The Witch Hunter

by Candace Adams

  “Is there a reason you’re here, or did you just come to bother me? If you haven’t noticed, I am busy trying to find Taryn. It’s your fault we are in this situation to begin with. So, if you have nothing to offer, kindly, fuck off.” I spun back around in my chair and pretended to be interested in my screen.

  I didn’t hear the woman move, but when her voice came again, she was directly behind me. “That is why you can see the visions. You don’t have an ounce of magical blood in your body, but She favors you because of your energy. There aren’t many people in this world that would have the courage to tell me to fuck off.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked tentatively. “Who are you talking about? Who is She?”

  “You’re no witch, Samantha. But you have been granted power.” I wished she would stop talking in circles. I was having a hard enough time concentrating without trying to figure out her riddles.

  The woman sat down on the edge of my desk. She crossed her legs and her skirt rode up showing the tops of her boots at the thigh. I pushed away from her, putting a few feet between us.

  “I have a proposal for you,” her red lips curled up at the edges showing perfectly straight teeth beneath. “I have a spell to stop the men who were wielding the dagger and protect Taryn, but I will need your help. The spell requires two witches, but I am the last witch alive with old magic in my veins.” She held out both hands, palms up and squeezed her fists. “The rest were all hunted down and killed by the men in your vision.”

  If I rolled my eyes any harder, they would have burst out the back of my skull. “You must think I’m really stupid. Why would you want to help Taryn now? You didn’t send her on a vacation. You sent her to be tortured.”

  “You’re right, I did. I believe the lesson has been learned now. But I can’t bring her home until the men have been dealt with,” her hair fell forward over her shoulder as she leaned forward and encircled her face like a beautiful red mane. She was flawless. Not a line or blemish on her anywhere. Something told me she didn’t need to use any expensive products to look that way either. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was bathing in the blood of virgins.

  “By, dealt with, do you mean you have to kill them?” I asked.

  “That is preferable, yes.”

  “And Taryn can come home after they are both dead?”

  I was almost positive that I couldn’t trust her. But I didn’t have anything else to go on at all. The internet search hadn’t shown me any revelations and I believed that she was telling the truth when she said that I had no real magic in me. So, even if I did find a spell that sounded promising, the chance of me pulling it off without her was probably extremely low.

  Her voice was a soft purr that evoked a sense of calm inside of me. “Yes. Once they are gone, she will be returned to you. I promise.”

  “Ok. What do I have to do?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  John

  I searched the crowd looking for Matthew so I could begin but he was not yet present. What the devil was taking him so long? The torches and pitchforks had turned up and they were ready to see the witch go into the water. The old woman tried to retain her dignity and stood looking straight ahead, making eye contact with no one at all. She hadn’t even asked about her daughter.

  I was really going to have to do something about that kid. Any decision we came to about her was likely to take a chunk out of our pay from this city. Since we were inherently responsible for the girl now, we would be the ones to foot the bill for wherever we chose to send her, and even her day-to-day care while she was in our custody. I wish the guards would have killed her on sight and asked questions later. Now she was just a thorn in my side that would need to be plucked out and disposed of quickly. I just hadn’t made up my mind how to make it happen yet.

  Two small boys began throwing pebbles at Joan Fern and taunting her. “Witch! You’re a witch!” a boy shouted, bouncing a rock off her bare shoulder. The woman grimaced but did not avert her eyes from whatever invisible entity she was staring at.

  “You’re going to die witch!” the other boy missed her entirely with his stone, but picked up another to have a second go at it.

  “She’s not going to die,” the first boy said. “She’s going to float, because she is guilty!”

  I loved getting the crowds involved in this kind of thing. The more people that came out to watch the spectacle the better. I liked to watch the men cheer and scream and their women avert their eyes and try to look bothered by the whole thing. But they loved it. They loved every minute, or they wouldn’t turn out for it in such droves. Even now there was excited whispering. Some people pointed at my charge in her ropes. Women gasped with their hands to their throats, their men no doubt telling them stories of the witches’ evil deeds. The more excited they got, the more I could do.

  Finally, I saw Matthew and Taryn come around the curve in the path. My heart started pounding in my chest. It was almost time. I waited for my friend to get to the edge of the pond. I nodded to him and he tilted the brim of his hat in response.

  “Guards, untie the prisoner and remove her clothing.” Two of them rushed to obey me at once. The other two stood with swords drawn on her should she try to fight back or run away. The crowd pushed in, each trying to get the better view, children squeezing between the taller adults and sitting on the ground in front of them to watch the show.

  The guards ripped her shift from her frail looking body, pulling it apart in pieces, rendering it unusable for the future. The witch stood tall, head up, arms at her sides. Her face was bruised on one side where it had been held to the floor the day prior. She smelled of the urine she laid in. The smell turned my stomach. Her skin was sallow looking, almost translucent for how pale she was and her breasts hung down like useless flaps of flesh almost to her waist.

  The onlookers screamed, “She’s a witch! Drown her! Hang her!” I smiled at their enthusiasm.

  Matthew left Taryn standing at the far end of the pond and made his way to me. We had set up a wooden box for him to stand on and address the crowd. I put out my arm for him to brace against as he climbed up on the structure. A hush fell over everyone as he stood up straight and surveyed those assembled.

  Matthew was such a commanding figure. Standing so tall upon that box, he looked almost regal with his intelligent eyes and soft lips. The way everyone looked to him to be their savior, you would think him and angel in human form. He threw his cloak over his shoulder and cleared his throat loudly. I was transfixed by his presence.

  “Friends,” he started. “Thank you all for coming today to bear witness to this witch’s revealing.” Everyone began to whoop and cheer, hands raised above their heads, feet stomping. The crowd was in a frenzy.

  He raised his hands to settle them. “What you are about to see is a test devised by King James himself. It will deliver irrefutable evidence that this woman, Joan Fern, is in fact, a witch. You will learn that her evil is not a supposed thing but a fact. King James said, ‘that God had appointed, that the water shall refuse to receive the witches in her bosom, that the evil doer has shaken off the holy waters of which they were baptized as babes, and willfully refused the benefit of thereof.’

  “What this means ladies and gentlemen, is, if this woman that stands before you is indeed a witch as she has been accused, the waters will refuse her refuge within them. She will float above them and not sink within as you or I would do. She will be tied in such a way that she will be unable to manually keep herself afloat and dunked into the pond three times. If she sinks, we will know she was innocent as she claims, but if she floats, she is guilty as charged and will stand trial and hung by the rope until dead.” Cheering erupted, louder than ever. The crowd was anxious to see her found guilty.

  “Guards,” Matthew said. “Please prepare the prisoner for her test.”

  The two guards who had undressed her took the thinner rope that had been laid out on the ground before the woman and forced her to bend at the wais
t. They tied her right thumb to her left big toe and her left thumb to her right. They then tied the thicker of the two ropes around her waist and led her to the edge of the water.

  “The woman who stands before you is called Joan Fern. She has been formally charged with the treacherous sin of witchcraft. Joan Fern, you will be dunked in the river three times to prove either your guilt or your innocence. Do you understand?”

  “Yes!!!” the old woman screeched from between her own legs. “Get on with it, will you?”

  I felt my manhood pushed firmly against the inside of my breeches. Watching him speak always did this to me. He was brilliant and strong. Compelling. People believed in him and followed him everywhere we journeyed to.

  “Yes, get on with it!” a man screamed from the rear of the gathering. “Let’s see that bitch float so we can have a hanging!” the crowd applauded his words.

  “Come now, all. We must go about this diligently. This is a test to conclude guilt or innocence. It cannot be done in haste, it must be done correctly, or it’s not worth the effort of it at all.” Matthew smiled at his followers and they calmed at once.

  “Prepare her for her first trial,” He announced in a strong, reverberating voice. I held my breath. Part of me hoped the woman’s lungs would fill with water, that she would cough and struggle and fail to keep her head above the water. The other part of me hoped she would indeed float so I could have the ultimate pleasure of watching her hang. Even better if the rope didn’t break her neck and she took some time to perish. Both were lovely thoughts.

  The guards picked the folded woman up and lifted her to their shoulders. They held her high and the crowd screamed for her to be thrown. I took up the rope that had been tied to her waist to tow her back in between being plummeted into the dark water.

  I wrapped the length tight around my wrist. “Ready, men?” I said.

  “Toss her in,” Matthew said from atop his stage.

  With a great heave, the men tossed the woman as far out as they could into the pond. She hit the water with a crash, back first, head down between her knobby knees.

  At first it seemed she was sinking beneath the waves, but in fact, her body simply flipped. She was face up, taking deep breaths and spitting water from her mouth, but she did in fact float. There was a collected gasp from the watchers gathered to see.

  The old woman’s mouth gaped like a guppy, open and closed over and over while she struggled to take mouths full of air. Her eyes were wide and frantic, darting back and forth looking for an escape. I tugged on the rope flipping her back over and submerging her face beneath the water, but her body rolled, and she was once again staring up at heaven.

  “Witch!” someone screamed. “She’s a witch! Not even the water will accept her! Send her back to her master, Satan!”

  “Calm down, everyone,” Matthew projected his deep voice, speaking above the screamers. “She’s been dunked once; she gets two more opportunities to sink beneath the water,” he said.

  Taryn had her hands up to her mouth in disbelief. I wonder how she feels about witches not existing now with the evidence right before her eyes. Clearly, she never expected to see Joan Fern actually float. I wish I was closer to her so I could tell her how stupid she was. What I wouldn’t give to string her up. Maybe someday, I laughed to myself watching the pained expression on her face.

  “Pull her in,” Matthew commanded. Two extra sets of hands assisted me with the rope that I had tied tightly around the woman’s waist. We pulled it in so quickly that the water entered her mouth and nose and she coughed and sputtered trying to clear her airway once back on land.

  “Drown the witch! Weigh her down and leave her on the bottom of the pond!” a man yelled from close by.

  Matthew raised his hand up to the guards. “Stand her up.” The men untied her thumbs from her toes and wretched her up to her feet. “Joan Fern, you have been subjected to the water test as laid out by His Majesty King James I. On your first dunk you were found to float in accordance with the belief that if you are truly a witch the water will not accept you, and you instead, will float. According to this test you are guilty. Will you confess your sins to God and save your soul?”

  The woman coughed and spit water from her throat but did not utter a response. “Answer him, woman!” I shouted at her.

  “Do you confess to the sin of witchcraft?” Matthew asked again.

  She glared at him from under her stringy wet hair. “Never,” she responded to him loudly. “If I am a witch, then surely you are too. Only a witch or a demon could take such delight in hurting others.”

  “Prepare her for a second dunk,” Matthew ordered the guards. I hit her in the stomach hard enough for her to double over in pain. While she was bent over, the men grabbed her roughly by the wrists and tied her back up in her twisted pose.

  “We will commit you once more to the water, in hopes that you will choose to amend your evil ways and confess to our God and save your immortal soul. If you are found to float twice more, we will have ample evidence of your guilt and it will be used at your trial. Are you ready for the water once more?” Matthew spoke to the woman.

  “Curses on you, witch finders! Curses on all of you that gather here to watch me suffer! Curses on all of you!” she screamed.

  “Throw her once more,” Matthew commanded, pointing to the center of the pond. It seemed they threw her much farther this time. Her body skipped across the top of the water like a thrown pebble, but once again did not dip below the surface. She twisted herself to prevent inhaling the liquid.

  “Bring the poles!” I shouted. Two men took up the long pieces of wood that had been fashioned as poles and stood on either side of the pond awaiting orders. Joan Fern looked from man to man trying to ascertain what was about to happen to her. “Push her under men!”

  On my orders, the men dropped their poles down level with the water and each put an end on the woman. Pushing hard, they used the wood to submerge the woman and held her there for thirty seconds. “Pull up,” I yelled. The crowd held a collective breath to see if she would rise up once more.

  They lifted the rods and the woman popped back up like a cork, choking and coughing, but still unable to sink. “Again!” I screamed. This time the men held her under for a full minute before lifting the poles and allowing her up. But each time they removed the weight from her, she broke the surface and stayed there.

  “Pull her back in again,” Matthew ordered.

  We tugged her weight back in like a fishnet, pulling at the rope until she flopped on shore like a fisherman’s catch. The men quickly untied her and forcibly put her into a standing position. They turned her body to face Matthew.

  “Twice now, you have inexplicably floated when you should have sank. Twice now you have defied God’s logic and design and refused to do what weight does in water. Are you ready to confess and spare yourself the third and final trip into the water?”

  The old woman spat at him, her spittle landing on his boot. “Never ending curses on you, Matthew Hopkins! May you suffer as I have suffered!” The men knocked her to the ground, kicking her legs out from beneath here with no mercy.

  I bent down to freshly secure her ropes. I put my mouth to her ear, “Your little daughter was fantastic when I bent her over her cot in the jail cell. It worked out perfectly that she’s mute, because she couldn’t scream. Already at nine years old she threw her head back like a harlot and welcomed me inside her tight body. All the blood though, I’ve never seen a virgin bleed so much. I fear I might have hurt her badly.”

  The bitch tried to head butt me. She was snarling and spitting and cursing me anew.

  “Look everyone. She has called her demons to try to help her escape.” I laughed while the woman lost her mind trying to get at me anyway she could.

  The guards dragged a heavy oak log over from the edge of the woods and secured her body to it tightly. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are adding weight to the witch to attempt to pull her under the water. Even a seasoned
swimmer could not maintain his head above water with the weight of the log pulling him down. But as you will soon see, the witch will not founder.” Matthew stood back and watched me address the crowd this time.

  He looked at Taryn, the woman looked terrified, eyes wide and mouth wide open. Her skin was pale as if all her blood had been drained away. I hoped she would collapse altogether. Matthew’s features softened. He reached a hand out and took a step forward to go to her, but stopped himself and stepped back. He tore his eyes off her and looked back at the woman the guards held instead. He was troubled. It was written all over his face.

  I needed the aid of three men to lift the log with the woman attached to it. We waded into the pond waist deep before pushing the heavy piece of lumber in. The wood immediately sank pulling the old woman with it. For a moment everyone held their breath waiting to see if she would resurface.

  The seconds ticked by with no sight of her. Thirty seconds. One full minute. She remained beneath the water; her bubbles ceased at the surface. “Tow her out,” Matthew yelled to the guards.

  “Leave her in longer, with any luck she will drown,” I said, looking up at him on his platform.

  “Do as I say,” Matthew glared at me.

  “That is how the test is done, Matthew. If she floats, she is guilty, if she drowns, she was innocent. She has not drowned yet.”

  “I will not tell you again. Do not undermine me, John.”

  Reluctantly, with my entourage, we pulled on the rope attached to the woman’s waist. It was substantially harder to pull on the rope with the extra weight attached to the end. It seemed the water now wished to keep the sacrifice made to it and pulled back on the rope against our efforts. It took another full minute before the log and the woman broke the surface.

  Her body was limp and unmoving. She was not coughing or spitting out water. One of the men grabbed her ropes and ripped them from her body, flipped her onto her stomach and started pounding on her back.