Witch Water

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.

What had she called it? A viewing ball? A gazing ball?

He stepped closer, leaned down, and was able to see markings on the pedestal: swaths of geometric shapes, such as stars, circles, crescents, as well as fairly tiny lines of writing in some language other than English. He took a wild guess and thought Hebrew. But some of the geometric shapes reminded him straightaway of Jacob Wraxall’s brooding portrait and the features of his pendant. To the touch, the pedestal itself must be marble.

But then he rose to inspect the sphere.

Beneath the pallid green tarnish and webworks of crust he thought he noticed outlines of shapes, however faintly. At first he thought the sphere must be a geographic globe depicting the continents, but then he realized that the shapes didn’t correspond at all to anything global.

Fanshawe touched the encrusted orb and found it cold—strangely so, for brass or any similar metal would’ve surely conducted heat from the sun beating down on it all day…

Weird. He stepped back for another more distanced look, tried to figure what purpose lay behind the object, then could only draw blanks. But Abbie had promised to tell him about it, hadn’t she? Tomorrow, he thought with a pleasant twinge, when I take her to dinner. Just then, he allowed himself the luxury of letting Abbie’s image enter his head: her trim shapeliness, the incandescent dove-gray eyes, the exotic alliance of her hair color: auburn with blond. He stood dreamily, musing over the normalness of it all; just a simple dinner date, true, but simplicity and normality were elements that had always eluded him, either that or had been rendered moot by the involutions of his secrets. Just then, the brilliant blue sky seemed to welcome him to a new state of mind…

Then the moment shattered.

Fanshawe twirled in place at an adrenalin dump. It had been the unmistakable sound of a growling dog that had invaded his muse. Not this again! He stood still, eyes darting left and right, poised to flee. It had been much louder this time, as if the animal lurked distressingly close. He’d thought he heard the same sound on this hill already, then he’d even dreamed the sound, hadn’t he? He knew that he could not be mistaken this time.

Careful. Don’t look at its eyes…

His vision pored over the high weeds and tangles of bushes, but in just a few moments, again, he could discern that there was no dog. Next, he walked around the brush for a closer inspection, then found what he’d found previously: nothing. No dog.

What the hell?

Was he hearing things? There had to be some reasonable explanation. Perhaps some other hotel guest was walking their dog, and it happened to snarl along another trail. The idea seemed like an absurd excuse, given the snarl’s tonality but—

All right. Enough. There’s no dog this time, either.

Fanshawe took a final glance at the senseless pedestal and globe, chuckled at this next mishap of hearing a dog that wasn’t there, then turned to continue through the trails, when—

The skin of his face seemed to tighten like shrink wrap, while every tendon and muscle in his body turned taut as stretched wires. This fright doubled that of the imaginary dog-snarl, and he broke into a sprint at this next sound that had caught him so unawares.

There could be no mistake, nor any idle explanation.

What he’d heard was this: a long, high, blood-curdling scream, indisputably that of a woman…

(III)

Fanshawe thought of a plum with its skin chewed off.

A half hour after he’d heard the scream, the manic scene that he’d rushed into became a circumstance that could only be described as funereal. The ambience here seemed to leech power from multiple sets of throbbing red and blue lights. A crowd had formed quickly; the scream had been so shrill it was heard even by those even at the fringe of town. Blanch-faced EMTs were preparing the gurney, while an equally blanched coroner stood aside, signing papers on a clipboard. Several county police officers kept the crowd back; others were cordoning the perimeter, and in the center of all the activity stood a tall, fiftyish county captain who was trying but not quite succeeding in looking stoic. Silence, and a semi-tangible grimness, had settled over everything. Clearly, events such as this never occurred in an area such as Haver-Towne.

Fanshawe’s knees still wobbled from the sight.

“Well, jumpin’ Jesus, I just can’t believe this,” Mr. Baxter muttered next to Fanshawe. “Of all the crazy things to happen.”

“I still can’t quite believe it myself,” Fanshawe said. The aftermath left his throat dry as old leaves. “It seemed more like a dream.”

“So it was you who stumbled onto him?”

Fanshawe shook his head and pointed to the pair of joggers who now looked winded not from exertion but shock. One stood by wide-eyed while the other nervously recited details to a scribbling police officer. “Those two, they were jogging the trails.”

“Aw, yeah. They been here for the convention last couple of years—associate professors I think they are. And what a thing for a couple of gals to run into…”

And run into it they had, literally. Fanshawe had followed the scream to a lower hillock. Evidently the woman in the lead, the bustier of the two, had tripped over some object just protruding from the high grasses that walled the trail. It was her friend who’d seen it and screamed. Fanshawe had arrived just as the first woman’s eyes were rolling back in her head—then she’d fainted.

The obstruction had been a man’s head and shoulders, the rest of the body still concealed in the brush.