H C Turk, page 44
Though I retained my silence, I was potentially as noisome as any criminal. Each day I would find the flesh of my chest not damaged but destroyed, any movement of my side or arm delivering new agony. My moans were unavoidable, though I reduced them to prevent the prisoners'joyous response from hearing me. Since I could reduce my sounds but not eliminate my pain, I ejected the excess agony with my face, producing grimaces so intense they hurt me additionally. But even these responses I avoided that day a woman came, a nurse who placed fresh salve upon my chewed chest, new fabric on my raw ribs and slit hand. After wondering of my rapid healing, the woman was quickly gone; for perhaps she did in feet apply her nursing to a demon, Satan himself the true healer, a smile for the girl regardless for her being so pitiful a lass, out the door and seen by only one sinning prisoner commenting on his desire to roll his balls up her baby gouge, no physician returning thereafter.
I imagined my future. In a massive room before barristers and the populace of Lucansbludge, I would speak as I had in my cell, with equal anger due to my foolishness, my inability to be sensibly temperate. Accused I would be of housing a demon, and yea, he would yet be found within me, since he had never been seen to depart. Most vivid in this imagining was the sound of the best crowd ever drawn by me, a mass of godly sinners crying out at my story exactly as these criminals had cried out at my slimness, my cunt. The find noise would be of air seeping into my veins as my blood rushed out, following my rolling head. And with no witch sister left to repair me, I would not achieve the current condition of dear Marybelle so remarkably healed as though reborn in her box. Except for that separation, the one between body and head, between Marybelle and life.
Dreams I had, of course, for what better opportunity than sleep for Satan to taunt me? On the sea bottom I sat, criminals collecting at the top of the anchor chain before me. To make my hiding from the felons complete, I inhaled not a breath, or was this lack of respiring due to my drowning? And there was the shore mere paces away and with it salvation, but not a step could I take, because the priest was finally praying for Marybelle's soul, and I would not disrupt his spiritual repair with my own difficulties, own death.
In this manner my dreams proceeded. Came the day in which my side no longer anchored me static with pain. I thus could stand with but a wince. Pleased with my healing, I examined the wound not viewed since the first day of my awakening. Removing the dressing, I saw that the reddish patch was now a drying, rough crust. I also viewed destruction. As though only now comprehending, I saw that all my dishonest words to the magistrate had been accurate. Then I was struck with a new grimace as fierce as any from agony, for I found mutilation, and I was sickened. Near ill enough to vomit, I fell to the bed and covered the jvound with its dressing and above that my own clothing, being utterly certain not to touch my injury, my mutilation. Then my gown I plucked up to falsely produce my former shape as though I could replace it, plucked up the fabric to fill that void of flesh with air. My discovery was that the mutilation, though by my own hand, was the sinners' responsibility. The sinners had assaulted me again, nearly killing me, though they were killing me regardless in pieces. And I knew that the sinners had also violated Marybelle. But I had killed her. Even as the sinners had been the implement, I had been the cause. Yet so unjust was this sinning world that Marybelle was dead while I had escaped with but a wound. So at my bodice I plucked and plucked till my arm was so sore that I could no longer move it, but when my hand dropped, it fell not against my chest, for all of me would have to die before I allowed that contact.
Only in dreams did the trial beleaguer me. The king's justice was Cameron, his periwig my breast dropped onto his head when last he had been between my legs. Cameron accused me of inspiring Godly thoughts from priests though as a witch I was due devilish considerations. No refute had I, finally controlling my glib tongue better than the priest his praying, the man unseen outside my courtroom. And this was best because his nature was my mother's, and I did not wish to see her in him, so long had she been dead that all of Mother would resemble my chest. Representing London was Magistrate Naylor, who had never been allowed a fair turn at my soot, practicing his verdict by blowing glass, his adjudication being that clearly this witch deserved a burning. As Elsie pulled tight my corset ties so that I would be burned as a lady without my torso pressing out everywhere, though less was recently available for protruding, the Rathel entered my cell to tell me there must be no trial, for surely not even she could have me survive.
"Alba? Alba, do you hear?"
"Of course I hear my own flipping dream," I mumbled to the demon in my head interrupting my nightmare. Then I awoke to feel a great hatred for those dreams whose ends turned real, for they could not be escaped by waking. Especially evil was the ending here as personified, for there was the Rathel awakening me.
What a crowd I had collected now, for in my cell stood the magistrate and priest and mistress, leaving scant space for even a slim witch with half a bosom, scant space for God, Who of course had invented distance. And since God could not be present, there was His substitute, the second most powerful entity in the world, Amanda Rathel, speaking to me as Waingrow observed. Then my hatred for the nightmare vanished, for as I awoke came a new dream in which I would be able to participate by my own selection, for I smelled this Lady Rathel entering a . . . composition.
"Alba, dear Alba, I am here to help you, child. The evil demon who took you now is gone, and therefore her spell over you is vanquished. Do you recall me, dear, and our lovely life in London? Do you recall the witch who stole you from our home?"
Damned straight, wench.
With all the speed my stiff pain could procure, I threw myself to the woman and well wrapped the one arm leading to a true breast around her, embracing a sinner I usually considered equal to puke, but better with her in London killing Eric than burned to charcoal in Lucansbludge. And whine I did as a replacement for weeping, feigning a tender return, though Rathel's odor beneath her false scents was scarcely better than a sinner's prick smell. But not enough hatred had I for the Rathel that I would not well love her in this contest rather than accept a denouement as hot as blown glass, though blacker.
"Remember?" I replied with my sweetest voice. "Of course I remember the finest home in England and the love there, Mistress Amanda."
"And well have I missed you, precious child," my, er, mother averred, "and have come to return you to our home and love you well again."
Oh, how moving was her voice. And how loving was my disposition as I pulled away from the stench wench to look longingly into her eyes, holding her shoulder only with my bloody hand as I spoke again.
"But, Mother, I cannot go with you because these men wish to kill me more than you wish to love me."
"No, child, these decent men wish to rid their community of demons, not of a fine English miss."
"But they killed my aunt."
"Alba, dear, you have no aunt."
"Of course, mistress, my Aunt Marybelle from Man's Isle. She had come to London to take me into the wilds and live away from society."
"But, Alba, your aunt was a demon."
"Please, mistress, as much as I love you, Aunt Marybelle was true family of mine."
"No, Alba, no bodily resemblance had you to this creature and no blood shared. As I was not fully able to make you understand, this witch took you from your true mother when you were but a babe. And when through me you escaped her heathen control, she stole you again in London, murdered a man here who was Queen Anne's representative, then attempted to kill you when she herself was ended. Again she stole your mind, Alba, and I have come to return it with the aid of these excelling men. And this I may do, for through God's grace the witch and her master were unable to gain your soul, which is yet within you and holy. Do you understand, dear Alba? Do you now comprehend what occurred with Satan and the witch?"
"Certain of these entities I do not understand, my lady. God and Jesus ever within me I accept better than breathing, but witches and demons ... no. No, I comprehend none of that. My true belief differs, and this I must state despite the magistrate before me, the truth of all I know and saw: that his men alone have damaged me, for I viewed no one but constables. I believe these men have killed me, mistress."
The Rathel then stood to confront the male audience with all of her expertise.
"She cannot understand," she told the magistrate, then turned to the priest. "Father, could you understand the act? To find the devil in your own hand cutting away your own body? Could even you, a most Godly priest, find reason and acceptance in the devil mutilating yourself by your own hand but not your doing?"
"To myself?" the priest replied as though he had been accused. "To my own self, ask you, Lady Amanda? No, no, this not even a minister of God could readily believe. Only by the greatest grace of Jesus and equal effort in praying could I accept such a horror. With this same force of my spirit have I prayed continually to God and Jesus for understanding and for this girl to regain her soul, yet I remain astonished."
What sense this lady had to judge Waingrow a nonbeliever in the religion of his prisoner. As before, the priest's smell was all concern for things to be proper and set Holy again; and, yes, his concern was for me. Though he spoke no word, Waingrow had a mien I could read, the magistrate a more dangerous male than before. He was the official of my dreams, a glassblower hot for my soot, the forger of witches. Rathel had sensed this as well, and spoke to Waingrow only in rejection.
"The situation you surmise of the devil's being within this girl is sensible only in the past, Lord Magistrate. Her very survival proves Satan to have been expelled. In my studious years confronting witches, I have gained knowledge where you possess only presumption. Yet this story needs no interpretation, for the truth is known as soon as the telling. This I explained to you before the girl was ever seen, and have no fear of repeating in her presence, for Alba has God enough to give her strength. And this is the force that allowed her survival although attacked by Satan: God, His love and her fear of Him. God and Savior Jesus have allowed the girl to live despite a demonic entry. After you executed Satan's witch, this frail one of innocence with her tender soul was blamed most wrongly; for never has the devil achieved his way with her, not on Man's Isle nor in Lucansbludge. When Satan failed to win her via his representative witch, he leapt from that dead body to attempt his best to finish Alba. And through God alone giving her strength did she survive the perversion with only a wound, but her spirit intact."
Only a wound? I thought. Where had I heard that before? But I refrained from ripping off my dress to display the demon meal that had been my nipple.
Having dismissed the magistrate's opinion, Rathel returned to the priest's preferable nature.
"As expected from so pious a minister, you've a spiritual ability to feel the truth when God and Satan have conflict. Therefore, I am certain that through your Godly understanding and my documented expertise the truth of this girl's spirit will be revealed."
"Pray Jesus it be so, Lady Amanda," the priest replied. With no further look to me by any person, all the crowd departed, Rathel and the minister chatting like sisters, the magistrate remaining quiet and cold.
I waited. Not for the future was I expectant, but for the continuation of that same day. Upright or my bed, I awaited some part of that trio to return, for finally I had gained anxiety while awake. Rathel had been a name mentioned coundess days before, but upon becoming real again, she brought me the interest in living that was salvation, and with it potential failure. Surely an authority would return to inform me of schedule: the magistrate to prepare me for trial and death, the Rathel for additional utter lies, the priest for my soul to be cleansed. Perhaps scrolls would be delivered with horn blares and oral pronouncements from England's new queen, but all that came were rancid slop and more crotch craving from criminals. When finally night arrived but no official acts, I became well peeved at having to wait further before beginning that lengthy, public affair that could well be my end.
The next morning came the jailor, not for my pot, but for me. Follow along, was all he said; and I wondered bizarrely whether the magistrate had deigned to circumvent official English law and have his own way with the witch. Would I be taken behind the prison for a head chopping neater than my breast's? And yes, there was Waingrow before me, but no axe, and he was not alone. I was led to his office wherein a crowd had gathered around the dung of my dropped head before it hit ground. The minister and magistrate and Rathel and two unknown sinning males. Then all of this talking commenced. Here was officialdom, and there the scroll, one of the extra males reading from it (without fanfare). My name was pronounced, and I was asked to agree to this, which I did, being certain that no lying as to my own name need be done. Then came opera. The composition of the reading clerk portrayed my living on Man's Isle, being stolen by witches-body and mind but never spirit—the Rathel's taking me to London, my living there as well regarded by parish priest and Sir Jacob Naylor, prime magistrate of London herself. Then stolen by the witch Marybelle of Man's Isle (body and mind, but not soul), forced to live in the wilds in hopes that an animal state would make her (me) susceptible to Satan. Escaped to Lucansbludge, though yet controlled by the witch in the mind, but not quite the body, and never the soul. Witch Marybelle then came to retrieve her, but was captured by Magistrate Waingrow after the female demon had murdered his man for discovering her malice. Then death to the witch, whereafter Miss Alba Landham-yet taken in the mind, mostly in the body, but never the soul-was attacked by Satan and mutilated whereby she might die. But the devil foiled since Alba's spirit was not available, for it yet belonged to Jesus, though not her mind in this activity, only the body, and but a portion of die latter did Satan gain, exiting thereafter when confronted by Waingrow's constables, the girl imprisoned for trial, her unravaged soul awaiting while the mind and body returned through the vigilant prayer of the priest and the watchful incarceration (no cuisine being mentioned) of the magistrate, the Alba Landham thereby made whole again with God and England: yea or nay?
Everyone in the room then looked toward me. Static as tree trunks they were and staring. The reading clerk lowered his scroll so that he might see the prisoner over it, see the witch who refrained from saying, "Damned straight," only, "Yea," and then was silent.
The other stranger who had yet to speak then said by God's graces and the laws of England and Queen Anne the prisoner would be released under the auspices of Lady Amanda Rathel, and good morning all.
No one looked at me thereafter. This last man turned to Waingrow and began chatting amicably about a dart tournament his son had won. Though I made no comment as to having avoided another impossible contest, the magistrate bemoaned having missed the final tourney. During this discourse, the reading male approached
Rathel with papers to sign, and comply she did. The clerk then stepped to the unknown talker, who was too involved with his own challenge of chatting to allow such interruption, the reader having to await the conversation's end in which Waingrow smelled of darts, his interest in a new and common subject allowed by his odorous relief in being rid of exceptional me. The priest's mark, once gained, was doubdess so wobbly as to be illegible; for when the yea came out of me, so had the devil this holy man truly believed present, and nearly faint he did from having Satan lifted from both our lives.
After receiving a paper, the Rathel as though late for church ushered me away. Only then did I understand that the trial had come and gone. But I was dissatisfied with the outcome. Therefore, I halted, the Rathel nearly tumbling over me, so sudden was I in turning to the magistrate to ask, "Might I have my bags?" And the mistress jerked me through the doorway, all the way to London.
BOOK FOUR: MARRIAGE
Twenty-eight
More deluxe than my fleeing was my return to London, the expensive Rathel obtaining rich accommodations: a succession of enclosed coaches with no companions, fine hostelry rooms without barred doors. No extensive speaking had we, the Rathel too occupied with her smirking, so pleased was she to have regained her vengeful instrument. As though yet in the wilds and bored, I undertook the self-contest of comparing modes of transport: What interval in this coach drawn % horses equaled what distance through the wilderness with a casket dragged by a single witch? This thought challenge occupied me enough to avoid the subject of Marybelle. Because I was so cowardly as to consider her possibly healing, I had no need to contemplate my sister's demise, that she was gone, though I knew it true, Marybelle as departed as half my bosom. Neither did thoughts of Eric's profundity ease me in my selfishness, for even if Marybelle's love for God and her family lay on the land like a haze, this state was no person as before, with breath and body like mine, exactly like mine.
The first evening, residing in a rented room, Rathel described how I might insert a rag into my bodice to preclude drawing attention to my . . . unevenness. Sensible was this idea to me, for my tendency to attract sinners had been too great before. But callous I was to take a towel and drop my dress so that Rathel could see my scar, my mutilation not from Satan, but from love. Look she did a glimpse before quitting the room, and though her composure was contained, every deep part of her went weak, for Rathel was a woman also.
