pay for the drinks, which bus route to take home. They had been friends since grammar school, but now that they were growing older in different ways they would inevitably have to part. It was not worth even talking about; such things just happened. In a few weeks Mona would leave for college and Naomi had decided to move back home with her parents, so Abigail would have to get a new roommate. Perhaps because they knew everything would be ending soon they spent even more time together, going to the beach, going shopping, making dinners together at the apartment. If they hadn’t been arguing so much they might have been enjoying themselves more.
Abigail and her ex-fiancé would talk over the phone occasionally, though he wouldn’t see her, and every time he heard about something going wrong he would bring up his aunt and the witchdoctor. The witchdoctor was incredibly powerful, he said, and you didn’t have to believe in anything to know that. Just look at all his houses and cars and wives and even his political influence—though he couldn’t say where he or his aunt had heard all this; such things were just known. If Abigail wanted her life to go better, his aunt had told him, she better make it up to the witchdoctor somehow. Abigail would listen and hang up after a while and stare at the broken refrigerator.
It’s your fault, you know, she told Mona one day as they waited for Naomi outside an employment agency. She said it with a little laugh, but did not smile. You shouldn’t have taken that picture, she said, nothing’s gone right ever since. But the picture didn’t even come out, Mona protested. Exactly, Abigail said.
Naomi was angry, too. She was no longer able to afford the latest shoes and music tapes. It was hard for her to scrape up enough money to go the movies more than once a week, and before long she would have nothing left. And now she had failed to get the job she’d most wanted. She stared at Mona, too, as if Mona were to blame for everything that had gone wrong in her entire life.
After that Mona saw less of her two friends. Anyway, she explained to herself, she had to get ready for college at last, and there was a lot of remedial reading to do. Her parents, especially her mother, wanted her to be around the house more instead of running off with her silly friends, and though she raised a fuss she didn’t really mind staying in, watching television, listening to the radio, fighting with her brothers. Sometimes when Naomi or Abigail called she just let the answering machine take the message.
And then everything fell apart for her, too—the college wrote saying they wouldn’t be able to admit her, after all—her grades were too low and they were so full up they had others on their waiting list. She should try again next year. It was a small private school, and she guessed they could do what they wanted, but next her parents said she really should get married or at least find a job and an apartment and stop moping about so much. They were angry when they saw how much she’d charged that summer to their bills at the shops downtown, and they decided she should serve as an example to her younger brothers and sisters.
It was more than Mona could bear, especially with Naomi and Abigail angry at her, too. And the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if there were something to this witchdoctor thing. After all, it was a pretty strange world, and though she didn’t really believe in anything in particular there were a lot of possibilities she hadn’t yet considered. Abigail’s ex-fiancé could be right, that it wasn’t smart to mess with other people’s magic, magic the uninitiated couldn’t understand.
She called him and got his aunt’s phone number and address. His aunt lived in a high-rise apartment building and was younger and less eccentric than Mona had expected. Her name was Mrs. Moon, a funny name, and she did indeed have a big moon-shaped face and bottom. She had not sounded surprised when Mona called her up, and she smiled when Mona asked if there were anything Mrs. Moon could do to help her predicament. They sat in her crowded living room, which was uninteresting except for some queer dried plants hung from the curtain rods. Mrs. Moon patted Mona’s hand and clicked her tongue against her teeth as if Mona were a child who had broken her favorite doll. Mona had out her checkbook to pay Mrs. Moon for her troubles, but Mrs. Moon pushed it away and told Mona that what she had done was very very wrong and she could spend the rest of her life atoning for her misbehavior; the witchdoctor was very very powerful, he was both man and woman, both very very young and very very old, and thus had power over both dreams and waking life. Had Mona been having nightmares? Mona couldn’t really remember, but supposed that she probably had.
Of course, dear, said Mrs. Moon, whose dentures clicked and false eyelashes fluttered when she talked, of course. There is absolutely only one way out—you must go to him and do whatever he tells you.
Please—Mona interrupted, wishing now that she had not come, and that Mrs. Moon did not smell so much like onions.
Whatever he tells you, repeated Mrs. Moon, and she was the first to rise, as if she had suddenly remembered something burning in the kitchen. But, she added, it’s your choice, dear.
Mona thanked her and went home, convinced Mrs. Moon was out of her mind. This magic business is nonsense, she said aloud in her bedroom, frowning at all the ugly clothes in her closet.
You’ve got to go back there, both Naomi and Abigail told her when she met them for lunch the next day. Now the landlord is threatening to evict us, Abigail continued, and Naomi’s father is sick with something they can’t figure out, so she can’t go home.
Wait a minute, Mona said, you were there, too. You wanted to go.
But you took the picture, Abigail reminded her, and he saw you. It was your parents’ car, and you drove us there. We were just along for the drive. It’s up to you to turn things around.
Abigail and Naomi would not listen to anything Mona had to say, and Mona was glad they both had excuses to leave the cafe early, but not without telling her quite clearly once more that she had better go fix things.
When Mona got home her mother confronted her, as well, saying she had better start doing something with her life, she couldn’t live at home forever, she was twenty and she’d be a penniless old maid soon. Mona said nothing, but asked to borrow the car to see about a secretarial job. Her mother was pleased to hear that and gave her the keys.
It took her several hours to cross the foothills and reach the flatlands upcountry where the witchdoctor lived. All the way there she felt ridiculous and angry, but knew that if she didn’t do something people might never speak to her again. She was prepared to write however large a check he wanted, and lie to her parents about needing the money to loan to a friend or something, anything, later.
Perhaps because it was midweek the camp was deserted, no long line of cars and silent families, no impatient businessmen or lonely old ladies, though a light was on in the trailer and she could hear a radio playing as soon as she parked and got out. The late afternoon sunlight gave the big trees a coppery sheen, and the rock garden, instead of looking innocuous and dull as it had before, was filled with weird shapes and shadows. For the first time Mona felt a bit afraid, though she continued slowly down the dirt path toward the door of the trailer, its chrome so bright in the sun that she could barely look at it.
She knocked once, turned to go, then decided to knock again. She heard nothing moving within, just what sounded like a string quartet on a distant radio. Once again she was about to leave, but forced herself to knock once more. After a long time the witchdoctor opened the door. He was dressed as before in his black silk pajamas and funny wool cap, and up close she could see that he was no Chinaman; he wasn’t quite like anything she’d ever seen. His body was small and soft and hairless, like a woman’s, though he had a trace of a mustache, and it was impossible to guess his age—he looked both very young and very old at the same time. No appointments today, he said through the screen, and began to close the door.
Wait, she said, waving her checkbook at him, I have money! She noticed that he had a thick strand of ivory amulets around his neck and that his fingernails were long and painted silver.
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Please, he said in a small, tired, sexless voice, come back tomorrow, but he did not close the door once he had appraised her more fully through the screen. He studied her with his young-old eyes, waiting for her to say something more. Maybe he did not remember her, after all.
I’m sorry for what I did, interrupting you like that, and I’m just hoping you’ll take this curse off me, she went on, trying to see behind him into the trailer, but it was too dark inside. A heavy smell like turpentine hung in the air. Some birds flew past them. A wind came up. Without realizing how she had got there, she was now standing under the shade of one of the big trees in the yard, and the witchdoctor was closer to her, caressing the back of her hand.
He laughed, soft as a woman, and his silk-covered breasts rose up and down. Foolish girl, he said, showing his small filed-down teeth. Where do you come from?
She regained her balance, as if she had been asleep, and told him, recounting a brief history of her life, as if he were a teacher or potential employer or someone she had just fallen in love with.
He did not seem to pay much attention to her as she spoke, but grinned a great deal as she tried to guess what he wanted