100 Malicious Little Mysteries

The Witches in the Closet by Anne Chamberlain

Except for the witches in the closet, Catharine was the wife John had thought she would be. She was companionable and neat, she played an expert hand of bridge, and she was really interested in cooking. She liked, or pretended to like, the movies, the magazines, and most of the people he liked. It did not occur to him to worry about the witches until some weeks after his marriage. He did not think of them, in fact, until he and Catharine were looking for their first apartment.

“Remember, darling,” she said, with a chuckle at her own foolishness, “we must find one with the proper bedroom closet.”

John had to think a moment before he did remember. The problem had not come up in the hotel where they had been staying, and John had almost forgotten the evening when Catharine had told him about the witches. He recalled how she made a small point of telling him, soon after they were engaged, and of how at the time he had thought tenderly of what an innocent child she was. He had not been uneasy at all because, with the telling, she gave a plausible explanation.

“You see—” she had pressed his hand confidingly. “I really must warn you before we’re married. It wouldn’t be fair not to warn you about my phobia.”

“Every smart person has at least one phobia these days.”

Catharine mused, resting a small bright-tipped finger on her lips.

“Maybe it isn’t a phobia; I’m not sure about those terms. Anyway, when I was ten years old I was real sick with a high fever and chills and all, and one night I woke up and saw three witches in the bedroom closet. I screamed and screamed — really, I did!” She smiled reminiscently. “I was such a silly thing, and you know we had a big bedroom closet in that house, a big, deep dark one. Well, I saw three witches there. Well, since then...”

“You’re always expecting to see them again,” he interrupted, not because he was uneasy but because he thought they had more important things to say.

She clasped her fingers.

“Brace yourself, darling. I was going to tell you. As a matter of fact, I do see them. I still do see those witches once in a while.” Her eyes narrowed, as though she were pondering an irritating puzzle. Then she laughed and shook her head. “Of course, a good deal depends upon the closet.”

That was all that they said about the witches until they were looking for their first apartment and Catharine demanded brightly that they find one with a closet that was small, shallow, and had a light in it. They made a little joke of this, telling each other that the landlords probably thought they were finicky bores for inspecting the apartment so carefully. When they had rented a place that exactly suited Catharine’s specifications, John almost, but not quite, forgot about the witches again.

“You’re not the imaginative type,” he observed lazily the evening after they had moved. “It’s funny you think you see such things. Of course, it’s a business of hallucinations.” He looked at her and laughed. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, brushing her fine black hair. In a few minutes she would meticulously tuck a hairnet around the curls, cleanse her face with a thick white cream, step out of her yellow kimono, and turn out the light. She looked to be the last person in the world to have hallucinations.

“Oh, I know that,” she said, a bobby pin between her teeth. “I know it’s perfectly silly, and probably a good psychiatrist could explain it all away. But then he might not.”

“I can see myself telling the office that I’d just dropped my wife at a psychiatrist’s.”

“It’s nothing to worry about,” she answered casually. “I hope there’s enough breakfast cereal; I forgot to buy some.”

“You haven’t seen anything of them since we were married, have you?”

“Oh, no,” she gave her little smile. “No, I imagine I’ll tell you when I do.”

“Maybe it all had something to do with sex.”

Catharine giggled.

“I bet that’s what a psychiatrist would say.” Her eyes were suddenly mysterious. “Maybe.”

One night, seven months after their marriage, John returned late from his poker club. He had told her he would be home by one, but he did not make it until after four. He entered the apartment softly, and was surprised and irritated to find all the lamps turned on. He had thought her much too sensible to wait for him, angrily awake, and he walked from room to room, calling “Sweetheart?” in a loud, belligerent voice. When she did not answer, he stalked into the bedroom, flung off his coat, and began explaining as he undressed.

“I couldn’t get out very well when I was taking everyone in the house; it went on like that all evening...”

He glanced toward the bed, and started. She was curled in a tight, covered hump in the middle. The hump was shivering, as though she had been crying for hours.

“Catharine!” He leaned over her, weak with remorse. “Were you that worried? You could have phoned.”

She pulled an inch of cover from her face.

“Oh, darling.” She sat up, suddenly cheerful. “Darling, they’ve been there for hours. It must have been hours ago I saw them.”

“Saw what? Oh my God!”

She laughed happily.

“I really didn’t mind you staying out. It wasn’t that. But several hours ago I knew they would be there, so I got up and turned on all the lights. But I was afraid to turn on that light. I was nervous, you see, and I did feel so silly.”

“My God,” he repeated. “Is that what had you down?”

“Please don’t think you can’t stay out because of it. I would hate you to think that.” She accepted a cigarette and leaned for a light. “Really, I did see them, though.”

He did not know whether to believe her or not. The timing seemed too apt. But Catharine was certainly not the melodramatic type, and in his memory she had never been too possessive. She was not sly nor subtle and her gay lack of sentimentality had pleased him more than it had troubled him. When he looked at her now, suspiciously, he thought her smile seemed too honest and her eyes too strange. He spoke carefully:

“Now you look here. You’ve got to stop indulging yourself. You know and I know how ridiculous it is. Why, you’re not neurotic, darling.” He waited, and then said again, “You’re not neurotic, not at all.”

She was rearranging the wrinkled hairnet around her curls.

“Do you remember a Russian children’s story about an old witch?” Her voice was gossipy. “And a little girl named Magda who ran and ran away from her? Well, I read that when I was little. Come to think of it though, they’re more like the witches in Macbeth.” She shivered slightly. “Only it’s ‘when shall we four meet again.’ ”

“Some women would invent a thing like this to keep their husbands at home. What’ll you do when I’m drafted? What’ll you do then?”

She patted his hand.

“Don’t worry, please don’t worry. I got along by myself for years.” She shrugged. “They don’t do anything, you see. They just appear.” Sighing, she leaned close to him. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you about them. I won’t tell you next time.”

He clutched her shoulders harshly.

“Yes, you will. You’ll tell me every time; you’ve got to tell me. And for heaven’s sake,” his voice grated, “get that funny look out of your eyes!”

He suggested the next morning that they move to another apartment. In the small sunlit kitchen, the conversation seemed so incongruous that he could not help smiling when he said:

“We don’t need a psychiatrist at all. All we need is a place without a bedroom closet. Let’s look for one today.”

Catharine smiled back as she poured the coffee.

“Wouldn’t that be hard to find? Besides, if they weren’t in the bedroom, I don’t know why, but I’m sure that they would move somewhere else.”

The thought of sending her to a psychiatrist stayed with him. He hated to suggest it seriously. He was afraid she would be hurt, or angry, and would behave as though there were no real provocation. When several quiet weeks had passed, he began to think that the problem was absurd. Some men he knew hated spiders, and since a fall when he was four years old, he had always secretly feared unlighted stairways.

He did not got out often in the evenings. When he did, he always turned on the light in the closet just before he left, and he did not allow himself to think of the witches while he was away. But he went out less and less often. He dropped the poker club, and Catharine observed:

“I thought you liked to play, darling. And it’s nice for men to get out by themselves once in a while.”

“It was something to fill a bachelor’s evening.” He looked at her closely, and was sure that she did not realize why he was staying home.

They entertained or went out together, and the evenings they spent alone were relaxed and companionable. She was fond of sewing, and he liked to watch her, over the edge of his magazine, as she neatly whipped the needle in and out. The weeks stretched into months. The draft crisis passed when John was rejected because of a compound skull fracture that was not too solidly healed. He had forgotten about the boyhood accident, but now he could not help being glad of it. They said patriotic things and settled down to a smooth married life. Then John was obliged to go on an overnight business trip.

He did not think of the situation as an emergency until, well-settled on the train, he remembered that he had not turned on the closet light. He resolved immediately to return at the earliest possible hour, putting the other thoughts out of his mind. He did not even tell himself why he was boarding the train the next morning at the unbearable hour of five.

When he opened the door of the apartment, he was trembling and sick. His heart bounded with relief when he found the lights turned out, the morning seeping softly through the dusky rooms. He tiptoed into the bedroom and dropped his coat on a chair. Humming softly, half hoping that his voice would wake her, he walked over to the bed.

A chill crawled up his spine. At the foot of the bed, completely covered, the curled-up lump of her body shuddered convulsively. In a fury, he whipped off the blankets.

“Catharine!” he shouted. “What the devil’s wrong?”

He seized her wrists and pulled her to a sitting position.

“Don’t you feel well? What’s wrong?” He repeated the question arrogantly, closing his mind to what he knew was wrong. Her eyes looked out of black circles. After a moment, she shook her head and began to rearrange her hairnet.

“Aren’t you going to give me a kiss?”

“You’ve got to stop this, Catharine.” He strode to the closet, snapped on the light, and returned. “If it means you have to go to a psychiatrist, you’ve got to stop. Do you hear me?”

She smiled placatingly.

“I didn’t even have time to turn on the lights,” she chattered. “As soon as I walked in here — it was twilight — I had a feeling it would happen. But I got into bed all right and read for a while, and the feeling went away. I turned out the bed lamp and looked up...”

“Don’t talk. Tomorrow I’ll find a good psychiatrist.”

She made a sad little face.

“Darling, I’ll never go to a psychiatrist. I decided that a long time ago.”

He slapped her cheek. She drew back, her eyes wide between her fingers.

“Darling, please don’t do that.”

“We must stop it,” he said gently.

“We can’t,” she said with equal gentleness. “You see, if a psychiatrist shouldn’t be able to do anything — if it shouldn’t work out, I mean — I’m sure that everything would get worse.” She stared at the closet. “They might come out.”

He sat for a long time on the edge of the bed. He did not know how long he sat there. The morning grew brighter and brighter in the bedroom. The light in the closet shone through the sunlight like a jaundiced eye. Once in a while, John looked at Catharine. She was wearing a pink satin nightgown with lace over the bodice; fatigued as she was, she looked fresh and darkly caressible, and her eyes met his with loving confidence.

She smiled the smile that implored him to be amused with her at her foolish whims. But she was different. He saw a wickedness about her lips, a strange glee in her eyes. He did not speak or move toward her. This morning he felt that he would never want to touch her again.