Witch Hunt: the end

"It weren't me!" she cries again.
"A month ago you brought Miss Wheatly on this court, promising me that she could not lie. Do you deny this?"
Jane Wheatly is the blonde haired blue eyed best friend to Maura. The two had grown up together, running and playing like sisters from birth.
Maura's voice is small in reply "I do not deny that."
"And did you not insist that I should trust her explicitly? That her word may be more potent and worthy than Alicia?" this brings about a gasp. No one dares question Alicia's validity, nor do they downplay her innocence.
"Aye sir."
"So is she lying now? Did you lie to me then?"
A pause. She could bring down Jane with her like the lying traitor she is, but loyalty keeps her quiet.
"No sir. Jane never lies sir. Never."
"Take her. My sentence is death by the gallows. Witches must atone for their sins."
"Sir. Sir!" Maura struggles against the men who come to take her away again. "Wait! Please wait."
"Hold"
She's let go, her face burning with a mixture of fury and embarrassment at the scene she's caused.
"My brothers sir. They've done no wrong yet you leave them alone with no mother or sister or father."
"And...?"
"If I'm gon'na die, Excellency, then please don't let them die too. This weren't their doing."
"Take her."
"No!" Maura screeches, her hands forced behind her back as she's pulled away. "Please! Excellency! They're just babies!"
Most of her words are lost in the tumultuous cheers of the crowd at another 'witch' forced off the street. Her last sight before the big wooden doors of the courtroom close is the pallid, ghostly face of a guilt-stricken Jane, and the smirk of Alicia who always seemed to have it out for Maura.

****

A week. That's all the time she has to get her affairs in order. She can't even give her siblings a proper farewell. In that short amount of time she stocked up her accusation to Alicia spilling her lies and tentacles into the very gullible, pliable mind of Jane. Apparently the people think a week is enough time to come to grips with the fact that she's dying at the young age of eleven because they show no mercy carrying her to the gallows.
"Be glad it weren't the stake missy." One guard hisses in her ear. "Hangin' is a lot more merciful than burnin' the skin off your bones. And it smells a lot better too."
Maura only silently notes that he himself smells horrendously like tobacco and beer.
The air is silent when she mounts the scaffold, head held high like a little queen before her subjects, the noose a welcoming little oval for her petite neck. For the strangest reason she finds herself thanking God for being taller than the average girl. She'd seen plenty executions, but the one that sticks out the most is the one of a 13 year old boy who weighed no more than a little kid. He had to stand on a barrel and spent the better part of ten minutes just dangling there since his weight wasn't enough to break his neck cleanly. He had to suffocate, it was terrible.
"Maura Rachel Reiner, you are sentenced to hang by the neck until dead under the accusation of being a witch. Are there any final farewells that are to be made?"
This is a common courtesy, in case anyone wishes to call out a 'goodbye' or 'i love you'. No one ever does because then they're shamed for holding onto ties with a criminal.
The air is silent and the herald is about to continue when a deep voice pipes up.
"It's okay Maura."
There's no face to the voice, a hat is pulled down over his eyes and he's shadowed by the fading sun and the huge crowd. But she knows that voice, it's the voice that sang hymns to her and told her stories when she was sick and in bed. Not a very learned voice, but one that knows the weight of work and a long day.
They'd found him, or he'd heard the news and run home, she doesn't know., but he's here and he can care for the boys. Maura won't go so far as to say that she can now die in peace, eleven years should just be her beginning, but at least she isn't dooming her family by this.
They fit the noose around her neck and she looks up to the sky, uttering a soft prayer as the hangman pulls the lever. The last sight her bright eyes see is the watercolour Massachusetts sky and the sun dipping behind the horizon, bathing her in a warm glow as she's quickly welcomed Home.