Witch Water Read Online Free

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
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