Conjure Wife Read Online Free PDF Page A

feather figures puffed into flame.
    “There,” she said. “Feel any reaction?”
    “No,” he said. “Any reason I should?”
    She shook her head. “Except that those were the last ones. And so, if there were any hostile forces that my charms were keeping at bay…” .
    He laughed tolerantly. Then for a moment his voice grew hard. “You’re sure they’re all gone? Absolutely certain you haven’t overlooked any?”
    “Absolutely certain. There’s not one left in the house or near it, Norm — and I never planted any anywhere else because I was afraid of… well, interference. I’ve counted them all over in my mind a dozen times and they’ve all gone —” She looked at the fire, “— pouf. And now,” she said quietly, “I’m tired, really tired. I want to go straight to bed.”
    Suddenly she began to laugh. “Oh, but first I’ll have to stitch up those pillows, or else there’ll be feathers all over the place.”
    He put his arms around her. “Everything okay now?”
    “Yes, darling. There’s only one thing I want to ask you — that we don’t talk about this for a few days at least. Not even mention it. I don’t think I could… . Will you promise me that, Norm?”
    He pulled her closer. “Absolutely, dear. Absolutely.”

3
    Leaning forward from the worn leather edge of the old easy chair, Norman played with the remnants of the fire, tapped the fang of the poker against a glowing board until it collapsed into tinkling embers, over which swayed almost invisible blue flames.
    From the floor beside him Totem watched the flames, head between outstretched paws.
    Norman felt tired. He really ought to have followed Tansy to bed long ago, except he wanted time for his thoughts to unkink. Rather a bother, this professional need to assimilate each new situation, to pick over its details mentally, turning them this way and that, until they became quite shopworn. Whereas Tansy had turned out her thoughts like a light and plunged into sleep. How like Tansy! — or perhaps it was just the more finely attuned, hyperthyroid female physiology.
    In any case, she’d done the practical, sensible thing. And that was like Tansy, too. Always fair. Always willing, in the long run, to listen to logic (in a similar situation would he have dared try reasoned argument on any other woman?) Always… yes… empirical. Except that she had gotten off on a crazy sidetrack.
    Hempnell was responsible for that, it was a breeding place for neurosis, and being a faculty wife put a woman in one of the worst spots. He ought to have realized years ago the strain she was under and taken steps. But she’d been too good an actor for him. And he was always forgetting just how deadly seriously women took faculty intrigues. They couldn’t escape like their husbands into the cool, measured worlds of mathematics, microbiology or what have you.
    Norman smiled. That had been an odd notion Tansy had let slip towards the end — that Evelyn Sawtelle and Harold Gunnison’s wife and old Mrs. Carr were practising magic too, of the venomous black variety. And not any too hard to believe, either, if you knew them! That was the sort of idea with which a clever satirical writer could do a lot. Just carry it a step farther — picture most women as glamor-conscious witches, carrying on their savage warfare of deathspell and countercharm, while their reality-befuddled husbands went blithely about their business. Let’s see, Barrie had written What Every Woman Knows to show that men never realized how their wives were responsible for their successes. Being that blind, would men be any more apt to realize that their wives used witchcraft for the purpose?
    Norm’s smile changed to a wince. He had just remembered that it wasn’t just an odd notion, but that Tansy had actually believed or half-believed, such things. He sucked his lips wryly. Doubtless he’d have more unpleasant moments like this, when memory would catch him up with a start. After