You can find part one in other fiction. I would just like to point out, up front, that there are no vampires in this story.
"Who are you?"
It was a question Mary had never quite answered for herself. What mark had she left on the earth in the short time she'd lived upon it? Only seventeen years. It hardly seemed like enough time to have done anything at all. Most of her life had been spent following others, and when she'd finally broken free, it had led to her death.
Her mother had died in the hours after Mary was born. It wasn't uncommon to lose women in childbirth in those times. Mary couldn't truly miss the person her mother had been, but did pine for a female role model. Her father was a cold man. As a judge and prominent community member, it sometimes seemed that he had no time for his daughter. Long hours spent alone were the only ones that Mary could expect.
A lonely Mary found companionship among a group of girls from her town of Salem. She honestly found them quite foolish, but was so tired of her solitude that she ignored it. Desperate to be accepted, she was alarmed when the fits came. It began with one girl, but rapidly became two, three, four, five. She was shocked by the bouts of screaming and writhing that only she seemed exempt from. Feeling left out, Mary faked fits of her own to be included. She only wished that hers could be as sincere as the others'. Still, the faked episodes seemed to please her friends, and Mary fell into a comfortable pattern. It was not long, however, before they began to name names.
Though her heart ached for those being investigated for witchcraft, she played along, unwilling to relinquish the acceptance she'd won. Her guilt, however, continued to grow. She tried reasoning with herself. Nobody was being hurt, were they? But then the first person was hanged, and Mary felt she had to stop pretending.
She explained to her friends that she was uncomfortable with what they'd been doing. She urged them to put an end to their bid for attention. Innocent people were dying.
Her name was the next to be called.
The day she walked to the gallows, convicted by flimsy spectral evidence from dreams and hallucinations, Mary understood that this was her punishment for not stopping the hysteria sooner. She was only seventeen, but the executioner tightened the rope around her neck as if she were a murderer. She tried to act with dignity, but found herself sobbing. She closed her eyes and began praying silently that the rope would break, the executioner would be too scared, someone from the crowd would intervene. Anything. But she suddenly felt the log kicked out from underneath her.
There was a brief flash of pain, and then nothing.
Please let me know what you think of both parts. Thanks!
