Witch Water

made Fanshawe’s innards clench. Several cloaked witches stood in a circle listening to a grim, hooded figure who read from parchment, a pentagram about his neck. Fanshawe felt a chill when he looked closer at the figure’s face and saw that the artisan had blended into the features of a human face some characteristics of a skull. Did the eyes of the witches themselves glow with the faintest traces of scarlet light? Next, a woman in a bustle-dress cringed as inquisitors stretched her on a metal rack; her mouth locked open in a silent scream. A man shackled to a brick wall projected a look of perfect horror as he was approached by a stooped witch-finder bearing an iron rod with its end red-hot. A proverbial shirtless man with considerable muscles grinned as he held a great curve-bladed ax above a headsman’s block; the victim with his neck on the block seemed to have tears in his eyes.

Fanshawe was unnerved by the grueling authenticity of the figures, but what actually stopped him in his tracks was the next presentation: a blond woman hung off a whipping post, her face in absolute turmoil. Her dress- top had been ripped open to reveal her bare back, while the torn material strategically hung to block the sight of her breasts. The voyeur in Fanshawe tempted him to reach over the velvet ropes that bordered the display, to see how detailed her breasts had been rendered, but, of course, he didn’t. Even if he was alone in this section, there might be a security camera; he could picture himself on some World’s Dumbest Criminals show.

Pervert, the thought hissed. When I’m not spying on women in windows, I’m spying of wax dummies. Get a life.

However, the blond victim’s oppressor—a staunch-faced man wearing a buttoned vest and a cross round his neck—stood poised as he lay a cat of nine tails across her back, the lengths of the whip actually frozen in mid-air. Fanshawe blanched at the streaks of bloody scars lain into her flesh.

Good Lord, this is some realistic stuff.

Suddenly he was itching to move on even though the tour of the chamber seemed to be complete. The several patrons who milled about with him seemed visibly shocked by the displays, as if they’d seen enough, but they turned into the next fake-brick-walled corridor. They all stopped at the final exhibit.

There they are, just like Mrs. Anstruther promised…

Two figures that looked very much alive stood arrogantly in a cove made to represent an occultist’s hideout. Ancient books lined several old shelves; a row of skulls adorned the top. An astrological chart hung on one wall, with another chart full of circles and symbols like Hebrew and others that must’ve been Latin. These characters immediately made him think of the strange pedestalled ball off the trails.

Then his gaze locked ahead.

A disturbingly realistic likeness of Jacob Wraxall seemed to contemplate Fanshawe and the others, with green eyes full of amused mockery. He wore black knee stockings, buckled shoes, and a ruffled tailcoat: an aristocrat of the late-1600s. The wax-worker had even hung a similar sickle-moon pendant around the warlock’s neck, and in his hand he held an ancient book.

Fanshawe stared. The Van Dyked patriarch seemed alive enough to lean back and laugh.

“Oh, that’s the guy who built the original inn,” a man remarked to his wife. “How’d you like to pull back the shower curtain tonight and find him standing there?”

“Oh, stop it, Charlie!” his spouse replied, gripping his arm. “Let’s get out of here. The woman is even ghastlier!”

The woman—yes. Evanore.

The likeness of Wraxall’s daughter wore—instead of the fineries of the day—a dark hood and cloak, which would’ve been trite had it not been for the look on the dummy’s face. It was a look of enchanted hatred and hideous knowledge. The more Fanshawe stared back at the replica the more significantly the drone refilled his head, like a faint, inanimate groan. Had his jaw dropped at the three-dimensional image? The waxen mannequin looked so real he thought sure that its flesh would yield if he touched it.

Another couple stepped up; they seemed intrigued. “They look so real!” exclaimed the wife, marveling at Wraxall’s pompous replica, but it was the dummy of Evanore that hijacked her husband’s attention. “Yeah, too real,” he remarked. “They’re people in costumes”—he shot out his hands without warning toward Evanore, to startle the person he presumed was masquerading as her, but the figure did not move or even blink. Aside, his wife frowned; she could see him glancing more than incidentally at the dummy’s thrusting bosom. His brows rose, then he smiled and elbowed this wife, lowering his voice. “Hey, do you think they put nipples on her?”

“Come on!” the wife yelled and dragged him out.

Their exit left Fanshawe alone.

He could’ve been standing on the edge of a cliff as he evaluated the figures. Beneath each, information plaques were mounted, citing data similar to what he’d read on Witches Hill. He felt foolish when he focused his glance on Evanore’s bosom, but the man’s comment had piqued him. I guess he’s a pervert, like me. But it did appear that the life-like dummy had been fashioned with nipples; he thought he could see them jutting against the crude cloak fabric.

Suddenly, Fanshawe’s hand itched. He wanted to reach out, pull the cloak’s V at the neck, and peek down…

For God’s sake, I’m not really going to…

PLEASE DON’T TOUCH THE REPLICAS, the sign blared at him.

But no one was in the chamber with him, and he didn’t hear anyone behind him. What the HELL am I thinking? No cameras could be detected, either. I must be going off the deep end…

Was he really going to touch the mannequin and examine its breast? Was he really going to molest a wax dummy?

But he’d already raised his hand, had already begun to reach out…

No!

He squeezed his eyes closed, ground his teeth, but just as he would propel his hand forward to touch the replica’s breast, he forced himself to freeze. Disgusted, he struggled through the drone, was about to turn and leave but—

Now it was his heart that froze.

His eyes remained closed when he felt a warm hand grasp his wrist. It squeezed.

He heard words then, in a woman’s voice…

“I’m most elated to avail myself to you, sir. I know you espied me last even, with Father’s looking- glass…”

Fanshawe couldn’t move, couldn’t open his eyes.

“Look for me again, any time thou art inclined,” the voice issued on, only now it was edgy with excitement. “After midnight, sir—”

Then a chuckle resounded, the chuckle of an older man, then words like gravel grinding, “Ascend, if thou dost have the heart, and—ay—partake in the bounty that ye hast earned.”

WHAT? Fanshawe thought through the madness.

“—and, sir? Go thither, if thou dost have the heart, to the bridle—”

Fanshawe tore away from the display; the fingers clasping his wrist slipped off. He deliberately kept his eyes closed through the motion and only opened them when he was safely turned away. The bridle? What the HELL? He dashed for the dim corridor that would lead him out. The drone still pounded in his head; he could barely even think the most basic thoughts. He took several long strides toward the exit sign, but it seemed an effort against his will when he stopped, turned around, and then began to walk back…

Don’t do it…

He returned to the exit and found his fingers wrapped around the doorway that led back to the stage. No sounds could be heard from within, no…chuckles, no voices. In grueling slowness then, he inched his face toward the doorway’s edge, paused to moan, and peeked back inside.

The grotesque forms of Jacob and Evanore Wraxall were both smiling now, smiling directly at him.

(II)