Witch Water (6 page)

She was putting up glasses in an overhead
rack. “Oh, I know, and that was some crew. The New England
Phenomenology Society have their annual conference here every
year.”

Fanshawe winced. “The Phenoma—
what
Society?”

“Phenomenology,” Abbie chuckled.

“What is
that?
”

“They explained it to me a dozen times but I
still don’t know. Some kind of philosophy. They’re mostly
professors from Ivy League colleges.”

Fanshawe nodded. “Now that you mention it,
they did look like a bunch of professors—”

She made an expression of incredulity.
“Yeah, but they drink like a bunch of
students.
If we had a
chandelier in here, those guys would be swinging from it—party
animals, I’ll tell ya. I’m not complaining—they tip great—but it’s
not easy getting hit on by a couple dozen sixty-year-old
eggheads.”

Fanshawe tried to think of something clever
to say but stalled when Abbie placed another glass in the overhead
rack. Her posture when she’d reached up accentuated her figure and
thrust her breasts.

He cringed and pried his gaze away.

“So what did you do today?” she asked.

He pulled up a stool. “Checked out the shops
on Main and Back Street, looked around, then went for a long
walk.”

She grinned. “Witches Hill?”

“You got it. I couldn’t resist the signs. It
was Mrs. Anstruther who recommended the trails.”

“Oh, now
there’s
a character—” Abbie
leaned over and whispered, “Every now and then she comes in here
and gets crocked, drinks
Boiler Makers,
and she’s in her
late-eighties! You wouldn’t believe the stories she has.”

“Somehow…I think I would. She practically
dared me to go into the wax museum, as if it’d be too much for
me.”

“It’s plenty realistic, that’s for sure.”
Now she was restocking the reach-in coolers. “The torture chamber
can
be a little over the top—definitely not for kids. Some
of the sets gave me nightmares when I first saw them.”

Fanshawe diddled with a bar napkin. It was
difficult diverting himself from her presence. “But you guys really
do pump up the witch-motif, huh?”

She paused, a bottle in hand. The label
read: WITCH’S MOON LAGER. “Well, sure, we exaggerate it all, for
the sake of the tourists.”

“It’s good business.
Market-identification.”

“My father thinks it’s silly. Silly
drivel,
he calls it—”

“But he owns the place, doesn’t he?”

“Yep. My grandfather bought the inn in the
fifties, and when he died, my father inherited it. We’ve been
running it ever since.”

“But if he thinks the witch theme is silly,
why does he push it?”

She splayed her hands. “Because he knows it
can make a buck, but he
still
thinks it’s—and I
quote—
silly drivel.
”

Fanshawe asked automatically, “You
don’t?”

Now her pause lengthened. “In a way. But
it’s also history, and
that’s
interesting. These things
really happened back then, when our culture was in its
infancy.”

What is it about her?
Fanshawe was
hectored by the thought. He struggled for more to talk about. She
turned her back to him for a moment, to arrange strainers and
jiggers, then was agitating something in a shaker. Her reflection
stood beside herself, while Fanshawe’s eyes had no choice but to
fall on her back and buttocks, on the figure beneath the simple
blouse and jeans: a figure of perfect curves. His eyes adjusted, to
glimpse her face in the reflection as she looked down at the
counter. For an indivisible instant, her own eyes flicked up and
caught his in the mirror—

He gulped.

She turned. A sound—
clink!
—and then a
shot glass was set before him.

Abbie was grinning. “On the house.”

“Thanks…” Fanshawe squinted. Some dark
scarlet liquid filled the glass.

“It’s our drink special,” Abbie announced.
“Could you ever guess?” and then she pointed to the specials board
which read: TRY OUR WITCH-BLOOD SHOOTER!

Fanshawe chuckled. “I barely drink at all
these days but with a name like that how can I resist?” He raised
the glass, peered more closely at it, then looked back to Abbie.
“Wow, this really does look like blood…”

Abbie laughed and tossed her hair. “It’s
just cherry brandy mixed with a little espresso and chocolate
syrup.”

Fanshawe downed the chilled shot neat, then
raised an approving brow.

“Not bad at all.”

Abbie grinned. She grinned a lot. “Just what
you need after a trip to Witches Hill.”

Fanshawe felt, first, the liquor’s chill,
then the delayed bloom of heat spread in his belly; it seemed quite
similar to his “butterflies” when he’d first seen Abbie behind the
bar. “You know, tourist gimmick or not, it was pretty unnerving,
standing in the middle of a place where executions occurred.”

“Oh, they occurred, all
right—
wholesale.
Thirteen in one day, and a over a hundred
more for decades after that. In truth, there were far more folks
executed for occult offenses than criminal offenses. Some claim to
fame, huh? Did you see the graveyard?”

“No. I didn’t know there was one.”

“Well, there is, believe me, and it’s ten
times creepier. Half of it’s unconsecrated ground; it’s on the
western end of the hill. Unconsecrated burial grounds are always
located to the west or north of a town’s church.”

Fanshawe opened his small map on the bar. “I
don’t remember noticing it on this—”

“There,” she said, pointing. Her fingertip
touched next to a minuscule cross on the colorful map.

“No wonder I didn’t see it, it’s tiny,” but
then he looked up, his eyes following the line of her arm. It was
an unconscious tactic for any “scoptophile” or voyeur: Abbie’s
blouse—as she leaned down slightly to address the map—had looped
out between two buttons. Fanshawe glimpsed part of a sizable breast
sitting within a sheer bra. A ghost of a nipple could be seen
through the light fabric.

Oh, God…
“I’ll check it out
tomorrow,” he recovered.

“And there aren’t many regular tombstones,
either,” she went on. “Just splotches of this stuff called tabby
mortar.”

“Tabby mortar?”

“Yeah. It’s like low-grade cement. The
convict’s name would be written in this stuff by someone’s
finger—you’ve got to see it to know what I mean.”

Fanshawe had trouble concentrating on her
words, still too hijacked by her image, by her simple proximity.
Whatever shampoo she used didn’t help; the soft, fruity scent
affected him aphrodisiacally. But when he recollected what she’d
said, he wasn’t sure if she spoke with genuine interest or—
Is
she just laying a bunch of tourist crap on me? Same as the old
lady?
“I guess it’s just more of the motif, that and the power
of suggestion. But it was a good marketing ploy to name the hotel
after”—he faltered, for the name drew a blank. “Jacob… What was his
name?”

“Jacob Wraxall, one of the founding members
of the town. He lived here with his daughter, Evanore—”

Fanshawe remembered with some unease the old
portrait and Wraxall’s thin, sinister face. The rendition of the
daughter, however, struck him with an even more ominous impact.
Evanore…
Her fresh-blood-colored hair sent a butterfly of a
far less pleasant type to his belly. Fanshawe felt a momentary
whooze…

He shook the image out of his head, then
looked back up at Abbie. The clean, guileless good looks made him
whooze again—sexually, though. He cleared his throat. “Jacob
Wraxall, yes, and his daughter Evanore. Your father pointed out the
portrait in one of the coves.” He tapped a finger on the bar,
half-remembering a blank face half-submerged in shadow. “And there
was a third person too, wasn’t there? A yard-hand or
something?”

“Um-hmm. Callister Rood, but he was more
than a yard-hand. He was the family apprentice necromancer.”

“That’s some job title,” Fanshawe tried to
jest, but it didn’t come off.

Abbie’s voice lowered, either as if she were
playing her description up for drama’s sake, or she was genuinely
unsettled. “It was in this very house that they solicited the
devil.”

The devil,
Fanshawe thought. But the
notion of devil-worship, and even the name—the devil—was so hokey
he had to smile.

Abbie’s smile had disappeared. “They
practiced their witchcraft in secret. Years went by, but the town
never knew.”

“Well,
someone
must’ve known—”

“Of course, but a lot of time went by before
anyone found out. Evanore was the one who got caught first.” She
leaned closer against the bar, her voice nearly fluttering. “She
and the coven were all condemned to death.”

“Evanore but not her father?” Fanshawe asked
logically. “Why didn’t Jacob get nabbed too?”

“Jacob was abroad in England at the time,
and Callister Rood had gone with him. But when they returned, his
daughter had already been executed and buried.”

“But Jacob must’ve been into witchcraft even
more than her. I didn’t see any books in your display about her,
only Jacob.”

Abbie stepped away, as if to separate
herself from something that had fazed her. She began to arrange the
fruit cups in the service bar. “Jacob Wraxall was the most
notorious heretic of his day. But that shows you how smart he was.
Nobody suspected him until much later, after so much damage had
already been done.” Finally, her grin returned. “You’re staying in
his room, by the way.”

Fanshawe gave a start after the words
registered. “You’re
kidding
me.”

“Nope,” but then she winced. “I’m sorry I
mentioned it—sometimes I get a little carried away with this stuff.
But no one’s ever complained about the room, Stew—it’s the best one
in the house. I mean…if it bothers you, I’d be happy to put you
somewhere else—”

“No, no, that’s not it. I don’t believe in
ghosts or anything like that. The room is great, but there’s just
something…odd, knowing whose it was…” Suddenly the most gruesome
possibilities occurred to him; he looked up, sheepish. “Please
don’t tell me he boiled cats and made blood-sacrifices up
there.”

“Nope. The only thing that went on in
that
room was…” She turned quickly to clean more glasses in
the triple-sink, and yet again the image of her slammed into
Fanshawe’s senses. She pumped the soiled glasses up and down on two
pointed brushes sticking up from the sink. This activity, of
course, caused her to lean over, highlighting her cleavage.

Fanshawe repressed an audible sign; he had
to force his eyes anywhere but on her. He knew she wasn’t doing it
on purpose.

Then his attention snapped back on.
“Wait—what? The only thing that went on in that room
was?
You never finished.”

She smiled, aloof, tossing a shoulder as she
plunged two more glasses into the sink. “It’s nothing, Stew. I
shouldn’t be talking about it—”

“Come on,” he urged, almost raising his
voice. “You can’t start to say something, then
stop.
It’s
not fair.”

She poured him another shot, then whispered.
“My father would
kill
me if he knew I was telling you all
this.”

“Why? All you’re doing is talking up the
witch motif. You even told me the sign out front was your
father’s
idea.”

“He’d just get really pissed at me. Some
people are turned off by that sort of stuff. I don’t want my father
thinking I’m scaring off guests.”

Fanshawe couldn’t imagine why he even cared,
but— “Abbie,
I’m
the one who asked.”

She stood upright at the sink, her hands
wet. “All right. You want to know what Wraxall did in that room?
I’ll tell you.” She tapped a foot. “No one would’ve suspected in a
million years, because Wraxall regularly attended church—”

“But I thought all witches and warlocks did
that. If they didn’t, then they’d be suspected instantly.”

“Exactly. But Wraxall was also a bigwig in
the town. He built the roads, he built the first schoolhouse, he
loaned money to farmers. Everybody loved him. Only his diary
revealed was what really going on in that room upstairs.”

Fanshawe stared. “Abbie? Are you going to
tell me, or do I have to guess?”

Now she seemed outright uncomfortable. She
let out a long sigh. “There was…quite of bit of…you know…”

“No. I
don’t
 know. That’s why I
asked ten minutes ago.”

“Quite a bit of incest went on in that room
for quite a while.”

Fanshawe blinked. Seconds ticked by. “Oh,
you mean with Evanore.”

“Uh-hmm. Pretty icky stuff, and it didn’t
end until Wraxall was well into his seventies, and, well…” She
caught herself, then stepped away. “Be right back, I forgot the bar
towels.”

She disappeared into a side door.

Fanshawe chuckled, shaking his head.
The
old Keep A Jackass In Suspense Routine.
He couldn’t figure her.
Any other time he’d suspect that she was only trying to spark to
his sense of curiosity, and was embellishing detail for the sake of
it. But—

I don’t think so. I can always tell when I’m
being played.

Another scarlet shooter sat before him,
which he’d scarcely noticed. He sipped it this time, thinking.
Incest. Terrific. At least Wraxall was a bigger pervert than I
am,
but that was hardly a consolation.

Through the window, full darkness welled.
Beyond, dim wedges of light from streetlamps cut Back Street up in
a fuzzed luminescence. Fanshawe saw undefined figures wander into
and out of the light, like content specters. Some were holding
hands.
When was the last time I was doing that?

He didn’t answer himself; the realization
was too dismal.
The normal people are out there…