𝓓𝓸 𝓸𝓻 𝓓𝓲𝓮 ❣︎ 𝓔𝓶𝓫𝓮𝓻 𝓐𝓭𝓭𝓪𝓶𝓼

𝓢𝓔𝓡𝓘𝓔𝓢 𝓞𝓝𝓔 ❣︎ 12

"BURN HER!"

"BURN HER!"

"DEVIL'S SPAWN!"

"SHE'S A WITCH!"

Looking closer, getting up, Ember saw the men with sticks of fire had encircled someone...

"BEAST!"

"REPENT!"

"BURN HER!"

Ember had now hidden, and had a good enough vantage point to see the person that was encircled...

It was the girl from her vision.

The blonde haired version of her.

"STAND ASIDE!"

And suddenly, as the girl cried out and was pushed to the ground, the circle of people also spread... and through the gap they had created, stepped Joseph Crackstone.

He was wearing the same thing as the waxwork of him in the Meeting House... he was holding the same staff.

He looked down at the girl with pity and anger.

"Goody Addams!" He yelled, making Ember do a double take. Addams? "You have been judged before god and found guilty. You are a witch, a sorceress. Lucifer's mistress herself. For your sins, you will burn this night, and suffer the flames of eternal hellfire."

"I am innocent," the newly christened Goody Addams said, speaking in the same voice she had in Ember's last vision of her. "It is you, Joseph Crackstone, that should be tried! We were here before you, living in harmony with nature and the native folk. But you have stolen our land! You have slaughtered the innocent! You have robbed us of our peaceful spirit!"

The sound of a knife being drawn-

"YOU are the true monster! All of you!" Goody finished, looking up at all the pilgrims.

Ember saw her get up and slash Crackstone's face... his cheek now dripping in blood... other pilgrims held Goody back as she went for another swipe.

"The devil ne'er send such a demon," Crackstone said, touching the cut on his cheek... fingers coming back bloody. He then used that hand to backhand Goody across the face, sending her flying into the pilgrims holding her, crying out. "And I will send you back!" He added, angrier now that Goody had lashed out.

"No! NO!" Goody screamed out, as the men holding her dragged her towards the Old Meeting House, the villagers of Jericho hollering.

"YOU ARE ABOMINATIONS IN THE DEVIL'S GRIP!" Crackstone bellowed as the house doors were wrenched open and Goody was slammed on the floor, at the mercy of the other pilgrims in the shed. Ember followed, hiding behind a barrel she found in the corner. "I will not stop 'till I have expunged this new world of every outcast! Godless creatures!"

No, Ember realised. No, these weren't other pilgrims in the Old Meeting House right now. They were outcasts. Outcasts which Crackstone had captured, determined to kill.

This ran through her head as Crackstone turned his back on the shed, his other pilgrim mates locking the doors after his departure.

Goody, meanwhile, was hyperventilating on the floor, looking at the outcasts, who, both she and Ember noticed, were chained up around the room. All looked cold, scared and pale.

"SET IT ABLAZE!"

Ember's eyes widened as she heard Crackstone's shout from outside, and the pilgrims with their fire sticks, setting the shed on fire.