Page 53 of A Time of Witches

Edward Morris did not so much as lift his gaze.

The guard kicked Edward’s leg, but managed to slip in refuse on the floor, hitting the ground with an undignified oof.

This time, no one laughed.

Silence descended over the prison, heavy with fear.

The guard leaped up like a beast and set upon the young man, the war hero who had been rumored to have slain at least twenty at the Battle of Marston Moor.

With grunting effort, the guard kicked and punched and pummeled.

The soldier did not fight back.

When, at last, the guard straightened and came away, short of breath from his efforts, Edward Morris lay on the floor in a growing pool of blood. His stare was vacant still, only this time, his eyes saw nothing.

Edward Morris’s body remained on the floor for two days before he was removed at the behest of the guard who beat him to death and now complained of the smell.

There was no further generosity among the prisoners in sharing food.

The little girl was now in the cell with those being starved and Sybil sat beside her. If Sybil had to guess, she would assume the child was perhaps ten. Still mute, the girl pressed her back to the wall, legs tucked to her chest, arms folded protectively around her knees.

Edith had finally been relocated to the other cage, not for confessing, but to keep her alive—building her strength, so they might starve her again. Or enact some new form of torture under the guise of encouraging an admission of guilt.

At night, those who had confessed to spare themselves cried out for God to forgive them, wailing their innocence to anyone who would listen.

And confessed or not, they all wondered when they might die.

It was a question no one could answer. Not when the court remained on hold while both sides of England fought on the battlefield of their own country. Certainly, the assizes were not traveling to see to legal matters in small towns amid a landscape of such danger.

But what was to become of the prisoners? Left to starve to death in jail, or be beaten like Edward Morris.

Though Sybil knew the earth could not hear her with the iron manacles severing her connection from her gifts, she whispered for the soil to receive Edward Morris with love, that he might find peace with his deceased wife and daughter.

A pang resonated in Sybil’s chest with a hurt she could scarcely stand.

Her soul longed for the hum of the earth’s energy, for the energy that once coursed through her body with love and light. She tried to turn her thoughts from such yearning for the idea of never feeling that connection again was far too bleak.

Thoughts of her gifts always led to those of Jacinda. That is when the true agony began. Raw and sharp and insistent.

What might become of Jacinda with no one to warn her away from her powers? Would she be discovered if she used them without care? How long until she, too, was dragged into the prison?

Sybil had thought herself helpless as a woman her entire life, bound to silence for being born the weaker sex, limited in her learning and aspirations. In her marriage to Henry, she’d had a modicum of power, a thread of a voice. That had weakened with his death and was now nonexistent.

Once more, she was rendered mute, powerless. Helpless even to protect Jacinda.

The cage beside Sybil’s opened and a new woman was shoved into the pen, her eyes wild, hair streaked with mud. A new prisoner.

One Sybil did not know.

This time, at least.

Still, the danger felt too near. Too real.

A wild rage tore through her, a revival of spirit in her determination to do something—anything—to keep Jacinda safe.

Sybil’s fingers wandered over the crumbling stone behind her as she sat by the girl, seeking out weakness in the seams between the rocks, where a stone might be loosened to create a gap wide enough for someone to squeeze through.

The iron was impenetrable. But perhaps stone…