Witch Water by Edward Lee Read Free Book Online Page B

Some claim to
fame, huh? Did you see the graveyard?”
    “No. I didn’t know there was one.”
    “Well, there is, believe me, and it’s ten
times creepier. Half of it’s unconsecrated ground; it’s on the
western end of the hill. Unconsecrated burial grounds are always
located to the west or north of a town’s church.”
    Fanshawe opened his small map on the bar. “I
don’t remember noticing it on this—”
    “There,” she said, pointing. Her fingertip
touched next to a minuscule cross on the colorful map.
    “No wonder I didn’t see it, it’s tiny,” but
then he looked up, his eyes following the line of her arm. It was
an unconscious tactic for any “scoptophile” or voyeur: Abbie’s
blouse—as she leaned down slightly to address the map—had looped
out between two buttons. Fanshawe glimpsed part of a sizable breast
sitting within a sheer bra. A ghost of a nipple could be seen
through the light fabric.
    Oh, God… “I’ll check it out
tomorrow,” he recovered.
    “And there aren’t many regular tombstones,
either,” she went on. “Just splotches of this stuff called tabby
mortar.”
    “Tabby mortar?”
    “Yeah. It’s like low-grade cement. The
convict’s name would be written in this stuff by someone’s
finger—you’ve got to see it to know what I mean.”
    Fanshawe had trouble concentrating on her
words, still too hijacked by her image, by her simple proximity.
Whatever shampoo she used didn’t help; the soft, fruity scent
affected him aphrodisiacally. But when he recollected what she’d
said, he wasn’t sure if she spoke with genuine interest or— Is
she just laying a bunch of tourist crap on me? Same as the old
lady? “I guess it’s just more of the motif, that and the power
of suggestion. But it was a good marketing ploy to name the hotel
after”—he faltered, for the name drew a blank. “Jacob… What was his
name?”
    “Jacob Wraxall, one of the founding members
of the town. He lived here with his daughter, Evanore—”
    Fanshawe remembered with some unease the old
portrait and Wraxall’s thin, sinister face. The rendition of the
daughter, however, struck him with an even more ominous impact. Evanore… Her fresh-blood-colored hair sent a butterfly of a
far less pleasant type to his belly. Fanshawe felt a momentary
whooze…
    He shook the image out of his head, then
looked back up at Abbie. The clean, guileless good looks made him
whooze again—sexually, though. He cleared his throat. “Jacob
Wraxall, yes, and his daughter Evanore. Your father pointed out the
portrait in one of the coves.” He tapped a finger on the bar,
half-remembering a blank face half-submerged in shadow. “And there
was a third person too, wasn’t there? A yard-hand or
something?”
    “Um-hmm. Callister Rood, but he was more
than a yard-hand. He was the family apprentice necromancer.”
    “That’s some job title,” Fanshawe tried to
jest, but it didn’t come off.
    Abbie’s voice lowered, either as if she were
playing her description up for drama’s sake, or she was genuinely
unsettled. “It was in this very house that they solicited the
devil.”
    The devil, Fanshawe thought. But the
notion of devil-worship, and even the name—the devil—was so hokey
he had to smile.
    Abbie’s smile had disappeared. “They
practiced their witchcraft in secret. Years went by, but the town
never knew.”
    “Well, someone must’ve known—”
    “Of course, but a lot of time went by before
anyone found out. Evanore was the one who got caught first.” She
leaned closer against the bar, her voice nearly fluttering. “She
and the coven were all condemned to death.”
    “Evanore but not her father?” Fanshawe asked
logically. “Why didn’t Jacob get nabbed too?”
    “Jacob was abroad in England at the time,
and Callister Rood had gone with him. But when they returned, his
daughter had already been executed and buried.”
    “But Jacob must’ve been into witchcraft even
more than her. I didn’t see