Witch Water (27 page)

She got up in the dimness, tried to laugh.
“Well,
this
sure turned into a bad scene.” She opened the
front door. “I can’t expect you stay to have the rest of your
fortune told when I’ve got no a/c or lights.”

“It was very interesting,” he said. He took
out his wallet.

“No charge,” she said. “I didn’t even
finish.”

“I got my money’s worth. I was mainly here
for the information about Wraxall anyway.”

“Just like Karswell…”

He smiled. “Yeah, just like Karswell,” then
he gave her a $100 bill. “Keep the change.”

She sighed in relief. “Thanks,
that’s—wow—that’s very generous.”

They both went outside into the sun.

“I’ll come back again,” Fanshawe said, “when
things are better for you.”

She laughed. “Yeah, when I’ve got lights.
But these days all you have to do is listen to the news people talk
about the recession to think it’ll
never
get better.”

“Well, I happen to know some things about
capitalism and the free-market system. It’s cyclic, it has to be.
We have to go through the lows to get to the highs.” He shook her
hand, preparing to leave.

“I don’t know why but…you’re pretty
inspiring,” she said with a smile, and after she shook his hand,
she turned it in her own palm. She raised it to look at. “Just as I
thought: a quad-bifurcation. Curious.”

“That’s not a
disease,
is it?”

“No. It means that you will give to and take
from the same—”

Fanshawe was instantly confused. “Give to
and take—”

“—in a way that’s, well, connected to
something of a recent
revelatory
note.”

He didn’t have a clue what she meant;
nevertheless, he thought:
The looking-glass?

Her fingertip traced lower on his palm. Her
eyebrows shot up. “Oh, dear…”

“What?” he said with some force.

“Here goes. The best news all day. Your
riches will increase a thousandfold.”

I’m a billionaire already, honey,
he
thought.
That’s enough for me.
The remark seemed ridiculous
yet, somehow, she didn’t. He took his hand away, more interested in
his questions than his fortune. What immediately came to mind was
the pedestaled ball on the hill, and how little he knew about
it.

“If I can keep you another minute, do you
have any idea what that bronze or copper ball is near the cemetery
on Witches Hill? Abbie Baxter called it was a Gazing Ball to make
wishes with but, at least to me, it looks very occult.”

“That’s because it
is
very occult,”
Letitia told him. “It’s a totem that originated with the Druids and
then got picked up by Satanic necromancers in the Middle Ages. No
one really knows what their purpose is, because sorcerers were good
at keeping secrets. A lot of the historians think it’s the Druid
version of a Magic Circle.”

“And do I understand correctly that Wraxall
went all the way to England—”

“Yes,” she interrupted, “to buy it from an
infamous sorcerer named Septimus Wilsonne. You can think of him as
the Mack-Daddy of warlocks back in those times.”

Fanshawe pushed his hair back, frustrated.
“Between Wraxall and Callister Rood, you’d think that one of them
would’ve written about it in their diaries.”

“Well, it’s mentioned a few times, but no
one explained exactly what it was.” For some reason, Letitia
shivered as if at a chill in spite of the ample heat outside. “What
you have to understand about witches and warlocks is that they went
to great pains—and sometime would even die—to keep their secrets.
And speaking of secrets, that was one of the most curious parts
about Callister’s diary. Several times he mentioned ‘The Two
Secrets,’ which I think had something to do with a ritual that
Wraxall was planning in the future.”

“The Two Secrets,” Fanshawe droned. He’d
read precisely of that in Wraxall’s second diary last night.
…and grant’d what It was I most ask’d in mine Mind - yes! - the
second of ye Two Secrets,
Wraxall had written, information
supposedly given to him by the spirit of a dead warlock. He cringed
to tell Letitia this, but if he did, then he’d be admitting the
liberties he’d taken at the inn. “But since warlocks were so good
at keeping secrets, as you’ve just said, no one knows what these
Two Secrets were,” he said more than asked.

“You got that right. My guess is it has
something to do with the last ritual we know Wraxall was preparing
for.”

“What’s that?”—he paused—“er, let me guess!
The bones of his daughter?”

Again, Letitia seemed impressed with his
insight. “Yeah, that’s
exactly
what I was going to say. So
the Baxters told you the whole story?”

“Everything they know themselves, I guess. I
know that Wraxall and Rood dug up Evanore’s bones 666 days after
she was buried.”

“Right, and you and I both know what he was
going to do with them—”

“Witch-water,” Fanshawe intoned.

“Sure, but that’s the $64,000 question.
Witch-water had
many
uses, not just looking-glasses. Rood’s
diary does say that the
key
to the Two Secrets was written
down on parchment by Wraxall himself before he died.”

“Where’s the parchment—no! Don’t tell me. No
one knows.”

“Not a soul. Wraxall hid it, either that or
it simply got lost or confiscated by the court.”

Fanshawe’s brain started ticking.

“Anyway,” she went on, “I have a feeling
that the Two Secrets have to do with Evanore’s witch-water and the
Gazing Ball too.”

“Your psychic inclination, huh?” Fanshawe
asked, not knowing if he was serious.

“Yeah.”

He knew it was time to leave but, still, his
questions nagged at him.
Leave her alone,
he thought.
Shit, I just reminded her of her dead baby. The last thing she
wants to do is answer more of my kooky questions.
However, he
remembered Evanore’s hallucinatory remark in the wax museum, and
he’d just seen the word a little while ago in Rood’s diary. Bad
taste or not, he had to ask: “What does the word
bridle
have
to do in an occult context?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. I said that the
Gazing Ball originated with the Druids—well, that’s what they
called it. A
bridle.
”

Fanshawe wondered. “A bridle… I’d always
thought that a bridle was something on a horse.”

“That’s right. It’s a strap that helps the
rider guide the horse into a particular direction. But in an
occult
context? Think of it as an object that helps guide a
warlock
or
witch
into a particular direction, a
direction that ultimately serves the Devil’s interest.”

Fanshawe looked back at her but didn’t seem
to see her.

“I better go now,” she said, happily looking
at the $100 bill he’d given her. “Maybe they’ll let me pay
part
of my power bill.”

“Wait,” he said. Without thinking, he was
taking out his checkbook. Nor did he seem to be consciously
impelled to say, “I’ll pay your entire electric bill and any late
fees—”

“
What?
” she said. She winced.

“In exchange for information. What’s wrong
with that?” He leaned against the door and wrote her name on the
check, then signed his name. “I want to know one more thing.”

“
And you’re gonna pay my whole power
bill?
” she almost gasped.

“Yes. I’m well off, but you already know
that. And I’m also a very curious person when something suddenly
interests me.”

“The occult? Wraxall? Sorcery?”

He nodded. “How much is your power bill, the
total?”

“It’s eight hundred bucks! You can’t
possibly—”

Fanshawe made out the check for a thousand,
and gave it to her.

Her eyes went wide, but behind them there
was the look of a heavy burden lifted. “This is crazy…”

“No it isn’t. I’m paying for your knowledge,
just like Karswell. Consultation fee?” He thought of his own
business and smiled. “People pay for information all the time. It
really does make the world go round.”

“As much as I need it—”she looked longingly
at the check—“I can’t take it.”

“Wouldn’t you be foolish not to?”

Moments ticked by; Letitia’s hesitation was
nearly palpable. “What’s your question?”

He answered at once, as if it had been on
his mind all along. “Earlier. You almost sounded amused when you
told me not to ask you the color of my aura. Well, I want to
know.”

She exhaled as if exerted. “Of all the
questions, you
would
ask that.”

“Come on. I don’t even really know what an
aura is, or even what’s it’s supposed to be if I believed in such
things…”

Letitia seemed to squirm where she stood,
still looking at the check. “An aura is a detectible emanation of a
person’s life-force, or soul,” she said, exasperated. “Not
everybody has one, but those that do—”

“Are what?” he jumped in, thinking the
obvious. “Psychically inclined?”

“No. Just
sensitive.
The color of a
person’s aura suggests their
nature.
Orange means
passionate, red means quick to anger, blue means meditative, white
means benevolent, like that. But some experts insist that it’s more
than that. They say that the color of one’s aura reflects the true
character of their heart….”

Fanshawe’s throat felt dry when he asked,
“What color’s mine?”

“You don’t really have one,” she said. “But
it’s something I tell anyone who comes to have their palm read. It
sounds genuine. It puts customers in good mood, and when they’re in
a good mood, they tip better.”

Fanshawe slowly shook his head. “Lett, I
think you’re making that up just to close out the topic.”

Her posture drooped. “All right, I am!
Jesus!”

“What’s the big deal?” he asked, astounded
by her reluctance. “What, it’s some ethical thing, a
palm
reader’s
creed? Come on.”

“Well, it sort of is. Doctors have their
Hippocratic Oath, palm readers don’t tell people about their auras.
It kind of…crosses a boundary, I guess you could say. It’s the mark
of a jaded fortune teller.” She eyed the check again, moaned, then
offered it back to him.

“You’re kidding me!”

“No. I wouldn’t feel right about it. Take
the check back.”

Fanshawe chuckled, amazed.
You sure don’t
see this everyday.
He was impressed, yes, but also…

Very disappointed.

“You really walk it like you talk it, Lett.
Thanks for your time. And keep the check.” He turned and began to
head down the sidewalk.

“Hey!” she called out.

He turned to see her fuming.

She pointed a finger right at him.
“
You
asked, so don’t blame me! It’s
black!
” and then
she ran across the street, check in hand, to the bank.

(II)

Black,
he thought.

Black aura. Black heart.

Go thither, if thou dost have the heart, to
the bridle—

A heart so black as to be stygian, sir, a
black blacker, too, than the very abyss…

Fanshawe’s reaction to Letitia’s parting
words was nothing like what he’d expect. He felt neutral about it,
not confused, not scared or foreboded.
A psychic just told me I
have a black heart—that’s not much of an endorsement, is it?
The color black brought negative connotations: corruption,
dishonesty, greed…

Evil.

He scoffed as he moved leisurely down the
sun-lit sidewalk, then he laughed aloud to himself.
I’m not any
of those things, and I’m certainly not EVIL.
However, as he
thought more on it, the more irresistibly he found himself
reflecting back on the entire meeting. She’d mentioned something
revelatory, hadn’t she?

There’d certainly been revelations in her
parlor.

The Gazing Ball was also called a bridle,
something akin to a magic circle. It evolved from the times of the
Druids, a
very
 occult bunch. Last night he’d found a
second and more secure diary of Wraxall’s, while today he’d seen a
corroborating diary: Callister Rood’s. Rood himself had committed
suicide, by hanging, while Fanshawe had seen the man’s image
hanging by the neck last night. And Wraxall probably hadn’t been
executed after all. He’d been butchered by Rood, his own
apprentice.

Now, all that he’d learned began to swirl
about consciousness, and when his elbow brushed his jacket pocket,
he felt the tubular bulk of the looking-glass.
The glass worked
last night—I KNOW it did…

And if that were the case, everything else
was real too, not superstitious invention.

It was real.

The acknowledgment of that brought the drone
back to his head.
I’m NOT crazy, so that can only mean…

But how could this be?

“Well, ’ow’d your session go at the
palmist’s, sir?” greeted the enthused, elderly voice.

Fanshawe had been too wound up over his
thoughts to even
see
that he’d just passed Mrs. Anstruther’s
information kiosk. It took a moment for him to snap out of the
daze.

“Ah, Mrs. Anstruther—yes, it was very
entertaining. I appreciate your suggestion.”

The high sunlight filled the creases in her
face so sharply with shadow-lines she looked like a grinning
sketch. “Cheery news on your horizon, I hope, sir.”

Well, I’m told my riches will increase a
thousandfold and I’ve got a black heart…
“I think you could say
that, yes.”

“And what might your estimation be of Ms.
Letitia Rhodes? Hope ya don’t got the notion I steered you
improper.”

The tiny drone remained in his head even as
he engaged in the talk, as though his current concerns were being
intruded upon. “Not at all. She seems very genuine, maybe even a
bit
too
genuine, if you know what I mean.”