Witch Water Read Online Free PDF Page B

“That sounds
perfect, Mrs. Anstruther.” He turned the map at an angle, trying to
get a bearing. “But where are they exactly?”
    “Just cross the cobbles out front of the
Travelodge, sir, and you’ll gander the signs hard by. Next door to
impossible to miss ’em”—she smiled—”unless you’re in your
cups.”
    “Thanks very much—” A tip jar with several
dollar bills in it sat on her booth shelf. Fanshawe put in a
ten.
    “Why bless you, sir, and thank you
from the bottom of my heart! A pleasure it’s been a-meetin’
you, and may it be a lovely  day the Lord ’as comin’
your way.”
    “The pleasure’s been mine,” and Fanshawe
headed away. That woman is a TRIP, he thought. I’ll bet
the accent is fake, she’s probably from Jersey. He laughed when
he thought one of the Revolution soldiers flinched, then he found
himself looking again at the palm-reader’s parlor. It was just a
narrow rowhouse of old, faded brick, with interesting pediments and
stone sills. He wondered what the palm reader looked
liked— Probably older than Mrs. Anstruther —then he ground his
teeth when he glanced up the store front to the second floor.
    Windows, always windows…
    He scanned the map some more, then passed
the Travelodge, the two-story structure forming an L-shape. A
splash turned his gaze. Bright beneath the summer sun extended an
outdoor swimming pool. It was mostly older children wading around
with their parents, tipping over rafts or volleying inflatable
balls. A tanned, muscular lifeguard sat bored up in his chair: The
Thinker in swim trunks with a whistle around his neck. Fanshawe
noticed a fair number of attractive women in hats and sunglasses,
stretched out on lounge chairs, all agleam in suntan oil. He gave
them a bland glance, but then caught himself looking much more
intently at the rows of sliding-glass doors facing the pool. He
barely heard the sound of frolic from the water.
    Damn it. There I go again. He could
not resist roving his gaze across all those windows. Then his eyes
locked on. In one window, a woman crossed his view in a spare,
orange bikini…
    He winced and pulled his gaze away.
    He stalked off fast, crossed the cobble road
as the British woman had instructed, then loosened in relief.
SCENIC NATURE PATH, the sign read with an arrow pointing.
    He followed the arrow.
    He tried to ignore the guilt that came along
with him, like another stroller several steps behind. The
Travelodge had bothered him, and so had the immediacy with which
he’d scanned all the tempting windows. In New York, after a year of
therapy, he never succumbed to the same temptation. Why
here? Why now? He walked faster, lengthening his strides
as if to out-pace his disarray. Soon his outrage at himself bled
over into despair, and he felt lost.
    I am NOT going to relapse…
    But he felt better the more he walked,
through winding gravel paths up into low hills. It was a
smorgasbord of natural beauty for as far as he could see.
Butterflies floated over the high, sweeping grass. Wild flowers of
every color seemed to shift with some manner of sentience, begging
his eyes to appreciate them. Fanshawe walked for some time, each
step loosening another tight stitch in his malformed mood…
    The paths, he saw, comprised a web-work
about the hillocks, and would’ve served as a tricky maze had there
not been wooden, plaqued maps at every fork. When he glanced over
his shoulder, he was taken aback by how high he’d ascended, and
when he strode atop a risen nob, the view of the countryside
pilfered his breath. The hills seemed to extend to endlessness,
loomed over by the ghost of a distant mountain. There was a
baby-blue sky and blazing sun; sparse clouds seemed to exist in a whiteness  more perfect than he could conceive. Fresh
air, and the great outdoors, the rigid Dr. Tilton had
instructed. Well, it doesn’t come any better than this…
    But…where was he?
    He stepped down off the nob to discover a
rest stop with an ornate