Абрахам Меррит - Burn, Witch, Burn!

hands…like a rhythm…like a song…restful!

She said, in low sweet tones:

"Ah, yes-here nothing of the outer world comes. All is peace-and rest-rest-"

I drew my eyes reluctantly from the slow dance of those hands, the weaving of those long and delicate

fingers which moved so rhythmically. So restfully. The doll-maker's eyes were on me, soft and gentle…full

of that peace of which she had been telling.

It would do no harm to relax a little, gain strength for the struggle which must come. And I was tired. I

had not realized how tired! My gaze went back to her hands. Strange hands-no more belonging to that

huge body than did the eyes and voice.

Perhaps they did not! Perhaps that gross body was but a cloak, a covering, of the real body to which

eyes and hands and voice belonged. I thought over that, watching the slow rhythms of the hands. What

could the body be like to which they belonged? As beautiful as hands and eyes and voice?

She was humming some strange air. It was a slumberous, lulling melody. It crept along my tired nerves,

into my weary mind-distilling sleep…sleep. As the hands were weaving sleep. As the eyes were pouring

sleep upon me-

Sleep!

Something within me was raging, furiously. Bidding me rouse myself! Shake off this lethargy! By the

tearing effort that brought me gasping to the surface of consciousness, I knew that I must have passed far

along the path of that strange sleep. And for an instant, on the threshold of complete awakening, I saw

the room as Walters had seen it.

Vast, filled with mellow light, the ancient tapestries, the panelings, the carved screens behind which

hidden shapes lurked laughing-laughing at me. Upon the wall the mirror-and it was like a great

half-globe of purest water within which the images of the carvings round its frame swayed like the

reflections of verdure round a clear woodland pool!

The immense chamber seemed to waver-and it was gone.

I stood beside an overturned chair in that room to which the doll-maker had led me. And the doll-maker

was beside me, close. She was regarding me with a curious puzzlement and, I thought, a shadow of

chagrin. It flashed upon me that she was like one who had been unexpectedly interrupted-

Interrupted! When had she left her chair? How long had I slept? What had she done to me while I had

been sleeping? What had that terrific effort of will by which I had broken from her web prevented her

from completing?

I tried to speak-and could not. I stood tongue-tied, furious, humiliated. I realized that I had been

trapped like the veriest tyro-I who should have been all alert, suspicious of every move. Trapped by

voice and eyes and weaving hands by the reiterated suggestion that I was weary so weary…that here was

peace…and sleep…sleep…What had she done to me while I slept? Why could I not move? It was as

though all my energy had been dissipated in that one tremendous thrust out of her web of sleep! I stood

motionless, silent, spent. Not a muscle moved at command of my will. The enfeebled hands of my will

reached out to them-and fell.

The doll-maker laughed. She walked to the cabinets on the far wall. My eyes followed her, helplessly.

There was no slightest loosening of the paralysis that gripped me. She pressed a spring, and the door of a

cabinet slipped down.

Within the cabinet was a child-doll. A little girl, sweet-faced and smiling. I looked at it and felt a

numbness at my heart. In its small, clasped hands was one of the dagger-pins, and I knew that this was

the doll which had stirred in the arms of the Gilmore baby…had climbed from the baby's crib…had

danced to the bed and thrust…

"This is one of my peculiarly best!" The doll-maker's eyes were on me and filled with cruel mockery. "A

good doll! A bit careless at times, perhaps. Forgetting to bring back her school-books when she goes

visiting. But so obedient! Would you like her for your granddaughter?"

Again she laughed-youthful, tingling, evil laughter. And suddenly I knew Ricori had been right and that

this woman must be killed. I summoned all my will to leap upon her. I could not move a finger.

The long white hands groped over the next cabinet and touched its hidden spring. The numbness at my

heart became the pressure of a hand of ice. Staring out at me from that cabinet was Walters! And she

was crucified!

So perfect, so-alive was the doll that it was like seeing the girl herself through a diminishing glass. I could

not think of it as a doll, but as the girl. She was dressed in her nurse's uniform. She had no cap, and her

black hair hung disheveled about her face. Her arms were outstretched, and through each palm a small

nail had been thrust, pinning the hands to the back of the cabinet. The feet were bare, resting one on the

other, and through the insteps had been thrust another nail. Completing the dreadful, the blasphemous,

suggestion, above her head was a small placard. I read it:

"The Burnt Martyr."

The doll-maker murmured in a voice like honey garnered from flowers in hell:

"This doll has not behaved well. She has been disobedient. I punish my dolls when they do not behave

well. But I see that you are distressed. Well, she has been punished enough-for the moment."

The long white hands crept into the cabinet, drew out the nails from hands and feet. She set the doll

upright, leaning against the back. She turned to me.

"You would like her for your granddaughter, perhaps? Alas! She is not for sale. She has lessons to learn

before she goes again from me."

Her voice changed, lost its diabolic sweetness, became charged with menace.

"Now listen to me-Dr. Lowell! What-you did not think I knew you? I knew you from the first. You too

need a lesson!" Her eyes blazed upon me. "You shall have your lesson-you fool! You who pretend to

heal the mind-and know nothing, nothing I say, of what the mind is. You, who conceive the mind as but

a part of a machine of flesh and blood, nerve and bone and know nothing of what it houses. You-who

admit existence of nothing unless you can measure it in your test tubes or see it under your microscope.

You-who define life as a chemical ferment, and consciousness as the product of cells. You fool! Yet you

and this savage, Ricori, have dared to try to hamper me, to interfere with me, to hem me round with

spies! Dared to threaten me-Me-possessor of the ancient wisdom beside which your science is as

crackling of thorns under an empty pot! You fools! I know who are the dwellers in the mind-and the

powers that manifest themselves through it-and those who dwell beyond it! They come at my call. And

you think to pit your paltry knowledge against mine? You fool! Have you understood me? Speak!"

She pointed a finger at me. I felt my throat relax, knew I could speak once more.

"You hell bag!" I croaked. "You damned murderess! You'll go to the electric chair before I'm through

with you!"

She came toward me, laughing.

"You would give me to the law? But who would believe you? None! The ignorance that your science has

fostered is my shield. The darkness of your unbelief is my impregnable fortress. Go play with your

machines, fool! Play with your machines! But meddle with me no more!"

Her voice grew quiet, deadly.

"Now this I tell you. If you would live, if you would have live those who are dear to you-take your spies

away. Ricori you cannot save. He is mine. But you-think never of me again. Pry no more into my affairs.

I do not fear your spies-but they offend me. Take them away. At once. If by nightfall they are still on