Witch Water (13 page)

He couldn’t tell, and the lower angle
blocked all detail of her from the shoulders up; he could only tell
her hair was not blond but lighter than brunet.

It was then that she turned, offering a
delectable side-glance. At once Fanshawe’s wooziness doubled. The
woman’s breasts were heavy but high, her waist fatless. A tuft of
butterscotch public hair showed. Next, she turned only a trifle,
such that Fanshawe could see the large, dark circles of her nipples
and the jutting papillae. He zoomed only to be astonished to near
disbelief.
These optics are incredible.

It was uncanny how closely the looking-glass
could bear in on an image. Just then, the unknowing woman’s nipple
nearly filled the viewing field. Every detail was there before his
eye, the stark demarcation of the nipple’s rim against the white
flesh of the breast, even the finest hair follicles, and even the
papilla’s lactation ducts. It was akin to microscopy… But—

Was she about to lean over?

Fanshawe backtracked the zoom to bring the
entire window back into frame.

Yeah… Contact lenses…

The woman
was
leaning slightly,
finger on one hand widening her eyelids while those of her other
hand slipped out the lenses. It was during this pose that Fanshawe
received his most vivid shock of the night. The woman was
absolutely voluptuous, and now he could see her face.

It was Abbie.

The sudden noise spun him abruptly around
like someone caught by surprise on a barstool. He’d heard a dog
growl.

He stood frozen, staring into the clearing.
What he noticed first was the old rain barrel, but it almost looked
as though it were shimmering. Some aspect of the moonlight seemed
to over-substantiate details much in the same way as the
looking-glass. Everything he saw—the high grasses and wild flowers,
the small stones on the ground, and even the dirt’s grit—looked
excessively crisp. As for the barrel, even from yards away he
easily detected the pits and water-damage grooves of its body
beneath its protective coat.

But as he might expect, there was no
dog.

Not this shit again.

It hadn’t sounded as precise as when he’d
heard it earlier that day—just before the scream. It only took a
few moments for him to feel sure there was no dog, but remembering
how Eldred Karswell’s body had been found didn’t afford much
relief.
What IS this?
he wondered, close to being angered.
I’m hearing growling dogs, for God’s sake.
But there’d be
other evidence of a dog in the vicinity, wouldn’t there? Panting,
moving through the brush, etc.? There’d been none of that.
I
CAN’T be hearing things, can I?
He could only hope that the
sound had carried from far away, via some fluke he didn’t
understand. When he was fully convinced that no dog was present,
his lust took him back to previous activities.

Abbie…

He lined the glass right back up on her
window, but—

Damn it!

It stood dark now.

Here, his id railed. Naked, she’d proved
even more alluring that he’d imagined; her body had
stunned
him; the prospect of looking at her again filled him with an edgy
thrill. But even before he’d seen that her window was now dark, the
more decent side of his character groaned at him,
How low can I
get? I’m peeping on a woman I’ve got a date with!
Some force
tried to urge him to put the looking-glass away, but he never quite
got to that point.
I’m a scumbag peeping-tom loser…
He
noticed several other windows still lit, but as he would put the
glass back to his eye—

The minuscule alarm on his Brietling watch
began to beep, signaling midnight.

More self-scorn rained down on him.
My
God, it’s midnight already. I wasted the whole night up here.
Looking in windows, eyeballing nude women behind their backs. What
a piece of shit I am.
When he considered Dr. Tilton’s reaction,
he couldn’t have felt more crushed. He could almost see her
ice-cold face hanging right there before him like a semi-palpable
shadow, not frowning but simply blank, which was much worse.

He presumed to leave at once, his watch
still beeping its electronic tolls. But then he was wincing,
struggling against the beggardly temptation.
Leave! Leave this
hill right now and never come back! Only low-lifes do this, only
perverts and dirt-bags!
but even as this bleak truth socked
home, his hand raised the looking-glass to his eye—

All right, damn it… This is it, just one
more minute and then I go back to the hotel, and I will never do
this again…

There were two odd things that he
immediately recognized, but the order of the recognition reversed.
In only that short period of time, all the remaining lit windows of
the Wraxall Inn had gone out, almost as if they’d been extinguished
simultaneously. A sweep of the glass showed him that the rest of
the town, too, seemed much darker than before…

The toll of midnight drew on, but not via
the electric beep of his watch…

It now sounded as a deep, sonorous
bell.

I haven’t heard bells ringing here, have
I?
He felt certain, in fact, that the town’s church
had
no bell.

When he momentarily lowered the glass to
think…the beep of his watch continued.

And the bell-peals disappeared.

What on earth?

He put the glass back to his eye, then felt
a chill, for the peals somehow revitalized themselves. Each toll,
though heavy, deep, sounded oddly brittle as well, the way bells
sometimes sounded on still, hot nights.

Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

Then silence. His attention, splayed as it
may have been, switched back to the visual: the town.

His mouth fell open.

What he saw now was impossible, yet he saw
it just the same…

The town was different.

Haver-Towne not only appeared darker in the
sheen of moonlight, it appeared smaller.
A power failure?
he
considered.
A brownout?
But no, half the buildings on Back
Street weren’t there, and those that were did not coincide with his
memory. And were there no street lights burning at all now? He
zoomed and squinted, then with an incredulous realization saw that
there
were
no street lamps. And the light in the few windows
that remained lit shone duller, less intense, and somehow
flickering, like…

Like candles,
he realized.

Looking again to the inn, he scrutinized the
walls, the gables, and the roof.
This is crazy…
The
once-clean white walls looked streaked now, shoddy, as if
whitewashed or painted with inferior product. Flaws, splits, and
cracks were apparent in the wall-slats, and on the roof…

The shingles were definitely not the same as
they had been.

Fanshawe squeezed his viewing eye shut,
rubbed it, then shook his head as if to dislodge some cerebral
misfire.
I’m tired, I’m burned out,
he forced the idea.
And I’m pissed off at myself for relapsing.
Certainly the
stress of such things combined could urge eyes to play tricks on
their owner, that and the crisp blocked out shadows that the bright
moonlight generated about the town.

He took a heavy breath.
I’ll look again
and everything will be normal—

He looked again.

Fanshawe’s heart seemed to squeal, like some
small, agitated animal in a trap. The town did
not
look
normal.

Impossible…

Haver-Towne looked corroded now. As Fanshawe
stared, he let his eyes adjust, then could’ve sworn that Main
Street was no longer paved, and in it a lone figure walked slowly,
hesitantly, holding what had to have been a candle-lantern.
Fanshawe trembled in place, then homed the looking-glass again on
the Wraxall Inn.

Abbie’s window hung dark now, but then some
peripheral light elsewhere urged his instincts to raise the glass,
to the top floor. Another window was indeed alight when it hadn’t
been a moment ago. The bow window on the end…

That’s not…MY room, is it? No, no, that’s
impossible.
He was sure he hadn’t left the lights on. Why would
he? Next, Fanshawe froze.

A part in the curtains formed a wide cleft
of light in the window; Fanshawe was sure that
these
curtains were darker and more ragged than the curtains he knew the
room to have. And it was candlelight—he was
sure
—that wanly
filled the cleft.

Suddenly the back of a naked woman appeared
in the window—
his
window. He focused closer and thought that
her hair was a shimmering deep red. When she turned, he felt a
jolt. The woman’s large, bare breasts jutted—more voyeur’s
pay-dirt—but he scarcely paid the image mind, for there was
something else much more paramount that he’d noticed first.

The woman was pregnant,
very
pregnant, undoubtedly close to term.

Her great, white belly stretched out
pinprick tight, the navel inverted like a button of flesh. Was she
talking to someone in the room? Her movements indicated an anxious
expectation, though Fanshawe couldn’t imagine why he believed this.
Moreover, he couldn’t believe any of what he was seeing.

How could he?

I must be dreaming,
he tried to
convince himself. Though nothing of the past few minutes seemed at
all like a dream. The looking-glass’s eyepiece felt connected to
him now. As he continued to stare into the window that could only
be his, the pregnant woman began to crudely caress herself, and
then—

The window turned pitch dark, like a candle
being blown out.

Fanshawe lowered the glass; he was too
afraid to look anymore. What he’d seen, or thought he’d seen, made
his mind feel like it was shredding. He shoved the looking-glass
back into his pocket and stalked away down the path.

I think there’s something seriously wrong
with me…

(IV)

His eyes felt peeled open when he returned
to town. Both Back and Main Streets stretched out charming and
quaint as always. Only a few passersby were about, evidently on
their way to or from the tavern, or one of the late-night cafes.
What bothered Fanshawe most was the vibrancy of the street
lamps—

Street lamps that weren’t there a little
while ago.
But his unease toned down in a moment. He was a
logical man, so there
had
to be a logical explanation.

Unsure steps took him back into the hotel.
He crossed the near empty atrium, thought of putting the
looking-glass back into the display case—though he
still
didn’t remember ever taking it out—but changed his mind when a pair
of professors loped drunkenly out of the pub.
I’ll put it back
tomorrow,
he resolved,
and I better make damn sure no one
sees me.
A quick glance into the pub showed him Mr. Baxter, not
Abbie, idly tending the bar, but then he remembered seeing her:
undressing, getting ready for bed.
Yep, I’m a scumbag, all
right—peeping on a girl I’ve got a DATE with tomorrow…
He
thought of stopping in to say hello but realized that conversation
was the last thing he desired just now.

What the hell was I seeing back there?

He hastened for the elevator, hoping Baxter
hadn’t noticed him.
What a day. A dead body and now…this…
He
couldn’t have gotten to his room faster; the hall’s muffled silence
seemed to chase him inside like a pursuer.

The pursuer, he knew, was guilt.

Not too long ago, he’d been spying on some
women on this very floor.

He locked the door behind him, then sat on
the high bed with a nervy sigh. Only now did a flattened sensation
at his groin tell him that he’d masturbated on the hill. Disgust
drew lines in his face.
Probably while looking at Abbie. What a
sick slob.
Ordinarily his mind would be swimming in all those
delectable images, but now his anguish sabotaged them.
Other
images struck him now, images not of Abbie or the other women he’d
seen, but images of the town.

Fanshawe took out the looking-glass, noting
again how heavy it felt for such a small object. Acid trickled in
his stomach.

Images of the town.
The
town…changed…

Yes, just after he’d spied Abbie naked in
her room, her abundant breasts so apparent as she removed her
contacts, his eyes showed him that the town had indeed changed. And
it had seemed to change at the precise stroke of midnight—

From a bell that doesn’t exist.

He dropped the glass on the bed like
something that nauseated him.

Ridiculous.
He shook his head, then
put his brow into his hand.
I’m not cracking up, am I?
Now
his watch—not a distant bell—beeped once.

Just go to bed…

He began to undress but found his eyes oddly
lured upward, toward the ceiling.
The trapdoor,
he thought,
staring at it. In a moment he was standing on the bed— feeling
ludicrous in his boxer shorts and Gaultier shirt—reaching up. He
pushed on the board, slid it off, then stood on tiptoes and patted
his hand around just inside the egress.
There,
 he
thought, feeling something. He pulled it out: a rope ladder.

Why am I doing this?
the question
drifted but it never solidified. He hopped off the bed, slipped a
penlight in his shirt pocket, then grabbed the unstable rungs,
ignoring the rope’s sheer age. Carefully but with determination he
couldn’t fathom, he climbed up. Eventually he was standing stooped
in a long narrow wood-scented chamber. There were no dormer windows
or vents—nothing to offer light or air; in seconds he was shedding
sweat. He aimed the penlight around, finding nothing of interest,
just several boxes—reading in Magic Marker XMAS DECORATIONS—and
piles of what appeared to be old drapes. Dust lay an inch thick on
the floor but his light showed him the footprints of someone else.
They appeared very new.