“The Witch’s Bone” (1963)

William Croft Dickinson, born in 1897, was a Scottish historian who wrote ghost stories on the side. This one, a tidy if somewhat predictable tale with a dash of voodoo, was written when he was in his 60s. He certainly had the craft down. “The Witch’s Bone” feels old-fashioned somehow, riffing on scientific sources in anthropology and expeditions abroad to mysterious destinations. Michael Elliott, a doctor and man of many credentials (“MA, LLD, FSA,” etc.), has something called a witch’s bone which can be used to throw curses on others in a somewhat elaborate and somewhat inconsistent ritual involving a doll created from sealing wax that is mistreated, pierced with pins. It’s a lot like voodoo dolls even though the word “voodoo” is never used. Elliott was presenting his witch’s bone and discussing it in a meeting of an Antiquarian Society. But another member—Mackenzie Grant, a self-appointed foe of Elliott—stands up and interrupts and ridicules him. It’s not the first time Grant has embarrassed Elliott this way, although, in fairness, Grant has not necessarily singled out Elliott. He’s just that way and does it a lot, not only with Elliott. Foolish mortal, questioning beyond his ken. Elliott is fed up with it. He goes home and, in a pique, throws a curse. Within 24 hours Grant has died a horrible death, an auto accident in which “practically every bone in his body was broken.” Now Elliott feels guilty and fearful of the power. Meanwhile, a museum has requested the loan of the witch’s bone for an exhibition it is putting together on “Folk Beliefs and Customs.” The witch’s bone is from another county in Scotland. Elliott fears what could happen but has no rational reason to decline, and so another terrible death is ultimately in the offing. The story is predictable, but brutally imagined and coldly worked out, with a power to cast a chill that obscures its various faults. Dickinson evokes the horrors well. There’s a good detail about how the bone gives up a death rattle when the person of interest has died their horrible death, sort of like a cell phone on vibrate going off. It’s all a bit mechanical, sure, but also nicely thought through and it reads more like something from the 1930s than the 1960s, a virtue in its way, at least in this case.

Realms of Darkness, ed. Mary Danby (out of print)
Listen to story online.