College teachers -- Fiction; Fantasy fiction; Horror tales; Spouses -- Fiction; Witches -- Fiction
"You usually hold wonderful hands, Tansy. But now you don't seem to
have any," said Mrs. Carr. But suppose she was referring to the kind of
hand you wrapped in flannel?
"Oh, well, unlucky in cards ... you know." How had Mrs. Sawtelle meant
to finish the remark? Lucky in love? Lucky in sorcery? Idiotic notion!
"That's two psychic bids you've made in succession, Tansy. Better watch
out. We'll catch up with you." What might not a psychic bid stand for
in Mrs. Gunnison's vocabulary? Some kind of bluff in witchcraft? A
pretense at giving up conjuring?
"I wonder," Mrs. Carr murmured sweetly to Tansy, "if you're hiding a
very strong hand this time, dear, and making a trap pass?"
Rubber ruler. That was the trouble with imagination. According to a
rubber ruler, an elephant would be no bigger than a mouse, a jagged
line and a curve might be equally straight. He tried to think about the
slam he had contracted for.
"The girls talk a good game of bridge," murmured Gunnison in an
undertone.
Gunnison and Carr came out at the long end of two-thousand rubber and
were still crowing pleasantly as they stood around waiting to leave.
Norman remembered a question he wanted to ask Mrs. Gunnison.
"Harold was telling me you had a number of photographs of that cement
dragon or whatever it is on top of Estrey. It's right opposite my
window."
She looked at him for a moment, then nodded.
"I believe I've got one with me. Took it almost a year ago."
She dug a rumpled snapshot out of her handbag.
He studied it, and experienced a kind of shiver in reverse. This
didn't make sense at all. Instead of being toward the center of the
roof ridge, or near the bottom, it was almost at the top. Just what
was involved here? A practical joke stretching over a period of days
or weeks? Or--His mind balked, like a skittish horse. Yet--_Eppur si
muove_.
He turned it over. There was a confusing inscription on the back, in
greasy red crayon. Mrs. Gunnison took it out of his hands, to show the
others.
"The wind sounds like a lost soul," said Mrs. Carr, hugging her coat
around her as Norman opened the door.
"But a rather noisy one," her husband added with a chuckle.
When the last of them were gone, Tansy slipped her arm around his
waist, and said, "I must be getting old. It wasn't nearly as much of a
trial as usual. They seemed almost human."
Norman looked down at her intently. She was smiling peacefully. Totem
had come out of hiding and was rubbing against her legs.
With an effort Norman nodded and said, "Yes, they did."
V.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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