Witch Water

fact that your obsession cost you your marriage is proof of its destructive properties—”

“It cost me more than that, it cost me millions in settlement money. Not to mention what my own shylock lawyers fleeced out of me.”

A berating smirk reverted the chisel-sharp woman back to middle age. “And, as we’ve also discussed, it’s your good fortune that your ex-wife agreed to settle out of court rather than taking the matter public. You’re luckier still to have been able to engage the lawyers who got you acquitted criminally. It seems to me that you can hardly argue with their competence.”

Fanshawe’s sigh conceded to her. “I know, you’re right. I’m lucky that I had the money, and that I’ve made something of myself.”

“Yes, and you’d do well to remember that. It could’ve been much worse. Instead, your therapy has gone well, you’ve defeated your paraphilic tendencies, but now…”

“I can’t come to a shrink for the rest of my life.”

The woman’s immaculately manicured nails strummed once on the desktop. “Correct. It’s time to move on, to remove yourself from the…” She raised a finger, like an elementary school teacher attempting to goad answers from her students, to test their attention. “From the what, Mr. Fanshawe?”

He almost sputtered. “From the purveying environment—”

“Exactly. In other words, the environment which provides you with the target-objects of your…problem.”

“That might be tough. My companies—”

“Your companies run themselves, you’ve said so many times. You don’t need to be in the city anymore, Mr. Fanshawe. My advice? Now? Go somewhere far away for six months at least, someplace different, someplace therapeutic.”

“Okay. But where?”

And here was the where, as he now drove on roads he’d never seen, through a state whose sheer beauty nearly shocked him. Yes, he’d been in the city far, far too long, while his constant business trips of the past had taken him to still more cities—all the same, just different names. He felt abstractedly naked for once not being surrounded by skyscrapers and urban rush hour. Dr. Tilton’s voice seemed to trace behind his mind: Where? Somewhere you’ve never been, the country perhaps, fresh air, the great outdoors. Someplace where your former demons can no longer tempt you into a relapse…

A half an hour later, the large wood-stained sign greeted him: WELCOME TO HAVER-TOWNE, NEW HAMPSHIRE - POP. 154 - EST. 1641. “So I guess this is it,” he told himself, idling the Audi over Main Street’s paving of intricate cobblestones. Quaint shops and cafes lined either side, all surprisingly new for a town founded so long ago. Progress, he figured. It’s just another tourist town. I’ll bet there’s even a Starbucks, and at the exact moment he’d thought that, a Starbucks did indeed come into view; and next, a Travelodge. Down the road, however, a meeting hall could be seen, and a church of painted clapboard; its steeple lacked a bell, sporting instead a figure of Christ with outstretched arms.

For whatever reason, Fanshawe wished that at least some of the town’s structures went back to older times, and now his wish was being granted. BACK STREET, announced the sign at the next turn; Fanshawe followed his Mapquest printout, then marveled at the difference. Here shops were called “Shoppes,” old brick rather than new ones comprised walls, while several antique dealers sat in a queue, boasting storefronts that could’ve been a hundred years old. There were even old horse-posts and feeding troughs, probably fabricated, but Fanshawe still liked the feel they rendered to the town at large. He smiled, then, when he passed a tavern called YE OLDE DRAUGHT-HOUSE. It was all for show, he knew, but any appearance other than the metropolic was the appearance he craved.

Metropolises were rife with windows, more than the eye could count. Fanshawe knew that windows were, to him, what drugs were to the addict…

Sedate pedestrians strolled along the sidewalk, passing shops that one would expect in such a place: candle shops, a glass-blower, Colonial prints, “Georgian Era” furniture, a tobacconist’s, a chocolatier’s. More horse-posts passed him, then an elevated “town-crier” pedestal complete with a dummy crier. Next, he slowed to eye what appeared to be an authentic pillory, imagining some poor petty thief centuries ago on humiliating display and a target for rotten tomatoes. Behind it sat several old men chatting in rocking chairs, one of whom unbelievably smoked a long, thin-stemmed meerschaum pipe.

“Here it is,” Fanshawe verified to himself. Shadows crossed his face, and then he parked before a manse- style, four-story hotel built with an impressive cross-gable. Next he noticed the old-fashioned swing-sign: THE WRAXALL INN - A HISTORIC HOTEL, yet a smaller sign beside it read: WELCOME TO THE SALEM OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.

“The Salem of New Hampshire, huh?”

He got out of the Audi, then peered down the street, noticing that virtually no residential buildings or other hotels could be seen from this vantage point. Any other time, the discovery would have irked him but now it brought relief.

“Not a lot of windows for prying eyes…”

He’d long ago discarded his mini-binoculars and other voyeur’s gear, vowing to never own such instruments again.

The hotel’s pre-Revolutionary decor pleased him a great deal, in spite of its being a bit exaggerated. Greeting him in the small, cozy atrium was a six-foot high oil painting of George Washington in full military accouterments, standing proud next to another officer.

“No, Washington never slept here,” a crisp, crackly voice declared behind him. Fanshawe turned to face a stout, amiable-appearing man with a bald head and visor like an old bank teller. He looked in his sixties. “But the man next to him did, General Nathanael Greene. Greene kicked Cornwallis right in the tail, he did. Turned the tide of the war.”

“I’m afraid I’m not up on the Revolution,” Fanshawe said, “but it’s quite an imposing painting.”

“And though Washington never stayed here,” the man continued, bemused, “he did get drunk in the Draught House after the surrender. They still have the same stool that he sat on.”

Fanshawe doubted it but he was entertained by the thought. “I’ll have to sit on it sometime, and feel closer to history.”

The bald man let out a crotchety laugh, then extended his hand. “I’m Bill Baxter. Would you be—”

“Stew Fanshawe,” Fanshawe said and shook hands.

“Glad to have you, Mr. Fanshawe. Follow me up and I’ll show you your room. I hope you’ll be pleased—when you booked online, the suite you wanted was unavailable—”

“Yeah, but that’s no big deal,” Fanshawe said and began to follow Baxter’s stout frame up a curving stairwell.

“No, but I was about to say, the man who’d booked it previously…left earlier than we expected, so the room is yours.”

“That’s great,” but Fanshawe had detected something odd about Baxter’s revelation, a pause, a hesitation that seemed undue. Why didn’t he just say the guy checked out early?

The heavily carpeted fourth-floor hall stood as rife with antique furniture as the rest of the hotel. Ensconced marble busts seemed to take brooding stock of him as Fanshawe passed. Baxter led him through an immaculate nine-paneled door into a plush two-chamber suite which could have passed for the rooms of a Colonial governor or eighteenth-century plantation owner: aged paneling, a carven-mantled fireplace, faux candles in genuine Sheffield holders, ornately tasseled throw carpets, etc. A wood-stained armoire occupied one corner, with fine brass fixtures. The bed was a great high four-poster without veils.

“This really is something,” Fanshawe complimented. He felt already at ease by the place. A glance through a dormer window showed him sharp sunlight bathing the cobblestones and store-faces below, while a cushioned bow window on the wall perpendicular revealed mellow green hills, a grassy rise of hillocks, and, beyond, the fringe of the forest belt. The sights calmed Fanshawe faster than a Xanax. “I couldn’t ask for a better room,” he finally said. “It’s just the change of surroundings I need.”

Baxter grinned, thumbing out of date suspenders. “A city fella, I take it?”

“New York, New York.”

“No surprise, sir. Lotta city folks come to Haver-Towne for a quick weekend getaway. No rat race here, no