The Trial

A surge of fear swept through every fiber of my being. As the red-hot poker inched closer toward my inner thigh, the man with the greasy hair and icy-blue eyes chuckled.
         “So, mistress,” he grinned sarcastically. “I will ask you again for a name-any name-before you die.” I spit in his face, and he lunged at me, swearing under his breath. I gritted my teeth, but nothing could prepare me for the agony that I would endure. White light shot out of my body as the wound seared with pain. The revolting smell of burning flesh wafted through the air, but I refused to cry.
         “No tears, m’lady? I knew you were a treacherous little witch after all.” Again and again her branded every orifice of my body, smiling sadistically as the jury eyed me with contempt. “A NAME?!” he screamed. My unrelenting stare only elevated his rage. He threw the poker back in the furnace and retrieved an ominous-looking instrument from the table. Sleek and shiny, it reflected my face, but couldn’t begin to capture the fear that pervaded my soul. Six long years ago, my mother and three sisters were falsely accused of sorcery. My mother, a humble healer, knew every poultice for any malady. Herbs and rejuvenation were her specialties, not death and destruction. With her execution, she had left me to follow in her footsteps, tending to the needs of the village.
         He fastened the tool to my left hand, jutting my fingers into clamps and fastening them tightly. My long black hair was draped over my shoulders, covering me in a shroud of darkness that enveloped my soul. Slowly my captor cranked a handle, and a pressure in my middle fingertip emerged. That pressure developed into a dull ache, which bloomed into an excruciating pain. Blood gushed down my arm in torrential rivers of crimson red.
         “Alayne, your sisters and I are going away for
         a while. I need you to be a good girl and take
         care of your Papa for me, alright?” Tears welled
         in my mother’s beautiful eyes, now laced with
         fear. “Can’t I come along, Mommy?” I desperately
         begged, without understanding. A sob escaped her
         trembling lips as she said goodbye to her youngest
         daughter. My father appeared by her side and led
         her to the door . . .
My hand throbbed, perfectly in sync with my heartbeat. I saw that the nail desperately clung to a small piece of flesh, covered in blood. Suddenly, with a pop, it was freed. The man bared his yellow teeth in amusement as he began the process on my index, thumb, and ring finger. By the time he advanced to my pinkie, I lost all consciousness and the world dimmed to black.
         “Mom,” my voice managed to squeak out in a breathless whisper. I awoke on a dirt floor, bleeding profusely from the stubs at the ends of my fingers. Sitting up, I became blind from the loss of blood and fainted again. For the next three days, I slipped in and out of consciousness, barely clinging onto life, my mind in a distant haze.
         “Bring her in,” a voice echoed in the darkness of my mind.
         I opened my eyes to a dimly-lit chamber, a fire casting shadows in the cold stone walls. Twelve men sat at an elevated table, glaring down at me through their looking glasses. I sealed my chest with the sign of the cross, praying to God that he would rescue me from my terrible fate. This seemed to infuriate the men.
         “Name?” the leader snapped. “M-m-morgaine Alverad,” I whispered.
         “Morgaine Alverad, I hereby sentence you . . .” his monotone subfusc voice droned on, filling the interrogation room.
         “Lyon, does she possess the mark?” Lyon, my torturer, approached me, stripping me naked to reveal the angry blisters and scabs from the previous days.
         “Here, m’lord,” he replied, motioning to my lower abdomen. I was astonished when I realized what he was referring to. Since my birth, a huge strawberry mark had extended beneath my belly button, approximately the size of a small coin. The pane was silent, but I could practically read their minds. The Diabolical Mark. According to legend, the diabolical mark is where Satan has ‘marked’ those whom he makes deals or pacts with. A man identifying himself as Judge Nicholas Rémy, spoke almost immediately.
         “It is not unreasonable that this scum of humanity, witches, should be drawn chiefly from the feminine sex. The Devil uses you, Morgaine, because he knows that women love pleasures and he means to bend you to his allegiance by such agreeable provocations.” He was suggesting the unthinkable. I looked up at them as they continued to glare at me in my deplorable condition.
          “I am a good, honest, hard-working Christian. The Lord knows all that’s good and true, and-“ My feet slipped out from under me as Lyon slapped my across the face. My cheeks burned with shame and anger.
         “You are a dirty, blaspheming SORCERESS!” he screamed. “Get that WITCH out of my sight!”
With that final, sneering word, a tall, lumbering man shackled me in heavy iron manacles, locking my wrists in place. He led me deep underground to a small, dark room. A salty, rusty smell tickled my nostrils, churning my stomach. The ground was sticky and the walls sweaty with human blood. He threw me down on the stones, yanking my head back, unsheathing a dagger. The cold steel grazed the top of my forehead, slicing off the long, beautiful cascade of jet-black curls that were once my pride and joy. I sat there quietly as they dissolved my dignity. I sat there quietly as that man robbed me of my innocence. I didn’t cry out as he missed a lock of hair, shaving pieces of my scalp instead. I sat quietly and did not utter a single sound.
“Get up,” he grunted, clearly disgusted. He led me to a caged wagon, shoving me inside. We traveled around the town as citizens came to disgrace my name.
They tied me to the stake that day, unjustly and unrelenting. I’ll never forget the faces of the little children who looked at me with contempt as they hurled stones at me, making a spectacle of themselves, or how the wrinkled old women turned up their noses as the stench of my cooking flesh increased with every passing moment. I’ll never forget the popping and crackling of my skin as it flaked off of the charred muscle. I’ll never forget being swallowed in the mouth of Hell. But most of all, my soul will never cease to remember gazing into the clear blue sky and watching a snow white dove flutter past me just as my life’s candle ceased to glow.