Evil Returns

by Cave, Hugh

  "Why should that be a threat? Everyone knows what is going on."

  "Not everyone knows who is doing it. If they did, many might demand to be taken themselves—free of charge for not reporting me."

  "This is awkward." Margal let his breath out in a soft growl. "You give me too little time to make ready!"

  "Please—you can do it. For the great Margal, nothing is impossible. Or even difficult."

  The compliment had its effect. In the seconds of silence that followed, Margal's look of annoyance faded. "Well, all right, yes. I can make adjustments. The day after tomorrow, you say?"

  "Yes."

  "And you will be taking your passengers aboard before daybreak, of course, to avoid attracting attention? And sailing with the first light?"

  "As usual. Yes."

  "You will come here to pick us up, of course." The boat owner looked distressed. "M'sieu, I expect—"

  "By midnight. There will be three of us, by the way."

  "Three?" Polivien was startled. It was known, of course, that this legless man never went anywhere without his Clarisse. But a third passenger? "May I ask—?”

  "You will see when you get here," Margal said. "Now go home. And remember—I have ways of dealing with people who fail me."

  Chapter Four

  When Clarisse brought his evening meal just before eight o'clock, the legless man in the green chair by the window ordered her to remain in the room. Timing, he knew, could mean the difference between success and failure.

  "But my own food is in the kitchen," she protested vigorously.

  "Bring it here, then. I want you with me."

  Indignant, she made more than the usual noise while thumping down the old wooden staircase. But she returned with her meal of rice and black mushrooms on a tray, and sat with him to eat it.

  When she would have taken the dishes down to wash them, Margal growled an impatient, "No!"

  "What are you up to?" she demanded.

  "Polivien is coming for us at midnight. We have much to do before then."

  "Coming with his friend, you mean? In the car?"

  "Yes."

  "To take us where? If I may ask."

  "You will learn that in due time."

  "How long are we to be gone?"

  He shrugged. "Several weeks, perhaps."

  "Several weeks! Then, God in heaven, we will need some clothes! Both of us."

  Margal had more important things on his mind this evening. But she was right, he supposed. Frowning at her from his chair, he said, "Well, yes, we may need a few things. But only a few, hear? One suitcase for the two of us."

  "Only one? You must be out of your—"

  "One! And don't argue! You'll have trouble enough transporting me from place to place without encumbering yourself with luggage." He aimed his scowl at the watch on his wrist. "Before you go to pack, put me on the floor. Over there." He pointed to the patch of bare floor where he had sat before in the center of the three rings, with the black candle and the child's white garment.

  She lifted him easily from his chair and placed him where he wished to be.

  "Bring me my chalk and one of my candles."

  She did so, peering at him suspiciously as she handed them to him.

  "Now you may go, but don't be long."

  This time she went quietly.

  While she was absent, Margal drew the three circles again, with himself in the center, and set the black candle up as before. After plucking the stolen panty from inside his shirt and laying it on the floor between his stumps, he looked at his watch a second time.

  Nine o'clock. Outside, Rue Printemps was dark and quiet. In a residential neighborhood such as this, nothing much happened after the dinner hour. A dog barked in a nearby yard. Others answered. The silence returned.

  Lifting the panty from the floor, Margal held it for a moment in both hands and unblinkingly gazed at it. Then he closed his eyes and pressed the garment against them as though it were a blindfold. He was in this position when Clarisse returned.

  She looked at him and frowned. "What are you doing, if I may ask?"

  "I am watching the Dawson child."

  "Watching her?"

  "Yes."

  "What is she doing?"

  "At the moment she is walking up a flight of stairs. Now she has turned at the top and is going along a hall. Now she is in a bedroom."

  "You see this clearly?"

  "As if I were there."

  "The fire has not diminished your powers, then. For that I am thankful, master."

  It was only on occasions such as this that she called him "master" and showed him total respect. As for his statement that he could see what the Dawson child was doing in her home down the street, it was, of course, not to be questioned. Give him some object that had been close to a person—an article of clothing, a ring, a bracelet, even something as ordinary as a coin from a person's pocket—and he could sometimes even see with its owner's eyes and think with its owner's mind. She knew this to be true. Time and again he had done it.

  "The child is going to bed," he said.

  Clarisse nodded. "Yes, this would be about her bedtime."

  "There is but one bed in the room where she is undressing. The mother sleeps in another room."

  "With her husband, no doubt. Though he is not there tonight."

  He was silent a moment. "She has put on pajamas, white ones, and is kneeling beside the bed. Asking le bon Dieu to protect her while she sleeps, I suppose. I must concentrate now, so be quiet. She must fall asleep with my command in her thoughts, so that when I wake her, she will obey me."

  "Yes, master."

  "One question: Have you any idea what time her mother retires?"

  "No, Margal. But with the husband away she will do so early, I think. They had guests last evening, too. She will be tired."

  The room filled with silence. Again a dog barked somewhere and others answered. Margal sat in the lotus position with the child's garment now hiding his whole face. But Clarisse knew what was going on behind it.

  He was using his mind. When dealing with someone in his presence, he used his eyes as well, but his incredible mind alone was sufficient when he was properly prepared. With a slight shiver of fear she watched him.

  What did he want with the Dawsons' little daughter, anyway? What kind of journey were they about to embark upon with Paul Polivien of Léogane, who owned a boat?

  For half an hour the silence persisted, and Margal remained unmoving. The smoke and the smell of the black candle permeated the room. Then with a noisy sigh the bocor removed the panty from his face and said, "Put me to bed now, but don't undress me. With Polivien coming at midnight, I must rest a little."

  Obeying, she said with a frown, "Why did I have to be here for what you have just done? You had no need of me."

  He reached up to pat her face as she leaned over him. "You give me strength, woman."

  "Well, if that's true, I'm glad. But I don't see—"

  "You too must rest now. Come back at eleven." His eyes flickered shut. "Set your alarm dock," he murmured as he drifted into sleep. "We must not be late."

  In the house down the street, Sandra Dawson had kissed her six-year-old good night and watched the little girl go upstairs. Now she sat in the living room with a book. The servants had gone home.

  Her thoughts wandered. For a time they focused loosely on how peaceful the house seemed without her husband. Then, with her eyes half closed, she drifted back in time to the days before her impulsive marriage.

  She had been a senior at Brookline, Massachusetts, High School when a drunk driver killed her father in the prime of his life. An insurance executive, he had left her mother and herself well enough off. She could still go to Miami University as planned. But the sense of loss haunted her, while Mother sought a solution in too quickly marrying a near stranger.

  Was that the reason Brian had been able to convince her to marry him? Because he offered security, while Ken Forrest preferred f
lying a plane to hitting the books?

  I should have married Ken, God help me. Why was I so stupid?

  She had expected to marry Ken. By their senior year at Miami they had been spending nearly all their time together. But Brian had turned up as a transfer student from Georgetown and decided she was for him.

  She turned her head to look at the telephone. In this country, phones did not always function, but if she were to try calling the north-coast sisal plantation where Ken now worked, she would probably get through to him in time.

  To say what? "Ken, my marriage is washed up. Can you come?"

  He could come if he wanted to. Quickly, too. When the plantation people had business in town, he was the one who flew them in. And, in a way, she was responsible for his having the job.

  The plantation had asked the Embassy to recommend an American who knew tropical agriculture and could fly a small plane. Brian had tossed the request to her for suggestions.

  "Well, I know a pilot who at least studied tropical ag."

  Knowing nothing of her past with Ken, Brian had passed the name along. Ken was hired.

  He had been in Haiti two years now, but she had kept her distance for fear of being found out. For fear of having her husband say, "What a bitch you are, persuading me to find work for an old flame so you could have an affair with him!"

  And now? What if she called Ken after two years and he said he wasn't interested? Could she live with that?

  She tried to read again, but not for long. Putting the book down, she went to dose the shutters at the living room windows. The servants would have secured the others before leaving.

  That done, she bolted the veranda door, and then repeated the routine at the kitchen door. Port-au-Prince had more than its quota of nighttime thieves.

  At the top of the stairs she peered into Merry's room, where a nightlight glowed. Her daughter was peacefully sleeping. My daughter who loves me, she thought as she went along the hall to her own room. Even if her father doesn't.

  She was tired. Perhaps from thinking too much about her problems. Soon after getting into bed, she too was fast asleep.

  "Margal!" Clarisse leaned over him and gently shook his shoulder. "Margal, wake up! It is eleven o'clock."

  The man without legs opened his eyes and used his powerful arms to push himself to a sitting position. "Light the candle."

  Going to that part of the room, she stepped with care over the three chalked circles and held a match to the candle wick, then returned to the bed. Margal did not have to tell her to carry him to the candle. She knew what was expected.

  He had slept with the child's garment inside his shirt, and now closed his eyes and held it against them as before. The room was again full of stillness. Outside, a car coming up Rue Printemps rattled over a ridge of dirt where the road had been poorly put back over a repaired water pipe. There was no other sound. Even the dogs were quiet.

  Margal's lips moved, but he spoke so softly that Clarisse had to listen intently to hear what he said. What he said was, "The little one sleeps."

  "Is that what you want?"

  "Partly. I put a thought into her mind before she slept. She has had it all this time. Now she will do what I tell her to."

  Clarisse did not argue. If he said the world would end in a moment, it would end.

  But for what purpose did he wish to capture the mind of a child?

  Chapter Five

  "Wake up, little one!"

  Merry Dawson stirred in her sleep, and then opened her eyes. Had she really heard someone tell her to wake up? It seemed so. But there was no one in the room. Moonlight streaming through the east window revealed nothing unfamiliar.

  "Don't be afraid, little one. No one will harm you."

  Yes, there was a voice. A man's voice, speaking English like the Haitians who sometimes came to the house to see Daddy.

  But where was it coming from?

  It was inside her head, she decided.

  "Listen to me now, little one, because I am going to tell you what to do and you must not be afraid to do it. No harm will come to you. Are you listening?"

  She sat up in bed. "Yes, I'm listening."

  "I want you to get up very quietly, little one, and dress yourself to go outdoors. Don't make any noise. We don't want to wake your mother. Get up now."

  She got off the bed the way she always did, dropping onto her tummy and sliding feet first off the edge. What should she wear? The dress she had taken off before going to bed was in the wicker clothes hamper beside her bureau, where she put her taken-off clothes every night before getting into pajamas. This was a really hot country in summer. You had to put on clean clothes every morning.

  Peering into her closet, she decided on a yellow dress. Yellow was her favorite color. But first, of course, underwear and socks. You had to wear socks because there were things like Spanish needles and sandburs in the grass. And because if you lost a shoe and didn't have socks on, you could get a bad thing called hookworm.

  Dressed, she went back and stood by the bed, waiting for the voice to tell her what to do next. "Are you ready, little one?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "Listen, then. I want you to go along the hall past your mother's room without waking her. Don't go in to talk to her. Don't even stop. Keep right on going to the stairs, and go down the stairs and through the kitchen to the back door. Do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  "Unlock the back door, go out into the yard, and close the door behind you very quietly. When you have done that, I will tell you what to do next. Go now."

  For the last time she looked around, with a strange feeling she might not see her room again for a long time. Being careful to do exactly what the voice had told her to—not out of fear, but to win the speaker's approval—she merely glanced into her mother’s room as she went along the hail. The door was open because Daddy was not home, and in the moonlight from the windows she could see Mommy sleeping.

  Downstairs she went, and through the kitchen to the back door as instructed. There she had a little trouble, because the door had bolts at top and bottom, and to slide the top one down she had to pull on a chain that was almost too high for her. But by straining on tiptoe she finally reached it, and a moment later she was in the yard.

  Shining with moonlight, the yard was really pretty tonight. All the trees cast shadows. Standing by the door, she wished she could stay a while just to look at it, but the voice was in her head again.

  "Go out to the gate now, Merry. The small gate, not the wide one for cars. Be sure not to make a noise when you close it behind you."

  Through the shimmer of moonlight she obeyed, and again the voice spoke.

  "Now come to me, little one! Turn up the hill and just keep walking until you reach me. My name is Margal and I am your friend. Come!"

  Unafraid, she turned and went up the sidewalk. Never before had she been out alone at this hour. Never, in fact, had she been alone on a Port-auPrince street at any hour. But it was what Margal wanted, so it must be all right.

  And there he was, seated on the sidewalk in front of one of the older houses near the top of the street!

  A car was at the curb. It, too, was old. Beside it stood a big, fat lady and a man with large ears. But they didn't count. It was the seated man who had called her from her bed and told her to come here to him, and she saw now why he was not standing like the others.

  He hadn't any legs.

  He was holding his arms out toward her now, so she ran the last few steps with her own arms outstretched. He caught hold of her hands.

  "Hello, little one." It was the same voice. "Hello, Merry Dawson."

  "Hi, Mr. Margal!"

  "You're a good girl. Because you're so good, I'm going to take you on a very special trip." He let go her hands and beckoned the lady to come forward. "This is Clarisse, Merry. She'll be your friend too."

  The lady nodded.

  "And this is Mr. Polivien," Margal said. "Now we can all get into the car, eh?"<
br />
  Mr. Polivien frowned as he opened the car's rear door for Merry. He did not look happy. But the lady smiled her approval as Merry climbed onto the seat.

  "Move over, child," she instructed, "so Margal can sit with you." Proud of her English, she beamed at the child.

  Long before going to live in the mountains and encountering the man she now served, Clarisse had attended school in the capital, where English had been her favorite subject. As for Margal, he too had studied English in school, his incredible mind finding it as easy to master as everything else he sought to learn.

  Returning to the man who had no legs, Clarisse now picked him up as though he were a doll and carried him to the car. She put him on the rear seat beside Merry. She and Mr. Polivien got in front beside a silent, scowling driver, and Mr. Polivien, turning his head, spoke to Margal in Creole.

  Margal answered him by saying, "Bon. Nou kapab allé, koun yé a."

  From the Creole lessons Edita had given her, Merry knew what that meant. Or almost, anyway. It meant something like, "Good. We can go now."

  What fun this was!

  It was certainly a fun journey. First the car rattled through the city streets, and those were not like when she rode with Daddy or Mommy in the daytime. They were so quiet they were spooky. The only moving things were sad, hungry-looking dogs that slunk out of the way when the car's lights hit them, making their eyes shine.

  Then the city fell behind and there was just the one road running wide and straight through the moonlight.

  Margal put his arm around her. "You are not afraid, little one?"

  "Oh, no!"

  "I knew you would not be."

  Not often had she been outside the city. Once Daddy had driven them to a beach where the water was so clear you could see even the smallest shells on the bottom. Another time he had to go through the mountains to a place called Jacmel. But you didn't do those things at night.

  "Why not shut your eyes and sleep, little one?" Margal said.

  "Will it be all right?" She really was kind of drowsy.

  "Of course. You are very young to be up so late."