Daily Screams

A Dead Man's Gift

Lady Helen Cartwright stared down at the small box. It nestled snugly in her black gloved hands. Age-worn carvings littered the pale stone. There were heathen gods with their animalistic heads and men girded only with skirts and - goodness some of those bare-chested figures were women. Undeniably women. No wonder Mr Belfriar would not meet her eye.

She lifted her own slate-grey eyes to the agent.

"And this was found in my late husband's belongings?"

The pinched-faced man nodded. He really does look like a rat, she thought absently. He wrung his hands and twisted his thin lips into what was presumably his idea of a smile.

"Sir Percival was an ardent collector of Egyptian artefacts. But, ah, of course, you know that."

"One cannot be married for six years without, ah, learning something of one's husband." Lady Helen replied in a dry tone.

"Quite so, Lady Cartwright. Quite so." The agent wet his lips and another murine smile flickered across his features. "This box, is in itself quite unremarkable. Fourth or fifth dynasty, from what is popularly known as the Old Kingdom, I believe. The, ah, ape on the lid..."

"The baboon," she corrected, "is Babi, or Baba. The god of baboons, and male virility in the netherworld. Oh, there is no need to blush, Mr Belfriar!" She continued. "The Ancients did not share our modern sense of dignity. Sir Percival brought home a number of curios that, thankfully, he felt best kept within his own study. I believe there is even a more flagrantly masculine statuette of Babi behind his desk there. The maid refuses to dust it."

Mr Belfriar ignored her gentle laugh and continued, in the somewhat staunch tones of one to whom the Mystics where, fortuitously, just that; mystical and mysterious.

"It is the contents of the box that my employers find to be of such interest, Lady Cartwright. Here, let me lift the lid for you. You will perceive the small amulet inside." Delicately, he removed a tiny golden statue from the stone box.

The lady stepped backwards, her face ashen.

"Where did that come from?"

Mr Belfriar looked at her in some annoyance.

"As I said when I first arrived, this was in Sir Percival's belongings..."

"Which of his belongings? How? How is this possible?" Lady Cartwright's voice was as sharp as a knife. "Sir, do you know what that item you hold in your hand is? No? Well let me tell you. That, Sir, is a fetish. A charm buried with the dead for their afterlife. One could dismiss the superstitions of the Ancients as mere heathen fancy; but that, Sir, would be a mistake. A mistake!" A wild gleam came into her eyes and she reached up to clasp her throat with one alabaster-white hand.

"Indeed, Mr Belfriar, that is no ordinary fetish, but one of Sekmet herself. Observe the lioness head, the sun-disc adorning her brow? That is the periapt that killed my husband!" Lady Cartwright's normally genteel voice rose with a note of hysteria. "I got the full account from his close friend and confidant, Mr Harold Turner. Harry was with him at the end you know. He witnessed poor Percy's death." She closed her eyes. "Mr Turner wrote to me from his hospital bed in Cairo several weeks after the incident."

She opened her eyes and gave a dramatic shudder.

"In his missive, Mr Turner described in great depth my husband's demise. In far greater detail than one would expect from a gentleman to a lady. But I have known Harry - Mr Turner - since we were small children together. My brother was at Eton with him and later at Oxford, where they met Cartwright. It was as much through Harry's friendship as my own brother's that I was introduced to the then Mr Cartwright. But I digress. The fact is Mr Belfriar, I would know that ghastly trinket anywhere."

"Then you appreciate it's value, Lady Cartwright?"

"The blazes to its value, man!" Lady Helen Cartwright drew herself up to her full height, an imposing four inches above the diminutive lawyers' agent. "That wretched amulet cost my husband his life. And in the most horrendous fashion. He burnt to death, Mr Belfriar. And Mr Turner confided in me afterwards, once his own condition permitted him to return home, that Percy was possessed of a devil! Some vile phantom of the pharaohs and their unchristian gods entered the very soul and spirit of my brave husband. Torturing and twisting his mind. And then this same phantasm brought about his fiery and brutal end. I suggest, Sir, that you remove that ghastly, cursed thing from my house, immediately!"

"I understand your situation, Lady Cartwright -" the agent began, the smile twitching in perfunctory sympathy. "But my employers -"

"Damn your employers!"

"Please, Lady Cartwright -"

"The only thing I wish to know, Mr Belfriar, is how in damnation that accursed statue came into your hands. Harry Turner assured me that it never left the tomb he and Sir Percival were excavating."

"Why, it was found amongst Sir Percival's personal affects. There was a note attached - the box was not wrapped or I promise you, it would not have been touched!" He fished in his waistcoat pocket and pulled out a folded foolscap. "The note is in Sir Percival's own hand and read thus: to my beloved wife, Helen. A gift."







Word count: 922

Prompt: a gift that is also a curse horror



See also "The Curse of Sekmet"   by ~MM~ for the full account of Sir Percival Cartwright and Mr Harold Turner.