The cries pierce the air as fingers wag and point at an eleven year old girl with matted hair and ragged clothes who kneels in the center of a crudely made circle ringed with a lone wooden bar to keep the onlookers back.
To her left a row of six girls twist and write, screeching out in pain, only one remaining where she sits, a smirk on her pale lips. Their white dresses are bright and gaudy, despite how much they've rolled around the ground on the pretense of 'witch attacks'.
If one looks close enough, they would see the poor girl in the center shaking, her eyes wide and glazed and fixed on the floor as her lips barely move, uttering her innocence.
Just a month earlier she'd been alongside the group of girls, moaning and writhing on the ground to call out witches. One month ago she'd been on the top of society, holding more power than their town preacher who, though he tried to stop this massacre on many occasions, held no more standing to do so.
Even the judge presiding over the court is resting the fate of 20 women in the hands of a group of girls no older than 15. "Innocence" they claim is what sets the 'jury' above the rest of the people. Untouched, virgin, pure, that's what helps smoke out witches. Apparently the accused had no choice but to send out their spirit to attack the girls, and that's when they were caught.
Maura Reiner had done that duty, sending 3 women to prison and 5 to their death. It was when her mother took the stand that she lost her gall to continue. Elizabeth Reiner was the widow of Marcos Reiner, the local jail keeper. Two years ago he'd gone crazy and ran away, leaving his wife and eldest daughter to care for four baby boys.
There's no way she could sentence her mother to die, that would just leave her alone in the world with a 5 year old, a 4 year old, and two two year olds. At eleven with no desire to marry anytime soon, there's no hope for their survival. So she sat. While her friends flung accusations and cries of "witch!" at her mother, she sat stone cold, her face even and dead as if this was the most boring thing in the world. When asked why she was unaffected, she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and told what she swore she'd never tell.
"There be no such thing as witches, sir."
Oh did that cause an outrage. Four men dragged her off her spot above them and set her in prison for the better part of a month. The only time she'd been allowed out was when she was taken to the gallows to see her mother hang.
Now, kneeling on the floor, she's at the mercy of the very court she once served.
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