Free Witch Water by Edward Lee Page A

continue to effuse smoke.
    More black fog, then the field of Fanshawe’s
nightmare shifts, to that of a quiet hillock webbed by footpaths
and askew brush. A gray sky yawns over all, low clouds shedding
drizzle, as the queue of shackled heretics, now dressed in rags, is
led up at musket-point. The sheriff and his deputies take their
places about the hill’s crown; so do the town’s citizens. The
pastor reads from a Bible, then closes it.
    Sheriff Patten steps toward the
stoop-shouldered captives. He reads from a scroll…
    Abbie’s voice echoes back through the
dream’s black blood: “Evanore and the coven were all condemned to
death…”
    Now, a horse-driven carriage pulls into the
town square. Jacob Wraxall gets out with his personal attendant,
Callister Rood. Rood bears a large suitcase, then takes a crate
down from the coach. A town man immediately rushes over to tell
them something silently. Jacob’s reaction is one of alarm. And
next?
    Jacob is standing in the cemetery, looking
solemnly down at some graves.
    “Jacob and Callister Rood were abroad in
England at the time,” Abbie’s voice wavers; however, a long silence
follows, broken only by the sounds of Fanshawe’s quickening
breaths. “But when they returned, Jacob’s daughter had already been
executed…”
     
     
    (II)
     
    Was it the sound of a growling dog that
Fanshawe woke to? He churned irritably out of his sleep, then sat
up.
    He grimaced.
    At once, the long smear of nightmare poured
back like reeking slop through his mind. His subconscious had
concocted imagery to accompany Abbie’s grim recital of Wraxall and
his daughter. Christ… The dream’s aftermath left him feeling
faintly sick; the moderate hangover didn’t help. But then he
winced, recalling what had roused him out of his sleep.
    A growling dog? He rubbed his face.
His eyes ached; they felt dry. I thought I’d heard a dog
growling yesterday too, on the hill… But outside, then, he
heard a rudely loud motorcycle in the distance. There’s your
growling dog…
    His brows shot up when he noticed that
morning as well as most of the afternoon was already gone. Jesus! How could I have slept so long? For years—for
decades, actually—he’d risen at four-thirty in the morning. Now
I don’t have to anymore. The Wall Street pressure-cooker was
finally behind him; perhaps his body was taking back the rest it
had been robbed of after so many years of ceaseless thinking,
speculation, buy-outs, and re-organizations.
    But this?
    He’d slept sixteen hours. Maybe I’m
getting a cold… Could the faint headache be a cold coming on
rather than too much alcohol last night? But either way… So
what? he thought. If I want to sleep sixteen hours, I can. I
can do anything I want; I’m on vacation…sort of.
    But he felt worn out even with the extra
sleep. The dream… Why would a dream—unpleasant but not
excruciating—cause such exhaustion? The Witch-Blood
Shooters, he suspected . Smart move, Fanshawe. At least
the window promised spectacular weather. Now, if I can only
enjoy it without feeling like shit… A cool shower helped a
little, plus more casual dress, including a lighter sports jacket.
Downstairs, he noticed no sign of Abbie or Mr. Baxter. An older
woman he hadn’t seen before was preparing to open the bar, while a
pair of college-aged waitresses set tables in the dining room, in
preparation for the upcoming dinner hour. The Professors, he
thought next, noticing several of them browsing the display coves.
The long hair and beards were the giveaway. Bloodshot eyes were a
giveaway, too, that at least their hangovers must be worse than
Fanshawe’s. He heard the elevator open and close, then came a soft,
regulated pattering as Harvard and Yale walked briskly down the
carpeted hall and across the atrium. They wore blank, midriff
running tops today, with no designation, but he thought he saw
Harvard glance once at him, then say to her companion, “Where have
I seen that guy before?”