Witch of Embers

Part 1

In a small-town hotel room, Rebecca Nurse took her seat at the room's desk, set her cup of tea to her right, flipped open her laptop, and started to write.

...

A disease was clawing its way through the town of Grover. It tore families apart at the seams, leaving some members among the living and tossing others beyond the veil. Those who fell sick at dawn would be among their ancestors at dusk. The town had committed no sin, yet an executioner seemed to walk its dirt streets, a scythe held loosely in his grip.

Most of its victims were elderly. It brutally killed those who could still remember the sound of waves crashing against the sides of the ship and the smell of salt in the air on the voyage to a new world. They were promised it would be a better life. As they lay on their cots with a layer of sweat on their brows and spasms shaking their bodies, it did not feel like a better place.

One can die in England just as easily as one can die in America.

Other victims were young, infants and toddlers. With their births came the promise of new life in a strange land. With their deaths came hopelessness.

While it was easier for the sickness to take the young and the old, the strong were taken too. Mothers and fathers died alongside their children. Husbands died lying next to their wives and wives died lying by their husbands.

It was a time of death, and because of that, it was a time of fear.

At first, the town could only think to fear the disease. Then they feared the God that had seen fit to kill so many of his flock. Then their fear turned inwards, toward one of their own.

Before the sickness, Bridget Bishop's neighbors looked at her and thought her frail. Her hands were spotted and curled. Her hair was thin and ghostly white. Her face was warped and worn with creases.

When the illness first struck, her neighbors looked at her sadly, knowing that she would eventually fall like the others of her generation. But they did so with some satisfaction, for Bishop was a cruel woman.

However, even as death turned its eyes toward the strongest as well as the weakest, Bishop remained untouched. More than that, she would smile at the friends and family members of those killed. Those who saw it said it was not a friendly grin, but one akin to showing off.

There had always been something off about Bridget Bishop, besides her wicked demeanor. Her home had a strange aura to it. Candles were lit at all hours of the night. When people in nearby houses tried to pray, their words would stick in their throats, choking them. Children refused to play near her property and could not articulate why.

Strange black creatures roamed around her home at all hours of day and night. Cats, dogs, birds, and other animals not previously seen in the village stalked her walls. They threatened all passersby with sharp teeth, claws, and talons. Every single one had sickly yellow eyes.

And then there was her book. Bishop had a massive book collection, at least compared to others in the town. Her most prized possession was a strangely designed book. Black leather stretched over the cover with symbols no one recognized etched in and outlined in gold. It was a text that people only caught glimpses of, for she let no one near it.

There was also a pattern of violence surrounding the old woman. Bishop left a trail of broken people in her wake, people who had slighted her in some way. The children of those who insulted her—to her face or behind her back—occasionally succumbed to accidents. The gardens and crops of those who cheated her in some trade or transaction spoiled in the ground.

In one case, a man who'd made himself her enemy by spreading vicious rumors about her around the town burned with his family in a seemingly accidental house fire. But these incidents were few and far between.

Colonial living was harsh and every occurrence could be explained by coincidence. And Bishop did not look evil or harmful. She looked grandmotherly. None of it stirred up rumors or panic, not individually. When all these strange quirks and events surrounding Bishop are considered collectively, a clear picture appears.

No one in the town wanted to say it aloud. Even though Bishop was cruel, the charge seemed too heavy to place on her frail shoulders. But then a young boy stepped forward—truly wisdom from the mouth of babes—and said it. Bridget Bishop was a witch.

The disease that had struck down so many in the town was not an illness. It was a curse. This awoke the fear of the townspeople.

They came for her in the middle of the day with sunlight shining down, making her tiny home seem less sinister. They came together by the dozens, each man armed with weapons and unwavering intent. The few with muskets carried them tightly in their grip. Others came with knives taken from their kitchens or tools fresh from tending a garden, some still wearing clods of soil.

Seven of the mob had lost family members that very morning, the souls of their wives or daughters dragged away by Bishop's curse. There was not anyone among them who had not lost someone they loved.

Yet, with all their iron and steel and steely resolve, it was not enough, for the rumors were indeed true.

Bishop killed nine of them before she was taken down. She stood her ground in the doorway of her home with her secret book cradled open in her arms. In a loud, otherworldly voice she chanted, seemingly in unison with the flock of crows staring down from her thatched roof. Their avian shrieks intermingled with her human ones.

Those long strings of strange-sounding words formed into a lethal physical presence, piercing those who came too close as deadly as an arrow could. Her victims tumbled to the ground with blossoms of red splotching their white shirts and dull eyes staring to the heavens.

The bullets from the muskets did not affect her, bouncing harmlessly off her body, and with each crack of a shot she only grew louder and more hysterical. Her eyes rolled back in her head as she began screeching at an impossible volume. The crows cawed along with every syllable she pronounced.

Perhaps the bullet was not aimed true and had careened off the course its shooter set careful aim for. Perhaps a spark of wisdom infected the shooter and he knew where to level his gun. Either way, a bullet erupted from the crowd and traveled high above Bishop's head into the flock of crows.

Within an instant, a feathered body plunged to the ground, the living fleeing far away from the bloodshed. In that same moment, Bishop fell. Her book dropped to the ground alongside its master's inactive body. She was alive but unconscious.

The townspeople only needed to look toward Grover's already crowded cemetery to feel the pressure of time. Bishop's trial was mercifully short although she was extended no mercy. It was ruled that she belonged to the devil's fiery empire, and she would gain passage there through flames.

Bridget Bishop was sentenced to burn.

She fought like a cat, hissing and scratching at her assailants as they bound her to the stake. She spat at those who tossed kindling at her feet and kicked at the sticks and hay that she could reach. Yet she didn't speak any human tongue. She uttered none of the English language. It wasn't until the town's pastor stepped forward with a torch held high that she spoke.

"Do what you may," she shrieked at them, laughing. "I will walk among you again."

Her lips curled into a smile and her black eyes showed no fear, only confidence. She did not look like a woman about to be burned.

The pastor threw the torch and the kindling lit.

"I WILL RETURN AND YOUR TOWN SHALL BURN!" Bishop shouted.

Bishop never screamed in pain or fear. Instead, she laughed while she burned—up until the fire took her and her laughter gave way to silence.

For hundreds of years, Bishop never harmed another soul in Grover. The disease was banished alongside its master and against all the witch's threats she did not return—at least, not in the villagers' lifetimes.

When she reappeared in the mid-twentieth century, she forever redefined her name in Grover.

She was no longer Bridget Bishop. She was—and is—the Witch of Embers.