“Oh? Why’s that, ma’am?”
“An odd card that Letitia Rhodes is, sir, yes, sir, not that I’m speakin’ ill, mind you, not one word of it. But one day I was just havin’ me my stroll to the tea shop, and I passed her, I did, and she look me right in the eye and say, ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Anstruther”—that bein’ my name, o’course—Anstruther, Delores, Anstruther, sir. So I say back, ‘What loss might you be referring to, Ms. Rhodes?’ and then she go all white in the face and eyes big ‘round as saucers, and she rush off, apologizin’ under her breath. I just took her to be daft, I did, but then when the daily post come I get a letter from Merseyside sayin’ me brother died a week before. A massive stroke it was he ’ad, on his way to the train.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Fanshawe said for lack of anything else, but now he saw that she was merely using her previous trick, daring him to test the palm-reader’s authenticity. “But I don’t think having my fortune told is on my to-do list today, Mrs. Anstruther.” Nevertheless, he enjoyed the old woman’s lively candor; and the accent was a hoot. “What do you recommend, ma’am?”
“Well, sir, if’n you’re in want of some exercise, you can always rent a bystickle down at Mr. Worby’s shop, and if that ain’t to your likin’, sir, you might find it pleasin’ to ’ave an amble ‘bout the scenic walkaways.”
The idea immediately appealed to him. A good long walk might get rid of this lousy mood. “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 bench and another map on a plaque. One dotted guide-mark read THE WITCHES PATH, then after a few more steps, another sign announced that he’d reached it.
The more the hill rose, the higher the grasses on either side seemed to grow. Fanshawe followed the path, intrigued without knowing why. More tourist stuff, and he mocked, The Witches Path? It’s just a friggin’ path!
But as he approached what seemed to be the most elevated of the hills, he stopped. Facing him now was a sign larger than the others, as well as a clearing in the grasses, leaving only bald dirt. Engraved letters on the sign began: WITCHES HILL: IN JULY, 1671, THIRTEEN WITCHES WERE…
Fanshawe, eyes intent, read the words aloud. “Witches Hill. In July, 1671, thirteen witches were executed here, including Evanore Wraxall, the notorious coven leader. Dozens more practitioners of the Black Arts would be executed on this very hill for another fifty years…” Fanshawe chuckled without much mirth. Sounds like somebody needed a hug.
But he tried to contemplate the gravity of the words. What I’m standing on right now was the Colonial equivalent of a gas-chamber. People—witches or not—but living people had died on this very ground over three hundred years ago.
He shuddered at the cruelty of it all, and the madness, then turned to leave. But at a break in the grasses which rimmed the clearing, his eyes widened. This hill was, as he’d thought, the highest around, and through the break he could see the entire town down below. Perfect as a picture on a postcard, he mused, drinking up the view. Yes, he’d been in New York too long. New York didn’t have views like this, just incalculable skyscrapers, ubiquitous scaffolds and window-cleaning platforms, and monolithic apartment buildings consuming entire city blocks. Gazing at the little town now, it occurred to him that too much of his life had passed since he’d experienced such a monumental sense of wonder.
The faintest breeze brushed over his face, and hidden within it, he heard, or thought he heard, a sound just as faint. Just a drift of something, like a word spoken by someone too close to a rushing surf. Yet, a word it had seemed to be, in a feminine tenor. The word was this: “…lovely.”