Sherm Sappington sat on the three-legged stool pondering the small knobby doll in his hands. He was sorry it looked so little like her. It seemed as though it should be a perfect likeness if it was going to have any effect at all, at least that’s what made sense.

Sherm stretched, leaning back, teetering a bit in order to pull a ribbon out of his pants pocket. It was a strip of pale blue grosgrain, long enough to tie around Addie’s waist where it had been, as a matter of fact, just before he snatched it and ran. On the doll, wound twice around and tied in a floppy bow, the ribbon looked stupid, but, what the heck, Sherm figured, he was only following directions.

He wasn’t sure if the bits of hair were Addie’s, or her dog’s. But he didn’t like the dog any better than Addie, so in a way it didn’t make much difference. Tacking them onto the lump of a head was a problem. The glue took too darned much time to set, and then when he lifted his hand the hair was attached to his thumb like a miniature mustache on a miniature head. His second try wasn’t much better, and in the end he was forced to tuck the strands under the top layer of ribbon. The doll looked like it had chest hair. That would serve her right, he mused, visualizing the real article on the real Addie.

Sherm rested his elbows on his knees and looked the doll over. It was as unrecognizable as it could get, distorted and lumpy and dripping glue. He read the next step.

“Seven,” the article said, “tie a short piece of cord around the doll’s neck.” It doesn’t seem to have a neck, he thought. The cord was off a roll he used for mailing packages, the thick furry kind that embedded bits into your fingers when you tried to tie nice tight knots. It would serve Addie right if it embedded into her. He knotted it in the vicinity of the chest hair.

“Eight-attach the cord to the crossbar of a small scaffold.”

He tied it to the extended end of a carpenter’s measure.

“Nine-bury the effigy in the earth below the subject’s window.” Sherm glanced over at the shovel in the corner. It still had traces of dirt from the hole he had prepared below the kitchen window. That was where she spent most of her time cooking up those god-awful things she insisted he eat. He told her the hole was for gladiola bulbs.