Witch Water (19 page)

When Abbie returned, she put her arm around
him and hugged. “What are you thinking now? You seem lost in
thought.”

I’m lost in thought a lot, I guess,
because I might be nuts…
 He wanted to ask her if she’d
seen anything in the diary about
bounties
or
bridles
but refused when he realized he’d be taking the mirage
seriously.

That didn’t happen.

“I’m thinking about how much I like this
town,” he fibbed. He turned but had no choice but to be faced by
her bosom, since she was standing. He could’ve melted.

“I’ve got to turn in now, Stew,” she said,
leaning against him. “Early day tomorrow. The guy who runs this
joint cracks a
big
whip.”

“I heard that missy!” Baxter barked

But Fanshawe rushed to rise.

“Don’t leave just because I am,” Abbie said.
“Hang out, have another drink—”

“I gotta turn in too,” he fibbed again.
“I’ll walk you.” He bade goodnight to Mr. Baxter, then walked hand
in hand with Abbie.

In the elevator, she sighed and leaned her
head against Fanshawe’s shoulder. “Thanks, Stew. I had such a nice
time tonight.”

“Me too.” He felt suddenly vibrant, gripped
her waist tighter. He was about to turn and kiss her but the door
slid open on the second floor.

“Here’s my stop,” she said, but her voice
seemed edgy, nervous.

Their eyes met, and the moment stretched.
Without forethought he was kissing her, and felt dropped into some
scintillant esoteria of lovely scents and warmth. The kiss drew on,
seemed about to get fervent, but then Abbie reluctantly pulled
back.

“I really like you, Stew,” she whispered.
Her face was flushed.

“I like you a lot too.”

“I so much want to ask you into my room
but…”

Fanshawe smiled. “I know. It’s too
soon.”

She hugged him and gave him a final, quick
kiss on the lips. “Thanks for not being like most guys.”

“Go out with me again. Soon.”

“I’d love too.”

Her grin could’ve lit up the elevator when
she pulled away. Their hands separated as she back-stepped out into
the hall.

“Goodnight, Abbie.”

“Goodnight…”

She didn’t budge, and her soft grin remained
as the doors slid shut.

Fanshawe leaned against the elevator wall,
dreamy. The compartment rose to the top-floor hall; he seemed
somnambulant walking out…

In his room, he felt gently giddy at the
division of impressions:
This has been one hell of a couple of
days. I relapsed to voyeurism, I steal a looking-glass without even
being aware of it, several times I hear an invisible dog barking,
then I stumble on the dead body of some guy named Karswell, and
later I peep on Abbie with the glass but then see the town turn
hundreds of years old before my eyes and I even see Evanore Wraxall
herself naked in her window, then, if that doesn’t take the cake,
today two wax dummies talk to me in the museum, and after
aaaaaaaaaall that…

He gazed at the wall

…
I have this wonderful dinner date with a
girl I’m crazy about…

He shook his head, actually chuckling as he
rubbed fatigue out of his eyes.

He poured himself a glass of water. It
struck him that the subject of Karswell, the dead man, had never
been raised along with all the other ghoulish talk at the bar, and
just then—

His cellphone rang.

“It’s me,” Artie said over the line. “Sorry
to call so late, but I finally got some poop on your man.”

“Karswell,” Fanshawe uttered.

“Yeah, Eldred Karswell. Sixty-seven years
old, resident of Ellicottville, New York. No criminal convictions,
no old dockets, no arrests, not even a traffic citation.”

“Clean as a whistle on all counts, is what
you’re getting at,” Fanshawe presumed.

“Mmmm, well, there’s no dirt on him
but—let’s just say some weird stuff.”

Fanshawe laughed in spite of himself. “I’m
getting quite accustomed to weird stuff, Artie. What’ve you
got?”

“First, the guy was a Protestant minister in
the seventies, but he was dismissed from active pastoral license by
the Diocese of New York.”

“Oh, no. Don’t tell me for molesting
kids—”

“Nope. It was after a series of theological
controversies between Karswell and something called the Board of
Informatory Regents of Episcopacy.”

Fanshawe’s lips pursed. “
What?
”

“It’s some kind of doctrinal regulatory
commission, the bosses of the church.” Artie paused as if
entertained. “You ready for this?”

“No, I’m paying you to jerk me around.”

“The Diocese essentially defrocked the guy
for advocating and practicing
Christian mysticism.
”

Fanshawe’s speculation chugged to a near
halt. “Of all the oddball things.”

“Tell me about it, boss, but that’s not all.
Karswell’s also a published author, and it’s not just books about
mysticism that he writes about—”

Fanshawe’s eyes widened.

“—the dude’s written books about witchcraft,
demonology, devil worship, the history of human sacrifice—”

Fanshawe gulped.

“—he’s had over a dozen books published, all
stuff like that. Last year he published a book with Montague
University Press called
The Magic of St. Ignatius,
and his
most recent publication was a paper that came out a month ago in
some off-the-wall religious journal called
The Anglican
Scholar.
The title of the paper?” Artie chuckled over the line.
‘The Thinking Christian’s Guide to Thaumaturgology
.
’”

Fanshawe almost spit out the sip of water
he’d just taken. “What the
hell
is that?”

Artie laughed. “That’s just it, I don’t
know! The word wouldn’t even Goggle! Your man’s into some goofy
shit, boss. He’s got a house worth one-five, and property tax out
the yin-yang, never paid late. Top-flight credit rating, two other
cars plus the Caddy—a new Merc and a loaded Yukon, plus he’s got
his own office and staff.”

“So he’s got money. From the books?”

“Can’t say for sure but I doubt it. He’s
never been on a bestseller list, and there’s very little about him
on the web.”

“Then how’d you find out about his
books?”

“The research goons found his titles on some
online book auctioneers, and there’s a tiny bibliography at a
European booklist site. My opinion? I think Karswell writes for
some fringe underground specialty market. Can’t see there being a
lot of money in that.”

“Family money, then, the lottery—who knows—”
Fanshawe chewed a lip. “—and who cares? Is that all?”

“Come on, boss, I’m better than that, ain’t
I?”

“You tell me.”

“He’s got an agent, some woman named Reobek,
office in Scarsdale. I actually talked to her a little while ago.
Wouldn’t give me Karswell’s direct contact info, but she gave me
his office number. Said he’s out of town for several weeks. Christ,
the woman’s got a Bronx accent so thick I wanted to jump out the
window. But, anyway, she did say he’s in
New Hampshire
for
the time being
.
” An intended pause. “How’s that for a
coinkydink? Same place as you.”

“Guess you left the old thinking cap at
home, huh?”

Artie didn’t get it, but since he often
worked ten- or twelve-hour days, Fanshawe gave him a break. “But I
saved the laugher for last. She said one more thing… She said
Karswell was working on a book about a
warlock…
”

Fanshawe caught his stare sticking to the
wall, and thought with instantly:
Wraxall.

“That’s the scoop so far. I’ll try his
office number in the morning; maybe they’ll give me his cell number
in case you want to talk to him.”

“He wouldn’t be very talkative, Artie. He’s
dead.”

“Say again?”

“Karswell is dead”—the image of the dead
man’s face resurfaced like a bellow. “No doubt about it.”

“You sure about that, boss? His name wasn’t
on the Social Security Death Index.”

“That’s because there hasn’t been time. He
died yesterday. Just so happens that he was staying in my
hotel.”

Suddenly, distress seemed to come through
with Artie’s next pause. “So
that’s
why you wanted to know
about him. How…did he die? Heart attack or something, right?
Natural causes? Please, boss, please—don’t tell me it was
murder—”

“It was murder, Artie—”

“Shit, Stew! Get out of there right now!
You’re not Little People, you know. Out of six and a half billion
folks walkin’ the earth, only five hundred are billionaires and
you’re one of them! I’m sending up a car and some of our guys to
bring you back—”

“Forget it,” Fanshawe sluffed. “The
police
think it was murder, but they’re kind of Keystony
around here. I think it was a wild animal attack—”

“I don’t like this, Stew. You’re too fuckin’
important to be near fucked up shit like that.”

“I guess you picked up the fine language in
Harvard Yard, huh?” Fanshawe laughed. “Don’t worry about it, all
right? But do me a favor and get research to hassle the agent
again, try to find out the name of the warlock Karswell was writing
about.”

Now the line’s silence seemed to remotely
convey Artie’s lengthening face. It was a
long
silence. “Oh.
So you’re
up
on warlocks, are you?”

“Just do it, Artie, okay?”

Artie groaned. “Sure, find out the name of
the warlock, you bet…”

Fanshawe put the cellphone away, thinking.
Karswell. Writing a book on a warlock…

And now he’s dead.

At once he was glancing abruptly upward, as
though some inner monitor of his subconscious had so directed him.
Why?

Yes, he was glancing upward, at the
trapdoor…

Again:
why?

He’d already been up in the attic, and had
found—just as Mr. Baxter had—nothing out of the ordinary.
Nevertheless, next, he was standing once more on the bed, reaching
up, and unprizing the trapdoor. Moments later, he was standing
stooped in the warm, wood- and dust-scented space. He swept his
penlight to either side, and if anything—

This place is even duller than it was when I
first came up…

Why he paid this second visit to the attic
he couldn’t guess. He came back down, now sweating and irritable,
and replaced the panel in the ceiling.

He undressed, presumed to prepare for bed
but now…

Same as the impulse to return to the attic,
he found himself standing before an opened dresser drawer. He was
not conscious of the reason he’d chosen to do so, but then he
looked down and saw…

…
that damn looking-glass.

He couldn’t even remember opening the drawer
that he’d stashed it in.
Why haven’t I put it back where it
belongs?
What might Baxter and Abbie wonder if they discovered
it missing, so soon after Fanshawe had asked about it?

Tomorrow!
he charged himself,
I’ll
put it that thing back in the case and never touch it again! Enough
screwing around!

Once in bed, Fanshawe found it easy to
ignore his previous aggravation, by thinking about Abbie. He smiled
in the darkness, sinking into the pillow.
My first date in
ages…
He fell asleep knowing that he couldn’t wait to see Abbie
again.

Wouldn’t it be nice if he saw her in his
dreams?

(II)

He doesn’t see her, but he hears her, as he
did so recently during his first nightmare in the Wraxall Inn. Her
voice echoes like drips in a cavern as the black mental fog seeps
away to show him a mob of irate townsfolk in colonial dress forming
a riotous half-circle on Witches Hill. Two more townsmen drag a
distraught young blond woman into the clearing’s center-point.
She’s in shackles and dressed in rags, smudge-faced, and
beaten.

They drag her to the barrel with the hole in
it.

When the blond convict sees the barrel, she
silently screams; her face reddens in horror as the townsmen lower
her into the barrel.

“They’d put the witch in the barrel,”
Abbie’s voice repeats, “pull her head out through the hole and keep
it in place by sliding this thing called a U-collar around her
neck…”

A townsman’s hand reaches into the hole in
the barrel, then pulls the woman’s head through. Someone else
immediately locks her head in place with the horse-shoe-shaped
collar. The woman’s eyes bulge each time she tries—and fails—to
dislodge her head. She looks as though her very spirit is being
wrenched out of her.

“Like a pillory only…with a barrel?”
Fanshawe hears himself repeat the question he’d asked only hours
ago.

“Well, sort of. See, after they did
that—”

Sheer horror causes the whites of the blond
woman’s eyes to turn scarlet, for she
sees
something
approaching…

“…they’d bring out the dog—”

A husky colonist steps out of the parting
crowd, leading a slavering black Doberman on the end of a cord. The
animal is gut-sucked, its ribs showing from the time it has been
deliberately denied sustenance. Foam flies each time it barks in
silence.

The townsman has trouble keeping the animal
back, yet he seems amused, as does the crowd, each time he scuffles
forward, letting the beast come only an inch from the screaming
convict’s face, only to pull it back to prolong her torment. Back
and forth, back and forth—he does this for several minutes, until
the sullen minister nudges the sheriff. Then Sheriff Patten nods
solemn-faced to the dog’s master.

The Doberman is released, and it lunges
toward the barrel.

Abbie’s voice seems to spiral away: “The dog
would attack and…
eat
the flesh off the witch’s head…”

The wide-open eye of Fanshawe’s dreaming
mind watches the Doberman’s jaws close over the top of the woman’s
head—until it
yank-yank-yanks
off most of her scalp, woofs
it down, then goes back for the ears, then the cheeks and lips,
then the—