faintly, I heard a clock strike one. I slept.

Somewhere a vast wind was roaring. It circled and swept down upon me. It bore me away. I knew that I

had no body, that indeed I had no form. Yet I was. A formless sentience whirling in that vast wind. It

carried me into infinite distance. Bodiless, intangible as I knew myself to be, yet it poured into me an

unearthly vitality. I roared with the wind in unhuman jubilance. The vast wind circled and raced me back

from immeasurable space…

I seemed to awaken, that pulse of strange jubilance still surging through me…Ah! There was what I must

destroy…there on the bed…must kill so that this pulse of jubilance would not cease…must kill so that the

vast wind would sweep me up again and away and feed me with its life…but

careful…careful…there-there in the throat just under the ear…there is where I must plunge it…then off

with the wind again…there where the pulse beats…what is holding me back?…caution…caution, "I am

going to take his temperature"…that's it, careful, "I am going to take his temperature."…Now-one quick

spring, then into his throat where the pulse beats…"Not with that you don't!"…Who said that?…still

holding me…rage, consuming and ruthless blackness and the sound of a vast wind roaring away and

away…

I heard a voice: "Slap him again, Bill, but not so hard. He's coming around." I felt a stinging blow on my

face. The dancing mists cleared from before my eyes. I was standing halfway between the nurse's table

and Ricori's bed. The guard Jack held my arms pinioned to my sides. The guard Bill's hand was still

raised. There was something clenched tightly in my own hand. I looked down. It was a strong scalpel,

razor-edged!

I dropped the scalpel. I said, quietly: "It's all right now, you can release me."

The guard Bill said nothing. His comrade did not loose his grip. I twisted my head and I saw that both

their faces were sallow white. I said:

"It was what I had expected. It was why I instructed you. It is over. You can keep your guns on me if

you like."

The guard who held me freed my arms. I touched my cheek gingerly. I said mildly:

"You must have hit me rather hard, Bill."

He said: "If you could a seen your face, Doc, you'd wonder I didn't smash it."

I nodded, clearly sensible now of the demonic quality of that rage, I asked:

"What did I do?"

The guard Bill said: "You wake up and set there for a minute staring at the chief. Then you take

something out of that drawer and get up. You say you're going to take his temperature. You're half to him

before we see what you got. I shout, 'Not with that you don't!' Jack grabs you. Then you went crazy.

And I had to slam you. That's all."

I nodded again. I took out of my pocket the knotcord of woman's pale hair, held it over a dish and

touched a match to it. It began to burn, writhing like a tiny snake as it did so, the complex knots untying

as the flame touched them. I dropped the last inch of it upon the plate and watched it turn to ash.

"I think there'll be no more trouble tonight," I said. "But keep up your watch just as before."

I dropped back into the chair and closed my eyes…

Well, Braile had not shown me a soul, but-I believed in Madame Mandilip.

The balance of the night I slept soundly and dreamlessly. I awakened at my usual hour of seven. The

guards were alert. I asked if anything had been heard from McCann, and they answered no. I wondered

a little at that, but they did not seem to think it out of the ordinary. Their reliefs were soon due, and I

cautioned them to speak to no one but McCann about the occurrences of the night, reminding them that

no one would be likely to believe them if they did. They assured me, earnestly, that they would be silent. I

told them that I wanted the guards to remain within the room thereafter, as long as they were necessary.

Examining Ricori, I found him sleeping deeply and naturally. In all ways his condition was most

satisfactory. I concluded that the second shock, as sometimes happens, had, counteracted the lingering

effects of the initial one. When he awakened, he would be able to speak and move. I gave this reassuring

news to the guards. I could see that they were bursting with questions. I gave them no encouragement to

ask them.

At eight, my day nurse for Ricori appeared, plainly much surprised to have found Butler sleeping and to

find me taking her place. I made no explanation, simply telling her that the guards would now be stationed

within the room instead of outside the door.

At eight-thirty, Braile dropped in on me for breakfast, and to report. I let him finish before I apprised him

of what had happened. I said nothing, however, of the nurse's little cap, nor of my own experience.

I assumed this reticence for well-considered reasons. One, Braile would accept in its entirety the

appalling deduction from the cap's presence. I strongly suspected that he had been in love with Walters,

and that I would be unable to restrain him from visiting the doll-maker. Usually hard-headed, he was in

this matter far too suggestible. It would be dangerous for him, and his observations would be worthless to

me. Second, if he knew of my own experience, he would without doubt refuse to let me out of his sight.

Third, either of these contingencies would defeat my own purpose, which was to interview Madame

Mandilip entirely alone-with the exception of McCann to keep watch outside the shop.

What would come of that meeting I could not forecast. But, obviously, it was the only way to retain my

self-respect. To admit that what had occurred was witchcraft, sorcery, supernatural-was to surrender to

superstition. Nothing can be supernatural. If anything exists, it must exist in obedience to natural laws.

Material bodies must obey material laws. We may not know those laws-but they exist nevertheless. If

Madame Mandilip possessed knowledge of an unknown science, it behooved me as an exemplar of

known science, to find out what I could about the other. Especially as I had recently responded so

thoroughly to it. That I had been able to outguess her in her technique-if it had been that, and not a

self-induced illusion-gave me a pleasant feeling of confidence. At any rate, meet her I must.

It happened to be one of my days for consultation, so I could not get away until after two. I asked Braile

to take charge of matters after that, for a few hours.

Close to ten the nurse telephoned that Ricori was awake, that he was able to speak and had been asking

for me.

He smiled at me as I entered the room. As I leaned over and took his wrist he said:

"I think you have saved more than my life, Dr. Lowell! Ricori thanks you. He will never forget!"

A bit florid, but thoroughly in character. It showed that his mind was functioning normally. I was relieved.