The Inheritance

Patty knew she must hurry. Miss Susan was screaming for help, imploring her to make haste. She could wait no longer. No matter how little Patty truly thought of her employer, no human being should be made to endure such torment. She did not know what sort of black magic had been placed upon Miss Susan. She had never seen anything as grotesque and alarming. Although she was a black woman, and Miss Susan supposed it must therefore be in her area of expertise, she had had no dealings in voodoo or the black arts or anything pertaining to the puzzling enchantment bewitching her mistress. It had to be her evil mother-in-law's doing. Susan had told her about Sandy’s dolls and of the painting now residing in Joan’s house. And she knew firsthand how differently Mr. Whitaker was behaving since receiving his father’s guns. Could there be any doubt that the disdainful old woman had bedeviled the items? But could she have so thoroughly hated her own children as to completely ruin their lives? And could she have possibly done something so despicable to her daughter-in-law. She wrung out the towel, picked up the bottle of coconut oil, and rushed out of the kitchen back to Mr. Whitaker’s study where Miss Susan was stretched out on the sofa. Only what laid there was no longer entirely Miss Susan.