“What a way with words you have,” Fanshawe had to laugh but then reminded himself that incest and having babies for occult purposes weren’t laughing matters. He also reminded himself of another of last night’s images: Rood was having sex with Evanore… He read on: “How then, Squire,” I replie to this, “wilt we bring to us ye infants so desir’d to oblayte our Dark Mastur?” and he sayest unto me, “Loyal and virile Rood, from thence forth it shall be your seed which will make my wretched and luvely dawther great with chyld!”
Fanshawe shot another inquiring glance to the palm-reader. “And after Wraxall realized he’d become impotent—”
She finished the obvious. “It was my illustrious ancestor who stepped up to pinch-hit for Wraxall.”
“That’s a pretty earthy way of putting it.”
She chuckled. “That was some pretty earthy stuff they were doing.”
Fanshawe’s brows jiggled. He kept reading the passage. Lerning this, I felt no little joye in mine hart, and stirr’d about my groin, for such consorte wyth Evanore I hath long dreem’d, but then I feel lowlie in profiting by my Squire’s loss, so I speek unto him wurds of lamentation that his oncetime pleshures will be no more, and I say that his grater age having leeving him no longer able to sire infints doth make me sad to my marrowe. But then my mentor’s eyes come alighte, and I see no aspect of sadniss of his ownself, and he say, “Mere age, goodly sarvant, is no diffurent than tyme and space in that it maye be ply’d like clay or sculpt’d like woode! In wurds akin, age, then, ‘tis as chayngeable as thy cloak! As thy trousers, I say! But heed me in thiss, fine Rood, sutch chaynges be constrewed onlie when thy sarvants of our Dark Lord shew fayth mighty enough and—yea!—a hart black enough, for such arre ye admixtures of ye very thing! Forsooth, Rood, I shalt be vital again, for our Benefactor whisspers to me in ye manner of dreems of portent, and he sheweth that if so ever one’s fayth remane as stronge, then he shalt be bestow’d the knowledge which maye make away wyth the very prospect of deth itself!”
Fanshawe was amused by the last segment. “So the old warlock thought he would live forever, huh?”
“All warlocks thought that,” she said. “Same way as all condemned witches cast curses.”
Hard as the handwriting was to read, Fanshawe flipped through more of the scribbling.
Grayte Satan! Ye first chyld borne of my seed thrugh Evanore came this morn! My Squire very qwikly went up with it to ye attick to drayne its blud…
Another: Mine eyes did not lyke the waye Prudence Cattel didst look at me to-daye at Market Square. Thencesoever, with the Squire’s permisshin, I did saye ye Hex-wurds on payge five hundred five of ye Remigius writings and didst putt upon thiss woman ye burdin of nawseeating dreems and grate paynes at her womanly regions. In the even-time late I did heer her screeming from her beddroom window, and this didst make me very glad…
Another: Hath just reterned from ye Oldys cabin ware I bound and silenc’d and came away with their onlie son, a boye of ten and two yeers. Of his parents, I lash them to-gether and bury them—stille living—deep in ye woode, and of the boye, I so forc’d him to watche my burying of them, for it onlie magnify’d the horrour of ye deed which is mutch lik’d by Lucifer. So pore were ye Oldys, none will suspeckt mischief but instead beleeve them to have depart’d for elseware in hope of better harvest-time.
“Some wicked stuff here!” Fanshawe exclaimed.
“Yeah. Wicked. In this day and age, Callister Rood would rank high on the list of psycho-sexual serial- killers.”
In spite of his repulsion, Fanshawe kept hunting for legible entries.
Mine hart is made to sing by ye Squire’s aspect to-daye. Ye most reecint letter from Squire Septimuss Willsun in Angle-land leeve my mentor overcome with joobilayshun, being that we wilst soon be in possession of a Brydle—
Bridle? Fanshawe thought abruptly, but before he could ask Letitia what the bridle was, she came over and pointed to a particular entry. “There. What do you make of that?”
Fanshawe squinted. I must be firm by ye inwardness of what ye Squire say for me to do in ye ende.
“Hmm,” he uttered.
“Yeah, kind of makes you think. Like maybe it wasn’t the townspeople who killed Wraxall at all, but Rood himself.”
“Under Wraxall’s orders.” Next, his eyes caught a familiar reference. After we erlier boilt ye bones of ye womin from fifty yeers agone known as ye Fenstanton Witch, ye Squire fashion’d a look’g-glass and after midnighte’s peal, we peer through it and see ye land in ye witch’s time. Ye Squire’s suksess leeve me neerly in a swound yet ye Squire himself chukle and speek that this is a trifle when in compar’d to what he has in his mynd for future glass he endevers to make.
“What I was leaning to earlier,” Letitia said, “turn to the last page with writing on it. It sort of clarifies things.”
Fanshawe did what she said, and here were the final lines written by Callister Rood: I needs must admitt that my spiritt grows disorder’d bye feare in contemplayshuns yet to come, and ye Squire espies this as plain. He sayeth then, in a mannur most comfitt’d, “be disheartened not, frend Rood, for all which we worke for is now in playce, save for my final behest unto thee. Ye tyme be neerly beside us, and thee hath learnt well! Yet the corpulent High Sheriff and his bird-witted assizers be already suspecting of us. Best, then, that you giveth them not the satisfaction to do away with thee in their manner but instead cause thyself to cease to be, whilest thou knoweth what must be done upon me…
Fanshawe thought he understood. “I’d say this definitely clarifies that Rood killed Wraxall. Wraxall was instructing Rood to commit suicide once the sheriff and his deputies came for them.”
Letitia nodded. “But isn’t the end of the sentence curious?”
“Yes. That something relevant might be required of Rood,” Fanshawe figured.
Letitia nodded. “At least that’s how it strikes me. Rood killed Wraxall before he killed himself, and cut out his heart.”
Fanshawe hesitated. “What happened…to the heart?”
“Well, no one knows that, of course, but hearts were used in sorcery all the time, especially the hearts of necromancers.”
Fanshawe hadn’t thought of that. More occult ritualism, I guess. Didn’t the Aztecs cut out people’s hearts as an offering to their Gods? To solicit favor and immortality? He knew he remembered something like that from history classes decades ago.
But it was the passage just before the last one he’d read that most piqued Fanshawe’s interest. He was talking specifically about—
“What do you know about witch-water looking-glasses?” he asked.
Her expression was one of surprise. “Wow, you’ve really got the bug, haven’t you?”
Suddenly he felt self-conscious. The Baxters’ looking-glass was still in his jacket pocket. Jesus, if she’s really psychic, does she know I’ve got it? “Don’t know why,” he said, “but I’m finding all this witchcraft stuff pretty fascinating. I saw the looking-glass over at the inn, and they told me a little bit about it. Did Wraxall really believe that the water from boiled bones could be magical?”
“He not only believed it, he and Rood claimed many times that it was magical. Witch-water was fairly common in the fifteen and sixteen hundreds in Europe. Sorcerers would boil the bones of dead witches, warlocks, criminals, whatever, and the water would be used in ritualism, sort of like the antithesis of holy water. Supposedly Wraxall learned how to make the looking-glasses from other warlocks and ancient reference books called grimoires. In a looking-glass, witch-water was said to provide a view through the dead person’s eyes and in the era of that person’s life. The glass at the inn supposedly contains witch-water from the bones of Evanore Wraxall. We all tried it but—no surprise—it didn’t work.”
Fanshawe’s silence at the comment caused an awkward pause.
“This is really odd, though—coincidental, I mean.”
“What?” he asked.
“Last week some guy came in here and was asking about witch-water, too.”
