The breathing seemed to change. It grew harsher and louder, and with each breath the chandelier pulsed and flickered. I could see its green reflections in the dark pool of the cherrywood table. Mrs. Karmann's hand was digging deep into mine, but I hardly felt it. There was a persistent chilliness around the room, and the draught blew uncomfortably up my legs.
"Talk," repeated Amelia. "Speak and tell us who you are."
"Christ," said MacArthur impatiently, "this is —"
"Ssshhh," I told him. "Just wait, MacArthur, it's coming."
And it was coming. I stared at the center of the table, and there seemed to be something shivering in the air a few inches above the surface. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle and creep as the air twisted and flowed like smoke, then began to form itself into some sort of shape.
The breathing grew deep and loud and close, as though someone was actually breathing in my ear. The dim light of the chandelier faded altogether but the pouring snake of air in front of us had a luminescence all its own.
Underneath it, the actual wooden surface of the table began to rise in a lump. I bit my tongue until the sharp taste of blood flowed into my mouth. I was petrified with fear, but I couldn't turn away, couldn't refuse to look. The power of the circle held us all too strongly, and we could only sit there and stare at this terrifying spectacle in front of us.
The black shiny wood in the middle of the table formed into a human face, a man's face, with its eyes closed like a death mask.
"God," said MacArthur, "what is it?"
"Quiet," whispered Amelia. I could see her white, intense expression by the unnatural light of the air. "Leave this to me."
Amelia leaned forward toward the frozen wooden face.
"Who are you?" she asked, almost cajolingly. "What do you want with Karen Tandy?"
The face remained still. It was a fierce, deeply lined face, the face of a powerful man in his late thirties, with a distinctively hooked nose, and wide full lips.
"What do you want?" asked Amelia again. "What is it you're looking for?"
I could have been mistaken, but I thought I saw the black wooden lips move into a quiet and self-satisfied smile. The face stayed like that for a moment, and then the wood seemed to flow and bend, and the features melted away, and soon there was nothing there but the flat polished table.
The weird light faded, and we were back in darkness.
"Harry," said Amelia. "For God's sake put the lights on."
I let go of MacArthur's hand, and Mrs. Karmann's hand, and stood up. At that second, there was a shattering crack, and a brilliant white flash of light, and the windows smashed with a bomb-like explosion that sent glass spraying everywhere. The drapes flapped and billowed in the icy wind from the snowy night outside, and Mrs. Karmann screamed in terror.
I went to the lights and snapped them on. Everything in the dining room had been thrown around, as if a hurricane had come howling through. There were glasses and decanters on the floor, paintings were hanging askew, chairs were knocked over. The cherrywood dining table had split from one side to the other.
MacArthur stood up and came crunching across the carpet through the litter of glass. "I've had enough, man. From now on, it's social security plates for me, and nothing else."
"Harry," called Amelia. "Help me get Mrs. Karmann through to the living room."
Together we carried the old lady into the next room and laid her down on the settee. She was white and shivering, but she didn't seem to be hurt. I went over to the cocktail cabinet and poured her a large glass of brandy, and Amelia held it for her to sip.
"Is it all over?" she whimpered. "What happened?"
"I'm afraid there's a bit of damage, Mrs. Karmann," I told her. "The windows broke, and some of your glassware is smashed. I'm afraid the table's cracked too. But it's a clean split. Maybe you can get it repaired."
"But what was it?" she said. "That face!"
Amelia shook her head. MacArthur had found some cigarettes in a silver box, and he handed her one. She lit it with trembling hands, and blew the smoke out in a long unsteady stream.
"I don't know, Mrs. Karmann. I'm not that expert as a medium. But whatever it was, it was very powerful. Usually, a spirit has to do what you tell it to do. This one was just showing us that it didn't give a damn what we thought of it."
"But Amelia," I said. "Is that the thing that's been giving Karen Tandy all those nightmares?"
She nodded. "I think so. I mean, it's so strong that it must be causing some kind of vibrations in this apartment. And I expect that's what Karen picked up in her dreams. When you're asleep, you're very receptive to vibrations, even weak ones, and these are much more powerful than any I've ever come across. There's something here that's possessed of real magical strength."
I lit a cigarette myself and thought for a moment. "Did you say magical?" I asked Amelia.
"Sure. Any spirit with that kind of control over itself would have to be the spirit of somebody who knew about the occult when they were alive. It might even be a person who's still living today, and is able to float around as a spirit when they're asleep. It has been known."
"Sounds like bullshit t'me," said MacArthur. "If I was Mrs. Karmann, I'd take that table back and complain."
I grinned. It was good to have a real skeptic around, even if he wasn't helping us much.
"Amelia," I said. "If you're saying that what we saw tonight was the spirit of someone magical, then there's an interesting tie-in. I was reading my Tarot cards the other evening, and I kept coming up with The Magician. No matter how I dealt or redealt them, I always ended up with the same card."
Amelia brushed her long brown hair away from her eyes. "In that case, I guess it's fair to suppose that whoever is doing this, whether they're alive or dead, is a magician. Or somebody like a magician."
"Witch doctor?" suggested MacArthur.
"Could be. I mean, he looked like some kind of African. Not just because the wood was black, but because of his lips, remember?"
Mrs. Karmann sat up, clutching her glass of brandy. "Well, I'll tell you what he reminded me of," she said weakly. "He reminded me of a cigar-store Indian."
MacArthur snapped his fingers. "That's it — Indian. The hooked nose, right, and the lips, and the high cheekbones. He's not a witch doctor, he's a medicine man!"
Amelia brightened up. "Listen," she said. "I have quite a few books on Indians. Why don't we go back to my place and see what we can find out about medicine men? Mrs. Karmann, do you think you'll be all right now?"
"Oh, you go ahead," said the old lady. "I'll stay across the hall with my neighbor Mrs. Routledge, and Karen's parents will be here later. If you think that any of this can help poor Karen, then the sooner you get going the better."
"Mrs. Karmann," said Amelia, "you're an angel."
"Not yet a while, I hope," smiled Mrs. Karmann. "Not yet a while."
Back in the untidy jumble of Amelia's apartment in the Village, surrounded by books and magazines and tapestries and pictures and old hats and half a bicycle, we went through a dozen volumes on Indian lore. Surprisingly, there wasn't much about medicine men, apart from stuff on buffalo magic and rain dances and battle spells. Out of the eleven books, nothing gave us any clues about the wooden death mask on Mrs. Karmann's table.
"Maybe we're totally mistaken," said Amelia. "Perhaps the spirit is somebody living today. I mean, a hooked nose doesn't have to be Indian. It could be Jewish."
"Wait a minute," I told her. "Have you any other history books, or anything at all that might contain a cross reference to Indians or medicine men?"