Witch Water

“Chronic paraphilia? Scoptolagnia?”

He frowned. “Yeah. Do they ever have…you know, hallucinations?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

Suddenly, no force on earth could make him tell her what he thought he’d seen last night. He was afraid of her reaction. “Well…it’s nothing. I just had a bad dream last night, that’s all.”

“I don’t believe you, Mr. Fanshawe, but that’s neither here nor there. When you’re ready to tell me whatever else it is that’s bothering you, then call my office.” Another pause. “Mr. Fanshawe? Did you hear me?”

“Yes, I’ll…I’ll call.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Fanshawe.”

“Yes. Uh, bye.”

Fanshawe put his cell phone away, his face pulled into a fierce smirk. “Fucking behaviorist. Why do I continue to pay to be insulted by that woman?”

But moments later, as he began to stroll the quiet street, he did feel better. Around one corner, he spotted the Travelodge pool but winced and turned away.

He sputtered. Dr. Tilton had said he was a “good man.” He didn’t feel like a bad one but… Would a “good man” want to look in windows? Would a good man do what I did last night on the hill? Maybe I just think I’m a good man—a defense mechanism—but I’m really a bad man…

His hand drifted to his jacket pocket, and felt that the looking glass was still there. Shit…

Good man or bad, he couldn’t lie to himself. He wished he could flee to the hillocks right now and peep at all those tempting bodies at the pool; and stare, stare, stare into all those windows.

Hunk of shit. Just when he’d started feeling better, here came these waves of contemplations, to bring him right back down again…

And next?

He passed the pillory.

He smiled falsely at a middle-aged couple, waited for them to move along, then bent to inspect the ancient punitory device. There was nothing there, on the wood or the pavement below, to indicate that the device had been sullied or occupied in any way. An elderly man walked by with a cane, perhaps one of the professors. “God, that thing makes me sick to my stomach. They say it’s real, been here hundreds of years. God knows how many men and women were tortured in it.”

Off guard, Fanshawe stood up straight. “Yes. I guess the good old days weren’t that good.”

“Disgusting to think the authorities back then put people in that blasted contraption. It’s evil if you ask me.”

Well, I didn’t. Fanshawe was annoyed. “Yes,” he faltered. “Things must’ve been pretty hard back then, and hard measures were the result,” but he wished the old man would go away. Believe it or not, mister, I saw a woman get raped in this thing just a few hours ago, by men in Colonial clothes. He could imagine the elder’s reaction.

The gentleman uttered a few more gripes, then ticked away on his cane.

An ACLU supporter, I guess. Fanshawe stared back at the pillory, and also recalled all he’d thought he’d seen through the looking-glass. It was all just a bad dream. It HAS to be…

“Eyin’ the ole pillory, are ya, sir?” piped up Mrs. Anstruther’s cockney voice. She’d just turned the corner, on her way to her kiosk.

Damn. “Yes, ma’am. It’s…something, all right.”

“Somethin’, indeed. Would ya fancy a picture?”

“Pardon me?”

“What I mean, sir, is I’d be pleased to take a photo of ya in it.”

Fanshawe’s brow ruffled. “What, the pillory?”

“Oh, yes, sir,” and then she lifted the pillory’s top slat. “Quite a few tourists ’ave their pictures took in it. Makes for good conversation, don’t ya think, sir?”

Fanshawe figured she was angling for a tip—today, he wasn’t in the mood. But it would almost be funny if he did have his picture taken in the archaic device. I could send it to Dr. Tilton. “I don’t think so, Mrs. Anstruther, but thanks for the offer.”

She looked at the pillory as if with fascinated interest. “Perfect punishment these buggers was, sir, for folks who was tarnished, as you might say. Steal a gobbet’a meat from the butcher’s? Well in ya go for a day at least. And ladies caught sellin’ thereselfs”—now she whistled—“well, now, those poor things could get up to a week, and with just bread’n water, sir. And blokes got even more’n that for rabble-rousin’ on a Sunday or cheatin’ on their proper wife or sayin’ untruths to the Sheriff. Late on your land rent? In ya go! Why, they’d put a fella in this here pillory for long as they saw fit, even for takin’ a peek in a bird’s window!”

The last bit of information fogged Fanshawe’s mind.

“Anyways, sir, I must be off to me work, but I hope your day’s a jolly one!” She made to leave, but her frail formed paused. She lowered her voice. “And if you’re in want of exercise today, sir, you might be wise ta stay off’a them trails you’ve grown so fond of amblin’ on. Don’t know if ya’ve ’eard, but”—she leaned over—“there been some dirty-work, I’m afraid. Some poor man was murdered on them trails, he was, just yesterday, sir—a man who was stayin’ in your hotel.”

Karswell, Fanshawe thought. Not just my hotel, but my ROOM. He could have done without the reminder. “Yes, I did hear, ma’am,” he said, avoiding the rest. “What a terrible tragedy.”

“Oh, yes, sir, to be sure. So you’re best to keep your distance”—a thought seemed to perk up her tone—“and if you got your steel up, sir, you know you can anyways have a go at the waxworks,” and then she walked off with a smile.

There she goes again. She seemed to be daring him to investigate the wax museum. Why?

The deadpan stares of the Revolutionary mannequins seemed directed specifically at Fanshawe. A short line of tourists waited at the ticket booth. Maybe it’s pretty good, he considered. It might get my mind off all this bullshit. He got in line, paid for his ticket, then cool darkness invited him to enter a faux-stone hallway with an arched ceiling.

Other patrons with their children appeared to be enthralled by the staged displays of old-time figures: smiling women in sack dresses working spinning-wheels and washboards; motionless toddlers playing with hand-crafted toys; an old crone bent over a hearth oven. One corpulent dummy in tri-cornered hat and buttoned vest displayed a starred badge over his heart. He held a roll of paper, and had a flintlock pistol on his hip. SHERIFF PATTEN read a plaque. The sculptor proved his or her skills by incorporating an all-too-realistic bad complexion on the officer, and a nose like a rotten strawberry. They probably didn’t have Stridex back then, Fanshawe thought and moved to the next stage.

He found the exhibits to be very competent but far less interesting than the slow-moving lines of other patrons seemed to believe. Several varieties of soldiers, clerics, farmers, and wood-workers came next. But Fanshawe’s stiff lack of interest suddenly left him feeling—

Anxious?

Why should he feel like that?

Next, like a carnival horror-house, a short corridor festooned by rubber cobwebs drew him into what could only be—

Ah, the torture chamber…

First, a sign said NO CHILDREN, PLEASE, and all at once—and for some reason he couldn’t guess— Fanshawe’s boredom was transmuted into a dusky thrill. Abbie had said this particular exhibit had given her nightmares; now Fanshawe understood why. The rictus of a slatternly woman in an iron maiden couldn’t have been more realistic, while the expression of the rustic man chained into a chair with a wood fire under the grilled seat