Witch Water (23 page)

Patten nodded to a deputy, who promptly
brought a knurled cudgel across Evanore’s jaw. After the sick
smack!
loops of blood and several teeth flew out of her
mouth. The only reaction she provided, however, was a scarlet
grin.

Patten opened a scroll of parchment.
“Evanore Wraxall, child of God agone, who so of thine own free will
hast embraced Satan and his minions, and his imps and his divells,
this just Tribunal of Assizes, in the name of our Savior, and in
service to His Majesty the King’s New Colony of Hampshire, I hereby
administrate thy sentence.” Patten’s eyes seized the woman,
flicking once to her bosom. “Dost thou have any words to descant in
thy defense?”

“Thou shall take thyself of thy hand
tonight, good Sheriff, and of my body thou wilt muse, just as have
you many, many times before,” Evanore calmly said.

It was Patten’s good fortune that the
shifting light hid his blush. “By decree I am so ordered to say
thus: may the Lord thy God grant mercy on thy soul.”

Evanore shrieked laughter as blood drooled
off her lips.

“Let’s be about this,” the Parson whispered
with a grimace. “There be no Godly justice so long as this
intercourse-soiled attendant of Lucifer doth live…”

Another directorial nod from Patten, and his
deputies dragged Evanore to the side, where a wall of flinty-faced
spectators parted—

Fanshawe’s heart seemed to hiccup.

—to reveal the barrel with the ten-inch-wide
hole in it.

The mob’s commotion rose. Evanore didn’t
resist as she was hoisted up and then shoved down into the barrel.
A rough hand reached into the hole, snatched her hair, and yanked
her head out. When the horseshoe-shaped collar was slipped over her
neck, the crowd cheered.

Aw, no, aw, shit…
Fanshawe knew what
came next; impulse urged him to pull the glass away but when he
tried, it was as though it had been glued to his eye. He detected,
first, the hush of the crowd, then—

The growls of a vicious dog.

The parson exclaimed, “May thy death be as
revulsive as thy
abominable
sins…”

A slavering snarl fluttered through the air;
it sounded monstrous. Another flank of spectators parted. Fanshawe
half-fainted when he saw the
size
of the Doberman that was
then led through the divide. The stout-armed deputy holding it back
on its chain could barely manage to keep on his feet.
It’s the
size of a small horse,
Fanshawe thought in dread. The animal’s
eyes looked insane, which was understandable since it had clearly
been deprived of food for some time. When the beast spotted the
barrel—and the head sticking out—it surged forward by instinct,
paws kicking up great scoops of dirt. Just as bad as the
anticipation were the looks on the faces of the townsfolk as they
watched:

They looked
giddy
with
excitement.

I can’t watch this,
 Fanshawe
knew but, still, he could not take the looking-glass away. Enthused
squeals rose up when the deputy lost hold on the leash, and—

Holy Mother of—

The dog was so large its jaws were able to
take nearly all of Evanore’s head into its mouth in a single lunge.
Ropes of foam poured from its black lips; the sounds were
nauseating. Fanshawe managed a blink, after which his vision
registered just in time to see the ravenous animal peel most of
Evanore’s face and scalp off like pulling off a stocking mask. The
animal deftly swallowed the macabre meal in reversed heaves, hair
and all. The crowd “Oooooooo’d,” paused, then cheered.

Evanore’s head now existed as a skinned
skull. It hung limp as the dog devoured what it had torn away but
then—impossibly…

The head moved in increments—

Holy SHIT!

—and
looked up.

The lipless grin and lidless eyes very
slowly scanned the crowd.

Evanore’s fleshless mouth moved to laugh as
blood squirted out of the space where her face had been. She
laughed for a long time.

On the next strike, the dog’s jaws collapsed
the convict’s skull altogether, then the creature began to snuffle
for collops of brains, but many of the townsfolk had already rushed
off the hill, too unnerved by Evanore’s laugh. One woman shouted
“’Tis a
curse
the witch hath put upon us, a
curse!
”
and then a man fretted, “Where is ye difference betwixt this and
Divell’s work?”

Patten, the Parson, and the deputies
remained, looking on with grim expressions as the great Doberman
returned to pick scraps off what little remained of Evanore’s
skull.

Fanshawe wanted to be sick; his vision faded
in and out like a dimmer switch. “Eat with heartiness, Pluto,” the
sheriff said of the dog. “Even as thou slake thy appetite on unholy
flesh, God be finely appeased…”

By then, the deputies had hauled Evanore’s
near-headless corpse from the barrel and let the dog eat to its
heart’s content. The men wish-boned the corpse’s legs, then pointed
to the furred groin, which was promptly ripped out and swallowed by
the dog. The breasts were tugged off, then the arms and legs were
attacked.

“When the beast hath reached its glut,” the
parson directed Sheriff Patten, “I want the carcass of this
diabolical
bitch
buried in double-quick time, Sheriff.”

“Granted, my lord, it shall be.”

Fanshawe seemed to feel something in the
air, something like a bad portent, and at that identical moment, in
the circle of the looking-glass, the Doberman abruptly stopped its
rending of Evanore’s now-stick-like remains…and shot its gaze right
at Fanshawe.

“Of a sudden, our animal hast grown listless
with its meal,” Patten observed, “nearly as if…”

“Aye, nearly as if its senses, which be many
times more acute than ours, hath detected a
peculiarness
of
a kind,” said one of the deputies.

A concern stiffened the pastor’s posture; he
looked sharply in the direction of the dog’s stare. “’Tis perhaps a
black spirit,
as such spirits be in specter-haunts such as
this”—his suspicion lowered to an etching whisper. “Of mine own
self, and though my eyes perceive nothing at odds, I swear verily
that
I too
hath been made sensible of a most unnatural
stir…”

The dog’s keeper—the largest of the men—took
on a look of panic. “A black spirit, you say my lord? In our midst
as we speak?”

“Aye, an entity most evil, son, and lacking
all corporality…”

Now the dog’s ears stood up, and so did the
short fur on its long, sloped back. Its eyes remained fixed…on
Fanshawe.

Oh, my God, it can’t really—

The dog vaulted down the hill, releasing
barks like gunfire. Each bound of the Doberman took up fifteen
feet, as the men trotted clumsily down after it.

Fanshawe screamed, the glass still to his
eye. Just as the dog’s snapping jaws would hit his throat…

“Behold, how it bounds!” Patten yelled, fat
riding as he jogged forward, “as of at the thin air alone!”

“’Tis a spirit, yea!” snapped a deputy, “too
foul to be observed by Godly men such as we!”

Fanshawe was knocked down like a hinged
duck, the looking-glass flying off. When the back of his head
slammed the hard-packed dirt beneath him, everything turned
black.

—
| — | —

CHAPTER NINE

(I)

Fanshawe groaned, feeling as though his face
sat directly beneath a very bright heat lamp, and he groaned again
when he heard a barking dog.

“Stay away, Winkly!” came a woman’s voice
annoying as nails on slate. “It’s a dirty bum! He’s probably got
lice and diseases that would be bad for a good little doggie like
you!”

A slingshot-like reflex shot Fanshawe bolt
upright on the path and pried his eyes open. Moving shapes formed
in the block of blazing sun.
Oh, no…

“Winkly! Stay!”

Fanshawe could’ve been rising from a coffin;
the back of his head beat like an overburdened heart. When vision
formed, a yapping poodle hopped around at the end of a taut leash.
Frowning above it stood the woman in tights he’d seen before, but
today the tights were rainbow-striped. Pocks of cellulite showed
through the adhesive fabric, and so did rolls of fat around her
belly as though tubes had been wrapped about her waist.
I have a
feeling this ISN’T a nightmare,
Fanshawe thought.
Over-mascara’d eyes looked down as if he were the lowest form of
life on earth.

The poodle—Winkly—yapped and yapped and
yapped, stretching its lead.

“Do you need
help?
” she asked with
distaste. “Are you
drunk?
”

Fanshawe could imagine how he appeared. The
annoying voice pounded in his head. “I…fell down last night, and
hit my head,” he murmured.

“Fell down
drunk,
you mean. I guess I
should call an ambulance—I don’t want to be liable…” She flipped
out her cellphone but paused, her irksome expression turning more
bitter. “Oh, I remember
you,
making faces at my poor little
Winkly, scaring him out of his wits!”

Fanshawe was more irate than embarrassed. He
got up, praying he wouldn’t stumble.
Take a look in the mirror,
then call the ambulance for yourself,
he wanted to say.
Suddenly he smelled something unpleasant, then noticed that Winkly,
who’d stopped yelping, was now laying lines of stool very close to
Fanshawe’s feet. Was the little dog actually
grinning
at
him?

Fanshawe snapped. “Lady, if that dog shits
on my Norvegese shoes, I’m going to turn the little motherfucker
into the world’s first barking kickball.”

The woman burst into tears, scooped up the
dog, and shuffled off. “Don’t you hurt my dog! Don’t you hurt my
dog, you-you
hobo!
”

“Hobo, huh?” He took out his black American
Express Centurion card and waved it at her. “How’s
this
for
hobo? And by the way, you look like two hundreds pounds of cottage
cheese in a hundred-pound sack. Get some of that liposuction, why
don’t ya?”

The woman clopped away on wedgelike
high-heels, crying outright.

Fanshawe recomposed himself when she was
gone.
Did I really say that?
 It wasn’t like him to be
hateful, even when someone was hateful to him first. To do that was
illogical.
She’ll get over it.
He felt half-cooked in his
crumpled clothes, tried to brush himself off, but then noticed a
flash like a sliver of light.

The looking-glass lay in a clump of grass
just off the trail. He picked it up, pocketed it, then took the
trail down back toward town.

It occurred to him how calm he was as he
walked.

Calm?

How could he be calm, after all he’d seen
last night?

Back in town, he righted his hair via his
reflection in a shop window, then slipped into the café and washed
up in the bathroom. The ache in his head receded. His watch told
him it was ten in the morning.

He took his coffee to an outside table, and
sat down, to think. It only took a few moments for him to realize
why he hadn’t freaked out the instant he remembered his visions
through the looking-glass:
I was afraid I was hallucinating, I
was afraid that I’d gone insane, but now?
He let every
impossible experience thus far flow across his mind’s eye.

I’m NOT insane.

No, he wasn’t hallucinating, he wasn’t
suffering from some organic brain defect or some stress-related
aberration or a “fugue-state.” It was none of that.
Aside from
being a voyeur, I’m perfectly normal.

Which could only mean…

The looking-glass was for real, and so was
the witchcraft of its origins.

He took the glass out of his pocket and
looked at it under the table. He stared as much at the implication
as the object itself.
It works. The damn thing WORKS…

The only explanation that made any sense was
this: the looking-glass was an optical device that displayed the
past.

And it means that Jacob Wraxall really was a
warlock. And his daughter was a genuine witch.

Fanshawe had no more believed in the
supernatural than he believed the world was flat.
I’ve GOT to
believe it now,
he thought, with more of his previous calm.
Suddenly he felt just like he had when he’d made his first million
in the market.

“Why, if it ain’t the good Mr. Sir!” an all
too familiar voice greeted him, “and a pleasant mornin’ it is I
hope you’re a-havin’.”

Fanshawe looked up from his coffee. “Hello,
Mrs. Anstruther. And, yes, I’m having a very pleasant morning.”

“A pleasanter one couldn’t be asked for, I
dare say,” she said, looking up into the sun. She wore a frumpy
white dress with black animal prints on it—Fanshawe’s cheek ticked
when he spotted a Doberman. But suddenly she took a look at him
that seemed concerned. “But, sir, I do hope you’re feeling
chipper.”

“Chipper? Uh, sure…”

“I only mean—if I may say it—is you don’t
appear the fresher for your night’s rest.”

Fanshawe laughed.
That’s because I slept
on Witches Hill.
“Tossed and turned all night, couldn’t get a
wink—too much coffee, I guess. But since you’re here, can I get you
a cup?” he offered.

“How kindly you are, sir, but as I’m just
off from me break, I’m afraid I ’aven’t the time. Much obliged,
sir, much obliged, what of your generous offer. Oh, but since you
just ’appen to be stayin’ in the same lodgings”—her voice
lowered—“might you have ’eard anymore ’bout that poor man got done
away with on the trails, done away so ’orrible like?”

“No, I haven’t, ma’am,” Fanshawe replied,
and then the weight of the coincidence hit him.
How come that
didn’t occur to me before?
Eldred Karswell had been found dead
with all the flesh stripped off his head.
Almost as if he got
barreled…