Witch Water Read Free

than a blink.
Relics? He must mean Colonial knickknacks. Fanshawe took a slow
walk through both rooms, maintaining approval. He ran his hand over
a lyre-back chair, then peeked through more rich, velvety drapes
over the bedroom’s most westward window, to see still more
luxuriant hills: a comforting vision. “Thank God,” he whispered,
his face to the curtain-edge. “Not a single window to be seen. No target-object access… ”
    More of the room’s details stole his
attention. A miniature wheel-clock ticked from a relief nook in the
wall; a statuette of a Minute Man stood poised, bayoneted musket at
the ready; a small vase spouted delicate roses fashioned from
paper-thin curls of crimson glass. Cool, he thought. But
next he was eyeing a framed engraving, or maybe it was an old
tintype: a rather creepy manor house drenched in moonlight.
Fanshawe moved his face closer, for it seemed that a thin, bent
figure was climbing into a first-floor window. Was there also the
tiniest image of a nude woman inside, screaming at the figure’s
appearance?
    No…, because he blinked and saw that
the “figure” was just an oddly shaped bush. There must’ve been dust
or something in Fanshawe’s eye.
    He wasn’t sure what impelled him to look
upward, but when he did, his eyes found an oblong panel in the
ceiling. Trapdoor? he wondered. More than likely, either an
access way or an attic. Next, he found himself scanning an in-wall
bookshelf, noticing the gilded spines of tomes that appeared to be
very old but actually weren’t when he took some out. They were
merely “classic” editions of Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorn,
Edgar Allen Poe, and the like, made to look old. However,
lower on the shelf…
    Hmm…
    The next book he picked was no “classic” but
instead a calfskin-bound smaller-format book with a faded cover. Ye Witch-Tryalls of Haver-Towne. Fanshawe’s eyes narrowed
when he carefully flipped to the copyright page and found the
printing date: 1699. Immediately, he felt an abstract wallop nearly
like a physical blow. This is REALLY old. It must be quite
valuable, so why was it sitting here? He flipped through pages fine
as rice paper, noticing the tight, antique type-style of the day,
with all nouns capitalized and very often the word “ye” used for
“the.” One page was an elaborate engraving, with the heading: “Ye
Arrest of Jacob Wraxall by High-Sheriff Patten.” The plate depicted
a stout man with a star-shaped badge and a tri-cornered hat,
solemn-faced, escorting a thin older man toward a Colonial
gaol-house. The prisoner wore buckled shoes, knee breeches, and a
pleated tunic front; the expression on his Van Dyked face could
only be described as sinister.
    Fanshawe couldn’t guess why the engraving
had so captivated him. He sat down on the bed to examine the plate
more intently. In the rendition, the prisoner’s wrists were
shackled behind his back…
    Fanshawe stared open-mouthed but it was no
longer the plate he was seeing, it was his not-too-distant past,
when he himself assumed a position similar to that of the prisoner.
It was handcuffs not shackles which immobilized his wrists, and a
police cruiser, not a gaol-house that he was being shoved toward.
“You have the right to remain silent,” he was told by the New York
cop who grasped his arm too hard. Venom hissed out with the
universal words, a repressed disgust. “I got more important things
to do than waste time on a pervert.” Fanshawe was jammed into the
caged back seat; the door slammed in his face. He couldn’t recall
his precise thoughts at that time, only a harrowing numbness. When
the cop drove out of the alley, faces scowled at him from several
lit windows. Fanshawe felt boneless sitting there.
    The cop grimaced over his shoulder. “You
ought to be ashamed of yourself. Successful guy like you pulling a
scumbag move like that? I just don’t get it. What the hell is wrong with people?”
    Through the passenger window, Fanshawe