Witch Water (25 page)

Abbie,
the name unfolded in his mind.
“I hope you’re right,” he muttered.
I need someone to be nuts
about me…

“And”—her black eyebrows shot up—“she’s
here? Here in town or nearby?”

For all Fanshawe knew, Letitia might be
friends with Abbie, who could easily have mentioned their date. He
made a rolling gesture with his right index finger. “Just…keep
telling my fortune, okay?”

Finally, a genuine smile appeared on her
face. But just for a moment; she isolated one finger. “Truncated
finger pad tridents, and…” She blinked. “You have a weakness—”

“So does everybody.”

“—a weakness that’s considered anti-social?
Hmm. You
want
to be a good person but your weakness keeps
you thinking you’re not.”

Fanshawe’s face seemed to turn to
granite.

“It’s a weakness that nearly ruined you—not
occupationally but, well…”

“Personally,” he said.

Lett clearly sensed the dark note. “But,
there’s more good news!”

Fanshawe’s shoulders slumped. “Please…”

“You will soon reduce this weakness to
nothing.”

He considered this.
Probably EVERYONE
could say they’ve nearly been ruined by a weakness or fault. This
is all gray area.
“You’re not being specific,” he said as if in
defense. “If you can’t be specific, it’s all suggestion versus
interpretation.”

She fidgeted in her seat. “I’m not sure
specifically,
but… Want my hunch?”

“Sure.”

“Something visual, something about
seeing,
” and that was all she said.

Fanshawe’s lower lip trembled.

“Something—”

“That’s, that’s fine,” he cut her off. He
faked a laugh, trying to joke.

She perked up again; in fact she seemed
relieved to. “But you will succeed in defeating this weakness, and
the conduit to this success will, in part, be your new romantic
partner.”

“In part? What other ‘parts’ might help
me?”

Instantly, she answered, “A revelatory
interest—”

“Revelatory?”

“Yes. Lately you’ve become interested to the
point of obsession with something totally foreign to you, something
you wouldn’t ordinarily be interested in at all.”

The words popped into his head without any
conscious prompt:
Wraxall and Evanore. The occult.
Witch-water…
“Why do I get this idea that you’re genuinely
psychic?”

“Because I am sometimes. And sometimes I’m
all wrong. Just…not today.” Her attentions returned to his palm.
When his eyes flicked to hers she was looking right at him over her
glasses, smiling.

“And you have a fascinating partial joining
of your heartline and headline. The angles suggest a future change
of the direction of your life, and it’s a
drastic
change.”
Her expression squeezed up as if she were suddenly perplexed. “It
has to do with what I said a minute ago, a sensitivity to
para-naturalism and non-physical realms, meta-physics, even. Are
you…” but again she didn’t finish, holding something back.

Fanshawe sighed, exasperated, and snapped,
“Am I
what?
”

“Are you, well… Are you a student of the
occult?
”

He wasn’t sure how to take this, and he
wasn’t sure what he even expected, but in a sense he
was
such a student. His sudden interest in Wraxall, and more especially
the things he’d found in the hidden chamber of the attic, suggested
that. He didn’t believe in such things, did he?

But did he believe in what he’d seen last
night through the looking-glass?

He was about to admit that he had a slight
curiosity about the topic when something on the wall was suddenly
harassing his attention. Some pictures hung there, mostly
photographs but one was a portrait that seemed as old as those at
the hotel. Fanshawe’s eyes seemed to bloom at the image within the
old carved frame. It was a clean-shaven, stark-eyed man in a
Colonial hat. The man looked sullen and unexpectant, and had an
overly large jaw.

Fanshawe pulled his hand out of Letitia’s,
jumped up, and strode to the painting. “Hey, this is Callister
Rood, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, and why on earth would you…” Was she
somehow fatigued by his sudden separation from her hand during the
reading? “Oh, you must be staying at the Wraxall Inn.”

“That’s right. I saw the painting of Rood
over there. Abbie and Mr. Wraxall claim he was a warlock who worked
for Jacob Wraxall.”

Her eyes grew enthused. “So you
are
a
student of the occult. But since when?”

“Since, well, a few days ago, I guess, but I
wouldn’t call myself a
student.
It’s just kind of
interesting to me.”

“Hmm. Well. Callister Rood was a fledgling,
not a genuine warlock. And it was more than merely the occult they
were interested in. It was
deviltry.
”

Deviltry. “I remember that word on Wraxall’s
grave. It was one of the crimes he was charged with, right?”

“And found very guilty of, yes. The
premeditated solicitation of the devil, to incur favor by making
oblation, homage, and sacrifice to Lucifer, which, when practiced
with faith, results in future actions in which the devil personally
assists.
This
was what Wraxall, and in a sense, Rood as
well, were up to. But Wraxall was the true sorcerer. Rood was his
underling, and the muscle for Wraxall’s dirty-work.” Letitia popped
her brows. “There was a lot of dirty work, trust me.”

Confused, Fanshawe looked back at Rood’s
likeness in murky oil paint. “But why is his picture hanging on
your
wall?
”

Now that the palm-reading session was in
stasis, Letitia slouched back on the couch. Fanshawe remained
standing when she began, “I don’t know how much of the story you
got from the Baxters, but back then no one in town would’ve
suspected Wraxall of having anything to do with the devil
worship—”

Fanshawe remembered the explanation.
“Because everybody loved him, right? He paid for the town’s
improvements and loaned money to the locals.”

“Exactly. In fact, Wraxall’s character was
so unimpeachable that the townspeople didn’t suspect him of heresy
even after Evanore was executed.”

“Execution by barreling,” Fanshawe
added.

“Yeah. Pretty groaty folks back then. But
Wraxall himself built most of the town. He even built the church.
He never missed a Sunday service except for a few times he was
traveling abroad. Anyway, Evanore was caught red-handed with her
coven, performing a conjuration, a ritual that required the use of
the blood from newborn babies. So that was the end of her.”

“Right,” Fanshawe recalled. “But Wraxall
himself wasn’t suspected of any heresies until years later—”

“Four years later, to be exact. In 1675.
Some witnesses saw Wraxall performing a Black Mass in the woods,
and after his death, they found his diary, which spilled the awful
beans about what he and Evanore had really been up to since Evanore
had entered puberty. Do you…” Letitia fidgeted. “Did anyone tell
who how they got the newborn babies for their blood rituals?”

All Fanshawe could say was, “Yes.”

“Oh, good. I really don’t get a kick out of
repeating
that.
But anyway, Wraxall’s diary—which was
eventually acquired by the Baxters when their family bought the
inn— implicated Rood as well. So Rood’s name was big time mud just
like Wraxall’s. See, Rood’s relatives were so ashamed by the
terrible things Rood did, they had to completely dissociate
themselves. So they changed their name.”

Fanshawe looked intently at her.

“From Rood to Rhodes.”

“Ah.
Your
last name.”

She nodded. “Callister Rood’s parents built
this house. I’m one of his direct descendants.” She held up her
hands. “
That’s
why his picture’s on my wall. Not that I
think highly of him. But I keep it there as kind of a curiosity
piece for tourists who have questions.”

Tourists like me,
Fanshawe thought.
Unbidden, though, he needed to know, “Was Rood executed too?” All
too well, he remembered his visions from last night. “Or did he
commit suicide?”

Letitia’s gaze darted to Fanshawe. “He
hanged himself. I didn’t think I told anyone that, including the
Baxters, because I figured the inn’s history was grim enough. Old
Baxter wouldn’t want guests finding out an apprentice warlock
strung himself up on the property.”

“But the Baxters
didn’t
tell me.”

“Then who did? There’s no record of it. All
the documents kept by the High Sheriff and the scrivener of the
court were lost in fire in 1701.”

Fanshawe stalled, then lied, “Just a hunch.”
What could he say?
Oh, I saw Rood hanging by the neck last night
with the Witch-Water Looking-Glass. See, I’d taken it up to Witches
Hill to peep in windows because I’m a pervert…

“Just a hunch, huh?” Her smile crossed with
a disbelieving smirk.

“Makes sense for Rood to hang himself in
order to avoid the ‘death-by-barreling that Wraxal and his daughter
suffered.”

“Evanore, yes, but actually, Wraxall himself
didn’t die by barreling—”

Fanshawe rubbed his chin. “I could’ve sworn
Abbie or Mr. Baxter said he was executed similarly…”

Suddenly Letitia slumped more on the couch.
“If you really want to know about this gross stuff, I’ll tell you,
but you have to promise not to repeat it to Abbie or her father.
I’m on good terms with them, I guess, but I don’t really know them
that well. They might get mad at me for not telling them everything
I know. They might think I was smearing their hotel.”

Fanshawe cut to the chase, still standing in
front of the picture. “I promise not to repeat anything you say, to
anyone.”

She looked as though she barely believed
him. “Wraxall died in the house. He’d been arrested once by the
sheriff, put in jail, but somehow Wraxall escaped, probably with
Callister Rood’s help. The same night of his escape, he died in the
room with the attic trapdoor.”

Fanshawe gulped loudly.

“When the sheriff and his men went to
re-capture Wraxall, they found him dead. His heart had been cut
out.”

“Ooo,” Fanshawe uttered.

“After the witness reports, it was always
believed that the townsfolk were so enraged over Wraxall’s
blasphemous deceptions that they didn’t even want to wait for a
trial—”

“So they took matters into their own
hands?”

Letitia nodded. “And sliced him open and cut
out his heart.”

“But you said it’s always been
thought
that that happened.”

“Um-hmm. I’ve already told you Wraxall left
a diary—”

Fanshawe almost but not quite interrupted
her to reveal that the warlock actually had
two
diaries, one
of which he’d just found last night, but the desire to say so
retreated back into him like a spring-loaded tape-measure.

“—but Callister Rood, my charming ancestor,
left one too. Nobody’s seen it—”

“Nobody but you,” Fanshawe presumed.

The awkward woman touched her lip,
appraising Fanshawe. “Would you like to see it?”

“I’d appreciate it very much.”

Letitia got up, disappeared into another
room, then returned as fast. She passed Fanshawe a small book of
mottled dark-blue leather whose binding was merely a string of
tanned hide tied through the folded creases of parchment, just like
Wraxall’s diary. He opened to a random page. Also like Wraxall’s
diary, most of the stanzas of scribbling were blurred by the
passage of time; however,
un
like it, the diction was a lot
less sophisticated than Wraxall’s, indicating a lower level of
education.

Last nighte-time so did I kiddnap yung
Ann Clark from her beddroom, a girl known to be thick of wit and
slow of mind. Uncomely, she be as wel, but that matters naught, so
spake the Squire. Afore this act, I lit ye Hand of Glory on ye
threshold, which werk’d so potently that nevur once did Mr. or Mrs.
Clark stir from their slumbering, potent enough in the fact that
I—impatiently as is oft my wont—engag’d in karnel knowlidge with
Mrs. Clark, and on my honur never did she wake dispite the vigur
with witch I put my seed in her. Wearupon I next comence to abscond
with yung Ann through whose mouth I ty’d a smitch of flannel to
hold her tongue, and lash’d her wrists. Into ye Squire’s house I
took her, where ye Squire stood in wait, seaming qwyte pleas’d. I
rend’d ye girl in ye attick chamber and hall out her innards whilst
Squire Wraxall reed especial words of intursseshuns for coming Rite
of Beltane, which he dost call
preeker
-
sory
prayers.

Fanshawe realized,
Rood’s describing the
abduction of a child or young woman, for some Satanic rite that
must serve as a precursor to a more important ritual.
The bald
acknowledgment right there on the page made Fanshawe feel frozen in
place. He flipped forward, finding that many passages were even
more illegible than Wraxall’s diary. Midway, though, he deciphered
this:
To-daye I ask ye Squire why no longer he partake of ye
pleashures of Evanore’s loynes as dost he hath many tymes afore so
to make ye babys for ye grist of our Master, so he spake bak to me:
“Good sarvant Rood, ye evill prokreeayshun which so thralls our
Benefactor is—yea—a yung man’s art, and a vital man’s privalige who
mayest be one with Lucifer. Lo, in my long yeers, I mine own self
am not anye longer so vital,” and aft’r shewing a calm countenance,
he so explayn’d verily that in his age he hast lost his manly
vitality, and that ye seed of his loyns ist like now that uv a
palsy’d man, no longer able to act as once it wuz.

Fanshawe glanced to Letitia. “So Wraxall was
impotent?
”

“Toward the end of his life, yes. From what
I gather, the last three or four babies Evanore gave birth to
weren’t Wraxall’s; he was simply too old—started shooting blanks,
couldn’t swing the bat anymore, you know?”