The Dark-Thirty (11 page)

Picking up the ebony sculpture she’d admired from the window, Laura said, “I have a perfect place for you.” The figurine felt smooth and warm to the touch. “Yes,” Laura whispered. “I will take you home with me.”

A Ghanaian woman came to the front of the store, dressed in Western clothing except for an Asante head wrap. She was well over six feet, yet to Laura her movements seemed as graceful and fluid as a dancer’s. “I am Mrs. Aswadi,” the woman said cordially. “How may I help you?”

“How much is this piece?” Laura asked.

Mrs. Aswadi looked confused, almost startled. “I—I don’t know. In fact, I’ve never seen it before. Where’d you find it?”

Laura pointed to the window display.

“That’s strange,” the woman said. “This is
definitely not an Asante design. And all my pieces are Asante.” She studied the sculpture more carefully. “It looks Yoruban to me.”

“I’d still like to buy it.”

Worry lines creased Mrs. Aswadi’s forehead as she turned the figure over and over in her hand. Her eyes fluttered, and she whispered something in a language Laura didn’t recognize. Then shifting to English, Mrs. Aswadi said, “I feel this is a wicked thing—very old and very powerful.” She paused. “Among the Yoruba there are terrible spirits known as the Dabobo. The Dabobo disguise themselves and wait to be taken into a home—their evil nature is awakened by this invitation.”

Laura laughed. “I don’t believe in such things. This is just a piece of wood.”

“No,” Mrs. Aswadi insisted. “That is what the spirit wants you to think. Once you willingly take it into your home, you unlock its rage. You and your family could be in grave danger.”

“Oh, please,” Laura protested. “You can’t expect me to believe something so outrageous. Are you going to sell the piece or not?”

Mrs. Aswadi stiffened. “You African Americans have forgotten so much of Africa.” She sighed, then pulled herself tall. “Fifty dollars.”

The price was too high and they both knew it. Laura decided it was time to leave. But when she touched the figure again, tracing its shape with her fingers, she realized she had to have it. Resigning herself, she paid twenty dollars more than it was worth.

The transaction was completed in silence. Not feeling the least bit triumphant, Laura started toward the door. Mrs. Aswadi rushed from behind the counter. “Wait,” she called, all of her cool reserve melting away. With genuine concern in her eyes, she thrust a small object into Laura’s free hand. “This is a gift. I always give a gift to customers who buy fifty dollars’ worth of merchandise or more,” she said. “Keep it with you.”

Laura woke with a start, frightening August, the family’s big gray tomcat, who’d been napping at the foot of her bed.

“Who’s there?” she called out, feeling a presence. The bedroom was dark even though it was the middle of the afternoon. She threw back the heavy drapes and August hopped to the window sill, playfully batting at a moving shadow.

“What a strange day,” Laura mumbled, noticing she’d fallen asleep in her clothes,
something she never did. She cut on the water in the bathroom sink and started to wash her face when suddenly she drew back, gasping. Someone was standing behind her. She whirled around, but the figure had disappeared. “Is anyone there?” Laura rushed out of the bathroom, expecting to find an intruder.

As she went back into the bathroom she heard August meow. “This whole afternoon has been surreal,” she said to her own image, “especially Mrs. Aswadi and the Mother Africa Shop. No wonder I’m seeing stuff.” Then casually reaching inside her jacket pocket, she discovered a little straw and cloth monkey doll with a feathered headdress.

“My bonus gift,” she said, chuckling. “I can’t imagine what got into me, paying that much for the ebony piece. Oh, well, at least I can give the doll to Lizzie.”

After dinner that night, Laura showed her latest African
objet d’art
to her husband, Jack, four-year-old Lizzie, and eight-year-old Thomas Lester. “I knew it would be perfect right here,” she said, placing the statue on the top shelf of her collector’s cabinet.

“I don’t like it,” Lizzie said, moving away from the squatting ebony woman. “It’s mean.”

“It’s just a piece of wood, honey,” her mother explained. “A piece of wood can’t
be
anything.”

That is what the spirits want you to think
.

Lizzie held to her conviction. “I still don’t like it.”

“Well, maybe you’ll like this,” Laura said, giving Lizzie the little feathered monkey doll.

Lizzie hugged it to her chest. “Oh! I do! I’ll call him Mr. Feathers. Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she sang.

It was good to see her child happy. The move had been hard on both children, because it had meant leaving their grandparents and friends. That’s why Laura had decided not to teach during the summer. After school was over next week, she planned to fritter away the whole summer with her family—while fixing up the Jewel Box, the nickname she’d given their turn-of-the-century house.

The wonderful old Victorian they’d just moved into was suffering from tacky decorating and neglect—a severe change from their modern split-level in Houston. But the huge rooms, high ceilings, bay windows, and four fireplaces had so many possibilities. Right away Laura had attacked the drab walls with bright paint and colorful wallpaper. Slowly the
old Jewel Box was beginning to look like a real gem.

That night Laura graded papers until late. Before going to bed, she went downstairs to check the doors and shut off the lights. August came along, leading the way down the stairs. At the bottom the big cat stopped abruptly, hunched his back, and hissed.

“What is it, Brer Cat? A mouse?”

August yowled, then zipped up the stairs with his ears laid back against his head. “August,” Laura said, laughing. “I didn’t know you were part chicken. It’s only a shadow.”

A week or so later, Laura stood at the kitchen sink watching Lizzie play in the backyard. Lizzie was singing a song she’d made up as she played.
“Mr. Feathers is my friend. August is too. They don’t like the bad lady. And I don’t either.”

Laura leaned over the sink to hear Lizzie better. Suddenly she felt a presence. She turned around, but there was no one there.

When she turned back to the window, a large dog had lumbered around the side of the house. It was growling and snarling angrily. Foam drooled from its mouth. Madness and pain seemed to keep it moving but with no purpose
or direction. In one panic-filled moment Laura saw that the back gate had been left open.

Lizzie was still singing. Oh, no, thought Laura. Her high-pitched voice will draw the dog.

Now the dog shook its head fitfully, moving closer and closer to the sound of the singing child.

First Laura dialed 911 for help, then reached for Thomas Lester’s baseball bat and quietly tiptoed to the back porch. She couldn’t chance calling Lizzie, because that might make the child run. Moving instinctively, she charged out the back door, stomping and screaming to pull the dog’s attention to her. It worked. The dog retreated a few steps in confusion, giving Laura a split second to put herself between her child and the attacker.

“Lizzie! Run to the porch!” she yelled. “Now!”

The child heard the urgency and fear in her mother’s voice and obeyed. August bounded forward, too, and stopped in front of Laura in his stalking position. His tail twitched from side to side. The mad dog snapped and snarled, opened its jaws, and jumped forward. With legs spread apart, Laura braced for the impact.

But some unseen force seemed to snatch the dog back, holding him in place. He looked as if he were wrestling and twisting against an invisible leash.

Laura didn’t take time to analyze what was happening. “Open the screen door, Lizzie,” she yelled. Then scooping up August, she ran into the house. Just as Laura slammed the door the dog freed itself and in a fit of frenzy rushed at the screen. As Laura held her daughter she heard sirens announce the arrival of help.

It wasn’t until the dog had been carried away that Laura let Lizzie go.

Later that evening Laura was still shaking when she told Jack and Thomas Lester what had happened. “It couldn’t attack me. It was like the dog was being held back by a powerful force.”

This is a wicked thing…

“Where do you think the dog came from?” Thomas Lester asked, wanting to know every dramatic detail.

Very old and very powerful…

“It was probably a family pet, maybe trained to love and take care of a child,” Jack reasoned. “So even in its diseased condition, it instinctively knew that it shouldn’t attack a child. That reluctance allowed Lizzie to get to safety.”

The Dabobo disguise themselves…

“You know how I always try to find a reasonable explanation for things,” Laura said. “But for the life of me I don’t know how that gate came open. I know it was locked.”

Jack gave Laura a you-only-
thought
-you-locked-it look.

“Mr. Feathers and August saved us,” Lizzie announced with certainty, stroking the big cat, who was asleep in her lap.

“Listen to you!” Thomas Lester teased. “That dog would’ve swallowed August whole.”

“No way,” Lizzie insisted.

“Lizzie’s right,” Laura said, winking. “You would’ve been so proud of August. He fearlessly put himself between the dog and me. Oh, and I’m sure Mr. Feathers helped out, too.”

“Yo, August! Think you bad now, huh?” Thomas Lester said, giving the cat a rub behind the ears.

Everyone laughed, but in bed that night Laura lay awake replaying the strange scene in her mind—the open gate, the mad dog, dear brave August. I never knew a cat could be that protective, she thought.

Over the next few weeks all kinds of unsettling events took place. Laura watched as family pictures
mysteriously fell off the stairway wall one after the other. Then things started disappearing and showing up in the oddest places, like her keys, which she found in the freezer.

Once you willingly take it into your home, you unlock its rage…

Jack complained that things were breaking faster than he could fix them. And Laura felt watched all the time—just like the morning the mad dog had shown up in the yard. Sometimes she even saw movement out of the corner of her eye, but when she looked, there was nothing. And the house itself changed. Light seemed to avoid the rooms, regardless of how sunny it was outside.

Lizzie stopped going into the living room, and when Laura asked her why, she answered, “Mr. Feathers told me not to.”

“Why would Mr. Feathers care, honey?”

“That’s why.” And Lizzie pointed to the curio cabinet with the statue of the squatting ebony woman inside. “He doesn’t like her.”

“And you don’t either, do you?”

“No, Mama. That’s not how she really looks, you know. A mean, ugly witch lives inside.” And clutching the little feathered monkey doll, the child hurried away.

Lizzie was getting some strange ideas, thought Laura, deciding to monitor her daughter’s television programs more closely.

You and your family could be in grave danger…

No such logic could explain away what happened to Jack one Saturday morning.

It started with Laura finding a dead bird in her bathwater. Against Lizzie’s loud protests, Laura accused the cat of the mischief and banished him to the basement. Wanting to keep him company, Lizzie joined August in exile. Jack was also downstairs fixing the washer.

Suddenly Jack screamed. “Follow me,” Laura ordered Thomas Lester, who had beaten her to the basement door. Moving slowly down the steep dark steps, Laura found Jack on the floor, visibly frightened.

“Lizzie and August were playing over there,” he explained. His voice was shaky. “I—I was working on the machine here. I unplugged it so I could begin fixing it.” He jumped to his feet and studied the renegade appliance from a careful distance. “Then for some reason the power came back on, and I was holding hot wires. But they were snatched out of my hands! I’m not kidding. They were snatched right out
of my hands. Otherwise I would have been shocked to death.”

“Maybe Lizzie put the plug back in, not realizing what she was doing?”

“No, she wasn’t near the plug.”

Laura felt her knees weaken. “Jack? Do you hear what you’re saying? An unplugged washing machine cut itself on!”

She looked at the socket. The machine was unplugged. Jack hadn’t imagined that part. But had he just barely escaped being electrocuted?

You and your family could be in grave danger…

“Weird stuff,” Thomas Lester put in. “Is this place haunted?”

Laura flinched at the sound of the word.
Haunted
. Were such things possible?

“No, son,” Laura answered. “Living in old houses like this sometimes makes you
think
they’re haunted, but ghosts don’t exist.”

“Mr. Feathers saved you, Daddy,” Lizzie said, cradling the little monkey doll in her arms. And she and August ran up the steps.

Keep it with you…

Early the next week Thomas Lester called from the YMCA, where he spent the summer mornings. He was going on a field trip to Shaw Gardens and needed his antitoxin medicine in
case a bee stung him. On the way home from the Y, Laura passed the Mother Africa Shop. She decided to go in.