The loop was wound tightly against her throat as the chanting abolished her hearing. Witch, witch! She gulped and let her legs tremble until almost resulting in a self-inflicted death.
A familiar voice broke through the crowded nonsense and she attempted to hear it alone. Her mother. She stood at the back of the crowd chanting just as forcefully among the trees where she couldn't be called a traitor having defended her at trial.
It was time now, the others hung beside her in a blend of different opinions, one of them was William. Her one and only love, not that he knew it but it was the same in any matter. He stared at her now with a glow in his eyes strong enough to pierce the darkness in any ones heart. He was being hung for standing by her side, even though she had told him never to see her again.
The hangers stood by their sides in a length of disgust only giving glances of hate and disappointment in her direction. She looked over at the girls who had once been her friends as they twitched all over, brushing their hands over the front of their gowns and trembling so, she thought they might have jumped out of their skin.
"Oh Sarah! You deceiving brute, why must you torture us so! See thy good sir, see how she glowers at us in good resemblance to the devil himself! Ow, Sarah, why must you pinch us so! Ow, ow, oh great lord, protect us from this nonbeliever that she may perish in hell where she came from!"
The girls raised their hands over their heads and slammed to their knees giving repulsive screams of agony, accusing her of jumping from her body and swooping upon them with her evil spirit. She could take no more of it!
"How dare you! How dare you all! Using the lords good name in your speak of nonsense as you hang innocent people for you frivolity! Giving accusations of such foolishness we would have been punished for years before this burden set upon our town! Have you no agony further from fiction, do you all not see what you're doing to the people of god. And using witchcraft as a blame! For shame! God told all that witchcraft didn't exist!"
Everyone had stopped chanting and now stared at her pleadingly as the group of girls coward still lower to the ground and begged her to stop digging her nails into their skin.
"I shan't stop!" She yelled. "I shan't stop because I do nothing. It is a wonder that you could separate us such as this! I am human, I've never seen the devil but in story books and those girls are lying to you all!" There was a great shudder.
"I suggest you stop this at once Sarah, those girls have done not a thing wrong, only told us the horrible things you put upon them in your urge to curse the town!" She laughed noticing that she held off every hanging with her speech.
"Why then do I only attack the girls, could you answer me that? If I were really a witch then I could have of course destroyed this town with a simple brew, well couldn't I have!?" She didn't give the judge time to answer her. "It's ridiculous is what it is. You have no idea what go wrong in your town so you prosecute your own people. You've turned my own mother against me, what person of god causes such damage!"
"That's enough!" The judge yelled as his face flushed and the edge of his mouth twitched uncontrollable. "I shan't hold this sentence any further. Kill her now!" She held the best she could the rope around her neck and let out the most tears she could before having none yet to cry.
"I won't take this either!" William burst into the conversation holding her execution to a lingering moment and resulting in the release of her ropes. William hadn't spoken to anyone besides her in 12 years. She didn't tell anyone this, it was funny when everyone though him a mute, but now, now everyone stared in pure shock. Never in any execution had there been these moments of halt.
"He speaks!" Cried Elizabeth, the lead of the shuddering girls. She stepped forward and drew herself up to the platform abiding every hand that reached out for her. "He speaks because the curse has been lifted. We think him to be a warlock when really it was only thy enemy Sarah cursing him, he was never at her side, but only a feeble helpless servant at her bound to her!" Everyone gasped and William's eyes opened in anguish as they released him from his binds and pushed him off the edge of the platform leaving two others, both elderly, to hang at her side.
"This is not true! Elizabeth lies, it is not Sarah who curses me, but___" he hesitated and gave Sarah a sorry look. "But, Elizabeth herself. She orders these girls under her own curse to kill off her enemies, she said so herself that she always hated Sarah." She couldn't help hear what he was saying, accusing others now, and they had the chance of being hanged. He encouraged them, now they would never forget.
"Is this true Elizabeth?" The judge asked timidly. Sarah had just recognized she was no longer held and ran into William's arms who in turn, embraced her tightly and then let go to observe the others.
"It is not! He only wants to save his master, maybe the curse isn't over after all!"
"You change you mind? Now?" She nodded and then noticed what he was saying. He didn't think she was sure of herself, he thought she was lying.
"Or___ I don't change my mind. I only doubt my first instinct, he seems to still be connected under her control." The judge nodded and looked at the wide-eyed friends holding each others hand and waiting for the worst, more importantly, ready to follow the other into anything.
"Very well then, we shall undergo another day of trial and only another day. After that, we solve this once and for all." The old couple was able to be let down and everyone returned to their normal lives, forgetting of course that a witch and a needy servant walked among them.
The next day of trials would have to be something new, they would have to prepare a speech, maybe even good enough to get the court off their back. And then maybe they could go away, far, far away.
Gender:
Points: 4890
Reviews: 516