Witch Water

(I)

It was one-thirty in the morning when Fanshawe stood again in front of the crazily carved pedestal and the mysterious orb that crowned it. Before re-ascending Witches Hill, he’d stopped at his car and grabbed a larger flashlight. All the while, he wasn’t quite sure what he was doing or what he expected.

The night was still stiflingly warm, yet when he placed his hand on the Gazing Ball—the bridle—it felt almost ice cold. He knew it was a trick of the moonlight but when he stared at the pedestal, the swaths of tiny occult symbols seemed to exude the faintest pale-green luminescence. But when the time came to do whatever it was he was going to do…he paused.

I could just go back to the inn, get Abbie, and get out of here. Start a new life…

He raised the looking-glass and aimed it precisely at his own window at the Wraxall Inn.

The creepily angled roof, gray wood slats, and black windows sat there like some hulking thing in wait.

Fanshawe, next, was examining the surface of the Gazing Ball: tarnished, encrusted, weather-pitted. But the strong white beam of light brought out a blemish that was obviously new.

A thin maroon stain, vaguely in the shape of a hand. Blood, he realized. And it hasn’t been there long, it still has red in it.

Then he thought: Karswell. He was here. A brief scan of the surrounding brush verified this almost beyond doubt, when Fanshawe discovered a fat cigar butt with a Monte-Cristo band, and—

Unbelievable.

—a small, clear jar. The jar’s lid lay right next to it.

Karswell must’ve made his own witch-water, Fanshawe deduced. New England’s full of unconsecrated graves of condemned witches… It was perfectly feasible that a writer of occult history and a Christian mystic would know how to make it. He challenged himself: All right. There’s only one more thing left to do…

He flicked open the tiny penknife on his key chain. He looked at the modest blade, then looked at the palm of his left hand. He winced at the initial puncture of the knife-tip into the middle of his palm. Blood welled up first as a pea-sized bead, but very quickly it formed a grim puddle in his hand. When he turned the flashlight off, the blood looked black in the moonlight.

Well?

Fanshawe spoke aloud the queer words he’d recently read on the centuries-old parchment: “Besmear ye mystickal and horrid sphere with thine own blood…”

He placed his bleeding hand on the orb, leaving a scarlet print.

“And then take into thy mouth one driblet of ye wretched and most nefarious aqua wicce… ”

His slick hand wrapped around the flask’s glass stopper, twisted, then he felt the ancient black wax give way. He lifted the stopper out—

Fanshawe swayed in place, grimacing: he stood on solid ground like a man on a tight-rope. It was an appalling odor that issued from the flask’s aperture, like rotten-meat stench blended with the smell of basement mold. My GOD! I’ve got to DRINK this? Queasiness engulfed his stomach. But— Only a ‘driblet,’ he reminded himself, which he assumed could only be a minuscule unit of measure.

The odor’s foulness wafted before him; his eyes watered. Am I really going to…, but when a side breeze crept up and blew the reek off, Fanshawe didn’t even think about it.

He snatched in a breath, took one sip of the cryptic water, paused—

Down the hatch.

—and swallowed.

He stood still in the next pause. His brows popped up at the accommodating surprise: the water was absolutely tasteless and totally inoffensive.

For about two seconds.

An impalpable impact sent Fanshawe to his knees. A taste more revolting than anything he could conceive filled his mouth, a taste that could only be described as evil. At once, he gagged, then he began to dry heave, blundering about the clearing on hands and knees. My God my God my God! His mind spun. His equilibrium reversed, all the while his stomach spasming progressively harder, such that subsequent abdominal cramps flared pain as if he’d been sledgehammered in the gut. I’ve poisoned myself! he somehow was able to think through the shards of pain and waves of terror. When he rolled over on his back and opened his eyes—

He could see nothing. Fanshawe was blind.

A darkness slammed down on his psyche like an ax-fall, dragging him down and down and down until, only seconds later, he died.

««—»»

Or at least he thought he died, given the pain, loss of sight, and sheer blackness that had overwhelmed him. When he roused, he remained on his back, his eyes staring up. Low, coal-smoke-colored clouds slid swollen overhead. Only the faintest veiled luminosity tinged the edges of the clouds, as though the moon had been ingested by their tumorous shapes. Hooooooooly SHIT! he yelled at himself. I must’ve been out of my mind to drink ANYTHING that’s been sitting in an attic for three hundred years! Though he sensed some time had passed, his stomach muscles still ached sharply, and the dizziness lingered when he pulled himself to his feet. He calmed down and caught his breath…

He was looking around the clearing.

His jaw dropped.

It was the same clearing, but…not the same, either. The surrounding brush was much higher than it had been, while the clearing’s perimeter was closer, far less delineated, and was completely devoid of decorative gravel. A glance down to the town showed Fanshawe the same modest village he’d seen after midnight through the looking-glass…

Then he turned and faced the Gazing Ball.

At first the carved markings on the pedestal seemed infested by fitful movement, but Fanshawe’s shock since drinking the vile water left him disoriented. How could I NOT be disoriented? he reasoned with himself. However, the next shock gave him more to be disoriented about.

The Gazing Ball—or Bridle—stood before him in the moon-tinged darkness, straight as a chess piece. And as for the metal globe itself?

It bore no incrustations, no tarnish, no weather damage. Instead, it shined as if just polished.

The damn thing looks brand new, Fanshawe thought, but then an even darker thought insinuated itself. That’s because it IS brand new…

Fanshawe’s mind stayed relatively blank as he crept about the hillocks. No, the trails weren’t the same; where before they’d been gravel-paved and well-trimmed, now they were just meager weed-lined lanes beaten into existence by constant foot traffic. The scent of wood-smoke hung heavily throughout. Then an owl hooted from a high tree, its white blank face appearing distortedly human at first glance—Fanshawe thought of an invalid’s face. But his wanderings were quite aimless; in a sense he already knew his way around. Of course, the very peak of Witches Hill lacked the accompanying wooden sign explaining the spot’s historical significance, but it did not lack the barrel.

Fanshawe’s face blanched as whitely as the owl’s when he directed his flashlight to the foot of the barrel and saw a puddle of coagulating blood which crawled with flies. There was vomit there as well, and chunks of what appeared to be scalp tissue with long threads of hair still attached.