"Duncan,.Lois.-.Summer.Of.Fear" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Lois)

"What is it she has?" I asked, really wanting to know. "What are the qualities that have you and Mike so enchanted?"
"I can't explain it," Peter said. "It's justЧsomething, A kind of feeling. A sort ofЧmagic." And he blushed, embarrassed at having used a word that sounded so romantic. "She's justЧspecial somehow."
This was the second Julia. There was a third Julia too. I would meet her later.
So, by my own request, there was no birthday celebration for me. I looked at myself in the mirror that morning as I was brushing my teeth and told myself, "You're sixteen nowЧsweet sixteenЧthe age when lovely things begin to happen." But nothing lifted and sang within me. At the breakfast table there were some packages waiting for me containing a blouse and some earrings and two record albums. I opened them and said my thank you's, but it was al rather flat and forced. I did not even feel like trying on the blouse, and instead of playing the albums I put them away.
In the middle of the morning Carolyn came by on her way out to the pool to ask if Julia and I would like to go with her.
"We can have lunch there," she said. "It's my treat because of your birthday."
"I don't feel like it," I said. "Thanks anyway."
Carolyn gave me a funny look and said, "Well, that's up to you. Are you coming, Julia?"
"Yes," Julia said, "as soon as I get my suit." She went upstairs and while she was gone Carolyn gave me my gift. It was a friendship ring with a tiny turquoise set in the silver band.
"I got it at Old Town a couple of months ago," she said. "I was so happy about finding it. I thought it was just the right present. NowЧwell, I don't know. Maybe you'd rather have something else."
"Of course not," I said. "It's lovely. Why would you think I wouldn't want it?"
"I don't know," Carolyn said again. "We just don't seem the same as we used to be. We used to talk about everything, but lately you seem to have sort of walled yourself off. You never want to go any place or do anything. I spend more time with Julia these days than I do with you."
"Then maybe you'd like to give the ring to Julia," I said shortly. As soon as I heard the words I wished I could call them back, they sounded so cold and bitter. I saw Carolyn flinch as though I had hit her. Carolyn and I had never in our lives said unpleasant things to each other. It was one of the proofs of our friendship that even when we argued we never got angry.
"I bought the ring for you," she said now in a tight voice. "You can keep it or exchange it or throw it away, it's all one with me. Here comes Julia nowЧyou're dumb not to come to the pool. It's a beautiful day for swimming."
They left, and I went out into the yard and watered the roses. Then for lack of anything better to do, I strolled down the sidewalk and paused to say hello to Professor Jarvis who was sitting in a lawn chair in his front yard, writing in a "note book.
"How did your talk go?" I asked him by way of greeting. "My father read in the paper that you were scheduled to give a lecture on witchcraft to some women's club."
"The University Women," he said, looking pleased that I had known about it. "It went very well indeed, thank you, my dear. It's one of the benefits of retirement to have the time to do such things."
"It's funny the University Women would be interested in such a fairy-tale subject," I said.
"A fairy-tale subject?" His pale blue eyes crinkled as he smiled. "Now there's where you're wrong, Rachel. The subject of my lecture had nothing what-so-ever to do with fairy tales. What I spoke about was modem day witchcraft of the sort that's practiced right here in this country all the time."
"You're kidding, of course!" I regarded him with amazement. "Nobody in this day believes in something like that!"
"No?" He laid his book down on his lap. "Then why is it, pray tell, that there are over four hundred witch covens in existence in the United States at this very moment?"
"You mean people who practice real magic?" I exclaimed.
"That depends upon your definition of 'magic,'" Professor Jarvis told me. "If you mean the fairytale stuff, then probably not. But if you accept as the definition of 'magic' the one originated by Aleister Crowley the question is debatable. Mr. Crowley is one of the best known of modern day witches, and he calls magic 'the science and art of causing changes to occur in conformity with will.' In other words, he describes magic as the utilization of the mind force to make things happen as they are desired."
"Do you think that's possible?" I asked doubtfully.
The professor nodded. "If I did not I would certainly not be giving lectures on the subject. We know that the mind has powers that often go undeveloped. Scientific tests conducted in laboratories have proved that certain people have more control over their mind forces than others. There are people who can predict the turn of a card or tune their minds in on events that are occurring at other places. Why then is it unreasonable to believe that there might be other people who can channel this mind force outward and create happenings instead of just know about them?"
"And such people are witches?"
"Some of them call themselves that."
"Have you ever really known one?" It was crazy, of course, but I was fascinated despite myself.
"I'm not sure, but I think so," Dr. Jarvis said seriously. "Back when I was first teaching at the University I had a student who came from a particularly secluded area of the Ozarks. Her name was Ruth, and she had been raised in an atmosphere of witchcraft, for her mother and aunts all claimed to be practicing witches. Whether this girl was one or not, she had been taught a number of charms which she used quite freely. She used to talk with me about it, knowing my interest in the subject.
"I remember one time in particularЧ" He smiled at the memory. "Ruth was in love with a young man who was a member of the basketball team. He was an extremely good looking boy and very popular. He dated one of the cheerleaders and as soon as they graduated they planned to be married. Well, Ruth decided to do something to offset that plan. She attended an after-game party in the cheerleader's dorm room, and while she was there she went into the bathroom and got a couple of hairs out of her rival's brush. She took these back to her room and made a little statue out of beeswax and stuck the hairs in it. Then she lit a match and began melting the wax figure. She let a couple of drops of wax fall, and then she blew out the match and went back to the party.
"Well, it just so happened that while Ruth was in her room performing this little ceremony, the cheerleader had become suddenly ill with stomach pains. The party broke up, and the basketball playing boyfriend was leaving just as Ruth reached the door. They stood in the hall and chatted a few minutes, and then Ruth suggested in a friendly way that they go back to her own room where she had a hot plate and could make some coffee. So they did, and she brewed the coffee and put something in itЧI think she referred to the ingredient as 'milfoil,' but I believe it was actually a part of a plant called Achillea millefolium. From that night on, as far as I know, Ruth and the basketball player were a steady twosome, and he never looked at the poor little cheerleader again.'"
"What a story!" I exclaimed. "You don't really believe it, do you?"
"Well, I received it secondhand," Professor Jarvis said. "So I cannot be absolutely certain. What I do know is that Ruth herself believed it. As far as she was concerned it had a happy ending. She and her ballplayer married and moved to California where he played professionally for many years and finally retired to open his own sporting goods store. I still receive a Christmas card from them every year. They seem to be very happy."
"A wax doll," I said slowly. "She melted a wax doll."
"That's correct."
"Professor JarvisЧ" I hesitated, hardly knowing how to ask the next question. "Was there anything about RuthЧabout her looksЧthat made her different from other people? Was she especially beautiful?"
"No," the professor said. "In fact, she was quite ordinary looking. Very nondescript features, a short dumpy little figure. Nothing anyone would ever notice, except for her eyes."
"Her eyes?"
"She had strange eyes," Professor Jarvis said. "Sometimes they seemed opaque, closed over. Other times you would look into them and it would seem they were so deep they had no bottom. I think that if Ruth did indeed have powers of the kind she attributed to herself, her eyes were a focal point for them.
"And another odd thingЧthough she most certainly was not beautiful in any accepted sense of the word, there were those who swore that she was. The people who were closest to her, the ones on whom she concentrated her attention, seemed to see her with different eyes from the rest of us. They found her very beautiful indeed."
"Professor Jarvis," I said shakily, "do you know why I asked that questionЧabout her looksЧher eyes?"
There was a moment's silence.
Then the old man said, "I think I do."
"You met Julia," I said. "Could sheЧ"
"My dear, I don't know. I did meet her, but only briefly. I must admit the eyes did startle me. They very much resembled Ruth's. However, there are many people in the world with vivid and interesting eyes. My own beloved wife had fantastic eyes, and the last thing she ever could have been was a witch. You simply cannot go around thrusting labels upon people because of physical characteristics which may mean absolutely nothing."
"But there are other things too," I said. "There is the wax figure! I found it one day in the back of her bureau drawer. I thought at the time that it was just an odd shaped ball, but there was a shape to it. It was elongated with a sort of knob at one end which might have been a head. There were four lumps sticking out at the corners like the legs of an animalЧlike the legs of a dog!"
"Rachel, my dear, you are jumping to conclusions," the professor said. "My story has disconcerted you. A lump of waxЧ"
"There were hairs in it!" I cried. "Hairs the color of Trickle's!"
"RachelЧ" He raised a hand as though to hold back my words, but his eyes had taken on a certain sharpness that I had never seen in them before.
"Could you tell?" I asked excitedly. "If I brought it to you, could you tell?"