One giant, powerful wrench and I manage to slip from their grasp, falling to the ground. Hitting it hard. I scramble to my feet and race back toward the man in the velvet cloak.
Four men block my path. I flank left, skirting around them. One of them manages to grasp my biceps, pulling me to a stop. I twist, thrusting the heel of my hand against his nose. I hear a loud crack and warm liquid spatters my face. When I pull my hand away, it’s dripping with thick blood. But still he seems undeterred, coming at me again.
I crouch low and sweep my leg around in a blur. It catches his ankle and he tumbles feet over head and smashes into the ground.
The entire exchange took only a matter of seconds but it was still, apparently, enough time for more of them to assemble. When I look up from the man writhing on the ground, one or more of his vertebrae most likely dislocated, I see a small army converging on me.
I look left, then right, then behind me. I feel my hope plunge as I realize that I’m surrounded.
They move in, closing the circle, calling out directions to one another, encouraging everyone to stay strong. To not let me get away.
My breath comes in choppy gasps. My chest burns. My stomach knots and coils and then knots again.
One of them I can handle. Two or three, maybe. But as I spin in a slow circle, my hands up, ready to fight, my eyes wide and wild like a trapped animal’s, I count twelve in the inner circle alone, with more approaching from the outside to fortify the wall.
I can’t take that many. I know it’s impossible.
I drop my arms to my sides. I close my eyes. I try to drown in my defeat and disappear within myself as I hear the heavy footsteps and feel the foul, angry breath of a dozen bodies descending upon me.
11
DETAINED
Everything that happens next is warped by a gray fog that clouds my vision. I hear the words spoken around me. I see the commotion that my actions have brought to this town. But it’s as though it’s all happening on the other side of a dirty, splintered window.
They bind my hands in front of me with rough, heavy iron chains. They load me into the back of an open-air cart, surrounded by five burly, angry-looking men. We drive. Somewhere. Anywhere. I don’t know. Minutes pass. Or perhaps hours. My arms and legs feel cold. Cramped. My fingers have lost sensation. I hold up my hands and stare at them but I can’t focus on them. There are ten fingers. No, eight. No, twelve. No, none.
Where did my fingers go?
My body isn’t working right. I can’t seem to hold a single thought in my mind. I think my brain is shutting down. Hibernating. To protect me from reality. From truth. From pain.
The wagon stops. My five escorts brace themselves, glaring at me. I think they assume I’m going to run. How can I run when I can’t feel my feet? When my brain is liquefying?
They walk me down a dark, musty hallway. I can hardly manage to put one foot in front of the other. My feet drag and slide and skid. They think I’m fighting again. They shove me and push me and yank on my chains. Shout things.
I’m not fighting.
I’m barely breathing.
I’m jostled into a filthy cell. The door is slammed with an earth-shattering, finite
BANG!
I collapse onto the dirt floor, my cheek pressed against the cold ground, and stare numbly at their feet through the thick metal bars.
They’re walking away. They’re leaving me here.
My brain struggles to send signals to my mouth.
Move. Speak. Ask.
“Zen?” My lips form the shape but I don’t know if any sound emerges.
I remember the names we’ve been using here as part of our attempt to blend in. I try again, summoning strength. Summoning breath. “Where is Ben? Is he okay?”
The only response is the sound of their footsteps receding.
And then suddenly, I’m alone. In the darkness. A single torch is lit in the hallway just outside my cell. But I can still see everything around me as clear as if the sun were shining through the nonexistent window. One of the many “abilities” I was endowed with.
Or should I say
cursed
with.
I close my eyes and immediately see Zen. Lying in the street. Coughing. Shaking.
I open my eyes but the image doesn’t go away. There’s no escape.
And the longer I think about it, the more gruesome the scene becomes. The more my imagination takes over.
I see him gasping for his last breath. I see his body being left to rot in the road. The wheels of a merciless carriage fracturing his skull right down the middle, crushing his handsome face. I see his brains splattered on the gravel. Giant horse hooves trampling right through them. Oblivious to the fact that they once belonged to a real human being. A caring, selfless human being who never deserved any of this.
Who never deserved to fall in love with someone like me.
Someone who only invites chaos and agony and destruction wherever she goes.
Someone who should never have been created.
I roll onto my stomach and press my face into the dirt again. The smell in here is worse than it was out in the street. It’s seeped into the ground. The walls. Clinging to the stale putrid air that hasn’t seen daylight in probably centuries.
The guilt twists in my stomach. Swirling around, callously destroying everything in its path. Until my whole body is consumed with it. Until I am just a writhing, crying, pitiful ball of shame. Lying in filth where I belong.
Somewhere between splattered brains and falling tears, I find sleep. It comes without warning. Offering me a few hours of solace. Beautiful relief. But in the morning my head and heart are throbbing worse than before.
With no sunlight to indicate the time, I take a guess that it’s around noon the next day when a guard approaches the outside of my cell. Somehow I find the strength to push myself up, to look into his eyes, to beg for information.
“Please,” I implore. “The boy I was with. Do you know what happened to him? Do you know where he is? He’s very ill. He needs help.”
He stands tall. Rigid. His face is completely impassive. “I’ve come to deliver a message. From his royal majesty, King James I.”
My heart shatters when I realize he’s not going to answer me.
“You will be brought to trial for the crime of witchcraft. If you are found guilty, you are to be executed.”
I only understand half of the things I’m being told. But the general meaning is clear: they don’t think I’m human either. And they want me dead because of it.
Maybe it’s for the best.
Maybe this is what was meant to happen.
If Zen is still alive, maybe he can leave here without me. Return to his home in the year 2115 and find a nice, normal, nonsynthetically engineered girl to fall in love with. Maybe then he’ll finally be able to lead a normal life.
And then one day, in the very distant future, far away from here, far away from the remnants of this shattered dream that ended too soon, he’ll be able to forget me.
That is the story I tell myself.
12
BEWITCH
In the perpetual darkness I lose track of the hours, the days, how many times another faceless guard arrives to bring me stale bread and water. I sleep as much as I can. It’s the only way I can shut off my thoughts, which are now crisp and focused once again.
I wish the fog would return.
By the time they come for me, my body is frail and soggy. If they were trying to wear me down, it worked. Nearly all my strength is gone. My voice is hoarse and rusty from lack of use. I remember mumbling Zen’s name every time someone would appear outside my cell. There’s a chance I might have called it out in my sleep, waking myself. But other than that, I have not spoken.
“How long have I been in here?” I ask as they bind my feet in chains.
“Five days,” replies one of the guards. His expression is vacant. He won’t look at me.
I am led through a crowd of furious people. I am made to stand in a daunting courtroom, surrounded by the faces of those who will be happy to see me die. I am forced to listen to the convincing accounts of the townsfolk who saw me move faster than a cannon, lift an entire wagon with my bare hands, and throw it across the street.
The gentleman who arrested me, who stole my locket, is called up to testify. He spouts angry accusations. Insists that I have arrived from a place called Hell and should be promptly returned there. That I should be tried as a heretic. Not just a criminal. That I am a special case. Unlike any other they’ve seen.
I don’t speak. I don’t argue. What is there to argue? It’s all true. I may not be a witch, as they are accusing me, but I’m certainly not one of them. I certainly don’t belong in this time. Or any time, for that matter. I watch the shocked faces of the jurors and spectators, their stormy eyes narrowed in accusation. Their silent thoughts scream at me. How dare I infect their town, their home, their lives with my toxin?
I am unable to meet any of their stares. So I keep my head down. My gaze low.
The next witness is called to speak. I hear heavy footsteps shuffling to the front of the large, echoing chamber. I can feel the hateful glare as the witness passes. It reaches out. Strangles me. Stabs me.
“Please state your name for the record,” the magistrate says.
“Mrs. Elizabeth Pattinson.”
My head snaps up and I am suddenly face-to-face with her. The woman who has fed me, clothed me, and given me a place to sleep for the past six months. Our gazes collide. And for a moment—just a flicker of a moment—I sense that she is not here to harm me. That she has found what little compassion she has left and has brought it here today to help me.
Maybe she even knows something about Zen.
“What is your relationship to the accused?”
Mrs. Pattinson breaks eye contact and turns to look at the judge. “She has been living in my home. As a hired servant.”
Murmurs trickle across the assembly. Too muddled for me to make out anything specific, but the sentiment is palpable. Shock. Pity. Fear that it could just as easily have happened to them.
For some reason, my attention is drawn to a specific location in the back of the room. On the balcony. I squint into the crowd of spectators, trying to make out someone familiar, but I’m met only by the hateful eyes of strangers.
“And what do you have to contribute to today’s proceedings?” the magistrate asks Mrs. Pattinson, bringing my attention back to the woman standing only a few feet away.
She refuses to look at me, instead her gaze flicks between the twelve jurors and the magistrate, sitting on his bench, dressed in his long red gown, surrounded by clerks. I suck in a sharp breath, hoping less for a testimony of my innocence and more for some morsel of an indication that Zen is okay. Then at least I can be put to death knowing he is safe.
But a small voice in the back of my head reminds me of this impossibility. If he were safe—if he were okay—he would be here. He would be attempting to save me.
It’s a painful truth that I already know.
“Sarah,” she begins, and then quickly clears her throat. “I mean,
the accused
, formed a particular bond with my youngest child while she was dwelling with us. I didn’t approve of the relationship. I tried to discourage it as much as possible.”
Quiet murmurs of assent emanate from the crowd.
“But it is because of this relationship that I can now stand before you and say with certainty”—she takes a deep breath, her mouth twitching—“that this woman
is
, in fact, a witch.”
The quiet murmurs rapidly morph into earsplitting attacks and cries for justice. I close my eyes and attempt to block out the noise.
“Would you care to elaborate?” the magistrate prompts.
“Of course, your Worship,” Mrs. Pattinson replies obligingly. And in that instant I know. She was never here to help me. There was never a chance in the world that she would risk her family, her reputation, her life to help
me.
The girl she despised and mistrusted from the very beginning.
“A few nights ago, as I was walking past the bedroom of the accused, I overheard her telling my daughter a story,” she begins.
I let out a defeated sigh as a hot ball of fire starts to burn in my stomach.
“It was the story of a princess who had run away from her home because she had
magic powers
.”
More reactions from the room and the jury. Even the magistrate—who I assume is supposed to remain impartial through this process—appears disturbed by this. Once again, I feel drawn to that location in the back of the room. As though a light is blinking on and off there, calling my attention, but when I allow my gaze to slip that way, I see nothing but unfamiliar faces.
“Yes,” Mrs. Pattinson replies to the astonished crowd. “She was actually attempting to spread her poison to my innocent young daughter!” She waits for the next wave of reactions to die down before continuing. “I found a nightdress stained with blood at the back of the armoire in her room. Undoubtedly from one of her satanic rituals. And I assume you have already seen the black mark of the devil on her wrist?”
Confusion and agitation break out. It’s evident this particular piece of information has
not
yet been revealed to the court
or
the spectators. All eyes are suddenly on me. I shrink back against the low wall of the tiny box that I’m standing in. The iron chains binding my hands in front of me feel as though they’re tightening with each passing second.
In the commotion of capturing me, binding me, and leading me away, the tattoo embedded on my skin was evidently overlooked.
But it won’t be overlooked for long. The magistrate turns expectantly to me, his eyebrows raised, the wrinkles on his aged face stretched with curiosity. “Kindly show the citizens of the jury your wrists.”
I do as I’m told, raising my arms slowly, feeling the stares of those gathered in the giant hall zeroing in on my hands. Although I’m sure not everyone in the room can see the small black line from their vantage point, the gasps of repulsion still reverberate off the walls.