Page 35 of The Neighborhood Witch

Tears flowed down Johanna’s face. She nodded her head and mouthed back, “It’s okay.”

Abigail closed her eyes and slumped forward. She folded her hands in prayer. “I was in the barn. Johanna entered. She bewitched me with a kiss. She threw me onto the hay and then—” Abigail paused for what felt like an eternity. “Johanna tried to have her way with me.”

Chants of “hang the witch” erupted throughout the room. The judge banged his gavel, and the room fell silent once again. The menat the table conferred with each other. They paused for a moment to glance over at Johanna.

The judge stood and leered at Johanna. “Johanna Newes, you are hereby found guilty of practicing witchcraft. The sentence is that you shall be hung by the neck until dead.”

Johanna fell to her knees. She buried her head into her left arm, crying. She clutched the silver cloak clasp with her right hand. Abigail stood and ran out of the courtroom.

“Your honor,” a booming voice said from the back of the room. “They may hang witches in Salem, but I have a more efficient way of dealing with them.”

The judge stood and surveyed the back of the room. “Come here and identify yourself before the court,” the judge ordered.

A burly man took a final sip of tea and set the cup down on a table in the back. He approached the front of the room. All eyes focused on him. The leather soles of his brown boots tapped against the wooden floorboards and echoed throughout the room.

He wore a green coat. Gold buttons running down the center held it closed. He wore an oversized leather tricorn hat. The leather was tanned and brown with age. He removed the hat as he approached the front of the room.

“Your honor, please allow me to introduce myself. I am Thaddeus Price, witch-finder appointed by his majesty, King William the Third. I have been tracking witches to this area for some time. It seems you have found one.”

He approached the town elders. Thaddeus produced a piece of paper from his coat pocket and handed it to the judge. The elders examined the paper.

“Okay, witch-finder, what do you propose we do?”

Thaddeus turned to address the crowd. “We burn the witch.”

Johanna let out a cry of sheer terror. The crowd burst into confusion and horror.

“You’re mad,” an elder shouted. “Mad and barbaric. We are a civilized society.”

“I assure you I am neither mad nor barbaric, unlike the rest of you,” Thaddeus proclaimed. “Fire. Drowning. Hanging. None of these work on a true witch. Witches can use their black magick to survive after your means of death. I have something that’s a little more… permanent.”

“What do you have in mind?” the judge asked.

He yanked a chain from his coat pocket. A golden disk twisted in the air at the end of the chain. Eight orange gems encircled a yellow jewel in the center. He held the amulet aloft for the crowd to see. “Behold the amulet of witch’s fire. Anyone wearing this while facing the setting sun shall have their insides set ablaze in extreme agony. This is the only way to be certain a witch is truly dead.”

His words mesmerized the crowd. Their eyes focused on the jeweled amulet dangling from his hefty hand. Thaddeus lowered the amulet. He withdrew a black, twisting wand from his other coat pocket as if he was unsheathing a sword. He twirled it around and stretched it high into the sky for all to see.

“This is an anti-magick wand, used to dampen the witch’s powers and cause her great pain.” He charged over toward Johanna. She cowered in fear to the back of the podium. “See, even now, she recoils at the sight of the wand without me having to use it.” Thaddeus beamed at Johanna with a devilish, knowing grin on his face.

They paraded Johanna through the town shortly after being given her fate. The citizens shouted obscenities at her and threw rotten vegetables, accusing her of killing their crops. They proclaimed she was the one responsible for the children falling sick. They cursed her very existence. She had done none of this.

She was no witch.

Johanna tripped and fell. The town guards picked her up by her arms and dragged her. She screamed and kicked and pleaded as they pulled her closer to her fate. Her protests fell on ears out for vengeance. A frothed up vengeance for no other purpose than to preserve her true love from suffering a similar fate.

“There! That tree will do,” Thaddeus commanded. “Face her to the setting sun.”

The guards picked up Johanna and threw her against the oak tree. She struggled, but they were too strong for her. They bound her hands behind the tree. Thaddeus sauntered toward her like a stalking predator. He smiled as Johanna’s eyes widened with fear and desperation. He placed the amulet around her neck.

“Please,” Johanna pleaded with him. “I’m not a witch.”

“I know,” he whispered back. “But take solace in the fact that your sacrifice will help me find the true witch. No hard feelings.” He took a step back to admire his handiwork with a devilish grin.

Johanna squirmed and pulled at her ropes, each tug fiercer than the last. “Please,” she cried out to the crowd. “Please stop this. I don’t want to die.”

The sky turned bloodred as the sun descended behind a line of trees. The amulet glowed as the last of the dying light shone on the town. An intense heat exploded through Johanna’s chest like a fire burning within.

“Please. Please stop this,” she wailed in agonizing pain. “I’m not a witch.”

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