Page:Weird Tales Volume 8 Number 4 (1926-10).djvu/126

 through the woods, the flowers seemed to bend toward her. Perhaps it was only imagination. Nevertheless it seemed a reality. But certain it is that the little wild things of the forest never fled when she approached. Rabbits, squirrels, deer—none showed the slightest fear of her. They seemed to sense that she was a beautiful wild thing like themselves. And always on her wanderings she sang songs as alluring as those of the Sirens. The very woods seemed hushed to listen. Even the birds were silent till the music of her voice had ceased. It was this singing that surprized Dr. Winwood more than anything else. Where had she learned such songs of magical loveliness? If she had no personality whatsoever, how did she remember the songs? Had she gone back into the ages and assumed one of the far distant personalities which had been hers in a former existence? Although Dr. Winwood did not exactly believe in reincarnation, the subject interested him. Coralie seemed possessed of a strange, split-off personality. Only songs and woodland grandeur aroused any glow in her. All else she viewed as from a dream. She was undoubtedly mad, but in a calmly beautiful way. She was never loud or violent, but always gentle as a lovely child. She was like a gorgeous flower growing in a field of gold.

Night after night Dr. Winwood tried to commune with the spirit of Coralie. He went out into the darkness of the mountains, and there he would sit for hours, his eyes closed, trying by the very force of his will to get into touch with her spirit. About him the darkness of the night hung in folds like a velvet canopy. Thousands of sounds echoed faintly to his ears, all in a hushed, subdued tone. Magic could have run rampant in those forests without seeming out of place. But never did Dr. Winwood accomplish his purpose. Night after night he sat on the rocks of a great plateau until the rose-pink tints of dawn commenced to glow in the east. Then he would wearily rise to his feet and walk slowly back to the house, looking terribly haggard and careworn. His only accomplishment was failure. But he did not give up hope. He believed in his theory.

One day he heard of an old Indian woman who lived down the lake about three miles. She was said to be a hundred and ten years old, yet so keen was her sight that she could see beyond the veil of reality. At once the doctor sent Barlow Garth in search of the woman, and at length she came to him. She was picturesque to an extreme. She wore a soft leather skirt and a waist of blue wool. Strung about her neck were dozens of fantastic ropes of beads, which she constantly fingered as though drawing inspiration or solace from them. Her hands were so bronzed by the sun they were almost black, but they were well-shaped and graceful. Her long slender fingers were never still for a moment. They seemed ever bent on some obscure quest.

The face of the old woman was like a mask. Even when she spoke in a low quaint voice the muscles of her face did not appear to move. She seemed petrified by age, almost a mummy. Her little gimletlike eyes peeped sharply forth from her gray-brown face. She smiled craftily after she had conversed long with the doctor and assured him that she could commune with spirits at will.

"The proper time," she declared softly, "is when the moon is at the full."

That very evening she went with the doctor and Barlow Garth into the woods. She faced the east and muttered some strangely guttural words. Then from her bag she took an odd array of nicknacks, a goat's hoof, some tundra moss, a bit of salt and a polished piece of ivory nut. With