Darkwater (19 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Downstairs, Helen and Bess heard Jennifer fall and hurried up to her room. They found her barely conscious on the floor, and between them they managed to get her onto her bed. As they did so, they moved her pillow, to reveal the doll lying there, a pin beside it.

Helen had grown up in New Orleans, where voodoo was an everyday matter, and she had lived much of her life in the bayous. She snatched up the doll, recognizing it at once for what it was.

Jennifer gasped in agony, feeling once again the familiar tightening at her throat, cutting off her breath. Would it get tighter and tighter this time until she could not breathe at all?

Helen looked at the doll in her hand, and at Jennifer, struggling for breath, and finally at Bess. Bess met her gaze frankly, and nodded her head.

“”Yes,” she said. “It's Liza.”

“But...I don't understand....”

“She's got a doll of Miss Jennifer. And the swamp witch, she brought Jennifer this one, she said the only way to stop Liza is to stick a pin through that.”

“I can't do it,” Jennifer groaned.

“That girl is killing Jennifer,” Bess said. “This time for sure.”

For a long moment Helen hesitated. She looked again at Jennifer, whose face had begun to turn blue.

“No,” Helen said. “No, she is not.” With a swift, determined gesture she thrust the pin straight through the breast of the doll. The air was rent with a terrible scream. At once Jennifer could breathe again, the pressure was gone from her throat.

“I...I couldn't...,” she said.

“I'm older than you,” Helen said. “I learned a long time ago, sometimes you have to fight evil on its own terms.”

“And Liza...?”

Helen looked at the doll in her hand, the pin sticking out of it. “She's dead,” Helen said.

Jennifer looked at the other two women. Neither of them showed any sign of remorse at what had just happened.

“But, what will we tell Walter?” Jennifer asked after a long silence. “How can we explain...?”

“We can't,” Helen said. “He'd never understand, not in a million years.”

“But....”

“She ran away before, there's nothing to say she wouldn't again,” Helen said. “Those swamps, those black waters, they could hide a thousand dark secrets. Walter and all the men are out in the fields. Even Peter and Mary are with them. There's no one to see Bess and me carry a bundle out of the house. Once she's been tossed into the water, she'll never be found. If you'll help me, Bess?” she added, giving Bess a questioning glance.

“Yes'm,” Bess said. “I'll be mighty happy to have that evil out of the house.”

* * * * * * *

Helen and Bess had barely finished with their grisly chore when Bess came to Jennifer's bedroom to announce, “There's someone here to see you.” She had an odd look, Jennifer thought. Frightened, but not only that.

“To see me?” Jennifer was expecting no one. Could someone have sent for Doctor Goodman? “Is he in the parlor?”

“She came up here with me,” Bess said, seeming to grope for the right words. She was saved the necessity of further explanation. Before she could say more, the door was pushed open and Mrs. Hodges came into the room.

“In the parlor? Oh, my,” she said, laughing. “It's only me, dearie. No need to be formal. You know, this is a pretty room, ain't it?”

Jennifer could feel the skin tingle on the back of her neck. “What do you want?” she asked coldly.

“What do I want? Dearie, I've come to see you. Isn't that enough?”

“Do you want money?”

“Money? Why, you offered me that before, didn't you? Didn't need it then and don't need it now.” Mrs. Hodges looked around at Bess. “You don't need to stay.”

“No, stay, Bess, do,” Jennifer said.

“I'll stay too,” Helen said, coming into the room. “There's nothing you can say to Jennifer that we can't hear.”

“Seems to me like you were a lot happier to see me last time I come here.” Mrs. Hodges face took on a sly expression. “Of course, the girl child was still here then, tormenting you.”

“What do you mean?” She and Bess and Helen exchanged glances.

“She's gone, now, ain't she?”

“What makes you say that?” Jennifer asked.

“She is gone, that's all. And I know how, too.”

“If you think that I....”

“Don't matter who. It's done, is the important thing. And seeing as you all seem to be so close together, I guess we all know what was done.”

Jennifer gave her an icy glare. “Whatever you think you know, you have no proof of it. None anyone would believe. Now, if you want money, I will arrange for some to be sent to you. I have none on hand. But I forbid you to enter this house again. If you do, I shall have you whipped and sent away.”

Mrs. Hodges threw back her head and cackled with glee.

“Whipped,” she gasped, hardly able to speak. “Whipped, she says. Oh, my, dearie, you are a riot, ain't you? She's going to have me whipped for coming into my own home.”

It was like a slap in the face. Jennifer's cheeks burned. At the same moment, Mrs. Hodges laughter stopped as suddenly as if it had been cut with a knife.

“What did you say?” Helen asked.

“I said, my home,” Mrs. Hodges said, her expression no longer even amused. “My shack caught on fire. I don't have a home there now, and since we're all such good friends, helping one another out and all, I knew you'd want me to come here and consider this my home.”

“No,” Jennifer said. “I will give you what jewelry I have. It will fetch a good price in New Orleans, and if you'll send me your address, I will see that you receive assistance regularly, but you must not come back here.”

She went to her dresser for her jewel case and brought it back, but Mrs. Hodges just ignored it. Instead, she went to the little upholstered chair by the bed.

“My, this is comfortable,” she said. “I hope you've got a room as nice as this for me. Oh, and thank you, but I couldn't go to New Orleans, dearie, I'm no good at traveling anymore. Besides, I've lived here all my life, I wouldn't know how to get along in the city. No, us birds of a feather got to stick together. That's what I always told Liza. Course, she wouldn't listen, thought she could just ditch me when she got what she wanted. But you saw where that got her. I told her, first time she asked for my help, I said, if you don't want to stew, don't get in the pot. But she wouldn't listen. No, we're friends now, all four of us, it seems. And don't anyone be forgetting, what I did for Liza, and for you, dearie, I could do again.”

“You're threatening me with another of your dolls?” Jennifer asked.

“Now, I wouldn't want to put it just like that. But things could happen, is what I'm saying.”

“Yes,” Bess said, stepping forward. She put her hand in the pocket of her apron and brought out the witch's bottle her Auntie Doreen had given her. “Just think what would happen if I was to plant this out in the yard.”

Mrs. Hodges eyes went wide. “Where did you get that? Give that to me.” She reached to snatch the bottle from Bess' hand, but Bess was too quick for her. Mrs. Hodges glowered at her for a moment. “'Sides, it's got no power. You got nothing of mine in it.”

“Are you so sure? Last night, before your shack burned down—did you remember to empty your chamber pot?”

Mrs. Hodges looked frightened, her eyes going from one to the other of the women in the room. “You're just trying to scare me.”

“Suit yourself,” Bess said. “I'm going down now and bury this bottle. You can stick around and see what happens, if you want to. If I was you, though, I'd want to get as far away as I could, as quick as I could.”

There was a long moment of silence. “If I go,” Mrs. Hodges said finally, “you'll wait a spell before you bury that?”

Helen looked at the clock on the mantle. “We'll give you two hours.”

For another moment Mrs. Hodges glared angrily at the three of them. Then, muttering under her breath, she waddled toward the door. “Just remember, there's powers and then there's powers.”

“No threats,” Helen said. “If anyone in this household takes sick, we'll know just what to do.”

With one final, venomous glance, the swamp witch was gone.

* * * *

Later, Walter discovered that Liza had vanished.

“Maybe she went back to the swamp,” Jennifer suggested innocently.

Walter went to see, and came back with the news that Mrs. Hodges' shack had burned to the ground, and there was no trace of her or Liza.

“They must have gone off somewhere together,” Helen said. “She was a strange girl, Walter. I always looked for her to vanish again someday.”

For a bit, Walter looked gloomy and dispirited, and Jennifer wondered if he might still be under some kind of spell Liza had cast on him.

“Just so long as you don't go and disappear,” he told Jennifer, taking her in his arms.

“There's no magic strong enough to make me do that,” she said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Victor J. Banis
is the critically acclaimed author (“...a master storyteller”—
Publishers Weekly
) of more than 200 published novels and numerous shorter works in a career spanning nearly a half century. A longtime Californian, he lives and writes now in West Virginia's beautiful Blue Ridge region.

BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY VICTOR J. BANIS

The Astral: Till the Day I Die

Avalon

Charms, Spells, and Curses for the Millions

Color Him Gay: Being the Further Adventures of That Man from C.A.M.P.

The Curse of Bloodstone: A Gothic Novel of Terror

Darkwater: A Gothic Novel of Horror

The Devil's Dance

Drag Thing; or, The Strange Tale of Jackle and Hyde

The Earth and All It Holds

The Gay Dogs: Being the Further Adventures of That Man from C.A.M.P.

The Gay Haunt

The Glass House

The Glass Painting: A Gothic Tale of Horror

Goodbye, My Lover

The Greek Boy

The Green Rolling Hills: Writings from West Virginia
(editor)

Kenny's Back

Life and Other Passing Moments: A Collection of Short Writings

The Lion's Gate

Moon Garden

The Pot Thickens: Recipes from the Kitchens of Writers and Editors
(editor)

San Antone

The Second Tijuana Bible Reader
(editor)

Spine Intact, Some Creases: Remembrances of a Paperback Writer

Stranger at the Door

The Sword and the Rose: An Historical Novel

This Splendid Earth

The Tijuana Bible Reader
(editor)

The WATERCRESS File: Being the Further Adventures of That Man from C.A.M.P.

A Westward Love: An Historical Romance

The Wolves of Craywood: A Novel of Terror

The Why Not