first the hair, then the private flesh beneath. Only after an extended allotment of time is the iron withdrawn, leaving a smoking indentation in the shape of the Savior’s symbol.
But Patten’s lower lip twitches as if he’s secretly infuriated, while the pastor’s face seems made of stone; for not once through the agonizing ministration did Evanore scream or even flinch. Instead, she simply smiles back at her persecutors as the brand-marks continue to effuse smoke.
More black fog, then the field of Fanshawe’s nightmare shifts, to that of a quiet hillock webbed by footpaths and askew brush. A gray sky yawns over all, low clouds shedding drizzle, as the queue of shackled heretics, now dressed in rags, is led up at musket-point. The sheriff and his deputies take their places about the hill’s crown; so do the town’s citizens. The pastor reads from a Bible, then closes it.
Sheriff Patten steps toward the stoop-shouldered captives. He reads from a scroll…
Abbie’s voice echoes back through the dream’s black blood: “Evanore and the coven were all condemned to death…”
Now, a horse-driven carriage pulls into the town square. Jacob Wraxall gets out with his personal attendant, Callister Rood. Rood bears a large suitcase, then takes a crate down from the coach. A town man immediately rushes over to tell them something silently. Jacob’s reaction is one of alarm. And next?
Jacob is standing in the cemetery, looking solemnly down at some graves.
“Jacob and Callister Rood were abroad in England at the time,” Abbie’s voice wavers; however, a long silence follows, broken only by the sounds of Fanshawe’s quickening breaths. “But when they returned, Jacob’s daughter had already been executed…”
(II)
Was it the sound of a growling dog that Fanshawe woke to? He churned irritably out of his sleep, then sat up.
He grimaced.
At once, the long smear of nightmare poured back like reeking slop through his mind. His subconscious had concocted imagery to accompany Abbie’s grim recital of Wraxall and his daughter. Christ… The dream’s aftermath left him feeling faintly sick; the moderate hangover didn’t help. But then he winced, recalling what had roused him out of his sleep.
A growling dog? He rubbed his face. His eyes ached; they felt dry. I thought I’d heard a dog growling yesterday too, on the hill… But outside, then, he heard a rudely loud motorcycle in the distance. There’s your growling dog…
His brows shot up when he noticed that morning as well as most of the afternoon was already gone. Jesus! How could I have slept so long? For years—for decades, actually—he’d risen at four-thirty in the morning. Now I don’t have to anymore. The Wall Street pressure-cooker was finally behind him; perhaps his body was taking back the rest it had been robbed of after so many years of ceaseless thinking, speculation, buy-outs, and re-organizations.
But this?
He’d slept sixteen hours. Maybe I’m getting a cold… Could the faint headache be a cold coming on rather than too much alcohol last night? But either way… So what? he thought. If I want to sleep sixteen hours, I can. I can do anything I want; I’m on vacation…sort of.
But he felt worn out even with the extra sleep. The dream… Why would a dream —unpleasant but not excruciating—cause such exhaustion? The Witch-Blood Shooters, he suspected. Smart move, Fanshawe. At least the window promised spectacular weather. Now, if I can only enjoy it without feeling like shit… A cool shower helped a little, plus more casual dress, including a lighter sports jacket. Downstairs, he noticed no sign of Abbie or Mr. Baxter. An older woman he hadn’t seen before was preparing to open the bar, while a pair of college-aged waitresses set tables in the dining room, in preparation for the upcoming dinner hour. The Professors, he thought next, noticing several of them browsing the display coves. The long hair and beards were the giveaway. Bloodshot eyes were a giveaway, too, that at least their hangovers must be worse than Fanshawe’s. He heard the elevator open and close, then came a soft, regulated pattering as Harvard and Yale walked briskly down the carpeted hall and across the atrium. They wore blank, midriff running tops today, with no designation, but he thought he saw Harvard glance once at him, then say to her companion, “Where have I seen that guy before?” They jogged out into blazing sunlight and were gone. Fanshawe’s hangover pulsed at his temple. For an instant he thought of inconspicuously following them, to see if they repeated yesterday’s topless coddling at the hidden nook, but then rebuked himself for even considering it. He grabbed some complimentary candies off the check-in desk, then milled around the displays. It was not his own volition that guided him toward the display with the looking-glass, but when he found it—
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
