My Bones and My Flute by Edgar Mittelholzer

He serves as a reminder of the superstitious Indians of the island and the shameful slave culture of days gone by.

Rounding out the story is Rayburn, a faithful servant the group picks up along the way. The women begin as supporting players in the drama and slowly move to the foreground eventually becoming the focus of the tale when the grey shapes summoned by the flute invade the jungle and attempt to possess the women bodily in order to stop the men from their task. Each of the women also succumb to the curse - one willingly and the other inadvertently in her attempt to destroy the ancient papers. The rest of the cast is made up of Nevinson's daughter Jessie, a rebellious young woman who taunts Milton and his conservative manner and Nevinson's wife Nell, a shallow pseudo-sophisticate. Days later he too is under the curse and is haunted by the flute music and the demons that Jan de Voortman somehow managed to summon in his dark dealings with the occult world. In defiance Milton places his hands on the manuscript. Nevinson warns Milton not to handle the manuscript lest he too hear the music of the flute nightly and endure horrible visions. The curse will continue until his remains and his flute are found and buried together. The manuscript's author, a Dutch man, swore vengeance on all who read his story and cursed anyone who touches the pages he wrote. It was written by a plantation owner whose family was slaughtered in a slave rebellion long ago. One night Nevinson relates the story of a manuscript he came to own. Ralph Nevinson, is the lumber magnate who suggests that Milton travel with him through the jungle to see the lumber mill but he has an ulterior motive. Milton Woodsley, a painter hired to provide landscapes for a lumber company's head office which is currently being renovated, is our narrator. THE CHARACTERS: My Bones and My Flute (1955) is set in 1933 in a remote portion of Guiana still haunted by the bloody slave rebellion of centuries past. The arduous journey is hampered by an invasion of other-worldly manifestations, eerie flute music, and demonic possession. Guided by an 18th century manuscript they hope to locate the author's skeletal remains and a buried flute and restore both to their proper grave in order to break a curse plaguing the Nevinson family. THE STORY: An artist accompanies his employer on an excursion into the jungles of British Guiana.

My Bones and My Flute by Edgar Mittelholzer