There they are, just like Mrs. Anstruther promised…
Two figures that looked very much alive stood arrogantly in a cove made to represent an occultist’s hideout. Ancient books lined several old shelves; a row of skulls adorned the top. An astrological chart hung on one wall, with another chart full of circles and symbols like Hebrew and others that must’ve been Latin. These characters immediately made him think of the strange pedestalled ball off the trails.
Then his gaze locked ahead.
A disturbingly realistic likeness of Jacob Wraxall seemed to contemplate Fanshawe and the others, with green eyes full of amused mockery. He wore black knee stockings, buckled shoes, and a ruffled tailcoat: an aristocrat of the late-1600s. The wax-worker had even hung a similar sickle-moon pendant around the warlock’s neck, and in his hand he held an ancient book.
Fanshawe stared. The Van Dyked patriarch seemed alive enough to lean back and laugh.
“Oh, that’s the guy who built the original inn,” a man remarked to his wife. “How’d you like to pull back the shower curtain tonight and find him standing there?”
“Oh, stop it, Charlie!” his spouse replied, gripping his arm. “Let’s get out of here. The woman is even ghastlier!”
The woman—yes. Evanore.
The likeness of Wraxall’s daughter wore—instead of the fineries of the day—a dark hood and cloak, which would’ve been trite had it not been for the look on the dummy’s face. It was a look of enchanted hatred and hideous knowledge. The more Fanshawe stared back at the replica the more significantly the drone refilled his head, like a faint, inanimate groan. Had his jaw dropped at the three-dimensional image? The waxen mannequin looked so real he thought sure that its flesh would yield if he touched it.
Another couple stepped up; they seemed intrigued. “They look so real!” exclaimed the wife, marveling at Wraxall’s pompous replica, but it was the dummy of Evanore that hijacked her husband’s attention. “Yeah, too real,” he remarked. “They’re people in costumes”—he shot out his hands without warning toward Evanore, to startle the person he presumed was masquerading as her, but the figure did not move or even blink. Aside, his wife frowned; she could see him glancing more than incidentally at the dummy’s thrusting bosom. His brows rose, then he smiled and elbowed this wife, lowering his voice. “Hey, do you think they put nipples on her?”
“Come on!” the wife yelled and dragged him out.
Their exit left Fanshawe alone.
He could’ve been standing on the edge of a cliff as he evaluated the figures. Beneath each, information plaques were mounted, citing data similar to what he’d read on Witches Hill. He felt foolish when he focused his glance on Evanore’s bosom, but the man’s comment had piqued him. I guess he’s a pervert, like me. But it did appear that the life-like dummy had been fashioned with nipples; he thought he could see them jutting against the crude cloak fabric.
Suddenly, Fanshawe’s hand itched. He wanted to reach out, pull the cloak’s V at the neck, and peek down…
For God’s sake, I’m not really going to…
PLEASE DON’T TOUCH THE REPLICAS, the sign blared at him.
But no one was in the chamber with him, and he didn’t hear anyone behind him. What the HELL am I thinking? No cameras could be detected, either. I must be going off the deep end…
Was he really going to touch the mannequin and examine its breast? Was he really going to molest a wax dummy?
But he’d already raised his hand, had already begun to reach out…
No!
He squeezed his eyes closed, ground his teeth, but just as he would propel his hand forward to touch the replica’s breast, he forced himself to freeze. Disgusted, he struggled through the drone, was about to turn and leave but—
Now it was his heart that froze.
His eyes remained closed when he felt a warm hand grasp his wrist. It squeezed.
He heard words then, in a woman’s voice…
“I’m most elated to avail myself to you, sir. I know you espied me last even, with Father’s looking-glass…”
Fanshawe couldn’t move, couldn’t open his eyes.
“Look for me again, any time thou art inclined,” the voice issued on, only now it was edgy with excitement. “After midnight, sir—”
Then a chuckle resounded, the chuckle of an older man, then words like gravel grinding, “Ascend, if thou dost have the heart, and—ay—partake in the bounty that ye hast earned.”
WHAT? Fanshawe thought through the madness.
“—and, sir? Go thither, if thou dost have the heart, to the bridle—”
Fanshawe tore away from the display; the fingers clasping his wrist slipped off. He deliberately kept his eyes closed through the motion and only opened them when he was safely turned away. The bridle? What the HELL? He dashed for the dim corridor that would lead him out. The drone still pounded in his head; he could barely even think the most basic thoughts. He took several long strides toward the exit sign, but it seemed an effort against his will when he stopped, turned around, and then began to walk back…
Don’t do it…
He returned to the exit and found his fingers wrapped around the doorway that led back to the stage. No sounds could be heard from within, no…chuckles, no voices. In grueling slowness then, he inched his face toward the doorway’s edge, paused to moan, and peeked back inside.
The grotesque forms of Jacob and Evanore Wraxall were both smiling now, smiling directly at him.
(II)
What am I SUPPOSED to think? he wondered, sitting crouched at an end table of a fussy café. De La Gardie’s, the place was called. All the outdoor tables were filled—with patrons a bit too chatty for his liking—except for this minuscule table on the end. He didn’t like being so close to the sidewalk, for those strolling by passed right next to him. One woman—a bit too heavy for the body suit she wore—waltzed by with a small poodle; the hyperactive dog yelped repeatedly at Fanshawe. Was it his imagination or did the woman grimace at him? Fat rolls jiggled when she tugged the dog away without a word, her chin up. Take that mutt to the pound where it belongs, he thought, and take yourself with it.
Last night and this morning’s visions haunted him, and now this business at the museum. When he could think again, his head was throbbing. No doubt about it now, I’m having hallucinations.
He could conceive of no other explanation. The cellphone in his hand could’ve been a talisman; he turned it over repeatedly in his palm. Instinct urged him to call Dr. Tilton immediately, but—
His shoulders slumped at the table. What would I tell her, for God’s sake? I was about to feel up a dummy in a fucking wax museum but it grabbed me and started talking?
He put the phone away.
Relearn my normalcy, relearn my normalcy, the words kept circling in his brain. Tilton had seemed assured that this would soon happen…so why hadn’t it? I’m out of control—it’s even worse than in New York…
Why was this happening now, and here?
Because I HAVEN’T relearned my normalcy. He patted his jacket pocket, felt the narrow bulge of the glass. Was the presence of the glass—a symbol of his sickness—the impediment?