H C Turk, page 58
"I shall swim for you, Sir Jacob."
"How entertaining that might be, but wherein lies proof of your occultism?"
"Occultism is an invention of sinners' imagination. My surviving is proof of the witch, for no sinner can breathe within water."
"That no person can breathe water is true, but entertainers can well be convincing in their false depiction of truly impossible acts. Shall I therefore bring a bucket for your head's immersion?"
"Perhaps you will entertain other sinners with your bland attempts at comedy; but witches, being disposed toward humor, not farce, shall remain unimpressed. I will impress the comical magistrate, however, with a deed inexplicable as entertainment; for I shall be completely and visibly immersed in water for so great an occasion as to confirm myself no member of your species."
"Proving yourself the frog will not make Amanda Rathel a prisoner for your own entertainment."
"Will you have this proof, or will you have more comedy, frivolous sinner?"
"I will have the former, and warn you first that no more of your own frivolity shall I accept before depending upon God's perfection to forgive me for breaking a vow. Now, on with the particulars of your proof."
I then described that to some body of clean water I should be conveyed, preferably one so clear that I might be seen by those observers without. So shallow that I might leap up into
God's air as required by panic. This last was not mentioned, however, only that any place would do but Gravesbury Reach; and no explanation was provided for this parameter. Then away was Naylor to formulate logistics, my accompaniment by official men, enough to succumb even a witch, even a deluded, mad and maddening woman. And with a bow and verbal salutation surely provided no other prisoner, the magistrate left me alone with my cyclical despair.
My prison home seemed so unclean compared to rural London, compared to Pangham Gardens where I was delivered in a wooden cave, a dark coach with a miniscule window, a blank interior, and an outer lock on the single door. Though the coachman was a constable, he offered the lady a hand for her entry-or was his hand for the sex witch and the inferred sublimity of her crotch? Being neither lady nor witch, but a criminal, 1 entered with no aid. But even locked in that box I felt the beauty of spacial volume, of distance, having stepped from the prison into an alley to find space about me and beyond. Then into the box that reeked of men's sweat and sorrow, and on with the unpleasant ride.
The pool was strange to be so contained, its walls whiter than sand, straighter than any cliff leading to an ocean. This reduction of messy details sinners deem elegance, but how elegant is the finest clock compared to the average vegetable? Compare the smells: acidic metal ever hot versus the cool confinement of sweet moistness.
"You will be on with your proving, missus."
Around me were sinners, all men. Vapid an art is philosophy to remove one mentally from the real. As I stood prepared to immerse myself, my thoughts of the pool replaced my concern for drowning, no shuddering heart, no stuttering lungs. But with the magistrate's words, I was returned to my most recent life of evil disbelieved.
"Missus, does this water body then fit your occult requirements?"
The constables were mixed with prison guards, dull doublets versus thick, loose shirting of a reddish brown. With Naylor and this army, I stood before a geometric pool with floating, living plants pressed toward one end, and golden fishes-more magical and beautiful than the whitest witch-swimming at my behest, it seemed, dazzling me to my preference.
"The selection is good."
Though a slight accumulation of fungi grew at the pool's edges, this water was more clear and clean than any to drcwn me before.
"You might proceed, missus, instead of staring down so intently. The fishes wdl offer no harm."
"Where the fishes breathe, therein might I . . . not," were my words, too quiet for anyone but the immediate witch. To my side stood the magistrate, but unseen, for into that contained river I stared.
"Missus," Sir Jacob continued more loudly, "you will-"
"Have you dry apparel for me? The cold I do not mind, but I cannot bear to be damp, as though a. lichen in a cave."
"Missus, shall you wet yourself and prove your truth, or-"
"Yes, Naylor, I shall drown for you now."
Toward the pool I stepped, kneeling to remove my lady's footwear. This dweller of Montclaire wore excellent clothing because her mother was wealthy and influential; and what a hag the Rathel would seem if failing to provide her daughter with fine attire and bedding despite the youth's incarceration. To save my shoes, I removed them, for they were insulation against Montclaire's hard, damp floor; and being a sinner, I preferred my amenities.
"Shoes so retain moisture," I mentioned, but whose voice was this with such lethargy? Was the witch poisoned again by Rathel's potions, or merely by future water, an upcoming moisture to drape her lungs and drown her thinking, her philosophy? And what of the constables so enthused to see my feet that they swayed as though toxic themselves? Did I not smell a low odor from them that only my husband was due to project? But, no, of course not, for my husband from that region had only the smell of gore.
"Woman, you delay as though-"
"I delay as though I were about to drown myself, magistrate," I retorted. "Believe ye my immersion for long minutes is less of a chore than an illness that might kill if not soon cured. Remove a fish there from its atmosphere and place the beast upon this pavement. As you study the creature's throes, understand that it does not flop about carelessly, but is drowning in air, is dying."
"Missus, I say it is your assertion of an ability to survive within water," the magistrate declared, "yet now you say you are stepping toward a drowning death? Be ye a witch or not?"
Then I sharply turned, stepping firmly away from Naylor and his water.
"No, I am no sort of witch. I am a fool to value justice toward Rathel above my own torment. Rather than feel myself drowning for a moment, I will feel myself dry in your prison for a life."
"Drown no more shall I in your words, missus, in your madness and maddening contradictions," loud Naylor retorted, and signaled with a harsh gesture for the military men to approach me.
"Immerse this woman until she proves herself either especial witch or common mortal," he demanded. And his men, his sinners, stepped with haste to take me.
How legal were these males to receive me by my groin and bosom? What of that hand grasping the flattened scar on my chest to release the hold after a moment's tactile study, as though the fingers had found heat too great for a mortal hand? Those other hands continued, lifting me with such combined force and speed that my resistance was to no avail. Then I was in the pool, wettened and submerged.
As soon as I was within the pool from violence and held immersed with force, all my breathing's aspects ceased, locking like some solid box containing a sinner's jewels. The box of my body held only fear, however, exuded as violence; for I struck at these men holding me, struck and kicked as I twisted from one to move better into the grasp of two others, all my moves made slower by that thick atmosphere; while somewhere beyond, true fishes of gold moved effortlessly away with surprise. Thrusting with my entire person, I dove below the sinners, managing to free myself. And I was able to continue, for the guards' efforts to retain me were as full of effort as my own, and all of us were immersed, were drowning.
Once at the pool's far side, I reentered air, gasping as I pulled myself upward with hands on the stone ledge, looking up to see another constable prepared to grasp me, three guards in the pool now gaining my position. Then, with no visage of a lady, I sought the magistrate, inhaling a final gasp of air to allow my speaking.
"Please!" I begged him, looking to his eyes with my word. "Please, lord, you will wait." Then all the infinite constables had me again, those three immersed making their own gasping sounds, wet breaths of water's choking and anger from being deposed by a woman, a prisoner, a witch.
"Constables, hold away!" Naylor instructed loudly. "Move from her, then, and allow her breathing."
The magistrate seemed angered at his associates, looking down harshly to shake his head. Then a pacing he began as though a forceful version of the guards' movements as they stepped from the prisoner, displeased themselves by the magistrate's command or by my power of fear, my fearful power that controlled them all.
Eventually Naylor looked toward me only to pronounce, "Woman, you are a witch." Then he continued pacing.
Was the sharp gesture Sir Jacob next made-his hand moving upward as he looked to his constables-one of consternation or defeat?
"Out with her, then, and again to Montclaire's building for her to live dry every day further she might breathe." But disagreement came after this order.
"No," I told him, glimpsing the magistrate. "Allow me calm breathing for a time, then you shad have your proof."
Sir Jacob then ceased his stalking, looking toward me rigidly to call with force, "Woman, not again will I have your-"
"Words," I concluded for him, looking up to this sinner, then again between my hands, which held the pool's edge as though I would fad without this support, though upon die bottom I stood. "Endless words. Current words are only for distress, and none to follow my proof will be required. But I tell you, sir, my older words must be recalled. Recall and then be ashamed for being made the fool by Rathel. Then, sir, quantify your pride that finds Rathel a peer, for what sort of man wdl you be?"
After staring at me a sinners' moment, Sir Jacob with a sneer gesticulated for his constables to exit the water. And despite the sex therein to be held in their hands, they were not displeased to leave.
Soon my breathing was mdd, and this was intended, for deep inhalations would disrupt that insulating layer of water immediately against me made warm from my body, my own cool body having more heat than this freezing corpus that held me like the hands of sinners meant to chdl me with their law. Having set myself in preparation, I turned so Naylor would look toward his prisoner to see her become a witch. This single glimpse was ad the lure required for me to gain Sir Jacob's attention as I moved away from the air and prayed God for my survival. And madly it seemed that my prayer was to survive not my drowning, but my hatred of things damp.
I had intended a straightforward process with this proving, my desire to be on with the distress so that it might sooner end. But as I sank to the pool's bottom and accepted water into my throat, I found myself drowning. All hope left with my last breath's ending, for the water rushing within me was a damp fiber to clog and kill, containing life for fishes, but none for
me.
Astonished to find myself committing suicide, my only thought was to be within the air again. Yet I feared moving lest that held water be replaced by worse, by an airless mass sucked dead by fishes. So I waited in fear for some air to seep within me, waited but a moment, a dying human's moment, and enough, for no breathing I found. Potential was no longer sufficient, for I required true substance to support my life, but not enough tangible air was forthcoming for me to remain for what purpose? Then I knew. Having no thoughts of the magistrate astonished, of Rathel enjailed, of Elsie released, I flexed to press upward with my legs and thought of Eric, Eric staring down to his body and receiving greater torment than when first confronted by my scab, Therefore, I remained below because in this wet world I could not cause Eric further harm, and would never see him in the flesh, the scar. And if my confirmation were to fail, I would then be in a world even more perfectly devoid of his presence, for pious, precious Eric would never be found in Hell.
No thinking had I for the longest era likely extending from one moment to another, but no counting by me, only the task of seeping in air, the duty of avoiding Eric. My demeanor soon approached a different panic, one of failure through neglect; for how long would I need to remain submerged to prove myself sinister? If apart from air too long, would I not drown despite an established authenticity?
With fish breathing again set well within me, I replaced my upset thinking with contemplation of time as though distance, this tactic of duration successfully applied before in drowning eras. History then arrived in my thinking, for there was our cabin on Man's Isle, and I turned toward the dense growth of difficult walking that nonetheless provided the most concise route to those several shallow hills upon whose northern slopes grew a mossy grass too soft for any plant, it seemed, and impossibly green. Completely through the thicket, below those vines to snarl the pesty hair Mother insisted remain kempt, east around the great dry gulch to trip a witch, up the ridge across the narrow field to the hills of mossy grass, gather a huge armful and return, track and retrace every pace, what a chore with this burden, one worsening with each step, the burden of my breathing, not this grass, continue with the work, the aggravation, until home was in sight, through the thicket with some loss of my load, between those spindly trees toward the cabin; and there was Mother, drop the load before her to finish a convincing distance of drowning, one final step directly upward and into the natural air.
Surely a saint or demon left that pool according to the sinners' manner of viewing. The leader was yet Naylor, for his view, being most studious, was also the most revelatory; but of what type of creature, type of human? One to be touched by none of these sinners, not a word given nor received, only dry apparel not donned till the lady again was in her prison. Yet in the coach and during that long journey, no dampness was felt.
Thirty-six
Fish heads I snipped away with the toothed baby in my belly as I sat on my soot-cell bed, the mattress made mine because I was forced to lie with it, the previous-prisoner stink my responsibility as I ate peers with my bowels, Sir Jacob Satan entering with a new prisoner each day: a bishop prisoner presuming Heaven, a driver prisoner conveyed to Hell, a constable prisoner seeking legality along the trail but finding a golden dog eating prick heads while moving well in its medium of play, fins wagging as its smiling gills barked, and a husband prisoner presuming to provide sufficient love to fertilize the wife's wildness and promote a love returned, but no.
The castigation all these crimes deserved was proof, and the only proof was demonstration. Refusing again to eat meat, I was therefore made to repeat. So there I sat looking up through Satan's space at the inquisitor through an atmosphere made hazy by its disrupted upper surface, all that swimming smoke making sight difficult in that I was burning and would continue until I proved myself guilty. And yes for the bishop fish as I snipped his pink metal head off and screamed enough to break my lungs. Yes for my guilt in again baby-biting away the driver's mane with my crotch mouth that was sweet meat to some as I bit my own soul simultaneously, therefore screaming enough to break my spirit. And yes with regret for dropping the semi-constable from between my legs without a baby maker as a pain bounced upward and inside me that was misery to make me wish my mother had never lived so that I had never. And yes for the husband with his selfish aggravation removed, not again to bother the wife with his distant education of the Continental cunt. Now his boredom and mine would be equal, his scar and mine would be equal, as I made the husband not a witch nor the wife a sinner but both of them a different race, and wept enough to break my heart.
Waking from that life was no disappointment, not even to find myself social fungus in Montclaire cave. Upon leaving that dream, I moved to the window only to stand in the volume of entering light, to be part of God's geometry; for I was more alive than before in that cell, since now my life was revealed, my true life of a witch. Despite the current cooling weather, I was warm within, for I was completely dry. So alive was I-and so social-that I used the brush provided by my mother Rathel, for I was her only daughter and a most successful sort of vengeance; for when had all the Dentons ever felt such horror? Abuse my scalp I did to relieve my coif of tangles from sleeping on a wet head. Praise God my lungs were dry, unlike in my dreams-and what of Naylor's dreams? Did he see wet witches pinching limbs off English victims like a child denuding a bug of inconsequential parts? Or was he more concerned with my waking hair? Here was Naylor's attention, Sir Jacob entering to stare at that black mass which in his eyes could have been gold, such was its value, not the gold of decorative fishes, but of precious emotions, bejeweled ideas.
Before the door's loud opening and Naylor's footfalls, I knew his approach, knew from his particular sinning smell. And with my back toward him as the sunlight surrounded me, I sensed his gaze, not at the witch but the woman, her white skin and black gold. Not willing to be a feminine demonstration to this sinner, I ceased my brushing as though ending an annoying chore, moving away from that cubical light toward the dark where sinners belong.
"I would speak with you of yesterday," the magistrate began, his voice unaffected by his eyes and mind, by the sight of that woman, thoughts of that witch.
"We shall, if first you tell me of Eric."
"Missus, we shall continue with our established business, not the pretense of-"
"Missus is correct, magistrate. As before, you will tell me of my husband's condition without questions of my fidelity or curious demeanor. God will concern Himself with my true emotion toward Eric without the aid of English law. Supply me, please, with the factual status of my husband, for which I thank you in advance."
"At your pleasure, Mrs. Denton. I say your husband is as before, alert though unmoving in bed, injured but healing."
"Why, magistrate, have you such reluctance to tell me of Eric without difficult queries? Have you some bizarre notion from your British law or deceased Jesus that precludes a simple depicting? Or are you especially fond of my pleading with words?"
"Missus, never have you pleaded with words, only with an emotion yesterday when you begged for me to leave you undrowned, and then no sound was needed. And there you were correct in your desire to live, for being alive, now you have further opportunity to prove yourself a witch."
Not likely had Naylor ever been more struck by my revelations than I by his comment. Perhaps I seemed the social sinner in my response, staring at Naylor with ignorance of his customs, his mentality or madness. So taken was I by his words that I had none myself, allowing the magistrate to converse for us both.
