H C Turk, page 41
"Miss," she asked, "why is it you smile so?"
"God is too wise for me, too wise," I replied, unable to explain the association between humor and madness that was being taught me; for anything can be humorous to those insane, and humor most extreme is madness.
"Thank you, kind girl, and I go now to be safe," I concluded, and began walking, stepping past her toward the trail. A moment later, the girl called out.
"But, miss, have you a place to go?"
"To safe now, no fear, you kind," I said, and I waved to her, continuing out of sight.
I stepped to the trail, then into the wilds and toward Lucansbludge. Correct that child had been, for I smelled sinners and dogs, but remained too distant to view them. I walked a great distance, my route circumvential, for I would approach Lucansbludge from a different direction, a different trail. The entire night I waited before entering, but I had no rest, no sleep, only previous dreams of awakening wherein I entered the town and again was with my Marybelle. Donning my best attire, I placed the hat with care, though I wore no veil in that my face was no part to be concealing. In the morning I entered Lucansbludge not as a witch, but a lady.
Twenty-six
"Sir, I would beg your aid, in that I have lost my aunt, and having searched for days, I was told by townfolk to seek Magistrate Waingrow."
A citizen had directed me to this authority's office. After hearing my description that matched Marybelle's bodily appearance and her best sinner's dress, Waingrow shared some official view with a constable standing in the doorway. He then stared at me vaguely with no smell of sex, only apprehension. His allegations, however, were not vague, not surprising.
"Miss Alba Landham, your aunt we have here, held in Queen Anne's custody," the magistrate reported; and I wondered of King William, thinking that truly this might be Wales, thus having a separate monarchy. "But the name given is Mary Belle, not Marybelle Landham."
"Landham, sir, is my name, and my aunt's name after marriage," I told him, detesting the need to invent stories instantaneously. "With my uncle's recent death, Auntie felt herself separated from her husband, even to his name. And God help me thank you, sir, for watching over my lost family. Might we then be on our way? Now that I am here, Auntie shall-"
"Miss Alba Landham," Waingrow interrupted, "in explanation I must say that your aunt is here because we fear she has been taken by demons."
I stared at the man as though he had slapped me, thereafter displaying confusion in my speaking.
"Taken? Sir, and I thought my aunt was here. . . ."
"The word, Miss Landham, is possessed," the magistrate returned. "We of this office have assertions by witnessing folk and also ministers that a demon from Satan has gone into your aunt and caused her to kill a man."
So long did I stare at Waingrow that a sinner's clock would be required to denote the duration, and even then my look was of a mild lady lost, utterly lost. Finally the magistrate spoke, for someone had to.
"Miss Alba Landham, I tell that your aunt must stand accused in trial before a court of Queen Anne for having associations with Satan."
After another extended pause, I responded, "Queen Anne accused my aunt?"
"Before Queen Anne in Lord God's name she stands accused. A just and reasonable trial she must be given, and accused of witchcraft she must be."
"I will see my aunt?" I asked, speaking as though not having heard Waingrow's speaking. "I would see my aunt and speak with my last loved one on God's Earth."
"You may, miss, but first we would query you to learn of your-"
And I screamed. The questions asked would be the same as those directed to Marybelle, and since our answers could not match, I sought her presence for discussion. Therefore, I screamed, and swooned, my hands to my face, my words more pitiable shrieks of a tortured lass than mere words.
"Jesus! Great God help me through Your son! Help me lest every person in the world I love should die of plague and consumption and now the devil! You have let the devil loll my aunt?" With that final phrase, I was no longer speaking to God, but accusing Waingrow.
"Calm, miss, your aunt is not-"
And I shouted again.
"Please, if you know Jesus, let me see my aunt before you kill her!"
So he did, perhaps to appease my panic. I was led to an area worse than those simple rooms in Jonsway where we witches had been detained, for these townfolk were more earnest about incarceration. Down a corridor with the smells of ill and revolting men we walked, air as, dense as stagnant water, walked to a thick door with iron locks so massive 1 could nearly taste the metal odor, and I was let inside.
I ran to Aunt Marybelle before she could stand, and a loving reunion we commenced. Though Waingrow had his jailor close the door behind, we witches knew the sinners were listening. I began by asking whether my dear aunt were harmed, expressing all sorrow for not tending to her better. Aunt Marybelle attempted to soothe me, not allowing her niece to accept blame. After praying together for God to give guidance, we spoke of the magistrate's mistaken allegations, which Auntie could not explain, the dear innocent. Then the trial was mentioned and fear together we did, and pray again with weeping words until we smelled that the sinners had departed. Then we attempted to save our lives.
No passion was between us when we began whispering gravely. Marybelle first repeated the exact tale told to Waingrow: done in the world, her husband dead in London, she and die niece quitting that disruptive city to seek peace in her father's cabin beyond Lucansbludge, here but days and separated, and farther details not readily verified by authorities. Neither could these baseborn officials prove her a witch; but, of course, they did not need to.
"I die at a trial," Marybelle said. "I can smell a fear in these sinners enough to kill me. A knowing person as the Lady Rathel would condemn me accurately, but I die regardless. My only salvation, then, is to choose my death, as on Man's Isle."
"But no sea is hereabouts," I replied.
"The death I choose is then another. I will have them behead me."
"This you call salvation?" I groaned.
"Perhaps, if you and God can heal me."
I looked toward her as I had the magistrate, my disbelief utterly genuine now.
"God makes miracles, Marybelle, but I am not one," I told her.
"God makes witches, and makes them special. How special is not a thing completely known to me in experience, only in tale. Fve heard as you that a witch might live if only beheaded, not also quartered or burned."
"How a witch might live if 'only' beheaded is a question beyond my thinking."
"Beyond my thinking, also, but not my belief. If God makes us so reparable, let us make use of His wisdom, not our own. I know not how to learn this, but you do."
"I? Marybelle, I know nothing," I whispered in return, "nothing but how greatly I desire to have you live."
"If this desire be strong enough, then perhaps your love may succeed. But remember our makings on Man's Isle and the pain it cost. Men you have killed with your body. As Satan has used you for death, pray that God may use you for life. Your person is the embodiment of all our forces, our love and worship and magic. Think ye, girl, of killing men and make your feeling reversed, for you are this witch, the invert witch; for are you not the same as I, but different? Have certainty, however, that you would dare the attempt; for though die you shan't, succeed or not, the great feeling required as an effort will change you ever."
"I could be much worse than I presently am and yet live well," I said. "What is to be done?"
"I have the sinners kill me ii* my manner," she described. "As well, I beg them to allow you to bury me in the wilds near my father's home. Thus, they will give you the burial box with me inside, and my bag which you must demand. If the coin within is left by the sinners, purchase transport for the coffin. In the wilds, take the casket and my bag. Therein might be things of godly power to you, though the sinners find them common. In the wilds do the magical thing."
"Do what magical thing?"
"Replace my head and have me begin healing."
"In the name of God, Marybelle, how-"
"In the name of God," Marybelle stated loudly, and continued with a prayer for the benefit of an odor come again, that of sinners remaining beyond our sight. As though coincidence, as soon as the prayer was complete, the jailor entered to remove me, leaving my aunt.
I was well questioned, my despondency easily projected. And though my answers were consistent and came easily, as important were my comments wherein I appropriated for Marybelle not innocence, but guilt.
"No, my great-uncle is not yet so found as to join me. Being a dumb person unable to speak, however, he will tell little. How strange that my aunt has also been speaking poorly, though in a completely different manner. Think ye, sir, that her newly strange speech is due to exertion?"
Here was a topic for the magistrate's inquiries more interesting than unmet uncles. Mumbling, I told him. My aunt has been mumbling no words known to me. Then I extended his interest.
"My aunt's desire to eat raw meat: This was not an attempt to setde an undue stomach?"
More of this he inquired, whereupon I told him of pork without heat, of a squirrel eaten by the aunt yet with fur. And a horrible laugh coming from her on occasion: Would more sunlight perhaps cure this?
Then our conversation, which had come to fascinate Waingrow, was interrupted by the jailor who asked for his superior's presence in the corridor. None of their further speaking I heard, but I knew the message: The Landham woman is frantic.
The jailor bid me wait, in that the magistrate had been called away for a moment. But this moment was too long, for after Marybelle's frenzied speech of Jesus for the magistrate's ears, a resolution was required. A superior in English law was beckoned, also one in the rules of Heaven. To eircumvent a trial, Marybelle would have to appear immediately dangerous, perhaps thrashing about the cell, even attacking the minister accompanying the magistrate and justice. How strange was this thinking of mine, as though dream or recollection, every detail before me and understood. So convincing were my thoughts that I was nearly able to speak for Waingrow a long hour later when he returned to state that our interview was concluded.
"Have you a place to remain this night within or about Lucansbludge?" he asked.
"I do, Lord Magistrate, and will return, perhaps with my aged great-uncle, to learn of the schedule for this trial. Upon my coming tomorrow, will you be able to tell of the agenda?"
"This following morning we wdl have scheduled all things, and then will inform you," Waingrow stated; but was it a smell or that facial cast like a crust that promised not the future, but finality?
I walked no farther than necessary from the town before hiding in the wUds and waiting for mom. Sleep was a part of this interval no more than cogitation. On my bag I sat, aimed at a community not seen, only smelled, one whose sinner-fresh portions were rancid to any witch. No hope had I, only confident expectation that the more profound smell of Marybelle's black body would not arrive. With the same predictiveness felt in Waingrow's office, I surmised the night, one to end with my sister's parts in a box. Strange were my perceivings, for though sounds of insects and animals were discerned, they seemed more story told than true experience, as though my predictions were the genuine facts of this evening.
This witch in the wilds was a dew keeper again, becoming more damp than any cave could render her. As though dead myself I sat that night, impenetrable to common signs of life, for I was expecting signs of death; and what does one butcher a witch with? An axe, perhaps, that utensil for removing limbs from a trunk. Here was an activity I would not be smelling: Blood has no odor to carry for miles, not even that of a sister. Waiting for a terminal hour, I used no sinners' device to track time, because I counted no minutes. The moment's measure was God's, called a life, variable in length; and if His will be done the same as Mary-belle's, extendable as well, like a cold creature returned from hibernation. The degree of my waiting was an evening, so with the sun I returned to Lucansbludge. No sinner bothered me there, none asking of my dampness, for perhaps my wetness had come from all extensive tears. But what sorrow could I have while aware that English law would give my aunt her due?
Along with Waingrow, I was met by a cleric in the magistrate's office. Was Waingrow more respectful to me this morn, as though accepting the proper mien to face a young miss whose kin had passed on recently-but passed on where? To a box like a pot for dead meat, directly to Hell-or to a trial, as promised? As I sat before Waingrow at his desk, the thought enough to startle me came that these plans of Marybelle's would function less fully than those of the past, that I had overestimated her intellection, that her current idea was too foolish to be realized. How many sinners were so inane as to be convinced by a witch unfamiliar with their ways? I was the witch who had passed as a sinner, yet Marybelle felt herself able to dupe all those to pain her in this world. Utterly foolish was her ultimate survival, for the beginning was death, to be followed absurdly by the notion that death might be impermanent. Even the pseudo-mystic sinners had but one person in their history to return from the dead, this Jesus. Most inane was the method of Maiybelle's planned resurrection-me, the witch more familiar with sinners' ways than those of her own kind. Yet with no idea of magic herself and with no instructions from her superior, the girl was to retrieve her sister from God's second greatest power, that of death, via his greatest ability of life as though Lord God Himself. Worst of all was my disappointment at Marybelle's undergoing a trial instead of dying at once, for my undertaking her mad plan would therefore be delayed. This seemed more distressing than the blatant fact of any trial's ending with Marybelle's burning. Of course, by then sinners more sensible than these two idiot witches would discover me evil and have me burned as well.
All these thoughts passed through me in the moment of my settling before Waingrow. Another moment passed before he spoke of the trial I had come to expect.
"Miss Alba Landham, with regret I do apprise that your aunt is dead, killed by the devil within her."
I paused for his words to be ingested, for his speaking was so odd that I could not comprehend. Therefore, I began the predicted, sensible conversation myself.
"You said when, sir, that my aunt's trial is scheduled?"
"Miss Alba Landham, please hear me when I speak that your aunt is dead, as seen fit by God to defeat the devil within her."
And I shouted, "Previously you said that the devil killed her from within, and now it is God from without?! I understand not what you say, sir. When is the promised trial?"
The clergyman present then offered his piety.
"She heard you not, Lord Waingrow, in that grief makes these things unbelievable. I will pray with the girl and have her understand."
Quickly the minister moved to bow and take my hand, holding it firmly with his hot palms.
"Miss Landham, look to me and see that your aunt was so filled with a demon that God told her to beg for her own execution, in that no other method could remove Satan. Such a fury she began in bloodying herself and assaulting me and the magistrate with her very teeth that her conflict could only have been between God and Satan, and thank Jesus the former won."
Then deeper he bowed, commencing to pray for me to understand and for God to aid my soul, but no longer did he hold my hand. One of his sinning arms had moved around my shoulders to squeeze me in emphasis of his words, the other paw rising from mine to surround my breast, emphasizing only that faint stench rising from his bottom.
To help him pray in his selected manner, I slipped my hand to the source of the holy priesfs evil fragrance, squeezing the one finger there as he had my hand. And, lo, as though an arm it became, with its size and firmness; and was I not practicing for my planned resurrection by giving life to his sex with but a touch?
I then pulled away from the minister to call out sharply, "Amen!"
The protrusion in the priest's apparel was as evident as his crucifix, viewed by the magistrate with clenched jaw. I considered feigning a collapse, but knew both sinners would be fucking me.
Holding out both hands as though needing to fend the men off, I displayed with my visage that my speaking must be heard, that no grieving girl was confronting diem.
"You murdered my aunt without allowing me to tell her of my love?"
"Before your Aunt Marybelle Landham pleaded with us to release her soul, she-" was Waingrow's attempted explanation, a lie I interrupted loudly and with the force of love.
"Before you killed her said she what, Lord Magistrate? For murdering her did she praise you? And was my name mentioned, or only those of your affiliates, Queen Anne and the demon you discovered? Did this minister aid my aunt pray, and had he his hand on her bleeding cunt as he did mine?!" I screamed, and pointed to the pious penis. "Was the devil more completely in my aunt than in this false priest? So evident is Satan in his limb, will you not cut it off as you did my aunt's?!"
The priest then quit the room, holding his mouth instead of his groin. And I wondered if his guilt were so great that he wished to puke up his phallus and be rid of it. Holy revelation I gained with this operatic scene, aware that with woman or man, witch or sinner, Satan's cave is the crotch.
"Have you burned my aunt yet, Lord Murderer, or are you not finished butchering her body?" I shouted. "If you were truly a man of God and Jesus in this enterprise, at least you would allow me my aunt's . . . person," I averred.
How pleased the magistrate became to receive relief from me instead of passion. As though an oil lamp wicked up, his face grew bright; for the sinner was allowed to prove his decency, speaking quickly so I would have no opportunity to strike him down again with my voice.
"You aunt's last request we accorded her, Miss Landham, on behalf of her final godliness. That her body be buried near her father's home we promised, and this vow I pass to you with Jesus as my proof. Within a coffin she lies now, to be carried by citizens at your bidding and buried with a minister before her grave at the site of your choice."
