The Curse

by Charles L. Grant

  "Voodoo," Terry said flatly. "But it can't be."

  "I know," Syd said, "but there it is."

  The car suddenly darted into a broad parking lot in front of a low redwood building. Syd followed a track of painted yellow arrows around to the emergency entrance, slammed on the brakes, and jumped out almost before the car had fully stopped. He flung open the door, helped Terry out and grabbed Peg's shoulders, pulling until, grunting loudly, he could hoist her into his arms. Terry ran ahead, pushing open the door and leading the way down a short green corridor to a desk where a nurse and intern were waiting. A Pullman table had been shoved against a wall and Syd placed Peg down as gently as he could.

  "Wait," he ordered Terry as she was about to follow the intern and the table. "Over here," and he guided her to a plastic chair in an alcove waiting area in front of the reception desk. "I have to give the nurse some information," he whispered, though they were the only ones there. "Stick around until I get back."

  Terry nodded, too numb to think, too stunned to protest. He vanished around the corner, and silence swept into the vacuum of his leaving.

  The doll. In buckskin. She closed her eyes, saw it on the seat of the car. There was no doubt, except for the red hair. Only, Alec's had had the telltale forehead. I tried, but they wouldn't let me. Let me what? She opened her eyes to look around the alcove, seeing the potted plants in the corners, the dog-eared magazines on the mahogany veneer tables; seeing but not registering, a clearing only for her mind until she could change scenes. Then she closed her eyes again and tried to bring back the day she'd entered Alec's home after he'd been taken away. The doll had been found in the fireplace. But they wouldn't let me. Let me burn it, was what he had been trying to say. Destroy it!

  And so was Peg. In the laundry room was the ancient wood-burning stove she and Syd had found at an auction the month before. It was going to be refinished and placed in the living room. Peg had been trying to get there, not the stairs, get there and burn the doll.

  Her eyes snapped open. The shivering she attributed to the air conditioning. Peg's doll: red hair; Alec's doll: protruding brow. Whose doll had he been trying to destroy? Black hair: hers? Syd's?

  As though on signal, he came around the corner and she rushed into his arms, crying loudly and letting him soothe her with meaningless sounds. Then she pulled him to the couch and as calmly as her voice would allow, told him everything. The scoffing died before she reached the end. She could see . . . doubt. But no derision.

  "Fine," he finally said. "But how did she get it?"

  "So you believe me?" She clenched her teeth to keep from shouting.

  "No," he said, gently, as to a child screaming about monsters hiding in dark bedroom corners. "There's no such thing as voodoo magic, angel. Only psychology well applied. You know that as well as I do."

  "But—"

  "But there's something, and we'll damn well have to find out what it is. Somebody obviously came by while we were gone, gave her the doll, and probably tainted something she ate."

  "No magic."

  "None. What magic there seems to be is only an illusion, not a suspension of natural law." He frowned, not unkindly, and kissed her. "Listen, why am I telling you all this? You're not stupid, you know."

  "Maybe," she said, "but what about the dolls?"

  "If I were Ellery Queen or Nero Wolfe, maybe I could tell you. But I'm not, and I can't even guess until I know who came to see her and why."

  Terry fussed with the magazines. "I wish the doctor would hurry up."

  "He'll be out as soon as he can."

  Suddenly angry, she slapped a magazine onto the table. "Damnit, Syd, why do you have to be so reasonable all the time?"

  "What did I do now?" The look on his face dismayed her, then made her laugh.

  "Nothing," she said, touching his cheek, missing the beard her fingers liked to stroke. "It's me. I'm sorry. It's just Peg, and finding out McIntyre was a liar about—" Her hand froze. "McIntyre!" She dug at her hip pocket, pushing Syd out of the way as she stood. The booklet, now hopelessly wrinkled, trembled in her hands as she leafed quickly through it. She tore a page and Syd warned her about Esther's wrath.

  "Damn her and her stupid library" she snapped. "Look at this," and she held out the open history. "Tecumseh," he read aloud. "So?"

  "Look again," she demanded.

  He did, and she sat again, her hands folded tightly in her, lap. Expressions crossed his face rapidly; doubt, astonishment, a trace of fear that lingered after doubt returned. He shook his head and turned the page to read. "No," she said, and snatched it away. "Just tell me what you saw." She held her breath and her chest ached while he debated silently, rubbing his chin, nose, pulling at the hair that curled around the back of his ear.

  "I saw an Indian chief," he said deliberately. "His name was Tecumseh." Then he snapped his fingers. "That's what I was trying to remember. The day we moved in and we met him and the twins. You remember I said something about the Shawnee? This," and he tapped the booklet with a finger, "is what I couldn't place at the time. Tecumseh. Of course! One of the greatest Indians who ever lived."

  "And?"

  He took a deep breath and looked to the ceiling, stretching his neck as though it was stiff. "And if this picture is reasonably accurate. . ."

  "Well, damnit, Syd!"

  "Damnit, yourself, Theresa! The thing looks just like Denver, okay? Is that what you wanted me to say?"

  She didn't know. She wasn't sure. Hoping, perhaps, that he would see no resemblance at all between the Shawnee chief and William's father. But he had said it, and when she opened the booklet to look again, she knew she was right.

  "But then," Syd said, grinning weakly, "all them foreigners look alike to us white folk."

  Terry glared, and he retreated an inch. "Coincidence," he said.

  "I know," she said. "But this is what Esther must have wanted me to find. The question is—"

  "I know, I know," he said, holding up his hands. "The question is why? My God, that's all we seem to be asking anymore. Why this, why that, why did he lie, why is Peg sick, why—oh, shit!" He rose and walked to the water fountain, and took a long and unnecessary drink. Before he returned, the doctor approached them, and Terry immediately shunted the booklet aside as she listened unbelieving when she was told Peg had contracted a virus they had not yet been able to isolate with the clinic's limited facilities. She was asked permission to take Peg to the county hospital for testing, and she agreed without thinking, watched in silence as her sister was wheeled to the double doors in back and lifted into an ambulance.

  Terry wanted to go with her, but Syd held her back. Peg was unconscious still, and according to the doctor, would likely remain that way until morning. Terry's gesture was loyal, but not practical. Come in the morning, she was told, and if anything changed in the meantime, she would get a call.

  The house was empty, and Terry stood the sensation for less than an hour before hurrying out to sit on the top step of the front porch. It was dark, and the stars were hidden by invisible cloud cover A wind grew from the afternoon's hot breeze, and with it the scent of rain. Prichard's house was dark. The McIntyre's had only one light burning, in what Terry knew was the side bedroom. The Griffiths farther down were having a party. There were several cars lining the curb in front of the split level, and every window she could see was bright. She wanted, then, to walk over there and announce the illness of her sister; it wasn't right there should be celebrations on such a night. It wasn't right the world should carry on as though nothing were happening to the most important people in it.

  She cried again, knowing she was mourning already, hating herself for it, and unable to stop. Syd came out to sit beside her, his arm light around her shoulders. She wanted to lean her head against his chest, scream in his ear, punch until she drew blood; but she only accepted the glass he offered and drank without asking. It was bitter, and she hoped it was poison.

  A page of newsprint was blown over the hedge,
caught on an untrimmed branch and hung flapping noisily until it shredded and scattered itself over the lawn. A dead brittle leaf scuttled past the driveway, paused as though seeking a direction, then pushed on, its scraping dampened when it struck the grass between sidewalk and curb. The party at the Griffiths, though muted, intruded, and Terry became angry again.

  She reached out a hand, but Syd had left her. She turned to look at the door, and saw the light in a far window. He was in his workshop, for the first time in weeks, and she was reminded of the book she was supposed to be finishing. The Big One. The Prize Winner. The tome for a child that would carve her reputation into contract without end and send the sycophants of the industry bustling from the city to camp on her lawn and demand snippets of her wisdom. She decided to burn it.

  The light went out. Syd returned and patted her knee. "I called the hospital, Ter. Spoke with a guy named Flaherty. One of us, I guess." He tried to laugh, failed, ended it with a sharp cough. "He said they have her resting comfortably. The fever is steady, not dangerous, and what they call her vital signs are all good. She, uh, has a little trouble breathing, but they put her in an oxygen tent just to be sure nothing goes wrong."

  Peg, lying corpselike beneath a wrinkled, transparent sheet of plastic, tubes and wires and bubbling things extending from her arms and neck and nose and mouth as if she were a reincarnation of Frankenstein's failure. The image popped like a bubble as soon as it appeared, but Terry watched it linger, fade, and frighten her almost into believing in premonitions.

  "I'm so tired." Her eyelids were heavy, a slight burning behind them causing her to squint.

  "I also read the pamphlet thing."

  She lowered her head to his shoulder. Finally, the wind began to lower the temperature and she pushed herself closer, tucking a hand under his waistband at his spine. Drifting. Syd's voice droning.

  "It seems that Tecumseh was trying to stop the Indians from fighting each other and take out their anger on the white man, instead. Traveled all over, the article said, talking, preaching with the help of a brother who had become some kind of a prophet. While he was down South someplace, another brother—or maybe the same one—tried to attack some encampment in Ohio. Harrison was the general there. The Indians thought bullets wouldn't hurt them, but they were surprised as hell when they dropped like flies. Tecumseh found out and had to run for it. Into Canada. Joined up with the British to fight in the war of 1812.

  "Harrison," she murmured. "Nice name. Harry. Tippecanoe and Tyler too."

  He tightened his arm. "Right, you remember! Well, Tecumseh had this premonition about his dying one day, so he takes off his uniform and puts on all his Indian gear. Supposedly he died on the Thames River up there."

  "The Thames is in England."

  "In Canada too, angel. According to the guy that wrote the article, Tecumseh's body was taken away and no one knows where the Indians hid it."

  She struggled against sleep, puzzled because she hadn't felt tired before. "So what?"

  "Now this you are not going to believe. There's also some phenomenon that started way out West, a thing called the Ghost Dance. It spread all over the place. Says that one day, all the Indians, all the dead Indians, are going to come back and give the white man what he gave them, only worse. The booklet says not many people know it, but the guy who started this all was inspired by Tecumseh. Apparently he didn't really die on the Thames, but the Indians wanted everyone to think so. They needed him, see, to lead all the warriors when they came back from the dead. They gave him something, a potion made from all the animals they held sacred, the totems, which is supposed to keep him going until another kind of ritual brings the corpses back. The book says—are you ready for this?—they're coming at the cry of Tecumseh and the call of thunder."

  Terry shook her head. "Legends. I want to know what they. . ." Her tongue grew a coating of cotton and she licked her lips to clear her mouth. Syd moved, pushing until she sat upright. "What . . . ?" She felt pressure around her back, under her knees, and she was flying. The lights in The Lane swirled as though she were on a carousel. Vanished. The wind disappeared. A lamp blurred past her eyes, and she floated into a tunnel, riding something that jounced her and made her swallow to keep bile from entering her throat.

  It was warm again, without the wind, and she closed her eyes, waiting, groaning at yielding softness beneath her back, her head. A light, and Syd bent over her, smiling. "Sleep, angel. We'll talk in the morning."

  "I don't get it," she said, her words slurred. "I've got to wait for Peg. She has to come home."

  "Sleep," he repeated, and covered her with a blanket. "You drugged me," she accused, momentarily clearheaded and disappointed in her husband.

  He looked away, turned off the bureau light. "The doc said you needed something to ease the strain. He said you looked tired enough to sleep a week. He gave me something."

  "No fair, Syd. You're supposed to be helping me."

  "I am, love. Don't you worry."

  The darkness was an added quilt, pinning her arms to her sides, preventing her legs from slipping to the floor. "Rat," she said, resigned to unconsciousness.

  "I love you," he said. "Rest, and we'll talk more in the morning, okay?"

  "Rat."

  She heard the door close, saw the vertical shaft of light when a lamp in the living room was switched on. Voices, and she knew it was the television. She listened, drifted, listened, and slept,

  Chapter X

  She awoke abruptly, as though someone had doused her with cold mountain water. Her eyes snapped open, her mind shed instantly the after effects of the drug. She grabbed the blanket and, tossed it aside, sat up quickly and clutched at the mattress when her head seemed undecided whether to implode or explode. The dizziness passed, and she grinned at herself—she was, in fact, a little kid, trying to be brave in the face of Peg's illness. She knew she couldn't have slept without the drug, and by now she would have been less than worthless.

  She glanced around the bedroom, immediately wondering about the time. Her watch had stopped, and Syd had apparently taken the clock radio from the night stand. With curtains and shades drawn, it was almost night dark. She undressed, shivering at the dampness that clung to her skin while she pawed through the closet for something to wear. After deciding on one of Syd's shirts and another pair of jeans, she padded down the hail, intending to take a shower.

  Although it was the middle of the day, the house was dark throughout. She paused by the workshop and pressed an ear against the door. Then she opened the study. A gray cast from the window made black ghosts of the easel and desk, and she closed the door and rushed into the living room.

  "Syd?" Her voice hinted at echoes. "Syd, damnit, where are you?"

  The hospital, she thought. He's probably gone to the hospital. But not without taking me, not unless . . . she ran into the kitchen, but the note board by the telephone was blank.

  All right, then, there's nothing to worry about. He's gone for a walk before the rain comes. Not to worry, right? He couldn't have known you were going to get up so soon, He probably thought you'd be sacked out until supper.

  Calmed, but not entirely convinced, Terry deliberately ignored the basement door and went into the bathroom. Hot water billowed steam to the ceiling immediately she turned it on, and she cursed when she burned her wrist trying to make it cooler. A look in the mirror, and a pout for the slight bulge around her waist and the perceptible sag of her breasts—you're getting middle-aged before your time, Theresa O'Hare Guiness—and she stepped into the tub, gasping at the stinging heat, relaxing almost to the point of collapse as her muscles responded to the pounding massage.

  A plan is what she decided she needed, something to pass the interminable time between reports from Peg's doctor. A fleeting image of the pale sweating face unnerved her, and she shook to vanish it, scattering water from her hair. Damn, she thought, now I'll have to wash it.

  Quickly she soaped herself, feeling slightly guilty at the decidedl
y erotic sensation of her palms gliding over her skin. Before she allowed herself to succumb, however, she picked up the plastic shampoo bottle from the shelf set next to the window. She bent over and let her hair receive the full thrust of the water, then carefully, slowly, worked in the soap. Lemon, and her mouth began to water. She licked her lips, tasted suds and hot water, and spat toward the drain. An island of white swirled as she watched, and she was reminded of the hill in the field.

  Tecumseh. Was that the section Esther had wanted her to read? Surely, she frowned, forgetting her washing, surely it wasn't meant to be taken literally. That there was a definite, supernatural connection between the Shawnee hero's death and legendary immortality, and Denver McIntyre? And if it were true—just for the sake of ridiculous argument—how does the rest of the clan fit in? Another lie, then: the elder not Denver's father, William not his son, nor the twins the issue of his blood.

  My God, she thought, this is getting more complicated than one of those British locked-room mysteries. Puzzles within puzzles. A maze in which she couldn't yet distinguish the exit from the deadends. Rather more like blind man's bluff, and her mind's hands were striking bits and pieces of a complicated group statue, unable to fit an image to the whole.

  Absently, she reached out for a towel, and as she turbaned it round her hair, decided not to dwell any longer on the McIntyres until Syd's clear thinking returned to play the devil's advocate. All she was doing otherwise was making herself feel inordinately stupid. The solution had to be as simple as it had to be obvious; and once Syd pointed it out to her, she'd feel bad enough for not having been able to see it in the beginning.

  A deep-throated rumbling replaced the shower's cascade. Thunder, she thought. It's about damned time.

  Drying, dressing, leaving her hair wrapped until she felt the energy to work her brush, she returned to the kitchen and made herself a pot of tea. The radio, a welcome diversion to the house's silence, gave her the midafternoon time, and she smiled. Ah, dear father, she thought, if you could only see me now; sleeping to all hours and not feeling the least bit horrible for it. You're probably up there now waiting for a chance to beat the living hell out of me.