Someone who only invites chaos and agony and destruction wherever she goes.
Someone who should never have been created.
I roll onto my stomach and press my face into the dirt again. The smell in here is worse than it was out in the street. It’s seeped into the ground. The walls. Clinging to the stale putrid air that hasn’t seen daylight in probably centuries.
The guilt twists in my stomach. Swirling around, callously destroying everything in its path. Until my whole body is consumed with it. Until I am just a writhing, crying, pitiful ball of shame. Lying in filth where I belong.
Somewhere between splattered brains and falling tears, I find sleep. It comes without warning. Offering me a few hours of solace. Beautiful relief. But in the morning my head and heart are throbbing worse than before.
With no sunlight to indicate the time, I take a guess that it’s around noon the next day when a guard approaches the outside of my cell. Somehow I find the strength to push myself up, to look into his eyes, to beg for information.
“Please,” I implore. “The boy I was with. Do you know what happened to him? Do you know where he is? He’s very ill. He needs help.”
He stands tall. Rigid. His face is completely impassive. “I’ve come to deliver a message. From his royal majesty, King James I.”
My heart shatters when I realize he’s not going to answer me.
“You will be brought to trial for the crime of witchcraft. If you are found guilty, you are to be executed.”
I only understand half of the things I’m being told. But the general meaning is clear: they don’t think I’m human either. And they want me dead because of it.
Maybe it’s for the best.
Maybe this is what was meant to happen.
If Zen is still alive, maybe he can leave here without me. Return to his home in the year 2115 and find a nice, normal, nonsynthetically engineered girl to fall in love with. Maybe then he’ll finally be able to lead a normal life.
And then one day, in the very distant future, far away from here, far away from the remnants of this shattered dream that ended too soon, he’ll be able to forget me.
That is the story I tell myself.
12
BEWITCH
In the perpetual darkness I lose track of the hours, the days, how many times another faceless guard arrives to bring me stale bread and water. I sleep as much as I can. It’s the only way I can shut off my thoughts, which are now crisp and focused once again.
I wish the fog would return.
By the time they come for me, my body is frail and soggy. If they were trying to wear me down, it worked. Nearly all my strength is gone. My voice is hoarse and rusty from lack of use. I remember mumbling Zen’s name every time someone would appear outside my cell. There’s a chance I might have called it out in my sleep, waking myself. But other than that, I have not spoken.
“How long have I been in here?” I ask as they bind my feet in chains.
“Five days,” replies one of the guards. His expression is vacant. He won’t look at me.
I am led through a crowd of furious people. I am made to stand in a daunting courtroom, surrounded by the faces of those who will be happy to see me die. I am forced to listen to the convincing accounts of the townsfolk who saw me move faster than a cannon, lift an entire wagon with my bare hands, and throw it across the street.
The gentleman who arrested me, who stole my locket, is called up to testify. He spouts angry accusations. Insists that I have arrived from a place called Hell and should be promptly returned there. That I should be tried as a heretic. Not just a criminal. That I am a special case. Unlike any other they’ve seen.
I don’t speak. I don’t argue. What is there to argue? It’s all true. I may not be a witch, as they are accusing me, but I’m certainly not one of them. I certainly don’t belong in this time. Or any time, for that matter. I watch the shocked faces of the jurors and spectators, their stormy eyes narrowed in accusation. Their silent thoughts scream at me. How dare I infect their town, their home, their lives with my toxin?
I am unable to meet any of their stares. So I keep my head down. My gaze low.
The next witness is called to speak. I hear heavy footsteps shuffling to the front of the large, echoing chamber. I can feel the hateful glare as the witness passes. It reaches out. Strangles me. Stabs me.
“Please state your name for the record,” the magistrate says.
“Mrs. Elizabeth Pattinson.”
My head snaps up and I am suddenly face-to-face with her. The woman who has fed me, clothed me, and given me a place to sleep for the past six months. Our gazes collide. And for a moment—just a flicker of a moment—I sense that she is not here to harm me. That she has found what little compassion she has left and has brought it here today to help me.