Witch Water

CHAPTER TWO

(I)

Later in the afternoon, Fanshawe meandered downstairs, aiming to have a stroll about town. But first, he thought and searched off the now-noisy atrium, noisy due to an influx of guests waiting their turn at the front desk. But from the plush atrium, small coves branched, each lit by the familiar bow windows, and furnished with leather arm chairs. It was in these coves that the display cases were found: great shining intricate cases with gold-painted frameworks, curved glass, and mirrored shelves. The cases alone looked fabulously old and valuable, but then so must be the relics and books they quartered. This place really IS a museum, Fanshawe thought, stooping before a case. Each object was displayed upon trivet-like pedestals, and bore an information label. First, a pair of iron rings the size of medium hose-clamps, each fitted with a hand-forged screw whose turning-head had been hammered flat. THUMBSCREWS, 1649, the label notified. When Fanshawe imagined his thumb within the tiny contraption, his stomach flipped. Next was a narrow metal spike with a wood handle: BODKIN DAGGER, 1669. And next, a pair of crude pliers: TOOTH-BREAKERS, 1697. Worst of all was a contraption akin to a tiny, jawed animal trap but with a handle on one end like a spade: TONGUE-PULLER, 1658.

The contemplations dizzied him. People must’ve been nuts back then. Believing in witchcraft was bad enough, but then to actually use these things on people… Fanshawe shuddered when he imagined it: the amount of aberrant will necessary to do something like that, to break someone’s teeth, to pull out their tongue. Did they really believe the victims were witches, or were they just sick in the head? What had attracted Fanshawe as a mere novelty now left him disturbed, and the effect doubled when he realized that all of these morbid tools had most likely been used for the precise purpose indicated. More, even nastier-looking implements sat in the case, but Fanshawe turned away before discerning what they were. He didn’t want to know.

So much for that…

But in another cove, he found a case free of such heinous devices and filled instead with time-worn books. It was here that Abbie had obviously replaced Ye Witch-Tryalls of Haver-Towne, next to The Diary of Jacob Wraxall, Tephramancy: the Magick of Gems & Ashes, and The Slate-Writings of Jacob Wraxall, among a host of others of similar themes. Jacob Wraxall? Fanshawe questioned, but then he remembered the engraving in the first book, of the poshly-dressed nobleman with the Van Dyke, being shackled by the town sheriff. For a billionaire, I’m pretty damn dense, he thought when the obvious struck him. The name of the hotel was the Wraxall Inn; it had taken him till now to put two and two together. This place is NAMED after this guy, but…why? Given the titles of the books and their insinuations, Wraxall had clearly been arrested for witchcraft. Why would somebody name their hotel after someone like that?

A small plaque read: PLEASE HANDLE BOOKS WITH CARE. Fanshawe was astonished; he would expect lock and key. In a New York hotel, books this old sitting out like this would get ripped off in two seconds. But he saw no harm, so he opened the case and removed a volume larger than most. Compendium Maleficarum, the spine informed, yet when he opened the book, he found it full of tight, double-columned type too monotonous to read. One section, however, seemed devoted to warlocks, and Fanshawe amused himself by scanning the various engravings of somber-faced men in queued wigs and ruffled collars, holding scepters or crystal balls. The more Fanshawe perused the book, the more foolish he felt. I guess people really did believe in this stuff back then. He put the book away, noticing a damp, vaguely rotten fetor.

Boredom shadowed him. He wandered to a third cove to look out the window. The main thoroughfare stretched quietly off in clean cobblestones while invigorated tourists began to window-shop. When he craned his neck—

He frowned.

—for here, at just the right angle, he noticed apartments sitting atop the street-level stores, all older-style architecture but clearly being lived in. On a balcony, an elderly man sat reading in the sun. Fanshawe’s eyes widened. Damn. He hadn’t noticed these residential windows previously. Thank God they’re not facing my hotel room. In one such window, a curtain swayed—Fanshawe saw a woman look outside for a moment, then disappear.

He wrung his hands.

When he turned from the bowed panes, his eyes lowered to yet another display case. No instruments of cruelty were present, just old pocket watches, compasses, quill pens and standish-style ink-wells, and the like. However, on the bottom shelf…

Fanshawe gulped.

At first he thought the object was a “ship’s glass,” that is, a portable telescope designed for hand-held use, about a foot long, with a collapsible draw-tube. It shined, evidently made of brass and possibly silver fittings. Then Fanshawe read the label: WITCH-WATER LOOKING-GLASS, MADE BY JACOB WRAXALL, CIRCA 1672.

Witch-Water? he wondered. What the hell? He imagined Wraxall himself gazing at the heavens at midnight and contemplating astrological formulae. But the image, once formed, snapped to something else against his will: it was no longer the flamboyantly attired Wraxall he saw…but himself; and in his hand he held not an antique looking-glass but top-of-the-line binoculars.

Just another flashback to his jaded past, for Fanshawe had strolled the Upper Westside streets of his own neighborhood too many times to count, ducking into an alley whenever he spotted a “promising” window, and raised the binoculars to his eyes…

“Ah, Mr. Fanshawe. You’ve found our displays, I see,” Mr. Baxter said, slipping into the cove.

The flashback corroded just as Fanshawe had zoomed in on a naked woman in the window of a brownstone on W. 66th Street.

His heart had quickened as though he’d been caught red-handed in the fantasy. The portly Baxter smiled, thumbing the suspenders.

“It’s, uh, quite a collection…”

Baxter chuckled. “Some of ’em are a little on the morbid side, a’course.”

“Can’t argue with you there, but I guess those were morbid times.”

“Just different, times, Mr. Fanshawe—was only morbid to those who made it so. Probably a lot to be said for livin’ back in those days.” His eyes scanned some of the relics. “Speakin’ of all these geegaws, though… Well, it’s all kind’a dumb tourist stuff if you ask me. But you’d be surprised how folks take an interest in it nowadays, ’specially the witchin’ and warlockin’ items, and a’course the implements that were used to counter all of that silly drivel.”

Fanshawe nodded, still unconsciously eyeing the looking-glass. “Yeah, Abbie pointed out the pillory.”

“We got several about town. Pillories were for minor offenses: stealin’, adultery, lyin’ to the church council. It was pretty commonplace back then. For harder crimes, there were the whippin’ posts. Now we’ve got detention centers with cable TV, conjugal visitation rights for convicted murderers, and tax-dollar-funded rehab. Kind of makes you wonder. The shenanigans we’ve got going these days were seldom seen back in Colonial times. Deterrence meant something back then, and the law meant business.”

Not if you can afford the best lawyers, Fanshawe thought, though he didn’t know if he agreed or disagreed with Baxter’s insinuations. Fanshawe avoided ideological conversations at all costs. “So I take it this man Jacob Wraxall was some kind of magician or wizard? There are a number of books here about him.”

“He fancied himself a warlock, not a magician. Come round here, and I’ll show you.”

Fanshawe’s curiosity urged him out of the current cove to the next one that Baxter strolled to, this one being windowless. Immediately, Fanshawe looked up and said, “Wow.”

The elder man indicated an elaborately framed oil painting which occupied half the wall. A lenient light shined down from a bracket on the ceiling. “Sunlight can damage it, so we keep in here ’cos there’s no window; that special bulb up there won’t make the paint fade. The canvas and frame are over three hundred years old…”

Within the painting posed the same Van Dyked man from the engraving, in the extravagant attire of the day. Sage-like, he held a feather-pen, and about his neck, over the ruffled bib, hung a pendant of stars and a sickle moon. Thin pale lips turned up into the faintest smile that could be thought of as condescending. Well, hello there, Jacob Wraxall, Fanshawe thought. What is the big whupdeedo with you? A shorter woman stood stern-faced at Wraxall’s side, much younger than the painting’s central subject, with long flowing hair that too similarly matched the color of newly spilled arterial blood. Fanshawe’s stomach tossed.

The woman posed in a velvety blue dress with billowed shoulders; a plunging neckline made no secret of a robust bosom. Fanshawe at once felt jarred by her image: she looked tantalizing, voluptuous, densely erotic…and atrocious. Her narrow face and thin lips suggested a hereditary connection, and so did the high cheekbones. His daughter, not his wife, Fanshawe supposed; and, like Wraxall, she was not without some occult regalia: several rings on her raised right hand possessed geometric designs of an astrological bent. Standing well behind Wraxall, however, was a dark-haired, clean-shaven man whose dark sulk and heavy jaw suggested subservience. Large eyes and a rather wide face were the subject’s most salient features.

“They were quite a trio, I’ll tell ya,” Baxter remarked.

Fanshawe felt particularly taken by the painting’s indeterminate visual effect: dark, dark colors made darker by age seemed on the other hand queerly bright in certain details. The woman’s rings, for instance, seemed painted with such exactitude they could’ve been photographs; the same went for Wraxall’s pendant, and the same, too, for their eyes, a stunning sea-green. But the background existed in such sheer murk that nothing at all could be made of it, and the more Fanshawe peered, he thought that other faces might lurk there, as if in smoke or shadow.

“That’s Wraxall there, and his daughter Evanore,” Baxter explained. “And that unhappy looking fella standing behind is Callister Rood, the family man-servant.”

“But why name your hotel after Wraxall, of all people?” Fanshawe asked.

“Wraxall built this house in the 1650s, and lived here till his death. It’s all been refurbished, of course, but the outer structure has barely been touched—didn’t need to be. It’s all mortised oak, and sealed with insect sap, the best kind of weatherproofing. They built houses right back in them days. Wraxall was a well-respected member of the community…for a while.”

Fanshawe peered at the hesitation, which may have been deliberate. “For a while?”

“Until the town found out the truth about him.”

“His occultism, in other words?”

“Oh, yeah, all that and a good deal more.”

For whatever reason, Fanshawe felt intrigued. His gaze kept switching back and forth between Wraxall’s eyes and his daughter’s. He was about to ask for more details, but a bell from the front desk rang.

“That’s for me, Mr. Fanshawe. Hope you enjoy your stay!”

Baxter lumbered off to tend to more guests, leaving Fanshawe mystified amid a flurry of questions. He examined the painting for several minutes more before he finally left the cove.

They must be having a convention here or something, he guessed of the next crowd of patrons waiting to check in. They were mostly older men, dressed in suits, but many bearded and long-haired. Immediately Fanshawe thought of academicians. He glanced down another short hall, then felt instantly enthused. SQUIRE’S PUB read a transom sign, and within he could see a small but neatly appointed hotel bar bearing the same decorative motif as the hotel.

Behind the bar top, Abbie was polishing some glasses; she smiled at him and waved, silently mouthing, Hi, Stew.

Her eyes glittered. Man, she’s attractive, Fanshawe thought, and she DID promise to tell me more about the town’s history. It seemed a perfect excuse to go in, but just as he would do so, at least a dozen guests beat him to it and filled the bar in only moments. Damn it, he thought. Guess I’ll go for a walk instead. I can talk to her later when there aren’t so many people in there.

He walked back toward the entrance, paused, then ducked into a cove. He wasn’t aware of what induced him to do so, yet next he found himself looking back down at that bottom shelf, at the shiny optical device.

He re-read the label: WITCH-WATER LOOKING-GLASS, MADE BY JACOB WRAXALL, CIRCA 1672.

Witch-water, he reflected. What on earth could that be?

(II)

Sports jacket over his shoulder, Fanshawe strolled around town, first the older, quainter Back Street, then Main. Most of the shops, buildings, etc., were single-story; he forced his eyes away from the few that weren’t. I’ve just got to be careful, I’ve just got to be strong. How much strength must it take to choose not to be a “peeper?” The arcane question always baffled him, but then Dr. Tilton never ceased with her reminders that he was not a typical man; instead he was plagued by a “deep-seated paraphilic addiction.” Though Fanshawe appreciated seeing attractive women as much as any natural man, merely witnessing them did not kindle his strange obsession. It was seeing them in a forbidden way, seeing them when they didn’t know it. Somehow, that was the unreckonable key to…

To my sickness, he confessed.

But he was here to forget about all that. He hadn’t peeped in a window for over a year, as difficult as the resistance had been. That’s strength, isn’t it? he tried to reassure himself.

He was often prone to self-condemnation, but then he felt he deserved it. He’d done outrageous things made even more outrageous considering his financial and professional status. It sounded incredulous: a business mogul, a financial genius, and a small-scale billionaire…who was also a voyeur or, worse, to use Dr. Tilton’s unwelcome supplement, “a clinical scoptophile.”

Jesus…

“Forget about it all, forget it,” he whispered to himself, clenching a fist. When a shapely, sable-haired woman passed him on the sidewalk, her curvaceous body seemed to slide around within her silk top and shining chiffon skirt as though her garments were actually some magical liquid that served to highlight her physique as enticingly as possible. Her eyes met his and she smiled. “Hi,” he said too quickly, and then she was gone. But on the street like this, her upper-class beauty was only generic: she’d only truly be beautiful to Fanshawe if looked upon unaware through a private window…

Forget about it! He was supposed to be “cured” by now; Tilton had said so.

Instead he let his mind wander. What do normal people think about when they walk around in a neat little tourist town? He blankly eyed passing cars, various street signs, the herringbone-style pattern of the brick sidewalks. When he stopped before a flower shop, he focused on the colorful bouquets, then realized he felt insensible about them in spite of their arresting colors and fascinating scents. Tourists passed this way and that, mostly elderly couples, but several families with chattering children; Fanshawe felt unseen, like a ghost, amongst them. Regular people living regular lives, he thought with more of that same self-condemnation. Every observation he made—and as hard as he tried to feel positive—left him barren-minded. Snap out of it. You’re just in a bad mood, and financial tycoons have NO RIGHT to be in bad moods. Finally he passed one of the pillories and snorted under his breath, smiling. Back then? They would’ve put ME in one of those things.

He crossed the meager intersection, scarcely aware of what he wanted to do. More tourists milled about here, eyeing restaurant menus or simply absorbing the town’s impressive architecture. From the mouth of a curving alley, two women in polyester shorts and mid-waist T-shirts emerged, hands fisted as they jogged, talking briskly with their eyes straight ahead. One’s tight top read YALE, the other’s, HARVARD; both had headbands, ponytailed hair, and toned, lissome physiques. The Harvard woman seemed more robustly breasted, while Yale’s nipples jutted like diminutive teepees beneath the tight fabric. Fanshawe watched them both as if hypnotized; they bobbed up and down on silent sneakers, bosoms bobbing as well, in perfect synchronicity. Knowing that they weren’t aware of his glances left him tingling in some abstract visual fervor. They jogged on, and when he pulled his eyes off them, he gave a start because the first thing he saw next was a display in a curiosity shop window: a mounted skeleton whose yellow-boned hand held—of all things—a pair of binoculars to its face. Fanshawe frowned. He hoped the grotesque thing was artificial but had the edgy notion that it wasn’t. Who the HELL is going to buy that? Next was the Starbucks—Some things never change, he thought—and, next, an information kiosk tended by a spry, elderly woman with a crown of frost-white hair. “Just out for a gallivant, sir?” she piped up in surprising British accent. “Yes,” he said, still distracted, “I just arrived. Not really sure what to do.” “Well, sir, if you’re of the type to fancy such things”—she pointed across the street—“you might have a look in the waxworks, but if you’re easily dispirited, be forewarned to steer clear of the back hall,” yet she pronounced “hall” as ’all. Fanshawe followed her finger to glimpse a pair of Revolutionary War soldiers “guarding” the wax museum’s entrance. At first he thought the pair were living actors in costumes but in a few moments their perfect stillness betrayed them as mannequins, lifelike to an unnerving degree. That’s pretty good work, he realized, though he’d never been particularly impressed by waxworks. He was amused, though, by the elder woman’s reverse psychology. She’s daring me to go in. “I don’t know if I’m easily dispirited,” he said, “but I guess there’s a torture chamber and the whole witchcraft theme.” “That there is, sir,” she replied. “It’ll give you a case of the creepers, it will.”

Fanshawe smiled. “And, of course, a lifelike mannequin of Jacob Wraxall, hmm?”

“’Tis nothing more than the truth, ole limb of the Devil that he was, and that wretched daughter of his. Oh, the carryin’ on they got up to? Heavens!”

But Fanshawe had had enough of Jacob Wraxall for one day. “Thanks for the information,” he said, glancing at the town map. On the index, he spotted the words: FORTUNE TELLER, and its numbered code indicated it to be close to the waxworks. He looked back across the street and saw it. LETITIA RHODES - PSYCHIC, announced the small window sign in gaudy neon. PALMISTRY, CHARTS, TAROT. It occurred to Fanshawe that he’d never had his palm read.

“I see you’re eyein’ the palmist’s, sir. Well, I can only speak like what my heart tells me and say you’re a-better off passin’ that one up.”

“Oh? Why’s that, ma’am?”

“An odd card that Letitia Rhodes is, sir, yes, sir, not that I’m speakin’ ill, mind you, not one word of it. But one day I was just havin’ me my stroll to the tea shop, and I passed her, I did, and she look me right in the eye and say, ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Anstruther”—that bein’ my name, o’course—Anstruther, Delores, Anstruther, sir. So I say back, ‘What loss might you be referring to, Ms. Rhodes?’ and then she go all white in the face and eyes big ‘round as saucers, and she rush off, apologizin’ under her breath. I just took her to be daft, I did, but then when the daily post come I get a letter from Merseyside sayin’ me brother died a week before. A massive stroke it was he ’ad, on his way to the train.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Fanshawe said for lack of anything else, but now he saw that she was merely using her previous trick, daring him to test the palm-reader’s authenticity. “But I don’t think having my fortune told is on my to-do list today, Mrs. Anstruther.” Nevertheless, he enjoyed the old woman’s lively candor; and the accent was a hoot. “What do you recommend, ma’am?”

“Well, sir, if’n you’re in want of some exercise, you can always rent a bystickle down at Mr. Worby’s shop, and if that ain’t to your likin’, sir, you might find it pleasin’ to ’ave an amble ‘bout the scenic walkaways.”

The idea immediately appealed to him. A good long walk might get rid of this lousy mood. “That sounds perfect, Mrs. Anstruther.” He turned the map at an angle, trying to get a bearing. “But where are they exactly?”

“Just cross the cobbles out front of the Travelodge, sir, and you’ll gander the signs hard by. Next door to impossible to miss ’em”—she smiled—”unless you’re in your cups.”

“Thanks very much—” A tip jar with several dollar bills in it sat on her booth shelf. Fanshawe put in a ten.

“Why bless you, sir, and thank you from the bottom of my heart! A pleasure it’s been a-meetin’ you, and may it be a lovely day the Lord ’as comin’ your way.”

“The pleasure’s been mine,” and Fanshawe headed away. That woman is a TRIP, he thought. I’ll bet the accent is fake, she’s probably from Jersey. He laughed when he thought one of the Revolution soldiers flinched, then he found himself looking again at the palm-reader’s parlor. It was just a narrow rowhouse of old, faded brick, with interesting pediments and stone sills. He wondered what the palm reader looked liked—Probably older than Mrs. Anstruther—then he ground his teeth when he glanced up the store front to the second floor.

Windows, always windows…

He scanned the map some more, then passed the Travelodge, the two-story structure forming an L-shape. A splash turned his gaze. Bright beneath the summer sun extended an outdoor swimming pool. It was mostly older children wading around with their parents, tipping over rafts or volleying inflatable balls. A tanned, muscular lifeguard sat bored up in his chair: The Thinker in swim trunks with a whistle around his neck. Fanshawe noticed a fair number of attractive women in hats and sunglasses, stretched out on lounge chairs, all agleam in suntan oil. He gave them a bland glance, but then caught himself looking much more intently at the rows of sliding-glass doors facing the pool. He barely heard the sound of frolic from the water.

Damn it. There I go again. He could not resist roving his gaze across all those windows. Then his eyes locked on. In one window, a woman crossed his view in a spare, orange bikini…

He winced and pulled his gaze away.

He stalked off fast, crossed the cobble road as the British woman had instructed, then loosened in relief. SCENIC NATURE PATH, the sign read with an arrow pointing.

He followed the arrow.

He tried to ignore the guilt that came along with him, like another stroller several steps behind. The Travelodge had bothered him, and so had the immediacy with which he’d scanned all the tempting windows. In New York, after a year of therapy, he never succumbed to the same temptation. Why here? Why now? He walked faster, lengthening his strides as if to out-pace his disarray. Soon his outrage at himself bled over into despair, and he felt lost.

I am NOT going to relapse…

But he felt better the more he walked, through winding gravel paths up into low hills. It was a smorgasbord of natural beauty for as far as he could see. Butterflies floated over the high, sweeping grass. Wild flowers of every color seemed to shift with some manner of sentience, begging his eyes to appreciate them. Fanshawe walked for some time, each step loosening another tight stitch in his malformed mood…

The paths, he saw, comprised a web-work about the hillocks, and would’ve served as a tricky maze had there not been wooden, plaqued maps at every fork. When he glanced over his shoulder, he was taken aback by how high he’d ascended, and when he strode atop a risen nob, the view of the countryside pilfered his breath. The hills seemed to extend to endlessness, loomed over by the ghost of a distant mountain. There was a baby-blue sky and blazing sun; sparse clouds seemed to exist in a whiteness more perfect than he could conceive. Fresh air, and the great outdoors, the rigid Dr. Tilton had instructed. Well, it doesn’t come any better than this…

But…where was he?

He stepped down off the nob to discover a rest stop with an ornate bench and another map on a plaque. One dotted guide-mark read THE WITCHES PATH, then after a few more steps, another sign announced that he’d reached it.

The more the hill rose, the higher the grasses on either side seemed to grow. Fanshawe followed the path, intrigued without knowing why. More tourist stuff, and he mocked, The Witches Path? It’s just a friggin’ path!

But as he approached what seemed to be the most elevated of the hills, he stopped. Facing him now was a sign larger than the others, as well as a clearing in the grasses, leaving only bald dirt. Engraved letters on the sign began: WITCHES HILL: IN JULY, 1671, THIRTEEN WITCHES WERE…

Fanshawe, eyes intent, read the words aloud. “Witches Hill. In July, 1671, thirteen witches were executed here, including Evanore Wraxall, the notorious coven leader. Dozens more practitioners of the Black Arts would be executed on this very hill for another fifty years…” Fanshawe chuckled without much mirth. Sounds like somebody needed a hug.

But he tried to contemplate the gravity of the words. What I’m standing on right now was the Colonial equivalent of a gas-chamber. People—witches or not—but living people had died on this very ground over three hundred years ago.

He shuddered at the cruelty of it all, and the madness, then turned to leave. But at a break in the grasses which rimmed the clearing, his eyes widened. This hill was, as he’d thought, the highest around, and through the break he could see the entire town down below. Perfect as a picture on a postcard, he mused, drinking up the view. Yes, he’d been in New York too long. New York didn’t have views like this, just incalculable skyscrapers, ubiquitous scaffolds and window-cleaning platforms, and monolithic apartment buildings consuming entire city blocks. Gazing at the little town now, it occurred to him that too much of his life had passed since he’d experienced such a monumental sense of wonder.

The faintest breeze brushed over his face, and hidden within it, he heard, or thought he heard, a sound just as faint. Just a drift of something, like a word spoken by someone too close to a rushing surf. Yet, a word it had seemed to be, in a feminine tenor. The word was this: “…lovely.”

Fanshawe paused to identify the direction from which it had arrived: just off from the break in the grasses, where a lone tree stood entwined by leafy vines.

Then two more words, even fainter: “…love you…”

Before Fanshawe had stuck his head fully out from the tree, he saw with a jolt that he was not alone. Just below the immediate rise of the hill lay a lower elevation surrounded by flanks of unkempt bushes, while two t-shirts draped over a bush left a clue: HARVARD and YALE. The joggers, Fanshawe remembered. Indeed, the two women were lying together in the lower clearing, sunbathing on towels, and after a moment of peering, Fanshawe recalled their headbands and well-toned bodies. Both women were topless, yet they’d also rolled up the edges of their running shorts as much as the fabric would permit. Fanshawe stared without breathing.

Their age could not be determined, though he suspected they were well out of the groves of higher learning. One, Harvard, lay flat on her back, eyes closed, with a tiny grin touching her face, while Yale lay on her side, on one elbow, to gaze down in apparent adoration. “I love you,” came another drift-like whisper, and Harvard replied, “I know,” and grinned with more obviousness. They kissed daintily, then Yale ran a hand up her companion’s belly and across her breasts in a single, fluid motion. Harvard’s nipples erected, at once, to dark pink plugs of sensitive flesh. Then Yale assumed her friend’s supine pose. There they both lay now like a passionate secret, smiling, basking in brilliant sun, their hands joined.

It was only when they both lay still that Fanshawe’s emotions began to simmer. He gulped, his mouth going dry. His gaze rolled over their enticing bodies like drool. His eyes would not close.

No, no, no, words scarcely his own pleaded. I can’t be doing this, I MUST NOT DO THIS… His groin fidgeted, he snatched a breath through his teeth as he continued to stare.

No…

His hand moved against the command of his conscience, and slithered across his crotch, but just as he would prepare to masturbate—outright, oblivious—he gnawed his own tongue and dragged his eyes off the fleshy spectacle like nails being dragged out of a plank. It was all he could do not to moan aloud in anguish spliced with self-disgust.

Pervert, scumbag, peeper…

Moments later he’d forced himself well back from the tree. Tears lay in the grooves of his narrowed eyes. He stepped back and back and back until he nudged the large wooden sign; and then he leaned there for a several minutes, regaining his breath and his senses.

This isn’t supposed to be happening…

What if somebody else had walked up and seen him? Or one of the women themselves? What could he say? What excuse could he give?

Nothing. Because his intent would’ve been obvious to anyone, anyone in the world.

He leaned against the sign for some time. He felt jittery, like someone who’d lived on nothing but coffee for a day. Was his heart beating irregularly? Soon he was slumping in place. His mind felt dark, hollow, and blank, but in time he realized he was looking at something with some focus, something he hadn’t noticed when he’d first come up onto the hill. It sat by itself, just before the wall of grasses, at the clearing’s edge.

A barrel.

It was a large one, four feet high and three wide, encircled by two rusting iron bands. Riled by termites and creviced by water-damage, the grayed slats suggested that the barrel was very old, but a closer glance showed him that a heavy coat of some water-resistant resin covered the entire vessel, no doubt a more recent application. A lone antique barrel sitting on this history-laden hill struck Fanshawe as odd, yet he next made an odder observation.

The barrel had a single ten-inch-diameter hole in its side.

He looked perplexed at it. What the hell’s an old barrel doing up here? Perhaps it was an original-era rain barrel, preserved for its value as a relic. But if so? What’s with the hole? A hole in the side of a barrel kind of defeats its purpose.

He shrugged and turned to leave. The temptation raged: to steal a departing glance at the near-naked joggers, but after a wince, he resisted and strode back toward the path that would lead him out. Before he could fully leave the hill’s perimeter, however…

A shock riveted him, and he spun back around.

He’d heard a sound that couldn’t be denied. A crisp, guttural growl, unmistakably that of a large dog.

Wild dog… Fanshawe’s hand came to his heart. His eyes darted for a branch or stone, something that might serve as a weapon, but when his eyes pored back over the clearing he saw that there was no dog to be seen.

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