Witch Water (9 page)

Hmm…

The Witch-Water Looking-Glass lay in a
different position from when he’d first seen it. He couldn’t
imagine why he would take note of such a thing, yet he was certain.
The instrument was inverted; the eyepiece end faced toward the
front desk earlier, whereas now it faced toward the Squire’s
Pub.

Mr. Baxter must’ve taken it out of the
case to show someone,
he reasoned, a perfectly sound
explanation.

So why would he even stop to consider
it?

A cove away, one of the professors could be
heard talking heatedly on his cell phone—an argument no doubt with
his wife. “Oh, so that’s why you want a divorce. Great. Work my ass
off thirty-five years, now you decide you don’t want to be married
anymore, decide you’d rather just take half of everything I worked
for, for
us!
” Fanshawe slipped away, feeling for the man.
Welcome to the Divorce Club, buddy…
But the situation caused
him to think of one of Dr. Tilton’s insinuations several months
ago. “You’re lucky your wife didn’t take you for half of your net
worth, Mr. Fanshawe—that’s what usually happens.” “She got twenty
million and a house in the Hamptons,” he detailed, but then she
asked a question he would never have expected: “Are you…still fond
of her?” “I love her!” he blurted. “I
miss
my wife, but I
don’t expect you to believe that, considering what I did.” Her cool
eyes thinned on him from behind the shining desk. “Did you try to
get back with her?”

“Yes. I
begged
her. I told her I was
in therapy, told her that it was working. I-I told her I
hadn’t…gone on…a peep, in over six months.”

“And what did she say in response?”

Fanshawe had felt dizzy with nausea. “She
didn’t
say
anything, but…well, her response made it clear
that she’d never give me another chance.”

Dr. Tilton touched her chin with the tip of
her finger. “I don’t understand, Mr. Fanshawe. If she didn’t say
anything, on what do you base her negative response?”

Fanshawe had gazed back at the
sterile-voiced psychiatrist, his mouth open. “I…just hung up. Her
response was the sound of vomiting. Just hearing my voice made her
physically ill.”

It had been the only time he’d witnessed the
following expression from Tilton: pity.

Fanshawe groaned at the recollection, then
quickened his pace out of the hotel.

More than a sparse number of tourists
strolled the town’s streets. A slim woman in a furniture shop
leaned over to inspect the panel-work of an armoire. Fanshawe’s
eyes locked on her body, imagining it nude, but when some inkling
of being looked at caused her to glance up at him, the fantasy
collided with his shame.
Shit! What am I doing?
He quickly
pretended to be looking at an umbrella stand right next to her.
I’m eyeballing women in broad daylight!
He walked off, hands
behind his back, as if he hadn’t noticed her returning stare. But
no sooner had he crossed the block he caught himself staring up at
rowhouse windows.

His self-disgust raged.
What the hell’s
wrong with me? I just got a date with a really nice girl but I’m
out here…doing this.

“Top’a the day to ya, sir,” the easily
recognized voice cut into him. Mrs. Anstruther smiled at him from
her kiosk. “Out for a stroll, are you?”

“Yes, Mrs. Anstruther. It’s quite a day for
it.” But was there something
sly
about her smile? It lifted
wrinkles on her face to something mask-like, which made him feel as
though a cunning assessment were being taken of him. He knew it was
pure paranoia on his part, to think for even a moment that she’d
guessed his intent when looking up at the windows.

“Quite a day, yes, sir, a lovely day,
indeed. The acme of summer’s what we’d call a day like this back
home.”

Fanshawe smiled at her pronunciation of the
word “summer.” It had sounded more like
soomer.

“Garnerin’ up your nerve, perhaps? To have a
peek inside the waxworks, sir?”

“Not today, Mrs. Anstruther.”

“Nor the palmist’s, hmm?”

“Not likely. I think I’ll take another walk
around the trails. They were really interesting. And Abbie
mentioned an ancient graveyard.”

“Oh, there’s an ancient graveyard, there
is—a marble orchard’s what we’d call ’em back home, but that phrase
don’t seem to ’ave catched on in the States. Not that you’ll find
much marble in the graveyard of what you’re speakin’. ’N’fact, the
west end don’t got
nothin’
in the way’a markers, sir, ’cept
for some splotchy stuff what they wrote the name’s of the dead in
with their fingers.”

This woman can RAMBLE,
Fanshawe
thought. “Yeah, Abbie mentioned something about that. Tabby, I
think she called it. Low-grade concrete.”

“Right she and you is, sir. And as for the
little boneyard as what you was mentionin’, least the
unconsecrated
one, it’s sure as His Majesty King Charles
were buried in Windsor that Jacob Wraxall and his ’orrible daughter
was buried there. But it’s the
daughter’s
grave, sir,
Evanore
Wraxall’s, that you’ll likely as not find the more
queer.”

“
Queer?
”

“Yes, sir. It ain’t like what you’d
expect.”

Fanshawe showed her a snide glance. “Queer
in what way, Mrs. Anstruther?”

She tittered with a wave of a bony hand.
“Oh, best I not spoil if for ya. Best you’d find out yourself, yes,
sir.”

Up to her old tricks again.
“I see,”
he said, chuckling. “Well, I appreciate your consideration.”

“Oh, but, sir, please pardon my makin’
mention of it, though I did happen to spy a pair of birds, not more
than a minute or two ago—no, it couldn’t’a been more than that—two
rather
smart
looking birds which seemed to be ’eadin’ same
way as you.”

Fanshawe’s brow creased.
Birds?
but
then he figured her vernacular.
She means two women.

“
Quite
smart, yes, sir,
quite
smart, indeed, all dressed in some downright scant exercisin’
apparel.” She winked at him. “Handsome man like yourself? You might
want to have a look round for ’em.”

Fanshawe stood still.
Oh, she means
Harvard and Yale,
but before he could reply, she prattled
further, “And please don’t be put off by my sayin’ so, but seein’
as it’s obvious you’re not sporting no weddin’ ring, you just might
be doin’ them a kind
service
to chat ’em up a bit.”

Fanshawe sighed.
Now she’s a matchmaker.
Great.
“Actually, ma’am, a walk is all I’m looking for
today.”

“Oh, sir, yes, sir, and what a splendid day
it is to be about a walk. The weather couldn’t be more propitious,
er, what I mean is favorable. In fact, a day like today’s what we
called the acme of summer where I come from”—she faltered.
“Or…might I have already mentioned that, sir?”

“No, ma’am,” he lied. “It’s an apt
description.” Fanshawe couldn’t resist; he put a ten-dollar bill in
her tip jar.

“
Gracious
me, sir, and blow me down!
’Tis a higher place in Heaven which awaits men of a generous heart,
yes, sir. Says so in the
Bible,
it does. And a heart
generous as yours, sir? ’Tis likely the size of a bloomin’
haggis.”

Fanshawe could’ve reeled at her antics
now.

“Thank you, sir!”

“You’re welcome, Mrs. Anstruther, and have a
great day.”

He stepped away, amused by her continued
outpouring of gratitude in the outrageous accent. But in just
moments he found himself strolling by the Travelodge, and he felt
his shoulders slump.
Don’t look, don’t look,
he begged
himself. Frolic was heard, shrill summer laughter, and splashing.
He was passing the pool, with all those enticing windows running
behind and over it. He could hear his teeth grinding as he hurried
away, so wanting to look, but demanding of himself that he do no
such thing. When he was safely past, he was shaking in place.

God, I am SO screwed up…

But his resistance didn’t make him feel
better once he’d outdistanced the temptation. He found the signs,
then the trails themselves almost unconsciously, and was wending
upward in a daze. What was it? Passing what was surely a bounty of
bikini-clad women by the pool? Knowing that somewhere among these
dirt- and gravel-scratch paths the two beautiful joggers
lurked?

He walked more quickly, trying to empty his
mind.

His feet took him higher and higher up the
grassy hillocks until he found himself close to the highest peak,
peering between the hulks of two unruly bushes. The bushes’ smelled
foul. Yes, he was peering…

Oh, for God’s sake…

He was peering back toward town. In the
blaze of sun, the buildings—and their scores of windows—blazed back
at him. A change of angle next, then the pool threw white, wobbling
light into his eyes. When he squinted, he detected the tiny shapes
of swimmers and sunbathers, and when he raised the squint…

He cursed himself.

Even at this distance, he could make out the
rows and rows of first- and second-floor windows at the Travelodge.
On the balconies of several units, the tiniest human shapes became
evident. Fanshawe’s conscience felt split down the middle, one half
relieved that he was too far away to see anyone in detail, the
other half enraged that he no longer carried any of his erstwhile
optical devices. He stepped away from the useless vantage
point.

Stray walking occupied the next quarter of
an hour. First came the peak of Witches Hill…and along with it a
shimmy in his gut. Next, he found himself again examining the odd
rain barrel at the clearing’s fringe, and its ten-inch-wide hole
which made no sense. With less conscious thought, though, he
drifted over to the meager stand of trees that he knew overlooked
the lower clearing—the clearing where he’d spied on the topless
joggers. There’d been no sign of the women among the trails, and no
sign of them now continuing their secret embrace: the lower
clearing stood bare.

Minutes later, he discovered the next sign,
one he’d missed on his first expedition. HAVER-TOWNE CEMETERY, the
sign informed. EST. 1644. Its layout was long and narrow, and
girded by a crude and well-rusted iron gate. The farthest perimeter
was studded with teetering tombstones whose inscriptions were
barely legible from the sheer passage of time; some of the stones’
actual edges had abraded as well. With some effort, Fanshawe made
out dates from the seventeen- and sixteen-hundreds. But the stones
seemed rather paltry in number, then he remembered Mrs.
Anstruther’s comment about a sparsity of them. In all, the word
decrepit seemed an ideal description of the place.

But most of the perimeter within the gate
lacked any extruding markers at all, which leant the cemetery a
bizarre disproportion.
Where’s this tabby stuff Abbie and the
old woman were talking about?
he wondered. The position of the
sun led him into the western portion of the graveyard. Sure enough,
as he looked down into sprawls of weeds, he made out the crude
patches of cement on the ground with names and dates finger-grooved
in them. Another sign told him: THIS IS THE WEST END OF THE
CEMETERY, THE UNCONSECRATED END. COUNTLESS WITCHES, HERETICS, &
CRIMINALS HAVE BEEN BURIED HERE…

Fanshawe shuffled around the patches.
Bodies down there, skeletons,
he thought. Images formed in
his head, images of the long-buried. He took extra care not to step
on any of the patches. Many of these were even less legible than
the bonafide stones, but in a moment he had stopped, gone down on
one knee, and peered.

One patch read: JACOB WRAXALL, 1601-1675
CONVICKT’D OF SORCERIE, DEVILTRIE, & INFERNALL PROPHESIE. And
the next patch: EVANORE WRAXALL, 1645-1671 CONVICKT’D OF
WITCH-CRAFT & DIABOLIK CONSORTE.
Four-year
difference,
 Fanshawe calculated. But he was already jarred
by his most immediate observation.
What have we here?

At the foot of the patch that marked Evanore
Wraxall’s final resting place, there was an oblong hole, as if the
coffin had collapsed…

…or been exhumed and removed.

Fanshawe tweaked his chin. So this was the
answer to Mrs. Anstruther’s cryptic comment, referring to the grave
plot as “queer.” For sure, in the area of space below which must be
occupied by the corpse, there was a distinct indentation, almost as
though that particular spot of ground had eroded, nearly like an
old sinkhole.

There was nothing else to presume other than
the body must have been removed a very long time ago.

So much for a decent burial.

Several crows screeched at him from a high
tree, but the birds looked sickly, bare patches showing. Large pink
circles surrounded their tiny black eyes where feathers had fallen
out; Fanshawe thought of negative omens. But his previous
absent-mindedness returned; he was walking without thinking. Could
this be the better part of his conscience blocking more thoughts of
voyeurism? Next thing he knew, he’d entered another clearing not
far off from the graveyard. He stood still, his eyes addressing a
stone pedestal of some sort, about four feet high, and tapering as
it rose. At first he guessed it might be a more elaborate
grave-marker but then found no plaque or chisel-work to identify
the interred.

Sitting atop the pedestal was a tarnished
metal sphere.

It was slightly smaller than a soccer ball.
Fanshawe’s impression was that the sphere was brass, for age had
tarnished it to a deep patina over which a tracery of whitish
incrustation had developed. This reminded him of the calcium
deposits that frequently accumulate around faucet spouts. Cleaned
of its patina the object would be impressive to look at; now,
however, it was an eyesore.
I wonder what… Oh, this must be the
ball that Abbie mentioned last night when I was leaving the
bar.