Witch Water Part 18

"Well, he wrote about the occult; he was a writer, had a bunch of books published. He was also a Christian mystic."

This took her aback.

"I have this feeling he was writing about Wraxall himself," Fanshawe added.

"But if you didn't really know him, how do you know he was an occult writer?"

Fanshawe gave the question honest thought. "You might say...I had some researchers pry into the dead man's privacy."

The look on her face told him: Why? Why would Fanshawe want to know anything about Karswell? "This is getting more interesting by the minute. I got bad vibes from the guy the minute he walked in here, and now I'm getting more." She stared right at him. "What's going on?"

"Nothing. I'm just curious about some things."

"Well, I'm curious too, about this Karswell man," she said in a drier and almost demanding tone. "Do you know how he died? The papers just said he was found dead, said it was a robbery-related homicide. His wallet was missing."

"His face was missing too," Fanshawe said. He watched closely at her reaction.

Her mouth fell open, then closed.

"I'm not trying to make you sick but...Karswell's face, scalp, and most of the flesh on his head had been torn-or chewed-off, as if by a wild animal."

"Almost like..."

"Yeah, almost like he'd been *barrelled,'" Fanshawe said.

Another silence followed. Their eyes met, then flicked away, but Let.i.tia made no comment. Fanshawe used the now-unpleasant silence to feign interest in some of the other pictures on the wall. One was a picture of Let.i.tia holding an infant. She didn't look any younger in the picture than she did now. "What a cute baby," he offered.

When she didn't reply, he turned.

Her appearance had changed completely. No longer the off-beat, quirky "palmist," now she looked wilted, crushed.

Oh, no, Fanshawe thought, his guts sinking.

"His name was George Jeffreys Rhodes," Let.i.tia said in a dark wisp. "He died in May, he was only eight months old."

"My G.o.d, I'm sorry," Fanshawe struggled. He wanted to kick himself. Yet he had to wonder about the dead infant's father, since he saw no trace of him in the pictures.

He didn't have to ask, though. "The biological father left when I told him I was pregnant," she said.

Fanshawe's tongue seemed to adhere to the roof of his mouth. This time the silence turned excruciating, and for all he was worth he struggled for something to say, but before he could-clack!-the lights and air-conditioner shut off. Let.i.tia shrieked at the initial startlement.

"Just a blown fuse, I think."

"I should be so lucky," she said with a long smirk. "The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds could at least have waited till the end of the month."

"Forgot to pay your power bill?"

Let.i.tia, smirking, picked up several letters on the end table, then flapped them back down. "Yeah, I *forgot' to pay a bunch of them-a delinquent customer is what they call me after all these years of giving them money. I've got bills stacked up till Judgment Day. It's this d.a.m.n recession. When there's a recession, the last thing on anyone's mind is getting their fortune told."

"Sorry to hear you're so having such a tough time," Fanshawe said.

"The power bill's the least of my worries," she remarked with some cynicism. "I'll be kicked out of the house before long 'cos I can't afford the d.a.m.n property tax. The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds a.s.sess this house for three times what it's worth, and n.o.body's buying houses now anyway, not in this economy, so I couldn't sell it if I wanted to. But they don't want to hear that, oh, no. I gotta pay taxes on what they say it's worth, whether I like it or not. Bunch of pirates, bunch of d.a.m.n blood-suckers."

Now Fanshawe felt twice the bad luck magnet. First, he reminded her of her dead child, and now this. s.h.i.+t... But he still had questions, about Wraxall, about Rood. Can't ask her about all that now.

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-gla.s.s?

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," Let.i.tia 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, Let.i.tia s.h.i.+vered 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 Let.i.tia 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, Let.i.tia 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-gla.s.ses. 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. s.h.i.+t, 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; Let.i.tia'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..."

Let.i.tia 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 pa.s.sionate, 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."