Witch Water

CHAPTER ONE

(I)

Like stepping from one world into another, Stewart Fanshawe mused. Manhattan was hours behind him now, and the turnpike’s monotonous panorama of asphalt, concrete, and flurries of cars had suddenly lapse-dissolved into a scape of plush foliage, hundred-foot-tall trees, and shaded, curving forest roads. Fanshawe had to catch his breath from all that green, green that seemed bright to the point of surreality. The more distance I put between myself and New York, the better… His black Audi glided around each tree-lined road, with brilliant sunlight bursting in through myriad leaf-laden boughs. Gorgeous out here, he reflected. All this stunning scenery made it difficult to keep his eyes focused on the road, yet he welcomed the distraction.

Distractions kept his mind off the memories.

The car sucked down to the clean pavement through each deep, winding turn. New Hampshire, indeed, was another world.

Fanshawe was fifty but looked forty, which he attributed to good genes, exercise, and a prudent diet. He was also, either by luck or aptitude, phenomenally wealthy. His eyes widened behind the leather-sleeved wheel. I’ve got everything any man could want, so why…

He didn’t allow the thought to finish itself. The truth was, Fanshawe felt haunted by ghosts of himself. Who would know looking at me? he asked his reflection in the rearview. Every involuntary glance to the mirror was escorted by a hostile invective: Pervert! Scumbag! And the worst: Peeper! He was letting his ruminations turn sour against his will. His expression transformed to outright stolidness as his eyes continued to re-find themselves in the silver oval of glass.

He muttered this to himself: “Remove yourself from the purveying environment…,” and at once he recollected his most recent appointment with Dr. Tilton who, in spite of her well-tended good looks, seemed always to have a reserved cast to her face, as though she were keeping too many thoughts unvoiced. Fanshawe could never figure that out: she was either captivated by him, or disgusted. This was how she always regarded him from behind her desk, and with that stiff, clinical aura about her head. Fanshawe himself lay on the proverbial “couch.”

“Addicts,” she began, “even in the arena of paraphilic addictions such as yours, see the best recovery statistics when they willingly remove themselves from the purveying environment.”

“Purveying? Paraphilic?” Her terminology never ceased to irritate him. “Give it to me straight, Doctor.”

“Paraphilia, Mr. Fanshawe, as we’ve discussed, is a fetish syndrome that’s become advanced enough to have destructive repercussions.”

“I just hate the sound of the word. It makes me feel like a pervert.”

The ink-black hair shimmered in a slice of sunlight from the window. She was probably his age but at this precise moment, when a constrained smile came to her lips, she could’ve been teen-aged; he could easily imagine her thinking, That’s because you ARE a pervert, Mr. Fanshawe. You ARE a pervert… “The 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 road rage, none of that nonsense. Just quiet nights, fresh air, the great outdoors…”

Fanshawe smiled involuntarily. “You sound exactly like my therapist, Mr. Baxter.”

“We ain’t got those here either!” the proprietor laughed, but then his voice quieted. “Oh, and don’t worry. We’re very tight-lipped here. Your secret’s safe with us.”

Fanshawe’s eyes snapped to him; he gulped. “Secret?”

“Well, I read Forbes, the WSJ, and such, and see your picture on occasion, yes, sir. It’s exciting to have someone famous choose our hotel. Just want you to know that your privacy will be respected like nobody’s business.”

Fanshawe released a relieving breath. What had he been thinking? Buddy, if you knew MY secret, you’d probably call the cops and have me thrown out on my ass. ”Thanks very much. But I wouldn’t exactly call myself famous. I’m just a financier, not a sports star.”

“Oh, we get them too, ’specially in the winter. That man A-Rod, I don’t care what the papers say, he’s a dang nice guy. Now, if you’d care to give me your car keys, I’ll have someone bring up your bags.”

Fanshawe relinquished the keys. “It’s the black Audi. Thanks.”

Baxter turned for the door. “If you need anything, just ring the desk. And be sure to have a look at our relic displays downstairs once you’ve settled in.”

“Relic displays? What kind of r—”

But Baxter had left faster than a blink. Relics? He must mean Colonial knickknacks. Fanshawe took a slow walk through both rooms, maintaining approval. He ran his hand over a lyre-back chair, then peeked through more rich, velvety drapes over the bedroom’s most westward window, to see still more luxuriant hills: a comforting vision. “Thank God,” he whispered, his face to the curtain-edge. “Not a single window to be seen. No target-object access…”

More of the room’s details stole his attention. A miniature wheel-clock ticked from a relief nook in the wall; a statuette of a Minute Man stood poised, bayoneted musket at the ready; a small vase spouted delicate roses fashioned from paper-thin curls of crimson glass. Cool, he thought. But next he was eyeing a framed engraving, or maybe it was an old tintype: a rather creepy manor house drenched in moonlight. Fanshawe moved his face closer, for it seemed that a thin, bent figure was climbing into a first-floor window. Was there also the tiniest image of a nude woman inside, screaming at the figure’s appearance?

No…, because he blinked and saw that the “figure” was just an oddly shaped bush. There must’ve been dust or something in Fanshawe’s eye.

He wasn’t sure what impelled him to look upward, but when he did, his eyes found an oblong panel in the ceiling. Trapdoor? he wondered. More than likely, either an access way or an attic. Next, he found himself scanning an in-wall bookshelf, noticing the gilded spines of tomes that appeared to be very old but actually weren’t when he took some out. They were merely “classic” editions of Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorn, Edgar Allen Poe, and the like, made to look old. However, lower on the shelf…

Hmm…

The next book he picked was no “classic” but instead a calfskin-bound smaller-format book with a faded cover. Ye Witch-Tryalls of Haver-Towne. Fanshawe’s eyes narrowed when he carefully flipped to the copyright page and found the printing date: 1699. Immediately, he felt an abstract wallop nearly like a physical blow. This is REALLY old. It must be quite valuable, so why was it sitting here? He flipped through pages fine as rice paper, noticing the tight, antique type-style of the day, with all nouns capitalized and very often the word “ye” used for “the.” One page was an elaborate engraving, with the heading: “Ye Arrest of Jacob Wraxall by High-Sheriff Patten.” The plate depicted a stout man with a star-shaped badge and a tri-cornered hat, solemn-faced, escorting a thin older man toward a Colonial gaol-house. The prisoner wore buckled shoes, knee breeches, and a pleated tunic front; the expression on his Van Dyked face could only be described as sinister.

Fanshawe couldn’t guess why the engraving had so captivated him. He sat down on the bed to examine the plate more intently. In the rendition, the prisoner’s wrists were shackled behind his back…

Fanshawe stared open-mouthed but it was no longer the plate he was seeing, it was his not-too-distant past, when he himself assumed a position similar to that of the prisoner. It was handcuffs not shackles which immobilized his wrists, and a police cruiser, not a gaol-house that he was being shoved toward. “You have the right to remain silent,” he was told by the New York cop who grasped his arm too hard. Venom hissed out with the universal words, a repressed disgust. “I got more important things to do than waste time on a pervert.” Fanshawe was jammed into the caged back seat; the door slammed in his face. He couldn’t recall his precise thoughts at that time, only a harrowing numbness. When the cop drove out of the alley, faces scowled at him from several lit windows. Fanshawe felt boneless sitting there.

The cop grimaced over his shoulder. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Successful guy like you pulling a scumbag move like that? I just don’t get it. What the hell is wrong with people?”

Through the passenger window, Fanshawe saw several homeless men standing around a garbage can. One of them looked right at him and grinned.

“Too bad times have changed. Thirty years ago, you would’ve gotten a go-round—the good old night-stick shampoo. I’ll bet it was a little girl you were peeping on,” the cop said, “or a little boy.”

“No!” Fanshawe blurted. “It was…a woman, an adult woman.”

“Oh, so I guess that makes it all right, huh? I need to be busting crack dealers and guys pulling bank jobs, not fucking around with pieces of shit like you.”

The cruiser pulled out onto Amsterdam Avenue; suddenly a million lights seemed to blink in Fanshawe’s face. He sat forlorn, his wrists aching. Yeah, he thought. A piece of shit like me…

The grim vision shattered at the click of the door. Fanshawe glanced up abruptly at the attractive woman smiling at him from the doorway. Her shoulders slumped from the weight of his luggage. “Mr. Fanshawe, I presume?”

“Yes—oh, here. Let me get those. The big one’s pretty heavy. I thought he’d be sending some brawny bellhop.”

“Oh, don’t bother, sir. Believe it or not, I like hauling luggage. At my age I need all the exercise I can get.”

The comment seemed odd or self-conscious. Fanshawe doubted she could be more than mid-thirties. “I’m Abbie, Mr. Baxter’s daughter,” she told him and hefted the larger of the bags up on the bed. As she did so, hair which at the same time seemed blond and auburn danced before her face. She dressed casually in faded jeans, sneakers, and a plain blouse, yet under the nondescript apparel, Fanshawe sensed a curvaceous and even exotic physique. Don’t eyeball her, you scumbag, he groaned at himself, for when she leaned over to situate the big suitcase, his gaze zoomed in on ample, fresh-white cleavage. He snapped his eyes away.

“Well, thanks for bringing the bags, Abbie.”

“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Fanshawe—”

“Stew,” he corrected and shook her hand. Her shake was firm, her hand delicate yet mildly callused, no doubt from her share of hard work. He found the dichotomy bizarrely arousing. The graceful hands revealed no signs of wedding rings. When he attempted to tip her, she refused.

“I hope you like our hotel. We go out of our way to offer guests something a little more interesting. Most places these days are kind of stiff and sterile.”

“It’s gorgeous. The furniture, the treatments, that whole Colonial feel.”

“Um-hmm.” Next, Abbie raised his laptop case to the bed but she flinched when a magazine flipped out of a side pocket. “Oops.” When she bent to pick it up, Fanshawe’s eyes darted once more to her cleavage. He bit his lip.

The magazine was Fortune 500, and on the cover was Fanshawe’s face. “Stewart Fanshawe: Miracle Man” read the cover line.

Abbie smiled, and replaced the magazine. “Don’t worry, your—”

“My secret’s safe with you,” Fanshawe tacked on. “Yes, your father said the same thing and, believe me, I appreciate it.”

“I’ve seen you on TV a few times, that stock program that runs all day on cable. You must get recognized a lot on the street.”

“No, not really. Financial folks stay pretty much under the radar. In New York, everyone’s on constant watch for movie stars, not ticker jockeys or CEOs.”

“Well, it’s really cool to have a big financial guy stay with us.”

Really cool? You should see my psych profile. Fanshawe laughed. “More like a big lucky guy. All I did was consolidate some failing tech companies, and they turned into winners. Then I branched out from there.”

“That’s quite an achievement.” She seemed delighted to add, “Oh, and my father owns some of your stock.”

“God bless him!”

Now Abbie was slowly walking about the bedroom, touching up with a dust cloth. “What brings you out our way?”

Fanshawe didn’t feel the least uncomfortable answering, “I’m on what my therapist calls a respite. Just looking around at first, trying to find a place to relax for six months or so.”

“Well, most of our guests love it here, mostly tourists but we also get lots of visitors from Boston, New York, and Manchester, and some smaller conventions and business conferences.”

“I just happened to run across an article about Haver-Towne in one of the travel mags—” but then a reminder seemed to blare in his head. “Oh, yeah. I wanted to tell you”—he picked up the old book he’d been flipping through. “This must be here by mistake. I couldn’t believe it when I looked at the copyright date.”

Abbie squinted, took the book, and showed recognition. “Oh, that’s right. We usually keep it downstairs in one of the display cases but very recently a guest asked to borrow it.”

“It must be worth a fortune.”

“Not as much as you think; it’s in pretty poor condition. But it’s much more valuable here because it deals with some of the history of the town. More and more, people seem to be interested in things from the old days.”

“Witch trials?” Fanshawe questioned.

Abbie mocked an ominous expression. “The first major witch trials in America happened here. They pre-date Salem by twenty years.”

“Ah. That explains the ‘Salem of New Hampshire’ line outside.”

“Well, that was my father’s idea, but, yeah, exactly. Look here—”

Abbie took him to the front room and steered him toward one of the windows. She held back the curtain for him; Fanshawe saw the main drag out front. “See the pillory?”

“Yeah, I noticed it when I was driving up.”

“That’s one of the originals, and a lot of people spent some hard times in it.” She vaguely touched his shoulder as she led him to the westward bow window with the cushioned seat. “And there…” She pointed.

Fanshawe peered, noticing the rise of hillocks and their most prominent elevation. He made the deduction based on her previous remarks, “Let me guess. Hangman’s Hill?”

Abbie sounded mirthful. “Close. Witches Hill. No one was hanged there, or burned at the stake. But that is where all the witches and warlocks were executed.”

“How charming!”

Abbie made to leave with the book, smiling over a shoulder. Her eyes sparkled, a lavish dove-gray. “I have to check in more guests now but I can tell you all about it later if you’d like.”

“I’d love that, thanks. And what’s this relic display your father mentioned?”

A sharper, almost mischievous grin. “It’s a little museum that showcases torture devices and witchcraft paraphernalia… ’Bye!”

She drifted out of the room, leaving some vague but erotic shampoo-scent in her wake.

“Torture devices.” Fanshawe chuckled. Meeting Abbie left him upbeat. He went back to the bedroom to unpack but he hadn’t even gotten the suitcase open when that unknown impulse revisited him, goading him to look up…

At the trapdoor in the ceiling.

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