Witch Water Read Online Free Page A

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