




                             CONJURE WIFE

                         By Fritz Leiber, Jr. Illustrated by Kramer

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                      Unknown Worlds April 1943. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I. "I keep wondering if she knows about Us," said the woman with black
button eyes. She played the queen of spades. The queen of hearts trumped the queen of spades. "You can put your mind
at rest," said the silver-haired woman sweetly, gathering in the trick. "She doesn't. Tansy Saylor plays a lone hand. Like most women, she
thinks she's the Only One. Co-operation such as ours is rare." "But I'm afraid of her. Oh, I know she hasn't upset the Balance, and
uses only Protective Procedures. But she isn't our kind. Neither is her
husband. They don't belong." The silver-haired woman nodded primly, peering through her thick
glasses at the dummy with the empty chair behind it. "I agree. The
Saylors are a disgrace to the Hempnell faculty. Modern. No sense of the
traditional decencies." "Yes, and she wants to make him president of Hempnell. She wants him to
dictate to our husbands. She wants to condescend to us." "This talk gets nowhere," broke in the stout, red-haired woman gruffly. "The point is that her Protective Procedures are effective--many things
would have happened to the Saylors during the last ten years if they
weren't. And she hasn't made the mistake of upsetting the Balance. So
what can we three do about it?" "Oh, the Balance!" said the woman with black button eyes, throwing down
her last two cards. "Sometimes I think we ought to upset it ourselves." She evaded the shocked glance of the silver-haired woman. "We've our
Sounds, and our Pictures, and our Numbers, and our Cards. We could
finish the Saylors in a whiff. There's such a neat trick with cards
I've just learned. Here, let me show you--" She slipped a dozen shiny
paste-board oblongs out of her purse. They had the conventional backs,
but their faces bore representations of a cryptic sort. "Stop that!" The silver-haired woman stretched out fluttering hands. "Put them away!" ordered the stout woman harshly. She glanced at the
door. "Quickly!" But the eyes of the little man who ambled in were not inquisitive. With white beard and amiable smile, he looked almost benign, in an
absent-minded sort of way. "I don't suppose you played much bridge while I was gone," he observed
with mild joviality. The silver-haired woman's laughter trilled sweetly. "It's his little
joke. He always pretends that all women are fearful gossips. Well, at
least I made the contract, dear. Four hearts." His eyes twinkled. "Very commendable." He settled himself in the empty
chair. "Still I imagine the three of you managed to find time for some
very dark and devious plotting--" He chuckled innocently. *       *       *       *       *

Norman Saylor, professor of ethnology at Hempnell College, was not the
sort of man to go snooping around in his wife's dressing room. That was
partly the reason why he did it. He was sure nothing could touch the
security of the relationship between him and Tansy. The house was very quiet. Spring sunshine and balmy air were sluicing
gently through the bedroom windows. It wasn't five minutes since he
had put in the final staccato burst of typing on his "Negro Recruit"
brochure for the War Office. It looked as if for once they would have a
lazy evening to themselves. Totem, the cat, rose from her sun-warmed spot on the neatly piled
silk quilt and indulged in a titanic, disruptive-looking yawn, neatly
folded her white paws under her black waistcoat, and stared solemnly
at Norman. Norman copied her yawn, and felt a partial unkinking of the
twelve-work-hours-a-day tension that had traced lines on his chunky
face and smudged shadows under his clear, yellow-brown eyes. Such
moments as this did not come often these days, but when they did come,
they sure felt good. The door of Tansy's dressing room stood invitingly open. It was a tiny
room, just a big closet, with no windows. But it was more than a rack
of dresses and a creamy dressing table. It was Tansy. On the neat side,
but not fussy. A slight pleasant disorder. Very sane--he wondered why
that particular word came to his mind, but it hit the spot. A faint
perfume conjured up amiable memories. He studied the photographs on either side of the mirror. One of Tansy
and himself in modified Indian costume, from three summers back when he
had been studying the Yumas. They both looked rather solemn. Another,
slightly faded, of an uproarious Negro baptizing in midriver. That
was from when he had held the Hazelton Fellowship and been gathering
material for his "Social Patterns of the Southern Negro" and his later
"Feminine Element in Superstition." Tansy had done more work than two
secretaries that busy year when he was hammering out a reputation. There was an ample array of cosmetics--Tansy had been the first of the
Hempnell faculty wives to use lipstick and lacquer her nails; there had
been covert criticism and talk of "setting the students a bad example,"
but she had stuck it out. Flanked by cold-cream jars was a photograph
of himself, with a little pile of small change, dimes and quarters, in
front of it. Idly he slid out a drawer, scanned the pile of stocking rolls, pushed
it in, pulled at another, which jammed, so he had to give it a sharp
tug. A large cardboard box toward the back caught his eyes. He edged up
the cover and took out one of the tiny glass-stoppered bottles. What
sort of cosmetic would this be? Too dark for face powder. More like a
geologist's soil specimen. An ingredient for a mud pack? The dry, dark-brown granules shifted smoothly, like sand in an
hourglass, as he rotated the glass cylinder. The label appeared, in
Tansy's clear script. "Julia Trock, Roseland." A cosmetician? Was
Roseland a part of the name, or a place? And why should the idea that
it might be a place seem distasteful? His hand knocked aside the
cardboard cover as he reached for a second bottle, identical with the
first, except that the contents had a somewhat reddish tinge, and the
label read, "Philip Lassiter, Hill." A third, contents same color
as the first: "J. P. Thorndyke, Roseland." Then a handful, quickly
snatched up, of three: "Emelyn Scatterday, Roseland." "Mortimer Pope,
Hill." "The Rev. Bufort Ames, Roseland." The silence in the house grew thunderous; even the sunlight seemed to
sizzle and fry, as his mind rose to a sudden pitch of concentration on
the puzzle. "Roseland and Hill, Roseland and Hill, Roseland and Hill,"
like a nursery rhyme somehow turned nasty, making the glass cylinders
repugnant to his fingers. "Roseland Hill--"

Abruptly the answer came. The two local cemeteries. Graveyard dirt. Soil specimens all right. Graveyard dirt from particular graves. A
chief ingredient of Negro conjure magic.