I’m not a witch, Anne wanted to scream back at the top of her lungs. Leave me and my daughter alone!
But she knew she would only be wasting her breath.
The door to her house was off to the side, while Jane, and now several other people brandishing torches, were standing directly in front of the house. Clearly, they expected to frighten her enough to just come outside—to give herself up.
If we can just—
The window that Anne was peering through suddenly smashed inward and she screamed. Teresa also cried out, and Anne instinctively hugged her even harder.
Something solid thumped on the floor, which, in addition to the growing number of burning torches assembling outside her home, spurred Anne to action. But instead of darting toward the door, she crouched and dragged both herself and Teresa beneath the table.
It was her safe place, the place where she had curled up night after night following Wallace’s death.
“Come out, you fucking witch!” Jane shouted.
Teresa shuddered in Anne’s arms, and for some reason a moment of clarity overcame her.
“I’m sorry, Terry. I’m so, so sorry.”
But while Terry’s body stopped shaking, the girl didn’t respond.
It was only then, in that strange moment of calmness, that Anne realized what the people of the swamp were chanting. Anne knew then, if she hadn’t before, that she was doomed. Nothing she could say or do would get her out of this unscathed.
“Burn the witches! Burn the witches!”
She squeezed Teresa’s head against her chest, trying to cover both her ears with one hand.
They weren’t saying witch, but witches.
And Teresa was the only other person here.
“Look,” Teresa whispered, pointing at the object that had been thrown through the window. Anne had expected to see a rock or maybe a piece of wood.
But it was neither.
The pale face of the doll she had bought Terry was lying on its back just a few feet from where they huddled beneath the table. There was no body; the head had been torn from the blue dress, the neck ragged with white cotton stuffing spilling out like entrails.
But it was the eyes that were most disturbing—or at least where the eyes used to be. They had been gouged out, leaving only two massive, empty sockets that somehow seemed to stare into Anne.
“Look, it’s Mother,” Teresa said, her tiny voice warbling with fear.
Chapter 21
They stripped Anne naked and paraded her through the swamp. Blood was pouring from between her legs, soaking her inner thighs and dripping onto the tops of her bare feet when she pulled them out of the mud.
Jane had done something to her down there, something with a rusty set of pliers. Anne hadn’t been sure if the baby was still alive after she had been thrown onto the kitchen floor, but now she knew it was dead.
Dead and gone.
She had no idea where Teresa was. Her only hope was that the girl had somehow escaped and had fled into the swamp when Jane had broken down the door.
This was what she hoped, but she wasn’t hopeful.
“Burn the witches, burn the witches, burn the witches.”
They all had torches, every last one of them. As Anne walked toward the large tree at the edge of her property line, her final destination, she recognized some of the people brandishing the torches and chanting.
Veronica was there, her thin lips twisted into a cruel smile.
I helped you conceive. I saved your marriage, saved you from Ken.
Anne never said the words, but it was as if Veronica could hear them anyway.
“Burn, witch,” she said, the light from her torch reflected off her dark brown irises, making them glow. Then she reared back and propelled forward, spit flying from her mouth.
The gob struck Anne just below her left eye, but she didn’t brush it away, didn’t even flinch.
Instead, she just kept walking forward.
She passed Christine next and, like Veronica, her mouth was twisted into a sneer.
I helped you too, Christine.
The woman hissed, then reached out with her hand. Again, Anne didn’t move, and her lack of reaction caught Christine off guard. Although her hand was initially aimed for her face, she changed trajectory at the last moment and instead her fingers got tangled in the trail of hair and scalp that hung partway down her back.
Feeling that, Christine immediately recoiled.
The other women that she had helped were there too.
One foot in front of the other, Anne continued forward. At some point during her march, she ceased feeling pain or even the mud between her toes. She didn’t even feel the first object, a rock, she thought, ricochet off her left hip. She didn’t feel the punches or the kicks that the crowd started to deliver, which were small, cautious blows at first, but spurred by her lack of reaction, they became full strikes. Twice Anne was knocked to the ground, but she always rose again, her naked body covered with blood and mud.
She felt nothing.
Anne was almost at the small stool, a roughly made piece of wood at the base of the large tree, when she spotted a crooked figure leaning out from behind one of the trees. Unlike the other women, she wasn’t chanting, or smiling, or even looking angry. The woman’s leathery face was apathetic. Forlorn, even.
Anne didn’t know if the woman from the market spoke or just mouthed the words, but they echoed in her head nonetheless.
The people of the swamp never forget.
Anne, for some strange reason, felt herself nodding.
I am from the swamp. I will never forget.
Jane suddenly appeared beside her.
“Yeah, that’s right. Up on the stool, witch.” Her voice was low and even, cutting through the burn the witches mantra that filled the humid swamp air. “Mater est, matrem omnium.”
Anne continued forward. When she made it to the stool, she stepped up without hesitation, then turned to face her accusers, pressing her back against the tree.
They were all there, she realized. Every single one of the women that she had helped, and everyone else that she had ever known from the swamp. There were the men and women that Wallace had worked with at the Mill, the people that she had sold her wooden scarecrows to what seemed like a year ago.
And all of them had torches in their hands and identical looks on their faces.
“Burn the witches!”
Anne felt a rope wrap around her neck, pulling her flush against the tree. And then Jane suddenly appeared before her, her eyes narrowed, her mouth twisted in an evil smirk.
“Bring out the girl.”
Anne finally reacted.
“No!” she screamed through her smashed teeth. “No! No!”
Anne struggled against the rope, trying to get free, to get at Jane, but it tightened so quickly that she suddenly found it hard to breathe.
“Yes,” Jane whispered, nodding vigorously. She held her hands out at her sides, and the crowd silenced. “Bring out the girl!” she hollered over her shoulder.
The crowd stirred behind Jane, and a small figure was shoved so hard from behind that she fell into the mud.
Nobody helped her up.
When she raised her head, Anne got the confirmation that she’d been dreading.
It was Teresa.
Jane turned to face the girl.
“Go on, go on up and stand by your mother, witch.”
Terry’s eyes went wide, but she did as she was instructed.
Run, Terry! Run!
But the girl didn’t run. Instead, she rose up and hugged Anne. Anne hugged back, both of their bodies hitching with sobs. A second rope was looped around first the tree and then both of their waists, keeping them forever locked in an embrace.
Jane turned her back to Anne and her daughter and addressed the crowd in a loud, booming voice.
“We all know why we are here... we are here to punish the witches that have infiltrated your swamp. You all know what these
two have done—they have practiced the dark art of witchcraft in their home.”
Jane turned back to Anne and sneered. She looked her directly in her eyes when she shouted her next words.
“And what do we do to witches in the swamp?”
The response was instantaneous and unanimous.
“Burn them!”
Jane nodded.
“That’s right, we burn witches in the swamp.”
Without warning, the woman reared back and threw her torch at Anne’s feet. Anne instinctively held Terry close, but didn’t bother try to lift her feet to avoid the sparks that shot up to greet them.
Jane turned back to the crowd when she was confident that the small platform that Anne and Terry stood on had started to catch fire.
“Anne and Teresa LaForet are witches. And even worse, Anne is mater est, matrem omnium.”
Anne had heard the words before, although she couldn’t remember where.
They meant, simply, mother of one, mother of all.
And, in a way, it seemed oddly appropriate.
“Burn your effigies beneath her feet to cleanse yourself of the wicked workings of these witches.”
There was a slight hesitation, but then a woman—Kyra, Anne thought—stepped forward and threw one of the wooden scarecrow figurines into the fire beneath her feet. Anne had traded it to her in the market for a handful of rice. Back then, Kyra had smiled at her, her eyes filled with pity.
There was no pity in those eyes now.
Another woman came next, one that Anne didn’t recognize, and she tossed her scarecrow at the fire as well.
Anne’s feet started to burn, and Terry started to shift from one foot to another.
The townspeople came fast and furious next, each and every one of them tossing more wooden figurines beneath her feet. There were so many of the damn things that Anne was taken aback.
Did I make all of those?
For some reason, instead of contemplating this, Anne turned her head skyward. The moon had reached its apex, the glowing ball shining down on both her and her daughter.
It was past midnight, she figured. Which meant that it was Terry’s birthday. She had just turned four.
Sadness overcame her then, and she lowered her mangled lips to the top of Terry’s head, straining against the ropes to do so.
She kissed her daughter.
“I’m sorry, Terry. I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”
The girl said nothing, but she stopped shifting.
The flames were higher now, and when Anne turned her head forward, she locked eyes with Jane.
“Burn the witches!” she shouted. “Filia obcisor, filius obcisor.”
And for some reason, Anne knew those words, too.
Daughter killer, son killer.
“Mater est, matrem omnium.”
The fire was getting too big, too hot, and Jane was forced to take a step backward. She repeated the three phrases, and once again the crowd joined in with her.
It became a new chant.
This time, however, Anne wasn’t frightened into silence. Instead, she laughed.
Jane’s smile faded.
“You said you would come back for me,” Anne said. “But now let me tell you the same. I will come back for you.”
Then Anne LaForet closed her eyes and the flames engulfed both her and her daughter.
Chapter 22
The fire finally stopped burning in early dawn.
Anne was gone. Teresa was gone. At some point throughout the night, the townsfolk had left as well, receding back to their homes and lives as if nothing had happened. As if they had done a good thing, ridding this world of two witches.
They had taken their chants with them.
Only Jane Heath remained, her eyes still locked on the smoldering rubble. Several bones were clearly visible in the ashes—those needed much higher heat to melt away. But any of what had made Anne or Teresa LaForet human, their skin and hair and muscle, had long since been reduced to ash.
“Fucking witch,” Jade said as she leaned over the larger of the two gleaming skulls. She spat on the skull, but it still wasn’t enough for her—this sacrilege, this utter desecration of the dead, simply wasn’t enough to satisfy her need for revenge.
Not for Jane Heath, wife to Benjamin Heath, co-owner of the largest plantation in Charleston. Anne LaForet deserved worse; she deserved more than being burned alive at the stake, still embracing her daughter.
After all, she had used witchcraft to seduce her husband, after first coercing Jane into revealing her secrets. And that was only the start; then she had gone and become pregnant with Benjamin’s seed, housing the bastard child in her belly. A child that should have been her child.
Jane took a large step toward the gleaming bones, swatting away some of the larger flies that buzzed about in the already warm morning air. She had to take wide steps on either side of the pile of bones and black tar-like substance to avoid burning her feet. The fire might have burnt out, but the remains were still hot, making the air above them hazy with heat.
But this didn’t deter Jane.
Spreading her feet as widely as possible, she stepped over the pile and then squatted.
The air was hot on the bare skin between her legs, and it took a few seconds for her to get comfortable. But eventually she did, and with a soft moan, a thin stream of urine splashed from beneath her dress and onto the pile of bones. It hissed like an angered snake when it landed.
Jane smirked.
Witches got what they deserved.
She shook, then started to stand when something across the lawn on the edge of the property line caught her eye.
There was a person hiding behind one of the trees. Squinting hard, she could make out a woman—a hunched woman, old and decrepit—leaning out from behind one of the tree trunks. Her patchy hair was long and gray, hanging in front of her face. The shadows made it impossible to see her eyes, but she made out a crooked nose and a nearly lipless mouth.
What the fuck?
The woman’s mouth started to widen into a smile. A large, toothless grin.
“Hey!” Jane shouted, shaking the last of her pee. “Hey, what are you doing? Hey!”
But the woman’s mouth kept getting wider and wider, until it stretched well beyond normal limits. The sight made Jane’s stomach flip. When the gaping orifice seemed to encompass her entire face, she couldn’t take it anymore and looked away.
Jesus—
She went to stand, suddenly overcome by a sense of dread.
Only she couldn’t.
“What the—?”
Jane tried to lift her feet again, to stop squatting and get away from Anne and Teresa LaForet’s remains, but her feet seemed rooted. A gasp escaped her and she frantically yanked her dress up higher, looking around the sides of the dark blue fabric to see beneath her—to see what sort of strange mud had encased her feet. But it wasn’t mud that held her in place.
“Oh my God,” she moaned.
The earth beneath Jane seemed to have split, a glowing two-inch gash running directly through the center of the smoldering ashes. And out of that fissure arose a thick black gas, but it wasn’t like the smog or smoke she occasionally noticed from chimneys back in Charleston.
This was different. The smoke was tight and controlled, and it seemed not to move through the air at the whim of the breeze, but instead it migrated with purpose.
The smoke probed her undercarriage, pushing up against the sensitive skin between her legs.
Her heart beating in triple-time, Jane cried out and she again tried to lift her legs and flee this place—to leave the swamp once and for all.
But it was too late. Whatever had seeped out of the split in the ground and gripped her wasn’t letting go.
Without warning, the dark cloud drove into her.
Jane’s head was thrown back, her eyes rolling backward, her mouth opening nearly as wide as that of the old hag in the swamp. A croak exited her throat as her bo
dy was racked with a tremor that lasted for an eternity.
And throughout it all, Jane heard one phrase repeated over and over and over again.
I told you I would come back.
I—told—you—I—would—come—back.
EPILOGUE
“You really think she came back here, Ben?”
Benjamin Heath pulled his horse to a stop just in front of the modest wood house. It looked much different in the day—more rundown, dilapidated.
Sad.
He paused, sniffing the air. It smelled faintly of barbecue.
A small gust of wind swayed the porch swing, causing the chain to squeak, drawing Benjamin’s attention back.
“Yeah, the bitch is here somewhere. I’ll find her.”
Both men dismounted. They went into the house first, the door of which was slightly ajar. Inside, they found a smashed window and a pile of dried blood in the center of the room. The smell of cooked meat was stronger here, but there was an unsettling funk underlying it all.
Benjamin kicked a doll’s head across the room and Jessie whistled.
“What you think happened here?”
Benjamin shushed him.
“Be quiet.”
The man obliged.
It was out back on the boggy ground leading to the edge of the swamp that they found Jane’s horse. The animal was lying on its side, its neck twisted all the way around. The horse’s eyes had been gouged out, the sockets in which they had once lain filled with dried black blood.
“Fuuuck,” Jessie groaned. “What could have done this?”
The man covered his mouth after he spoke the words, clearly worried that they would be promptly followed by vomit. Ben shot him a look, but Jessie failed to notice. His eyes remained locked on the horse, and when Benjamin strode forward, he did so alone.
When he cleared the side of the house, he saw her. Near the edge of the property, beside a tree with a pile of charred wood or something else—the source of the barbecue smell, perhaps—there was a woman squatting in front of a plain white cross pushed into the mud, her back to him.
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