The Sale by Dana M. Anderson
COPYRIGHT 1985 BY
Dana M Anderson
715 W. 4th St.
Northfield, MN 55057
(507) 645-7170
THE SALE
by Dana M Anderson
Joanne Diebert hung up the phone with a triumphant gleam in her
eyes. "I did it!" she shouted, scribbling a note in her
engagement book, then she walked down the narrow trailer hallway
to the cramped bedroom. "Tommy! I got my last party!"
"Wonderful." Tom Diebert was reading the paper on the double bed
taking up three quarters of the bedroom. The Tonight Show blared
on the color TV on the dresser at the foot of the bed. "Stick
your old lady with another party?" he asked.
"Of course not." She slapped her book lightly on the bare soles
of his feet as she slipped sideways between the bureau and the
bed. "Gloria Headman gave me the name of a woman in Amesbury,
and she said she'd love to have a party as soon as possible.
Real nice woman. I've got her booked for the Thirty-first.
That's my absolutely last possible party date if I'm to
get the order mailed by August second."
"Just under the wire." Her husband reached out to swat her
on the rear end. "Sarah Sales-Lady strikes again," he laughed.
"You're just jealous." She stood for a moment looking down at
him, an expression of annoyance clouding her features. "But I
guess one of us has to have a head for business. Now, if I can
average a hundred and seventy-five dollars a party with one more
recruit, we'll be in Jamaica in two months. All free. Even our
budget ought to be able to stand that."
"I hope you win your trip," he said, noncommittally.
"I'll win it. And you might even have some fun if you tried
hard."
"Sure, dear, and I'll just let the business go to hell while
we're off traipsing around the Caribbean."
"You do what ever you like," she said, coldly. "I deserve a
vacation."
"I guess you do." He rolled away from her. "Turn out the lights
and come to bed."
She stood for a moment looking at his bulk in the bed and trying
to imagine what had drawn her to him to begin with. Her
promising young car salesman had turned into a paunchy, dull fool
and an impediment to her own happiness. For two cents, she
thought, I'd trade you for a newer model--maybe even for less.
Her enthusiasm chilled, Joanne turned out the light and got ready
for bed in sour silence.
#
Joanne Diebert had two weeks to move eighteen hundred dollars of
merchandise for the Happy House Corporation of Trenton, New
Jersey, to qualify for the summer cruise they offered carrot-like
to their army of independent sales people. The total requirement
was the recruitment of five new sales people and thirty thousand
dollars in sales at a minimum of fifty parties within a four
month period.
Selling thirty grand for a company whose most expensive item
listed at forty-seven fifty was no mean feat. But if anyone
could do it, Joanne was the one. She'd already topped the
Minneapolis-St. Paul district in sales for three periods running
and was voted saleslady of the year for Minnesota at the last
Happy House Hoedown, but the cruise would be her crowning jewel.
Her earnings were more than instrumental in paying off the debts
from the bankruptcy of Tom's Cadillac dealership three years
earlier. Tom made a down payment on his father's janitorial
service with what money remained after he lost the car lot, but
the time payments the stingy old man demanded kept the income
from that venture low. So the debts had been reduced to
manageable size primarily through Joanne's efforts, and the money
in their joint bank account was due to her Happy House earnings.
Now, with just a little bit of extra effort, they'd have two
weeks of relaxation. It was easy to sell once she got eight or
ten women together for coffee and her demonstration of total home
aids. If it was made of rubber or plastic, Happy House sold it,
and she'd always managed to sell at least twenty dollars worth to
every woman at a party, usually more. But it was a different
matter recruiting new people. The women who attended were
content to busy themselves with their homes and children and
didn't want to invest the time it takes to succeed. The doers of
the world were already out there doing.
But Joanne Diebert was a determined woman. They'd be on that
cruise liner if she had to trade her soul for the tickets.
#
The night before the party in Amesbury, Joanne dreamed of being
chained to the sweating bricks of a cinderblock wall in the
basement of an old house. She pulled against the chains, but the
elastic steel snapped her wrists back against the bricks.
Plastic spiders scrabbled up her legs, the dim light reflecting
from their golden shells as they snapped at her like mad clams.
Not spiders, they were Happy House Purse Tote Aspirin Containers
with legs, small white pills falling free as they snapped their
lids at her. A shadow moved across the shaft of blue light and
she saw a dark figure troweling mortar atop a row of Happy House
Kitchen Canisters and setting another canister into the cement,
rapidly building a plastic wall before her. The wall grew to her
dark captor's chest as the pill-box spiders scuttled over her
face snapping at her eyes.
White, the light was so white and pure that her eyes bled from
looking at it, but she couldn't pull her gaze away from the glare
that grew behind the monster at the wall, couldn't look away as
it poured through him and lit Tom's face beneath the hood. The
spiders shriveled from her face; the wall dissolved into a puddle
of goo; her chains shattered; and Tom stood rigid, swelling in
the heat, his shadowed body expanding till it burst upon her in a
shower of green bile. And the light approached, diminishing to a
flicker in the palm of a woman with skin like ice and eyes of
burnished gold. She offered her hand and Joanne took it, feeling
the fire that did not burn surge through her, feeling the power
that saved her.
She awoke knowing that the power was hers.
#
The Thirty-first of July was a dismal day. Dirty gray clouds
hung low overhead, stretching down to scratch their bellies on
the tree tops. The summer birds stalked the lawns as though
unsure of their surroundings, confused by the yellowed air and
the chill, autumnal wind.
Gray days were bad for business. Women stayed away from parties,
and those who did attend kept their purchases small, the
inclination to spend suppressed by the weather. She always got
screwed on days like this.
And why should this party be any different than the rest? The
last two weeks had gone as though every day was as bleak as this
one. Attendance was at a new low, she was nearly eight hundred
dollars short of her goal, and she still needed one more recruit.
Unless she could gouge out money like she'd never done before
there was no hope for Jamaica this year.
So she drove to the party in a mood bordering on the suicidal.
Amesbury was a small town fifty miles distant from their trailer
in a Minneapolis suburb. It was the kind of village that
couldn't possibly exist, a town without fast-food joints or neon
cluttered streets. "The town that time forgot," she thought as
she drove her worn Buick over the slowly rolling hills. "If I
can't cut it with these gingham dressed housewives I might as
well turn in my sales kit." Her mood improved slightly thinking
of virgin territory ahead.
The business district in Amesbury consisted of vintage buildings
decorated with intricate stonework arranged around a square of
closely cropped grass. The picturesque streets were empty, which
seemed fitting.
The large Victorian house, replete with stained glass windows and
turrets, stood lost in a grove of maple trees across from the
graveyard on the far edge of town. It loomed over her as she
approached, standing grim and gray like a threat. But that was
just her mood talking, that and the presence of the graveyard.
"Mrs. Putnam?" she asked the regal woman who opened the door.
"You must be Mrs. Diebert. Come in." She smiled slightly and
stepped back from the door, extending one arm into the room in a
gesture of welcome.
The woman was tall, with coal black hair extending to the small
of her back and framing a face seeming to be sculpted from pure,
unblemished ivory. She was the type of enigmatic, timeless
beauty who would stop traffic crossing the street, and Joanne
would have guessed her age at anywhere between thirty and fifty,
having the clear beauty of the younger and calm grace of the
older. Usually Joanne could size up a customer quickly, and
slant her sales pitch to their tastes, but this woman refused
ready labeling. Nothing in her face, her tone of voice or
physical movements gave any hint to her personality, and her
simple black gown told nothing of her tastes save that they were
refined. If she gave any first impression at all it was of
knowing something, some eternal secret, that Joanne could only
guess at. And she sensed an aura of power around this woman like
an electrical charge.
"I have tons of samples to bring in, Mrs. Putnam," Joanne
answered, pulling her mind back to her task.
"They will be brought in." The woman smiled. "Please, do take
some tea."
Mrs. Putnam served the tea in a parlor filled with time.
Generations of human handiwork were layered like sediment on the
sturdy foundation of the oriental rug. Nothing in the room
except the air conditioner and a small color TV was any newer
than Nineteen Thirty-five. The sturdy couch and wing chair
definitely dated from the turn of the century, as did the rug,
yet they were in such good condition as to look almost new. You
had to have money to support a collection of antiques like this,
and loving care had been taken with everything from the carved
wood of the Steinway down to the gleaming brass claws that
clutched the glass balls footing the tables.
A certain calm existed in the golden atmosphere of the room, a
mesmerizing feeling of genteel grace and riches. It was a
narcotic, that room, a drug mixed from lemon oil and lilac
waiting to seduce with its calm.
Joanne took stock of her surroundings. Her display would look
out of place among the old furnishings. It was bad for sales if
the product looked like an anachronism rather than the latest
thing in household aids. It seemed that yet another obstacle had
come to block her success.
Still, there was something about the noble old house that told
her not to worry, something in Mrs. Putnam's gentle green eyes
that said to relax and enjoy the tea. She was with a friend.
"It's been tough," she found herself saying. "After we lost the
dealership creditors sprang up out of the woodwork to demand
money. I had no idea he'd sunk so much of our personal credit
into the business. We finally had to declare personal bankruptcy
to keep enough money to live on. Tom didn't want to hurt
anybody, so we're paying anyway. I'm paying, I should say,
because my husband can't clean offices any better than he sold
cars. I guess I agree about paying them off, though. But it's
been so hard."
"I'm sure it has been." Mrs. Putnam watched her, smiling
slightly, holding her cup delicately on its saucer. "One needs
courage to take the hard route, but you're always better off in
the end."
"Maybe," Joanne laughed. "But it's no fun."
"Is that what you're after? Fun?" Her green eyes held Joanne
for a moment, seeing through her, then moved away.
"Yes, I am." Joanne averted her eyes, suddenly shy of the woman,
and gazed into her cup. She watched the small bits of tea swirl
on the liquid and wondered if the future could really be read in
the bottom of the cup. She wondered if this party would be worth
her time. "Maybe that's not all I want," she said, slowly. "But
I need a break from that damn, treeless trailer court. But it
won't happen now."
"Give me your cup." Mrs. Putnam held out her hand, touching
Joanne's wrist slightly. "It is true, you know." There was
laughter in her voice.
"What is?" She handed the nearly empty cup to her.
"You can read the future in a cup of tea. That's what you were
thinking about, isn't it?" She stared into the cup, turning it
slightly in her hand.
"How did you know that?" God, I'm stuck with a fruitcake.
"It's not so hard to know what you're thinking, Mrs. Diebert."
She laughed, watching Joanne, measuring her. "Would you like to
know what I see?"
"Sure, why not?"
"You are going to Jamaica."
#
The other women of Amesbury were an odd lot. They seemed to have
the impression that it was a costume party. One old bag wore a
long dress with many petticoats beneath it and sported a frilled
bonnet while another came in a beaded flapper skirt and wore an
ostrich feather in the headband over her bobbed hair. It was
unreal. There was a Jackie Kennedy clone with her pill-box hat
and gloves, a matronly woman in gingham, and a freaked-out young
thing with granny glasses wearing an obnoxious, tie-dyed sack and
a leather vest. Yet, despite their variety of clothing styles,
they possessed an odd sameness of expression and speech, their
faces set like masks expressing neither pleasure nor pain, eyes
showing a stupefied sheen that Joanne imagined came from too much
housework. She categorized them as the House Beautiful type,
content to live a banal existence serving their lords and masters
and playing dress-up to get what kicks they could. They must be
great embarrassments to their fat husbands. Of course, it was
possible those erstwhile gentlemen were all dressed like Abe
Lincoln at another party across town. Joanne decided to write it
off as a local custom and get through with the party as quickly
as possible.
But her first impression needed rearrangement after the party
started. What ever they may have been thinking, whatever they
did with their days, they came alive at the party as though their
sole purpose in life was to make Mrs. Putnam's prophesy come
true.
Mrs. Stanley blew sixty-seven bucks on kitchen aids, and Mrs.
Kruse spent eighty-two on both kitchen and bath. Mrs. Wysocki, a
bird-like woman in a hoop skirt, spent nearly two hundred
dollars. Two hundred on plastic! Talk about guppies!
Eager, no frenzied to buy, they pressed their orders on her so
fast that she could barely keep up with them. Condiment sets,
canisters, desk organizers, personalized door mats, they bought
everything she showed. They were laughing and chatting and
showing off the display items to each other with childlike glee
as Mrs. Putnam oversaw them from her wing chair by the piano, a
small smile on her lips. It was almost spooky. No, not almost.
At nine o'clock, as though on cue, they picked up their order
confirmation slips and shuffled past Joanne and Mrs. Putnam,
thanking them both, but especially Mrs. Putnam whom they each
took by the hand with a small nod.
Joanne stood at the window watching the line of women walk away,
their forms indistinct in the twilight as they shuffled through
the grove of trees and across the street. "Nut-cases, every
one," she told herself, but an unsettled feeling began to shroud
her mind as she watched. She'd never take a short-cut through a
graveyard on the night of a full moon.
"How did you do?" Joanne jumped slightly as Mrs. Putnam moved up
quietly behind her, touching her shoulder. "Did you achieve the
sales necessary?"
"I don't see how I could have missed it," Joanne said, turning to
face her. "You had eighteen women here." She was so close. Why
didn't she move back? "Usually, a hostess is lucky if she can
get half the people she invites to show up. Eighteen is
incredible. I've never seen guests have such a good time
spending money." The words came out in a nervous rush as she
stood inches away from her hostess.
"It was a treat for them," the woman answered, softly, those
green eyes examining Joanne's face. "They aren't able to get out
much."
Their close proximity allowed Joanne to get a close look at Mrs.
Putnam. Her face was nearly perfect, too perfect. Not one
wrinkle or blemish, and the pores of her skin were almost
invisible, yet Joanne could see that she wore no make-up save a
touch of lipstick and eye-liner. Her hands, however, were
beginning to get the bony appearance of age, with a hint of liver
spots revealing the lie of the silken skin on her face and neck.
So the broad had gone for the old tuck and trim. What the hell?
She had her vanity like anyone else. If you've got it, spend it.
"Are you going to tally it up?" Mrs. Putnam stepped back slowly,
trailing a faint aroma of cinnamon. Her eyes were the deepest
green Joanne had ever seen, capturing her in their olive depths.
"I don't think you'll have to worry about your record as a
fortune teller. I'm sure it's well past what I needed."
Excitement thrilled up Joanne's spine as she walked to the table
and began sorting through the cash and checks the women had left.
At first some of the bills seemed larger than the others, but
when she leafed through them again they were all fine. The
excitement of the party was obviously making it hard to
concentrate.
The final total was eleven hundred twenty-four dollars. Those
dingy women had out-grossed anything she'd ever had before. If
she'd called them guppies before, she now knew they were insane
as well.
"Wonderful." Mrs. Putnam placed one hand on her shoulder as she
sat at the polished cherry-wood table with her calculator. "But
you still need to recruit a sales person."
"Yes, I do." Joanne moved uncomfortably under the other woman's
hand. Her touch was hot, and it brought a flush to Joanne's
cheeks. "Damn. A take like this, and Jamaica will have to wait
after all."
"Not at all, my dear." The woman's voice was kind and soft, a
murmur of friendship. "I believe our friend, Mrs. Headman, will
be happy to join you." The hand withdrew, leaving its heat.
"She would?"
"Of course," she smiled. "You've never asked her, have you? I
think she's somewhat jealous of your success. She'll join."
Throughout the evening, Joanne had been aware of the woman's eyes
on her, their intense gaze seldom wavering from her face. It
wasn't an unfriendly scrutiny, but it had gotten to betoo much.
She was beginning to get angry.
"Why have you been staring at me all evening?" she said quickly.
"You don't have any queer ideas about us, do you?"
"Queer ideas?" She laughed. "They may be queer, but not in the
sense you mean. You're not one to take things lying down, are
you?"
"No, I'm not." She stood to face the other woman. "It isn't
that I don't appreciate everything. I mean, who would complain
about those sales? But I don't owe you anything for it. You get
twenty percent in free merchandise for having the party."
"I don't even want that."
"Then what's your problem?"
"You'd love to sell this well at all your parties, wouldn't you?
You want the brass ring." She sat at the table, leaning back to
look up at Joanne. "You want your husband to lose twenty pounds
and take an interest in his appearance. No, you want a different
husband entirely. Yes, that's what you want."
"Now wait a minute. I--"
"You want a large house in Edina, or maybe a mansion in Wayzata.
You want furs, jewelry, a Rolls Royce. You want quite a bit."
Her voice took on a hard edge as she leaned forward, resting her
chin on her bridged fingers. "You want, but you'll never have.
You're stuck with Tom Diebert, a second-rate businessman and a
third-rate husband, and you know you're too good for him.
Doesn't that gall you?"
"I don't know what your game is, but I'm not playing." Joanne
backed away. "I'll just pack my samples and leave now."
"Your things are in your car. You may leave any time you wish."
"Goodbye then. The orders will be here in about three weeks."
She gathered the money into her briefcase and backed to the door.
"You're just as crazy as the others, aren't you? A whole town
full of space cadets."
"No, the townswomen are a rather dreary bunch. The women you met
tonight were special friends." Mrs. Putnam smiled broadly.
"Thank you for the party. I had fun tonight."
Joanne said nothing but turned and ran, stumbling through the
door and out to the frigid blue moonlight, the deep and secret
shadows.
The car made a rapid clicking sound, then slowed and stopped.
Nothing. A figure in the doorway stepped out of the harsh light.
"Trouble?" She leaned down to the car window, a scent of
cinnamon staining the air around her. "It sounded like the
starter."
"This isn't exactly a new car," Joanne said, forcing a laugh.
"It's been giving us some trouble."
"Nothing can be done tonight. Won't you come in? You may use my
telephone if you'd like."
#
"Damn you, Thomas!" she shouted into the phone. "You said the
starter was fixed! You said it ran fine!" Cold points of
perspiration stood out on her forehead.
"It was fixed! I took it to Jerry, for crying out loud. He
ought to know when something is fixed and when it isn't. He was
my head mechanic!" His voice was tinny on the phone,
exaggerating his usual whining tone. At that moment, she hated
him. It was his fault that she was stuck here with this woman.
"Of course he was! The only one who would hire an incompetent
jerk like Jerry is an incompetent jerk like you!" She slammed
the receiver down on the cradle and glowered at it.
"Can someone pick you up?" Mrs. Putnam sounded concerned, but
was she concerned that she would have to stay or that she might
get away?
"No. It's our only car."
"You're welcome to stay the night."
"Yes," she said. "I thought I might be."
#
The bedroom she was given was filled with antique furnishings
built in a time when they knew what comfort was all about. Under
any other circumstances she would have felt herself in heaven to
spend the night there, but tonight she faced the coming hours
with trepidation.
It was silly to feel that her car troubles were planned, that
Mrs. Putnam had wanted to strand her in Amesbury. It was just
her imagination wasn't it? It was Tom's incompetence that
stranded her there, not some crazy woman's plot.
Still, Mrs. Putnam seemed quite capable of plotting something
diabolic. Where did she get her nerve? And how did she know so
much about Joanne's frustrations?
But no, that didn't mean anything. She was a meddling bitch with
more ego than anyone needed and an excellent face-lift. That
didn't make her dangerous. Relax. The house was still as
peaceful and warm as it had been when she arrived that afternoon.
Nothing had changed.
In fact, she'd been very nice about the car and hadn't brought up
their awkward conversation at all. Joanne did her best to
discount the feelings she'd had earlier. She was too tired to
worry about other people's hang-ups.
She removed her clothes and put on the silk nightgown that was
laid out on the bed. It fit perfectly, and she looked beautiful
in the long mirror. If she could only look like that forever.
She felt much better now. What had really gotten her spooked was
how close Mrs. Putnam had been to the truth. She knew what
Joanne wanted better than she did herself and that was
frightening. Joanne didn't like to think that her problems could
be that easily read. That was all it was.
She lay under the canopy of the big bed watching the patterns the
moonlight and the shivering leaves cast on the wall and thinking
about what the woman had said. Yes, she'd love themansion, the
money, everything. She'd love to have it all.
#
The women were back. They stood in the blue shadows wearing long
hooded cloaks. They held sputtering candles and swayed like tall
trees in the wind, moving to the tempo of an incantation that
Joanne couldn't understand. She could feel them smiling, though
their faces were lost within their hoods.
She stared at them, still groggy with sleep and hoping they were
a dream. They appeared like apparitions costumed for a grade Z
movie. She had to be dreaming. But she knew she wasn't, and she
came fully awake with the realization that, what ever it was, it
was real. This was real and the women were real and she was
alone in the room with them and there were too many of them to
fight off and she was certain they were going to kill her but she
didn't know why and didn't have the strength to speak.
GOD, NO! NO! JESUS, HELP ME! NO!
She was paralyzed, frozen to the bed as though nailed to a cross.
The bedclothes had been turned down and she lay revealed to them,
covered only by the all too thin silk of the borrowed gown.
"They're all freaks," she thought. "Dear God, I hope that's all
they are."
Mrs. Putnam moved into the center of the arch they formed
the bed. Her hood was thrown back and her eyes were gold in the
candlelight, reflecting light as flat golden discs--like a cat's
eyes. She wore a crucifix on a heavy cord. It was wrong
somehow. Yes, the cross was inverted. It was upside down! And
the tortured hands of the small figure were bleeding!
"Your need is so strong." Mrs. Putnam spoke slowly,
ceremoniously. "And you are strong. Stronger than your husband.
Stronger than these shades." She waved her hand at the other
women. "Stronger than all but me. Me and our Lord. Come to
us."
"Who?" Her voice came out as a feeble whistle.
"Do you want all that you deserve? Do you want the riches and
the prestige?"
"I, yes I do want it." She didn't want to say that, but said it.
And it was the truth.
"Do you want to be beautiful forever?"
"Yes." Again, it was true.
"Do you want the power?"
"Yes!"
"I know you do." The women continued their chant, Latin words
delivered in a religious hum. "You need only accept us, accept
the power to have it all. To have more. Do you accept us?"
"I--" Her lips were cracked and dry. She didn't know what to
say, what she wanted. What was she going to accept?
"Power!" the women shouted. "Beauty! Riches!" They chanted the
words over and over, their voices swirling through the air. Mrs.
Putnam leaned over the bed, blood from the crucifix dripping on
Joanne's chest. Her eyes flared in her skull, shining with
hellish intensity.
"Do you want the power?" Their voices throbbed within her,
pulsing with her heartbeat and tingling at the base of her spine.
Their voices, their faces leaning over her, bathed in moonlight
and looking so beautiful. Mrs. Putnam clutched the cross to her
breast, squeezing it into her palm till blood flowed between her
fingers, splattering Joanne's face like hot, fecund rain.
"Do you accept?"
"Yes!" She screamed the words, arching against the invisible
bonds that held her to the bed. She did want it; she wanted it
more than anything on earth. She deserved it!
"Do you accept the dominion of the Lord of the Flies?"
"Yes!" For she wanted the money and the power, and money was
Satan and power was Satan and Satan was good.
"Then we welcome you!" Her hostess was smiling, warm, friendly,
holding out her bloodied hand.
Joanne took the offered hand in hers and a snap of electricity
rolled through her body, causing her hair to fly out from her
head and the silk gown to crackle as it rippled across her
startled flesh. She smelled the smoke tainted with burning
flesh, felt her eyeballs sizzling in their sockets as the fire
spread to consume her body and the silk gown hissed and melted
away. GOD, THEY'VE GOT A--NO, THEY CAN'T! But the woman with
the long, shimmering blade stepped forward. It was the hippy
girl from the party. She was raising the knife above her head,
poising it above Joanne's breast, the blade gleaming. NO!
And she felt the razor edges of the blade slicing though the
tender flesh of her left breast, splitting glands and muscle like
butter and skittering slightly off the rib as it plowed through
her, piercing the artery and lung and continuing down through her
into the bed. Blood welled up from her mouth, splattering from
her nostrils as she fought to breath, fought to rise against the
knife. The blade lifted and came down again, slicing through her
abdomen as fire engulfed the woman holding it.
"Damn you!" She heard herself shouting through the electric
hiss, felt herself rising. "Damn you!" And she clutched the
hand on the hilt of the knife, staring into the woman's eyes.
"You can't do this to me!"
The hippy girl blackened and shriveled. She was gone.
The other women were gone.
Only Mrs. Putnam remained, still holding her hand, stroking it.
"Welcome, sister," she said.
Joanne looked down at her naked body sitting on the blood soaked
bed. She was unmarked.
"But I felt the knife," she said, stupidly.
"Yes. Died to be born again. Conceived and born in blood.
Blessed by the Master."
"What happens now?" The memory of the pain was still with her,
but it was a memory that carried knowledge.
"Sleep. You will know what to do after you've rested."
Her hand was released, leaving the charge still flowing through
her body but on a lower, manageable level. She was aware of
crickets in the yard outside, felt the wind gusting high in the
trees, heard the quiet sounds of people sleeping in their homes
and felt them dreaming. She heard Tom roll over on their bed so
far away, worrying about money in his sleep.
Mrs. Putnam bent to kiss her cheek, then stepped back into the
shadows. "Sleep."
#
"Why me?" she asked in the morning.
"You deserved it. You have the ability and the desire. We need
someone with your energy."
"Need me? Why?" It was a beautiful morning and she didn't care
what she was needed for. She was going to be rich.
"Because the purpose of every religion is to gain converts and
build its army for the final day. The purpose of all religions
is to destroy the others. When He calls, you'll know."
"How does Gloria Headman know you?" Joanne heard a sparrow
twittering in a tree, knowing how to kill it with only the merest
thought.
"She has relatives in the graveyard whom she visits on occasion."
"The women last night?" she began, knowing the answer before
she'd spoken the words.
"Have been dead for many years," Mrs. Putnam finished. "The
party was a way to get acquainted, a way to see if you were all
that Gloria claimed you were."
"Did you need their approval of me?"
"No. I need no approval for anything I do." She smiled broadly,
leading her out to her car. "Go now, sister. You'll know what
to do."
She took her hand and kissed it. And then she was gone.
Her car seemed to have the idea that it wasn't going to start,
but command of a dumb machine was easy, even for a novice witch.
She willed the car to take her out of town, closing her eyes to
ponder the future. Everything would be all right now. She'd
build a mansion in the country or buy a penthouse downtown.
There would be many different ways to exercise her powers.
She could see the blood in her future, too. There were people
who needed to be taken care of. Gloria Headman would be the
first. She knew too much and was too weak in her faith. But
first she'd sign up as a Happy House salesperson, thus completing
the last requirement for Joanne to win her trip to Jamaica.
After all, that was the whole point of the party.
Dana M Anderson
715 W. 4th St.
Northfield, MN 55057
(507) 645-7170
THE SALE
by Dana M Anderson
Joanne Diebert hung up the phone with a triumphant gleam in her
eyes. "I did it!" she shouted, scribbling a note in her
engagement book, then she walked down the narrow trailer hallway
to the cramped bedroom. "Tommy! I got my last party!"
"Wonderful." Tom Diebert was reading the paper on the double bed
taking up three quarters of the bedroom. The Tonight Show blared
on the color TV on the dresser at the foot of the bed. "Stick
your old lady with another party?" he asked.
"Of course not." She slapped her book lightly on the bare soles
of his feet as she slipped sideways between the bureau and the
bed. "Gloria Headman gave me the name of a woman in Amesbury,
and she said she'd love to have a party as soon as possible.
Real nice woman. I've got her booked for the Thirty-first.
That's my absolutely last possible party date if I'm to
get the order mailed by August second."
"Just under the wire." Her husband reached out to swat her
on the rear end. "Sarah Sales-Lady strikes again," he laughed.
"You're just jealous." She stood for a moment looking down at
him, an expression of annoyance clouding her features. "But I
guess one of us has to have a head for business. Now, if I can
average a hundred and seventy-five dollars a party with one more
recruit, we'll be in Jamaica in two months. All free. Even our
budget ought to be able to stand that."
"I hope you win your trip," he said, noncommittally.
"I'll win it. And you might even have some fun if you tried
hard."
"Sure, dear, and I'll just let the business go to hell while
we're off traipsing around the Caribbean."
"You do what ever you like," she said, coldly. "I deserve a
vacation."
"I guess you do." He rolled away from her. "Turn out the lights
and come to bed."
She stood for a moment looking at his bulk in the bed and trying
to imagine what had drawn her to him to begin with. Her
promising young car salesman had turned into a paunchy, dull fool
and an impediment to her own happiness. For two cents, she
thought, I'd trade you for a newer model--maybe even for less.
Her enthusiasm chilled, Joanne turned out the light and got ready
for bed in sour silence.
#
Joanne Diebert had two weeks to move eighteen hundred dollars of
merchandise for the Happy House Corporation of Trenton, New
Jersey, to qualify for the summer cruise they offered carrot-like
to their army of independent sales people. The total requirement
was the recruitment of five new sales people and thirty thousand
dollars in sales at a minimum of fifty parties within a four
month period.
Selling thirty grand for a company whose most expensive item
listed at forty-seven fifty was no mean feat. But if anyone
could do it, Joanne was the one. She'd already topped the
Minneapolis-St. Paul district in sales for three periods running
and was voted saleslady of the year for Minnesota at the last
Happy House Hoedown, but the cruise would be her crowning jewel.
Her earnings were more than instrumental in paying off the debts
from the bankruptcy of Tom's Cadillac dealership three years
earlier. Tom made a down payment on his father's janitorial
service with what money remained after he lost the car lot, but
the time payments the stingy old man demanded kept the income
from that venture low. So the debts had been reduced to
manageable size primarily through Joanne's efforts, and the money
in their joint bank account was due to her Happy House earnings.
Now, with just a little bit of extra effort, they'd have two
weeks of relaxation. It was easy to sell once she got eight or
ten women together for coffee and her demonstration of total home
aids. If it was made of rubber or plastic, Happy House sold it,
and she'd always managed to sell at least twenty dollars worth to
every woman at a party, usually more. But it was a different
matter recruiting new people. The women who attended were
content to busy themselves with their homes and children and
didn't want to invest the time it takes to succeed. The doers of
the world were already out there doing.
But Joanne Diebert was a determined woman. They'd be on that
cruise liner if she had to trade her soul for the tickets.
#
The night before the party in Amesbury, Joanne dreamed of being
chained to the sweating bricks of a cinderblock wall in the
basement of an old house. She pulled against the chains, but the
elastic steel snapped her wrists back against the bricks.
Plastic spiders scrabbled up her legs, the dim light reflecting
from their golden shells as they snapped at her like mad clams.
Not spiders, they were Happy House Purse Tote Aspirin Containers
with legs, small white pills falling free as they snapped their
lids at her. A shadow moved across the shaft of blue light and
she saw a dark figure troweling mortar atop a row of Happy House
Kitchen Canisters and setting another canister into the cement,
rapidly building a plastic wall before her. The wall grew to her
dark captor's chest as the pill-box spiders scuttled over her
face snapping at her eyes.
White, the light was so white and pure that her eyes bled from
looking at it, but she couldn't pull her gaze away from the glare
that grew behind the monster at the wall, couldn't look away as
it poured through him and lit Tom's face beneath the hood. The
spiders shriveled from her face; the wall dissolved into a puddle
of goo; her chains shattered; and Tom stood rigid, swelling in
the heat, his shadowed body expanding till it burst upon her in a
shower of green bile. And the light approached, diminishing to a
flicker in the palm of a woman with skin like ice and eyes of
burnished gold. She offered her hand and Joanne took it, feeling
the fire that did not burn surge through her, feeling the power
that saved her.
She awoke knowing that the power was hers.
#
The Thirty-first of July was a dismal day. Dirty gray clouds
hung low overhead, stretching down to scratch their bellies on
the tree tops. The summer birds stalked the lawns as though
unsure of their surroundings, confused by the yellowed air and
the chill, autumnal wind.
Gray days were bad for business. Women stayed away from parties,
and those who did attend kept their purchases small, the
inclination to spend suppressed by the weather. She always got
screwed on days like this.
And why should this party be any different than the rest? The
last two weeks had gone as though every day was as bleak as this
one. Attendance was at a new low, she was nearly eight hundred
dollars short of her goal, and she still needed one more recruit.
Unless she could gouge out money like she'd never done before
there was no hope for Jamaica this year.
So she drove to the party in a mood bordering on the suicidal.
Amesbury was a small town fifty miles distant from their trailer
in a Minneapolis suburb. It was the kind of village that
couldn't possibly exist, a town without fast-food joints or neon
cluttered streets. "The town that time forgot," she thought as
she drove her worn Buick over the slowly rolling hills. "If I
can't cut it with these gingham dressed housewives I might as
well turn in my sales kit." Her mood improved slightly thinking
of virgin territory ahead.
The business district in Amesbury consisted of vintage buildings
decorated with intricate stonework arranged around a square of
closely cropped grass. The picturesque streets were empty, which
seemed fitting.
The large Victorian house, replete with stained glass windows and
turrets, stood lost in a grove of maple trees across from the
graveyard on the far edge of town. It loomed over her as she
approached, standing grim and gray like a threat. But that was
just her mood talking, that and the presence of the graveyard.
"Mrs. Putnam?" she asked the regal woman who opened the door.
"You must be Mrs. Diebert. Come in." She smiled slightly and
stepped back from the door, extending one arm into the room in a
gesture of welcome.
The woman was tall, with coal black hair extending to the small
of her back and framing a face seeming to be sculpted from pure,
unblemished ivory. She was the type of enigmatic, timeless
beauty who would stop traffic crossing the street, and Joanne
would have guessed her age at anywhere between thirty and fifty,
having the clear beauty of the younger and calm grace of the
older. Usually Joanne could size up a customer quickly, and
slant her sales pitch to their tastes, but this woman refused
ready labeling. Nothing in her face, her tone of voice or
physical movements gave any hint to her personality, and her
simple black gown told nothing of her tastes save that they were
refined. If she gave any first impression at all it was of
knowing something, some eternal secret, that Joanne could only
guess at. And she sensed an aura of power around this woman like
an electrical charge.
"I have tons of samples to bring in, Mrs. Putnam," Joanne
answered, pulling her mind back to her task.
"They will be brought in." The woman smiled. "Please, do take
some tea."
Mrs. Putnam served the tea in a parlor filled with time.
Generations of human handiwork were layered like sediment on the
sturdy foundation of the oriental rug. Nothing in the room
except the air conditioner and a small color TV was any newer
than Nineteen Thirty-five. The sturdy couch and wing chair
definitely dated from the turn of the century, as did the rug,
yet they were in such good condition as to look almost new. You
had to have money to support a collection of antiques like this,
and loving care had been taken with everything from the carved
wood of the Steinway down to the gleaming brass claws that
clutched the glass balls footing the tables.
A certain calm existed in the golden atmosphere of the room, a
mesmerizing feeling of genteel grace and riches. It was a
narcotic, that room, a drug mixed from lemon oil and lilac
waiting to seduce with its calm.
Joanne took stock of her surroundings. Her display would look
out of place among the old furnishings. It was bad for sales if
the product looked like an anachronism rather than the latest
thing in household aids. It seemed that yet another obstacle had
come to block her success.
Still, there was something about the noble old house that told
her not to worry, something in Mrs. Putnam's gentle green eyes
that said to relax and enjoy the tea. She was with a friend.
"It's been tough," she found herself saying. "After we lost the
dealership creditors sprang up out of the woodwork to demand
money. I had no idea he'd sunk so much of our personal credit
into the business. We finally had to declare personal bankruptcy
to keep enough money to live on. Tom didn't want to hurt
anybody, so we're paying anyway. I'm paying, I should say,
because my husband can't clean offices any better than he sold
cars. I guess I agree about paying them off, though. But it's
been so hard."
"I'm sure it has been." Mrs. Putnam watched her, smiling
slightly, holding her cup delicately on its saucer. "One needs
courage to take the hard route, but you're always better off in
the end."
"Maybe," Joanne laughed. "But it's no fun."
"Is that what you're after? Fun?" Her green eyes held Joanne
for a moment, seeing through her, then moved away.
"Yes, I am." Joanne averted her eyes, suddenly shy of the woman,
and gazed into her cup. She watched the small bits of tea swirl
on the liquid and wondered if the future could really be read in
the bottom of the cup. She wondered if this party would be worth
her time. "Maybe that's not all I want," she said, slowly. "But
I need a break from that damn, treeless trailer court. But it
won't happen now."
"Give me your cup." Mrs. Putnam held out her hand, touching
Joanne's wrist slightly. "It is true, you know." There was
laughter in her voice.
"What is?" She handed the nearly empty cup to her.
"You can read the future in a cup of tea. That's what you were
thinking about, isn't it?" She stared into the cup, turning it
slightly in her hand.
"How did you know that?" God, I'm stuck with a fruitcake.
"It's not so hard to know what you're thinking, Mrs. Diebert."
She laughed, watching Joanne, measuring her. "Would you like to
know what I see?"
"Sure, why not?"
"You are going to Jamaica."
#
The other women of Amesbury were an odd lot. They seemed to have
the impression that it was a costume party. One old bag wore a
long dress with many petticoats beneath it and sported a frilled
bonnet while another came in a beaded flapper skirt and wore an
ostrich feather in the headband over her bobbed hair. It was
unreal. There was a Jackie Kennedy clone with her pill-box hat
and gloves, a matronly woman in gingham, and a freaked-out young
thing with granny glasses wearing an obnoxious, tie-dyed sack and
a leather vest. Yet, despite their variety of clothing styles,
they possessed an odd sameness of expression and speech, their
faces set like masks expressing neither pleasure nor pain, eyes
showing a stupefied sheen that Joanne imagined came from too much
housework. She categorized them as the House Beautiful type,
content to live a banal existence serving their lords and masters
and playing dress-up to get what kicks they could. They must be
great embarrassments to their fat husbands. Of course, it was
possible those erstwhile gentlemen were all dressed like Abe
Lincoln at another party across town. Joanne decided to write it
off as a local custom and get through with the party as quickly
as possible.
But her first impression needed rearrangement after the party
started. What ever they may have been thinking, whatever they
did with their days, they came alive at the party as though their
sole purpose in life was to make Mrs. Putnam's prophesy come
true.
Mrs. Stanley blew sixty-seven bucks on kitchen aids, and Mrs.
Kruse spent eighty-two on both kitchen and bath. Mrs. Wysocki, a
bird-like woman in a hoop skirt, spent nearly two hundred
dollars. Two hundred on plastic! Talk about guppies!
Eager, no frenzied to buy, they pressed their orders on her so
fast that she could barely keep up with them. Condiment sets,
canisters, desk organizers, personalized door mats, they bought
everything she showed. They were laughing and chatting and
showing off the display items to each other with childlike glee
as Mrs. Putnam oversaw them from her wing chair by the piano, a
small smile on her lips. It was almost spooky. No, not almost.
At nine o'clock, as though on cue, they picked up their order
confirmation slips and shuffled past Joanne and Mrs. Putnam,
thanking them both, but especially Mrs. Putnam whom they each
took by the hand with a small nod.
Joanne stood at the window watching the line of women walk away,
their forms indistinct in the twilight as they shuffled through
the grove of trees and across the street. "Nut-cases, every
one," she told herself, but an unsettled feeling began to shroud
her mind as she watched. She'd never take a short-cut through a
graveyard on the night of a full moon.
"How did you do?" Joanne jumped slightly as Mrs. Putnam moved up
quietly behind her, touching her shoulder. "Did you achieve the
sales necessary?"
"I don't see how I could have missed it," Joanne said, turning to
face her. "You had eighteen women here." She was so close. Why
didn't she move back? "Usually, a hostess is lucky if she can
get half the people she invites to show up. Eighteen is
incredible. I've never seen guests have such a good time
spending money." The words came out in a nervous rush as she
stood inches away from her hostess.
"It was a treat for them," the woman answered, softly, those
green eyes examining Joanne's face. "They aren't able to get out
much."
Their close proximity allowed Joanne to get a close look at Mrs.
Putnam. Her face was nearly perfect, too perfect. Not one
wrinkle or blemish, and the pores of her skin were almost
invisible, yet Joanne could see that she wore no make-up save a
touch of lipstick and eye-liner. Her hands, however, were
beginning to get the bony appearance of age, with a hint of liver
spots revealing the lie of the silken skin on her face and neck.
So the broad had gone for the old tuck and trim. What the hell?
She had her vanity like anyone else. If you've got it, spend it.
"Are you going to tally it up?" Mrs. Putnam stepped back slowly,
trailing a faint aroma of cinnamon. Her eyes were the deepest
green Joanne had ever seen, capturing her in their olive depths.
"I don't think you'll have to worry about your record as a
fortune teller. I'm sure it's well past what I needed."
Excitement thrilled up Joanne's spine as she walked to the table
and began sorting through the cash and checks the women had left.
At first some of the bills seemed larger than the others, but
when she leafed through them again they were all fine. The
excitement of the party was obviously making it hard to
concentrate.
The final total was eleven hundred twenty-four dollars. Those
dingy women had out-grossed anything she'd ever had before. If
she'd called them guppies before, she now knew they were insane
as well.
"Wonderful." Mrs. Putnam placed one hand on her shoulder as she
sat at the polished cherry-wood table with her calculator. "But
you still need to recruit a sales person."
"Yes, I do." Joanne moved uncomfortably under the other woman's
hand. Her touch was hot, and it brought a flush to Joanne's
cheeks. "Damn. A take like this, and Jamaica will have to wait
after all."
"Not at all, my dear." The woman's voice was kind and soft, a
murmur of friendship. "I believe our friend, Mrs. Headman, will
be happy to join you." The hand withdrew, leaving its heat.
"She would?"
"Of course," she smiled. "You've never asked her, have you? I
think she's somewhat jealous of your success. She'll join."
Throughout the evening, Joanne had been aware of the woman's eyes
on her, their intense gaze seldom wavering from her face. It
wasn't an unfriendly scrutiny, but it had gotten to betoo much.
She was beginning to get angry.
"Why have you been staring at me all evening?" she said quickly.
"You don't have any queer ideas about us, do you?"
"Queer ideas?" She laughed. "They may be queer, but not in the
sense you mean. You're not one to take things lying down, are
you?"
"No, I'm not." She stood to face the other woman. "It isn't
that I don't appreciate everything. I mean, who would complain
about those sales? But I don't owe you anything for it. You get
twenty percent in free merchandise for having the party."
"I don't even want that."
"Then what's your problem?"
"You'd love to sell this well at all your parties, wouldn't you?
You want the brass ring." She sat at the table, leaning back to
look up at Joanne. "You want your husband to lose twenty pounds
and take an interest in his appearance. No, you want a different
husband entirely. Yes, that's what you want."
"Now wait a minute. I--"
"You want a large house in Edina, or maybe a mansion in Wayzata.
You want furs, jewelry, a Rolls Royce. You want quite a bit."
Her voice took on a hard edge as she leaned forward, resting her
chin on her bridged fingers. "You want, but you'll never have.
You're stuck with Tom Diebert, a second-rate businessman and a
third-rate husband, and you know you're too good for him.
Doesn't that gall you?"
"I don't know what your game is, but I'm not playing." Joanne
backed away. "I'll just pack my samples and leave now."
"Your things are in your car. You may leave any time you wish."
"Goodbye then. The orders will be here in about three weeks."
She gathered the money into her briefcase and backed to the door.
"You're just as crazy as the others, aren't you? A whole town
full of space cadets."
"No, the townswomen are a rather dreary bunch. The women you met
tonight were special friends." Mrs. Putnam smiled broadly.
"Thank you for the party. I had fun tonight."
Joanne said nothing but turned and ran, stumbling through the
door and out to the frigid blue moonlight, the deep and secret
shadows.
The car made a rapid clicking sound, then slowed and stopped.
Nothing. A figure in the doorway stepped out of the harsh light.
"Trouble?" She leaned down to the car window, a scent of
cinnamon staining the air around her. "It sounded like the
starter."
"This isn't exactly a new car," Joanne said, forcing a laugh.
"It's been giving us some trouble."
"Nothing can be done tonight. Won't you come in? You may use my
telephone if you'd like."
#
"Damn you, Thomas!" she shouted into the phone. "You said the
starter was fixed! You said it ran fine!" Cold points of
perspiration stood out on her forehead.
"It was fixed! I took it to Jerry, for crying out loud. He
ought to know when something is fixed and when it isn't. He was
my head mechanic!" His voice was tinny on the phone,
exaggerating his usual whining tone. At that moment, she hated
him. It was his fault that she was stuck here with this woman.
"Of course he was! The only one who would hire an incompetent
jerk like Jerry is an incompetent jerk like you!" She slammed
the receiver down on the cradle and glowered at it.
"Can someone pick you up?" Mrs. Putnam sounded concerned, but
was she concerned that she would have to stay or that she might
get away?
"No. It's our only car."
"You're welcome to stay the night."
"Yes," she said. "I thought I might be."
#
The bedroom she was given was filled with antique furnishings
built in a time when they knew what comfort was all about. Under
any other circumstances she would have felt herself in heaven to
spend the night there, but tonight she faced the coming hours
with trepidation.
It was silly to feel that her car troubles were planned, that
Mrs. Putnam had wanted to strand her in Amesbury. It was just
her imagination wasn't it? It was Tom's incompetence that
stranded her there, not some crazy woman's plot.
Still, Mrs. Putnam seemed quite capable of plotting something
diabolic. Where did she get her nerve? And how did she know so
much about Joanne's frustrations?
But no, that didn't mean anything. She was a meddling bitch with
more ego than anyone needed and an excellent face-lift. That
didn't make her dangerous. Relax. The house was still as
peaceful and warm as it had been when she arrived that afternoon.
Nothing had changed.
In fact, she'd been very nice about the car and hadn't brought up
their awkward conversation at all. Joanne did her best to
discount the feelings she'd had earlier. She was too tired to
worry about other people's hang-ups.
She removed her clothes and put on the silk nightgown that was
laid out on the bed. It fit perfectly, and she looked beautiful
in the long mirror. If she could only look like that forever.
She felt much better now. What had really gotten her spooked was
how close Mrs. Putnam had been to the truth. She knew what
Joanne wanted better than she did herself and that was
frightening. Joanne didn't like to think that her problems could
be that easily read. That was all it was.
She lay under the canopy of the big bed watching the patterns the
moonlight and the shivering leaves cast on the wall and thinking
about what the woman had said. Yes, she'd love themansion, the
money, everything. She'd love to have it all.
#
The women were back. They stood in the blue shadows wearing long
hooded cloaks. They held sputtering candles and swayed like tall
trees in the wind, moving to the tempo of an incantation that
Joanne couldn't understand. She could feel them smiling, though
their faces were lost within their hoods.
She stared at them, still groggy with sleep and hoping they were
a dream. They appeared like apparitions costumed for a grade Z
movie. She had to be dreaming. But she knew she wasn't, and she
came fully awake with the realization that, what ever it was, it
was real. This was real and the women were real and she was
alone in the room with them and there were too many of them to
fight off and she was certain they were going to kill her but she
didn't know why and didn't have the strength to speak.
GOD, NO! NO! JESUS, HELP ME! NO!
She was paralyzed, frozen to the bed as though nailed to a cross.
The bedclothes had been turned down and she lay revealed to them,
covered only by the all too thin silk of the borrowed gown.
"They're all freaks," she thought. "Dear God, I hope that's all
they are."
Mrs. Putnam moved into the center of the arch they formed
the bed. Her hood was thrown back and her eyes were gold in the
candlelight, reflecting light as flat golden discs--like a cat's
eyes. She wore a crucifix on a heavy cord. It was wrong
somehow. Yes, the cross was inverted. It was upside down! And
the tortured hands of the small figure were bleeding!
"Your need is so strong." Mrs. Putnam spoke slowly,
ceremoniously. "And you are strong. Stronger than your husband.
Stronger than these shades." She waved her hand at the other
women. "Stronger than all but me. Me and our Lord. Come to
us."
"Who?" Her voice came out as a feeble whistle.
"Do you want all that you deserve? Do you want the riches and
the prestige?"
"I, yes I do want it." She didn't want to say that, but said it.
And it was the truth.
"Do you want to be beautiful forever?"
"Yes." Again, it was true.
"Do you want the power?"
"Yes!"
"I know you do." The women continued their chant, Latin words
delivered in a religious hum. "You need only accept us, accept
the power to have it all. To have more. Do you accept us?"
"I--" Her lips were cracked and dry. She didn't know what to
say, what she wanted. What was she going to accept?
"Power!" the women shouted. "Beauty! Riches!" They chanted the
words over and over, their voices swirling through the air. Mrs.
Putnam leaned over the bed, blood from the crucifix dripping on
Joanne's chest. Her eyes flared in her skull, shining with
hellish intensity.
"Do you want the power?" Their voices throbbed within her,
pulsing with her heartbeat and tingling at the base of her spine.
Their voices, their faces leaning over her, bathed in moonlight
and looking so beautiful. Mrs. Putnam clutched the cross to her
breast, squeezing it into her palm till blood flowed between her
fingers, splattering Joanne's face like hot, fecund rain.
"Do you accept?"
"Yes!" She screamed the words, arching against the invisible
bonds that held her to the bed. She did want it; she wanted it
more than anything on earth. She deserved it!
"Do you accept the dominion of the Lord of the Flies?"
"Yes!" For she wanted the money and the power, and money was
Satan and power was Satan and Satan was good.
"Then we welcome you!" Her hostess was smiling, warm, friendly,
holding out her bloodied hand.
Joanne took the offered hand in hers and a snap of electricity
rolled through her body, causing her hair to fly out from her
head and the silk gown to crackle as it rippled across her
startled flesh. She smelled the smoke tainted with burning
flesh, felt her eyeballs sizzling in their sockets as the fire
spread to consume her body and the silk gown hissed and melted
away. GOD, THEY'VE GOT A--NO, THEY CAN'T! But the woman with
the long, shimmering blade stepped forward. It was the hippy
girl from the party. She was raising the knife above her head,
poising it above Joanne's breast, the blade gleaming. NO!
And she felt the razor edges of the blade slicing though the
tender flesh of her left breast, splitting glands and muscle like
butter and skittering slightly off the rib as it plowed through
her, piercing the artery and lung and continuing down through her
into the bed. Blood welled up from her mouth, splattering from
her nostrils as she fought to breath, fought to rise against the
knife. The blade lifted and came down again, slicing through her
abdomen as fire engulfed the woman holding it.
"Damn you!" She heard herself shouting through the electric
hiss, felt herself rising. "Damn you!" And she clutched the
hand on the hilt of the knife, staring into the woman's eyes.
"You can't do this to me!"
The hippy girl blackened and shriveled. She was gone.
The other women were gone.
Only Mrs. Putnam remained, still holding her hand, stroking it.
"Welcome, sister," she said.
Joanne looked down at her naked body sitting on the blood soaked
bed. She was unmarked.
"But I felt the knife," she said, stupidly.
"Yes. Died to be born again. Conceived and born in blood.
Blessed by the Master."
"What happens now?" The memory of the pain was still with her,
but it was a memory that carried knowledge.
"Sleep. You will know what to do after you've rested."
Her hand was released, leaving the charge still flowing through
her body but on a lower, manageable level. She was aware of
crickets in the yard outside, felt the wind gusting high in the
trees, heard the quiet sounds of people sleeping in their homes
and felt them dreaming. She heard Tom roll over on their bed so
far away, worrying about money in his sleep.
Mrs. Putnam bent to kiss her cheek, then stepped back into the
shadows. "Sleep."
#
"Why me?" she asked in the morning.
"You deserved it. You have the ability and the desire. We need
someone with your energy."
"Need me? Why?" It was a beautiful morning and she didn't care
what she was needed for. She was going to be rich.
"Because the purpose of every religion is to gain converts and
build its army for the final day. The purpose of all religions
is to destroy the others. When He calls, you'll know."
"How does Gloria Headman know you?" Joanne heard a sparrow
twittering in a tree, knowing how to kill it with only the merest
thought.
"She has relatives in the graveyard whom she visits on occasion."
"The women last night?" she began, knowing the answer before
she'd spoken the words.
"Have been dead for many years," Mrs. Putnam finished. "The
party was a way to get acquainted, a way to see if you were all
that Gloria claimed you were."
"Did you need their approval of me?"
"No. I need no approval for anything I do." She smiled broadly,
leading her out to her car. "Go now, sister. You'll know what
to do."
She took her hand and kissed it. And then she was gone.
Her car seemed to have the idea that it wasn't going to start,
but command of a dumb machine was easy, even for a novice witch.
She willed the car to take her out of town, closing her eyes to
ponder the future. Everything would be all right now. She'd
build a mansion in the country or buy a penthouse downtown.
There would be many different ways to exercise her powers.
She could see the blood in her future, too. There were people
who needed to be taken care of. Gloria Headman would be the
first. She knew too much and was too weak in her faith. But
first she'd sign up as a Happy House salesperson, thus completing
the last requirement for Joanne to win her trip to Jamaica.
After all, that was the whole point of the party.
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