by H C Turk
I tied the dog to the dead man’s ankle. I tied him to his owner with no concern for the man’s lost life nor the dog’s potential starvation. After all, if no one found him, he could always eat the man, unless this dog had been trained by a butcher. I tied the dog and stumbled away, to my bag and then toward home, the secured dog yapping after me both happy and sad.
This walking was difficult, in that my body below the waist seemed a sack of broken parts rubbing together. But I removed myself far from the scene, lest the dog loose himself and follow. Then I forgot how to plan, to think, to feel. When next I was able to consider myself, I awakened in a new day, and behind me was a broad creek I had crossed. Wet the witch was on one side where she lay against the ground, yet dry where exposed to God’s sun or perhaps Satan’s breath, which surely followed her through life.
I returned to the stream and drank, smelling and viewing around me as I moved, sensing no other persons nearby, no barking dogs. With no thought in any sinning or witch’s world except returning home, I grasped my bag and walked. Then I halted, for I was lost. One glimpse to the sun told me direction, that I would have to cross this stream again, for its path crossed mine. After fording the shallow creek, much walking brought me to the same trail to Lucansbludge I had first followed. Now I saw a farmhouse ahead, and though sensing no populace, drawing near would surely draw the sinners to me, boys out to pee or men out for witches. Eager for rapidity, I crossed a field with insufficient trees to conceal me, another contest lost, for a sound behind of feet revealed a sinner running toward me pell mell.
The girl of the wagon. Feeling fear and dejection, I knew I should run, but thereby I would reveal the exact path I traveled. As she neared, however, I sensed fear enough in her to drive her away from a horror, not toward one.
“Miss! Miss!” she called out while yet moving. “Oh, if only you could hear English talking!” Then she halted nearby, panting.
“A little I know your speaking,” I told her, and the girl was encouraged to continue.
“Oh, praise God, I saw you here and had to tell you what we have learned of terrors nearby.”
“Terrors?”
“Demons, miss!” she hissed, looking around as though one might hear. “Demons in women or pure witches are about, and one has killed a town man.”
“Someone is killed?”
“Yes, a man killed dead nearby—and Satan in human form they say the cause. Townfolk are out now with dogs looking for the evil folk, but if the demon finds you first…. I saw you, miss, and began fearing for ye!”
“No more kind a girl…,” I told her.
“Oh, miss, you must go home, or perhaps return to our farm until the demons are driven off. Heretofore one is captured, but if others be about….”
Some entity of superior strength struck me with a blow of certain knowledge enough to stop my heart a beat, yet I had to ask the girl explicitly.
“One captured? Tell me.”
“Oh, miss,” she began, leaning near and glimpsing about as though not to spill her demonology too far. “Oh, miss, I have not seen her, but talk is of a most ugly creature, one like a bent woman, and with a woman’s clothes, but it is a demon inside her which makes her look so.”
Then the girl stepped away, looking to my face in confusion because of my odd response.
“Miss,” she asked, “why is it you smile so?”
“God is too wise for me, too wise,” I replied, unable to explain the association between humor and madness that was being taught me; for anything can be humorous to those insane, and humor most extreme is madness.
“Thank you, kind girl, I go now to be safe,” I concluded, and began walking, stepping past her and toward the trail. A moment later, the girl called out.
“But, miss, have you a place to go?”
“To safe now, no fear, you kind,” I said, and I waved to her, continuing out of sight.
I stepped to the trail, then into the wilds and toward Lucansbludge. Correct that child had been, for I smelled sinners and dogs, but remained too distant to view them. I walked a great distance, my route circumvential, for I would approach Lucansbludge from a different direction, a different trail. The entire night I waited before entering, but I had no rest, no sleep, only previous dreams of awakening wherein I entered the town and again was with my Marybelle. Donning my best attire, I placed the bonnet with care, though I wore no veil in that my face was no part to be concealing. In the morning, I entered Lucansbludge not as a witch, but a lady.
Chapter 26
The Angels Came
“Sir, I would beg your aid, in that I have lost my aunt, and having searched for days, I was told by townfolk to seek Magistrate Waingrow.”
A citizen had directed me to this authority’s office. After hearing a description that matched Marybelle, Waingrow shared some official view with a constable standing in the doorway. He then stared at me vaguely with no smell of sex, only apprehension, as he wordlessly wondered why an apparently excellent lady would have come for the hag in his cell.
“Miss Miranda Burns, your aunt we may have here, held in Queen Anne’s custody,” the magistrate reported; and I wondered of King William, thinking that truly this might be Wales, thus having a separate monarchy. “Due to some disturbance inside her, the wench is unable to give her name.”
“Sir, my Aunt is Chloe Burns, and she has long suffered disturbances in her thinking, despite being a most gentle and god-fearing person. And God help me thank you, sir, for watching over my lost family. Might we then be on our way? Now that I am here, Auntie shall—”
“Miss Miranda Burns,” Waingrow interrupted, “in explanation I must say that the wench you describe is here because we fear she has been taken by demons.”
I stared at the man as though he had slapped me, thereafter displaying confusion.
“Taken? Sir, and I thought my aunt was here….”
“The word, Miss Burns, is possessed,” the magistrate returned. “We of this office have assertions by witnessing folk and also ministers that a demon from Satan has gone into your aunt and caused her to kill a man.”
So long did I stare at Waingrow that a sinner’s clock would be required to denote the duration, and even then my look was of a mild lady lost, utterly lost. Finally, the magistrate spoke, for someone had to.
“Miss Miranda Burns, I tell that your aunt must stand accused in trial before a court of Queen Anne for having associations with Satan.”
After another extended pause and the same unreal look of disbelief, I spoke.
“Queen Anne accused my aunt?”
“Before Queen Anne in Lord God’s name she stands accused, the truth thereof to be revealed in accord with the laws of England and the holy rules of Jesus and His Bible. A just and reasonable trial she will be given, and accused of witchcraft she must be.”
“I know of no trial,” I stated as though he had asked me to explain the litigation. “I know naught of any trial, of any craft….”
“Miss, we must—”
“I will see my aunt?” I asked, speaking as though not having heard Waingrow’s final phrase. “I would see my aunt and speak with my last loved one on God’s Earth.”
“You may, miss, but first we would query you to learn of—”
And I screamed. The questions asked would be the same as those directed to Marybelle, and since our answers could not match, I sought her presence for discussion. Therefore, I screamed, and swooned, my hands to my face, my words pitiable shrieks of a tortured lass.
“Jesus! Great God help me through Your son! Help me lest every person in the world I love should die of plague and consumption and now the devil! You have let the devil kill my aunt?” With that final phrase, I was no longer speaking to God, but Waingrow.
“Calm, miss, your aunt is not—”
“You will kill my aunt without my seeing her?” I pleaded.
“We kill no one, miss, what we—”
And I shouted again.
“Please, i
f you know Jesus, let me see my aunt before you kill her!”
So he did, if only to remove that torment from his office. I was led to an area worse than those simple rooms in Jonsway where we witches had been detained, for these townfolk were more earnest about incarceration. Along a corridor with the odors of ill and revolting men we walked, air as dense as stagnant water, arriving at a thick door with iron locks so massive I could nearly taste the metal smell, and I was let inside.
I ran to Aunt Chloe before she could stand, and a loving reunion we commenced. Though Waingrow had his jailor close the door behind, we witches knew the sinners were listening. I began by asking whether my dear aunt were harmed, wondering how she had become lost in the town, expressing all sorrow for not tending to her better. Aunt Chloe attempted to soothe me, not allowing her niece to accept blame. After praying together for God to give guidance, we spoke of the magistrate’s mistaken allegations, which Auntie could not explain, the poor innocent. Then the trial was mentioned and fear together we did, and pray again with earnest words. Then we attempted to save our lives.
Our grave whispering contained no passion. Marybelle first repeated the tale she had told Waingrow: her husband dead in London, she and the niece quitting that disruptive city to seek peace in Lucansbludge outside of which her father resided in a cabin, brought by carriage, here but days and separated, and further details not readily verified by authorities. Neither could these baseborn officials prove her a witch. Of course, they did not need to.
“I die at a trial,” Marybelle said. “I can smell a fear in these sinners enough to kill me. A knowing person as Mrs. Rathel would condemn me, but I die regardless. My only salvation, then, is to choose my death, as on Man’s Isle.”
“But no sea is hereabouts,” I replied.
“The death I choose is then another. I will have them behead me.”
“This you call salvation?” I groaned.
“Perhaps, if you and God can heal me.”
I looked toward her as I had the magistrate, my disbelief utterly genuine now.
“God makes miracles, Marybelle, but I am not one.”
“God makes witches, and makes them special. How special is not a thing completely known to me in experience, only in tale. I’ve heard that a witch might live if only beheaded, not also quartered or burned.”
“How a witch might live if ‘only’ beheaded is beyond my thinking.”
“Beyond my thinking, also, but not my belief. If God makes us so reparable, let us use His wisdom, not our own. I know not how to learn this, but you do.”
“I? Marybelle, I know nothing,” I whispered in return, “nothing but how greatly I desire to have you live.”
“If this desire be strong enough, then perhaps your love may succeed. But remember our makings on Man’s Isle and the pain it cost. Men you have killed with your body. As Satan has used you for death, pray that God might use you for life. Your person is the embodiment of all our forces, our love and worship and magic. Think ye, girl, of killing men and make your feeling reversed, for you are this witch, the invert witch; for are you not the same as I, but different? Have certainty, however, that you would even deign the attempt; for though you shan’t die succeed or not, the great effort required will change you forever.”
“I could be much worse than I presently am and yet live well,” I said. “What is to be done?”
“I have the sinners kill me in my manner,” she described. “As well, I beg them to allow you to bury me in the wilds near my father’s home. Thus, they will give you the burial box with me inside, and my bag which you must demand. If the coin within is left by the sinners, purchase transport for the coffin, or plead for this with a story. In the wilds, away from their sensing, take the casket and my bag. Therein might be things of godly power to you, though the sinners find them common. In the wilds, do the magic thing.”
“Do what magic thing?”
“Replace my head and have me begin healing.”
“In the name of God, Marybelle—”
“In the name of God,” Marybelle stated loudly, and continued with a prayer for the benefit of visitors, for the jailor entered to remove me, leaving my aunt.
I was well questioned, my despondency easily projected. And though my answers were consistent and came easily, equally important were my comments wherein I appropriated for Marybelle not innocence, but guilt.
“No, my great-uncle is not yet so found as to join me. Being a dumb person unable to speak, however, he will tell little. How strange that my aunt has also been speaking poorly, though in a completely different manner. Think ye, sir, that her newly strange speech is due to exertion?”
Here was a topic more interesting than unmet uncles. Mumbling, I told the magistrate. My aunt has been mumbling no words known to me. Then I extended his interest.
“My aunt’s desire to eat raw meat: is this an attempt to settle an undue stomach?”
More of this he inquired, whereupon I told him of pork without heat, of a squirrel eaten by the aunt yet with fur. And a horrible laugh coming from her on occasion: would more sunlight perhaps cure this?
Then our conversation was interrupted by the jailor, who asked for Waingrow’s presence in the corridor. None of their speaking I heard, but I knew the message: the Burns wench is frantic.
The jailor bid me wait, in that the magistrate had been called away for a moment. But this moment was too long, for after Marybelle’s extreme speech, a resolution was required. A superior in English law was beckoned, also one in the rules of Heaven. To circumvent a trial, Marybelle would have to appear immediately dangerous, perhaps thrashing about the cell, smashing herself bloody, even attacking the minister accompanying the magistrate and justice. How strange was this thinking of mine, as though dream or recollection, every detail before me and understood. How odd that the scene envisioned seemed fact instead of prediction. So convincing were my thoughts that I could nearly speak for Waingrow a long hour later when he returned to state that I might leave.
“Have you a place to remain this night within or about Lucansbludge?” he asked.
“I do, Lord Magistrate, and will return, perhaps with my aged great-uncle, to learn of the schedule for this trial. Will you be able to tell of the agenda tomorrow?”
“This following morning, we will have scheduled all things, and then will inform you,” Waingrow stated. But was it a smell or that facial cast like a crust that promised not the future, but finality?
I walked no farther than necessary from the town before hiding in the wilds and waiting for morn. Sleep was a part of this interval no more than cogitation. On my bag I sat, aimed at a community not seen, only smelled, one whose sinner-fresh portions were rancid to any witch. No hope had I, only confident expectation, that the more profound smell of Marybelle’s black body would not arrive. With the same predictiveness felt in Waingrow’s office, I surmised the night, one to end with my sister’s parts in a box. Strange were my perceivings, for though sounds of insects and animals were discerned, they seemed more story told than true experience, as though my predictions were the genuine facts of this evening.
This witch in the wilds was a dew keeper again, becoming more damp than any cave could render her. I sat that night as though dead myself, impenetrable to common signs of life, for I was expecting signs of death; and what does one butcher a witch with? An axe, perhaps, that utensil for removing limbs from a trunk. Here was an activity I would not be smelling: blood has no odor to carry for miles, not even that of a sister. Waiting for a terminal hour, I used no sinners’ device to track time, because I counted no minutes. The moment’s measure was God’s, called a life, variable in length; and if His will be done the same as Marybelle’s, extendible as well, like a cold creature returned from hibernation. The degree of my waiting was an evening, so with the sun I returned to Lucansbludge. No sinner bothered me there, none asking of my dampness, for perhaps my wetness had come from all extensive tears. But what sorrow could I have while aware that Eng
lish law would give my aunt her due?
• • •
I hurried through town, my rush an anxiety to be into Marybelle’s process, for had I not begun it with my lust? Not lust for one sinner, but a passion for their living. And if Marybelle’s plans bore fruition, I would repay my guilt with no simple sinners’ penitence, but with godlike resurrection to repair satanic death.
Along with Waingrow, a cleric waited for me in the magistrate’s office. Was Waingrow more respectful to me this morn, as though I were a young miss whose kin had passed on recently—but passed on where? To a box like a pot for dead meat, directly to Hell—or to a trial, as promised? As I sat before Waingrow at his desk, the thought enough to startle me came that these plans of Marybelle’s would function less fully than those of the past, for I had overestimated her intellection, and her current idea was too foolish to be realized. How many sinners were so inane as to be convinced by a witch unfamiliar with their ways? I was the witch who had passed as a sinner, yet Marybelle felt that she could dupe all those to pain her in this world. Utterly foolish was her ultimate survival, for the beginning was death, to be absurdly followed by the notion of impermanence. Even the pseudo-mystic sinners had but one person in their history to return from the dead. Most inane was the method of Marybelle’s planned resurrection—me, a witch more familiar with sinners’ ways than those of her own kind. Yet with no idea of magic herself and with no instructions from her superior, the girl was to retrieve her sister from God’s second greatest power, that of death, via his greatest ability of life as though Lord God Himself. But this restoration seemed appropriate, for I had brought death to Marybelle. Worst of all was my disappointment at Marybelle’s not dying at once, but enduring a trial instead, for my undertaking her mad plan would therefore be delayed. This seemed more distressing than the blatant fact of any trial’s ending with Marybelle’s burning. By then, sinners more sensible than these two idiot witches would discover me evil and have me burned as well.