Witch Water

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.