Fanshawe couldn’t guess why the engraving had so captivated him. He sat down on the bed to examine the plate more intently. In the rendition, the prisoner’s wrists were shackled behind his back…

  Fanshawe stared open-mouthed but it was no longer the plate he was seeing, it was his not-too-distant past, when he himself assumed a position similar to that of the prisoner. It was handcuffs not shackles which immobilized his wrists, and a police cruiser, not a gaol-house that he was being shoved toward. “You have the right to remain silent,” he was told by the New York cop who grasped his arm too hard. Venom hissed out with the universal words, a repressed disgust. “I got more important things to do than waste time on a pervert.” Fanshawe was jammed into the caged back seat; the door slammed in his face. He couldn’t recall his precise thoughts at that time, only a harrowing numbness. When the cop drove out of the alley, faces scowled at him from several lit windows. Fanshawe felt boneless sitting there.

  The cop grimaced over his shoulder. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Successful guy like you pulling a scumbag move like that? I just don’t get it. What the hell is wrong with people?”

  Through the passenger window, Fanshawe saw several homeless men standing around a garbage can. One of them looked right at him and grinned.

  “Too bad times have changed. Thirty years ago, you would’ve gotten a go-round—the good old night-stick shampoo. I’ll bet it was a little girl you were peeping on,” the cop said, “or a little boy.”

  “No!” Fanshawe blurted. “It was…a woman, an adult woman.”

  “Oh, so I guess that makes it all right, huh? I need to be busting crack dealers and guys pulling bank jobs, not fucking around with pieces of shit like you.”

  The cruiser pulled out onto Amsterdam Avenue; suddenly a million lights seemed to blink in Fanshawe’s face. He sat forlorn, his wrists aching. Yeah, he thought. A piece of shit like me…

  The grim vision shattered at the click of the door. Fanshawe glanced up abruptly at the attractive woman smiling at him from the doorway. Her shoulders slumped from the weight of his luggage. “Mr. Fanshawe, I presume?”

  “Yes—oh, here. Let me get those. The big one’s pretty heavy. I thought he’d be sending some brawny bellhop.”

  “Oh, don’t bother, sir. Believe it or not, I like hauling luggage. At my age I need all the exercise I can get.”

  The comment seemed odd or self-conscious. Fanshawe doubted she could be more than mid-thirties. “I’m Abbie, Mr. Baxter’s daughter,” she told him and hefted the larger of the bags up on the bed. As she did so, hair which at the same time seemed blond and auburn danced before her face. She dressed casually in faded jeans, sneakers, and a plain blouse, yet under the nondescript apparel, Fanshawe sensed a curvaceous and even exotic physique. Don’t eyeball her, you scumbag, he groaned at himself, for when she leaned over to situate the big suitcase, his gaze zoomed in on ample, fresh-white cleavage. He snapped his eyes away.

  “Well, thanks for bringing the bags, Abbie.”

  “It’s my pleasure, Mr. Fanshawe—”

  “Stew,” he corrected and shook her hand. Her shake was firm, her hand delicate yet mildly callused, no doubt from her share of hard work. He found the dichotomy bizarrely arousing. The graceful hands revealed no signs of wedding rings. When he attempted to tip her, she refused.

  “I hope you like our hotel. We go out of our way to offer guests something a little more interesting. Most places these days are kind of stiff and sterile.”

  “It’s gorgeous. The furniture, the treatments, that whole Colonial feel.”

  “Um-hmm.” Next, Abbie raised his laptop case to the bed but she flinched when a magazine flipped out of a side pocket. “Oops.” When she bent to pick it up, Fanshawe’s eyes darted once more to her cleavage. He bit his lip.

  The magazine was Fortune 500, and on the cover was Fanshawe’s face. “Stewart Fanshawe: Miracle Man” read the cover line.

  Abbie smiled, and replaced the magazine. “Don’t worry, your—”

  “My secret’s safe with you,” Fanshawe tacked on. “Yes, your father said the same thing and, believe me, I appreciate it.”

  “I’ve seen you on TV a few times, that stock program that runs all day on cable. You must get recognized a lot on the street.”

  “No, not really. Financial folks stay pretty much under the radar. In New York, everyone’s on constant watch for movie stars, not ticker jockeys or CEOs.”

  “Well, it’s really cool to have a big financial guy stay with us.”

  Really cool? You should see my psych profile. Fanshawe laughed. “More like a big lucky guy. All I did was consolidate some failing tech companies, and they turned into winners. Then I branched out from there.”

  “That’s quite an achievement.” She seemed delighted to add, “Oh, and my father owns some of your stock.”

  “God bless him!”

  Now Abbie was slowly walking about the bedroom, touching up with a dust cloth. “What brings you out our way?”

  Fanshawe didn’t feel the least uncomfortable answering, “I’m on what my therapist calls a respite. Just looking around at first, trying to find a place to relax for six months or so.”

  “Well, most of our guests love it here, mostly tourists but we also get lots of visitors from Boston, New York, and Manchester, and some smaller conventions and business conferences.”

  “I just happened to run across an article about Haver-Towne in one of the travel mags—” but then a reminder seemed to blare in his head. “Oh, yeah. I wanted to tell you”—he picked up the old book he’d been flipping through. “This must be here by mistake. I couldn’t believe it when I looked at the copyright date.”

  Abbie squinted, took the book, and showed recognition. “Oh, that’s right. We usually keep it downstairs in one of the display cases but very recently a guest asked to borrow it.”

  “It must be worth a fortune.”

  “Not as much as you think; it’s in pretty poor condition. But it’s much more valuable here because it deals with some of the history of the town. More and more, people seem to be interested in things from the old days.”

  “Witch trials?” Fanshawe questioned.

  Abbie mocked an ominous expression. “The first major witch trials in America happened here. They pre-date Salem by twenty years.”

  “Ah. That explains the ‘Salem of New Hampshire’ line outside.”

  “Well, that was my father’s idea, but, yeah, exactly. Look here—”

  Abbie took him to the front room and steered him toward one of the windows. She held back the curtain for him; Fanshawe saw the main drag out front. “See the pillory?”

  “Yeah, I noticed it when I was driving up.”

  “That’s one of the originals, and a lot of people spent some hard times in it.” She vaguely touched his shoulder as she led him to the westward bow window with the cushioned seat. “And there…” She pointed.

  Fanshawe peered, noticing the rise of hillocks and their most prominent elevation. He made the deduction based on her previous remarks, “Let me guess. Hangman’s Hill?”

  Abbie sounded mirthful. “Close. Witches Hill. No one was hanged there, or burned at the stake. But that is where all the witches and warlocks were executed.”

  “How charming!”

  Abbie made to leave with the book, smiling over a shoulder. Her eyes sparkled, a lavish dove-gray. “I have to check in more guests now but I can tell you all about it later if you’d like.”

  “I’d love that, thanks. And what’s this relic display your father mentioned?”

  A sharper, almost mischievous grin. “It’s a little museum that showcases torture devices and witchcraft paraphernalia… ’Bye!”

  She drifted out of the room, leaving some vague but erotic shampoo-scent in her wake.

  “Torture devices.” Fanshawe chuckled. Meeting Abbie left him upbeat. He went back to the bedroom to unpack but he hadn’t even gotten the suitcase open when that unknown impulse revisited him, goading him to look up…

  At the trapdoor in the ceiling.

  — | — | —

  CHAPTER TWO

  (I)

  Later in the afternoon, Fanshawe meandered downstairs, aiming to have a stroll about town. But first, he thought and searched off the now-noisy atrium, noisy due to an influx of guests waiting their turn at the front desk. But from the plush atrium, small coves branched, each lit by the familiar bow windows, and furnished with leather arm chairs. It was in these coves that the display cases were found: great shining intricate cases with gold-painted frameworks, curved glass, and mirrored shelves. The cases alone looked fabulously old and valuable, but then so must be the relics and books they quartered. This place really IS a museum, Fanshawe thought, stooping before a case. Each object was displayed upon trivet-like pedestals, and bore an information label. First, a pair of iron rings the size of medium hose-clamps, each fitted with a hand-forged screw whose turning-head had been hammered flat. THUMBSCREWS, 1649, the label notified. When Fanshawe imagined his thumb within the tiny contraption, his 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 read 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 shoulders; a plunging neckline made no secret of a robust bosom. Fanshawe at once felt jarred by her image: she looked tantalizing, voluptuous, densely erotic…and atrocious. Her narrow face and thin lips suggested a hereditary connection, and so did the high cheekbones. His daughter, not his wife, Fanshawe supposed; and, like Wraxall, she was not without some occult regalia: several rings on her raised right hand possessed geometric designs of an astrological bent. Standing well behind Wraxall, however, was a dark-haired, clean-shaven man whose dark sulk and heavy jaw suggested subservience. Large eyes and a rather wide face were the subject’s most salient features.

  “They were quite a trio, I’ll tell ya,” Baxter remarked.

  Fanshawe felt particularly taken by the painting’s indeterminate visual effect: dark, dark colors made darker by age seemed on the other hand queerly bright in certain details. The woman’s rings, for instance, seemed painted with such exactitude they could’ve been photographs; the same went for Wraxall’s pendant, and the same, too, for their eyes, a stunning sea-green. But the background existed in such sheer murk that nothing at all could be made of it, and the more Fanshawe peered, he thought that other faces might lurk there, as if in smoke or shadow.