Marisha Pessl - Night Film

“I didn’t see my daughter with it. My ex-wife found it in her coat pocket. But she seemed normal.”

“What about the others?”

“One child was deaf. He was upset when he dropped it. He nearly had a tantrum, but calmed down when I returned it to him.”

“Irrepressible imprinting,” Cleo whispered hastily into the phone, then glanced at me. “The third?”

Devold’s daughter.

“I wasn’t around her,” I said.

“You saw nothing out of the ordinary?”

I thought back to that night, the dark yard strewn with forgotten toys, shivering trees, the dog barking in the distance, baby screaming.

“Her favorite doll was found decomposing in a kiddie pool,” I blurted.

Cleo was startled. “A baby doll?”

“It’d been missing for a few weeks. They’d looked for it everywhere.”

“And?”

“Her father fished it out, gave it back to his daughter, even though the thing looked demonic, eyes missing, clumps of hair falling out.”

Cleo waved me on impatiently. “What happened when he gave it back?”

“She was very upset. She cried. But later she chased me down the driveway, cradling the doll, and attempted to give me the figurine.”

“Definitive evidence of doll magic,” Cleo blurted excitedly into the receiver, relaying what I’d just explained. She listened for a minute.

“All right. I’ll try it.”

She stood up, hurried to the back of the room, scribbling something on a yellow slip of paper. “I’ll tell him. Thank you.”

She hung up. Without a word, her face somber with concentration, she crouched down, rummaging through the cabinets, pulling out books, candles, and balled-up newspaper. She returned carrying a pair of electrician’s pliers, a red bowl, a black-and-white reversing candle — the same kind she’d given us during our last visit — and some tweezers.

She meticulously laid out the items on the table like a doctor preparing a makeshift surgery.

“We’re dealing with doll magic,” she announced flatly, lighting the candle.

“What’s that?”

“Poppets. Voodoo dolls stuck with pins. It’s a doll connected by magic to a person to control their behavior. They’re pretty common. This leviathan was bound by sympathetic magic to each child, which explains why the boy didn’t want to let go of it. And we’re about to find out why.”

She sat down stiffly, closed her eyes, whispering something. She picked up the figurine and placed the head between the pliers. With one hand covering the serpent’s body, she squeezed the handle, hard. It didn’t budge. Cleo’s face began to turn bright red, the bracelets and pendants clanging louder on her arms the harder she squeezed, her face wincing as if in pain, gnashing her teeth.

Suddenly, there was a loud sucking pop. Something flew past my face, hitting the wall, and fell to the floor with a sharp crack.

Right beside my feet, there was now a small black rock wrapped in copper wire.

“Don’t touch it,” Cleo shouted.

A strong smell of sulfur filled the air. The figurine was not solid wood as I’d thought, but a thin shell. Using the tweezers, Cleo was cautiously emptying the contents — a gold-brown liquid, bits of dark hair and mud — into the bowl.

The sight of it, knowing this had been intended for Sam, made a wave of nausea rise in my throat. I’d been so arrogant believing Ashley had been a viable way to get to Cordova, to avenge myself, get my life back, when I hadn’t realized that I had my own fragile corridor. Sam. He’d reversed my own plan back onto me. It was as if the man had had access to my head. Now there would be no end to it.

“Is my daughter cursed?” I asked.

Cleo blew out the candle.

“What do we do?” I pressed. “Tell me.”

“Nothing,” she answered flatly.

“Nothing?”

“This figurine contains a protection spell. It’s not malignant. Quite the opposite.” She smiled at my bewildered face, standing and moving to the back, returning with one of the volumes of Hoodoo — Conjuration — Witchcraft — Rootwork. She sat down, flipping through the index.

“ ‘Compelling oil,’ ” she read after paging to the entry. “ ‘Commanding oil, calamus, a piece of obsidian rock,’ which is volcanic glass wrapped in copper wire — that’s what flew onto the floor.” She glanced at me sternly. “It’s a molten wall of protection.” She grabbed the bowl, swirling the contents. “The leviathan was used to ward off any evil that tried to advance upon the child. The spell inside protected the carrier. Any child given this toy would play exclusively with it for the heyday of the spell. About a hundred and one days. Any other deeply loved toy would have to be confiscated and hidden, so as not to compromise the potency. To submerge it out of sight in a body of water is ideal. That was the first hint this was domination through doll magic. This person —Ashley —must have stolen the doll, hiding it in the pool so as not to compromise the effect of the figurine on the child. But when the doll was returned to the little girl, she reclaimed her beloved toy and could no longer play with the leviathan. The protection was broken.” She frowned. “There’s one slightly weird detail that the witch mentioned.”

“What’s that?”

“In magic, you fight like with like, so using the form of the leviathan, the symbol of envy —thou shall not covet —Ashley seemed to believe these three children would be envied and coveted. Any idea why?”

I could only stare at her, incredulous.

The exchange. A simple transfer of debt. Ashley knew her father, Cordova, and her brother, Theo, would come looking for her after she escaped from Briarwood. Encountering the children in her path as she tracked down the Spider, she must have been concerned Cordova might try to use them, one soul for another, in a final attempt to save her life. This led to the rift between Ashley and her family, Marlowe had said. Because when it was finally explained to her, Ashley wanted to accept her fate. But Cordova was always searching for a way out. He did until the very end.

“My daughter …?” I managed to ask, my voice hoarse.

“She’ll probably be fine.”

“Probably? You’re not sure?”

Cleo stared at me. “A tornado knocks a house down, killing the owner, and it’s a tragedy. Then you learn a serial killer lived there and the same act becomes a miracle. The truth about what happens to us in this world keeps changing. Always. It never stops. Sometimes not even after death.” She stood up, grabbing the yellow scrap of paper she’d scribbled on, handing it to me. “This is where you send payment to the witch. Any amount you think is fair. She prefers cash.”

It was a P.O. box in Larose, Louisiana.

“What do I owe you?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Just go home.”

I gazed down at the beheaded leviathan, capsized on the table. It actually looked as if it had faded to a slightly lighter shade of black, as if it’d started to wilt like a flower clipped from its life-sustaining branch — though perhaps it was just my imagination. I’d walked into this room with a belief that I could distinguish between what was factual and what was an invention of the mind. Now I wasn’t sure I knew the difference.

I stood up, the chair shrilly scraping the floor.

“Thank you,” I said to Cleo.

She nodded, and I stepped back through the black curtain, leaving her staring after me.

All of the customers were gone, the lights switched off so the scarred wooden floors were doused in orange light spilling in from the street. Two workers waited behind the register, speaking in low, worried voices, though they fell silent as I walked past them and unlocked the door.