Author's Note;
Prologue
Central Europe, 1568
“Fait ardre la chaitif jus a sa dernier alaine!” screamed one of the women gathered around the crackling flames, their voices rising above the steady drone of the other murmurs and obscene name-calling. She vaguely tried to recall the meaning of those words, the anger she had wished to convey but after a moment she realized that it did not matter. A small cry of fear drew her eyes downwards, and there - at the head of the crowd - stood a little boy wearing but a woollen shirt and trousers, his round young face was filled with grief as he looked down at her. His bottom lip quivered, his eyes glistened with moisture and his small hands reached out and clutched at the air.
“Maman!” he cried, that single word piercing through her heart and making her cry out in despair.
The crowd fell hush at the sound of the infant boy’s cry, but he noticed nothing other than her wavering smile of comfort. He attempted forward, but a large hand fell upon his shoulder, restraining his movement so he stood leaning towards her. A younger woman leaned down and placed her lips at his ear, her long blond hair covered only by a simple white scarf masked what she spoke but the boy dropped his hands and placed both arms tight to his sides. She felt a tear trace a path down her dust covered cheek, her eyes moistening and her vision blurring as her grief choked her. She glanced back towards the little boy, he still watched her, and she opened her mouth to speak.
“I love you, mon fis.” she whispered, offering the child a small smile.
She closed her eyes, feeling the spiteful glares of those gathered and hearing their voices rise as they hollered her wrongly given title. She remembered something her mother had once told her it had taken her forever to finally realize the truth of those words as they echoed in her mind. “Mais la vie est un instant tandi que la mort est pour l'éternité,” and such truth - hidden behind the mask of these words - has been found as she lay on her back, her hands bound to a simple wooden ladder, her legs bound to the lower rungs with a crowd gathered to watch her burn.
“Allez! Burn the witch! Allez!” they screamed, their voices breaking through her small moment of peaceful reminiscing.
She opened her eyes, staring up at the sky, it’s beauty marred by the scars of red and orange as the sun began to set. The ladder upon which she was tied was jostled, she craned her neck to peer over her shoulder and she spotted the hulking shape of a muscular man. His muscle bearing arms flexed as they slowly raised the ladder into an upright position, permitting her to be hung upright. Her skirts weighed heavy on her hips, her brown hair in a disarray as it limply fell before her eyes. She gazed down at the little boy, he let a small smile fall unto his lips as though he were trying to offer her some comfort in this time of despair and grief.
In this moment, she realized, he would be an orphan. A child that would be condemned to live on the streets without any to care for him now that she would burn. It was not his fault, however, that he had been mothered by a witch. Her breath came in heaving gasps, her tears fell to the ground and just before they could throw her in the flames, she kicked off one of her shoes, sending it off towards the little boy who scurried to grab it. He took the shoe and cradled it to his chest, his large brown eyes gazing up at her. She nodded, and he scurried away into the crowd before she spotted him break free and run off. No one noticed their confrontation, their eyes all staring at the flames in riveted fascination as though they knew the flames were hungering for human flesh. As though her life were but an offering to appease the hungry flames but she knew that that was not the answer to their grim determination to have her burned.
She was a witch; a practionner of magic; a patron of the dark arts, and she was condemned to die.
Her heart fluttered in her chest, knowing that she was to be thrown into the flames, as the ladder was jostled and a large hand pressed on her lower back, tipping the ladder forward. She closed her eyes tightly, fearing for the life of her child but not for her own, knowing that he would be hunted for the rest of his life being his assumed close affiliation with her; the witch. The heat of the fire made her cringe but in a matter of mere seconds she was engulfed in the merciless flames that devoured her entirely. The smell of burning flesh and hair made her gag as she screamed in agony, writhing madly against the bindings that held her fast to the burning wood of the ladder. Her skin blackening and tearing, leaving blood to boil and sizzle in the heat. Her screams grew in pitch as the agony reached it’s climax , burning her fully, leaving nothing but charred remains. Her screams echoed in the minds of the observers.
[This is a novel = next chapter shall be posted in approximately 1 - 2 weeks.]
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138,337 Literary Works • 672,105 Reviews
Hey! This is a pretty dark prologue, you have to love novels that start with witch burnings.
I don't speak french (at least I think it's french) and google translated it to something like "the juice is at its last", so I have concluded I have no idea what she is yelling. I'm going to assume that it's not very nice, regardless. In spite of not knowing what half of it says, I do quite like this as a first line- it sets the scene,introduces us with a action, and is interesting, so well done! Though I am not sure about 'their voices', as your subject began as a singular woman yelling above everyone else, so maybe it should be 'her voice'?
I am a little confused about who 'she' is. As the subject of the last sentence was the woman yelling, continuing with 'she' initially lead me to believe she was still the speaker. In the context of the rest of the sentence, however, that doesn't make sense. So it is the woman being burned? If so, she hasn't been introduced yet! It's not even clear that anyone is being burned at all, all we know is there are angry people shouting and flames, we don't know about the witch, her burning, or that she exists. Introduce your speaker before jumping into her thoughts, even if it is "the dark haired woman"- that's enough to make your subject clear. Also, after some puzzling, the second 'she' is the yeller, right? It took me a few re-reads to come to this conclusion, so you may want to fiddle with this sentence to make sure your reader knows who you are talking about.
Oooh, Evelyn, right?
Again you are switching between two female characters, which means that I only figured out which point of view about halfway through the sentence. You don't typically want your reader to stumble at the beginning of a line- the more work the reader has to do to understand the scene, the less they become immersed in it.
Apostrophes are confusing little buggers, right? With any other word other than 'its', you would be perfectly correct. But for some reason, the possessive version of the apostrophe doesn't apply to its- you only use 'it's' when it means 'it is'. So while the "the dog's bone" is correct, "it's bone" is not, and should be simply "its bone."
This is purely a stylistic suggestion, but I find "small moment of peaceful reminiscing" to be quite an awkward mouthful. I would personally reword it to "her small moment of reminiscent peace", but that's entirely up to you. What I do suggest is reading your work out loud when it comes to editing, so you can find all the awkward sounding lines, bits where you stumble, and badly placed commas & pauses (though I haven't noticed any of the last, so awesome). If you are comfortable you could get a trusted friend to read it out loud also, to see if they stumble or get confused anywhere that you have missed. (I find when I write something my mind likes to gloss over my mistakes, because it knows what it should say.)
Here you could make the scene more visceral and vibrant by describing what the smell of burning flesh and hair is. It's up to you, however.
Overall, quite a dramatic beginning of a story- it makes me wonder how you will follow it up! I like your writing style, it's descriptive- you like to show us things, which is great. You could possibly go further with this by concentrating on each sense- sight, sound, touch, smell and taste- you could describe how the ladder feels, the splinters in her hair, etc. I'll have to follow this as you write it, I would love to see more of this world.
PM me if you have questions!
-Nutty
This was a very good prologue! You drag the reader in and make them interested. And by that I can tell you are a great writer. I'm very picky when it comes to my reading and the prologue is one of the most important things to keep me reading, and i think i'll be reading the rest of this story.
Very good!
I loved it! very descriptive, and you really made me feel for the witch. At the end, it became very gruesome, though. It was cool, but gruesome. Keep writing! I can't wait to read more!