Page 93 of A Time of Witches

“I wish I had.” Her eyes flashed with hatred. “But I injured him well enough for his thigh to be stitched closed. Then he accused me of witchcraft, saying I was a lewd woman. I finally agreed to have conspired with the Devil to keep my Bran safe.” She pressed her hand over her heart. “I have given my soul so that Bran might keep his commission. May God forgive me.”

She wept then, in breaking gasps that caught at Sybil’s heart. She embraced the young woman, cradling the bony body in her own thin arms.

Such was the cost of love in their world.

When Margery’s tears had finally dried, Sybil encouraged the young woman to take some meat and bread. “We must all keep up our strength.”

No sooner had she uttered the words than the door to the cage was opened and a figure was thrown within. Edith lay upon the rushes as Sybil had, her head bald and bleeding, patched with tufts of gray hair. The warts that plagued Edith’s face dotted her scalp as well.

The little girl’s eyes locked on Edith, and she crept closer, holding out a hunk of chicken.

Edith’s eyes filled with tears as she shook her head. “Keep it for yourself, dear.”

Sybil helped Edith up to sitting and carefully blotted away the blood.

“They say I have no witch’s mark, and I refuse their entreaties to confess.” There was a wooden quality to Edith’s voice.

As if she were outside of herself.

Sybil understood. Letting one’s thoughts drift away was the only escape from such pain and humiliation.

“I have some meat and bread,” Sybil whispered to her dear friend. “Come fortify yourself.”

But Edith did not move from where she sat, her poor feet still blistered and bleeding from when they had walked her. “Save it for yourself and for others. I have no future.”

Sybil shook her head, not understanding. “Please, Edith, you cannot give up—”

“I am to be put to the swimming test.”

Whatever low conversations hummed in the prison went silent, as if every ear heard Edith.

“No.” Sybil continued to shake her head, refusing to believe the words. “They cannot.”

“They can,” Edith said. “And they will. I will be swum in two days’ time.”

“God save your soul,” a frail voice called from the other cage. The old vicar stood by the bars and folded his long, skeletal fingers around them. He alone understood how terrible the water test could truly be.

Sybil embraced Edith, knowing her fate was a death sentence. Either she would float and be denounced a witch and hanged. Or she would die by drowning and be declared innocent.

Sybil tightened her hold on Edith, as if doing so might protect her friend from the inevitable. For either way, Edith would die.

And soon.

The unfairness of what they endured wound tight in Sybil.

The way women were overwhelmed by men, their words of protest ignored.

Twist.

The confessions forced through torture and extreme deprivation.

Twist.

The innocent lives condemned by unjust means.

Twist.

Tighter and tighter, until Sybil knew, at some point, she would snap.