Chapter Text
Part 1
It was senseless. She thought warily as her finger traced mindlessly across the bars of the window. To be persecuted this way. For something that she had not done.
It figured. She laughed pathetically to herself. That her life should come to this.
The practice of witchcraft and the dark arts. The seduction of a minor. The corruption of youth. The teaching of pagan material.
The charges were harsh. Severe and demanded her life.
She realized the migraine that had arrested her head had somehow dissipated, as if her body had given in to her fate. Her muscles were loose. Her stomach sunken. She’d refused the pathetic bread they’d offered her.
It had been a week.
A week of public humiliation preceded by months of public ridicule. Whispers behind her back, the hushed voices as she’d walk by. Mary Wardwell, the school mistress, a secret witch, a seducer of children.
She had not done a thing they accused her of. Just because she lived alone in that cottage, away from prying eyes and ears. The way that she preferred. Just because Sabrina had come to her home after school that one day and then continued to escort her home...
Sabrina was only a girl. A darling young woman with a mind to rival Mary’s own. Mary made her tea and cookies and loaned her books that the little school did not own. Books that had tales which existed long before the tales of the Bible.
Sabrina read them, vehemently, rapidly, wanting more. Spread out atop Mary’s couch, cookie crumbs littering the surface, feet resting atop Mary’s legs as they read together.
Perhaps if Mary had insisted that she not rest just so.... perhaps if Sabrina’s little boyfriend, Harvey, hadn’t come by that day to get her.... well what did it matter now?
It was the end.
Mary’s head fell against the wall. Resigned to her fate.
“Ms. Wardwell.” Her eyes shot opened.
She saw a hooded figure on the other side of the bars, illuminated by the blaze of torches. Her visitor smelled of deep musk and roses. Hands lifted to the edge of the cape, Mary’s eyes followed the delicate fingers, watching as Sabrina’s aunt, Zelda Spellman, was unmasked before her.
But how had she arrived? Mary hadn’t heard the door to the cells open. Had she been asleep?
Zelda held forth an apple. It gleamed in the dim glow of torchlight. It looked so deliciously clean and unmarred. But Mary’s brow furrowed, for she did not really know this Spellman woman, nor did she trust her. For Mary was charged with corrupting her niece. For all Mary knew she could have poisoned the apple to finish her off quicker.
“Oh, take it. I know that you’re starving.” Zelda’s voice was low and rough. “I haven’t hexed it, if you’re worried about that.”
Mary’s eyes went wide. Was she a mind reader?
“Please.” Zelda’s voice softened, holding it out again. “I have some bread that Hilda made and some cheese to give you if you’d just take this apple. I can’t stand here holding it all night.”
There was something in her voice that Mary trusted. She stepped a bit closer, her mouth watering at the sight of the fruit so close to her. She reached out and took the apple, examining it. What difference did it make if she were to eat it and die or not? She was dead either way.
She bit into the apple as Zelda watched. Pleased.
“Good girl.” Zelda praised her ridiculously. For they were no more than a year apart in age and neither Mary nor Zelda were a girl.
Mary was so mesmerized by the perfect apple that she did not pay attention to the cell door opening and Zelda entering with the basket of food. It was only when she caught a whiff of the freshly baked bread that she realized Zelda was looking her over, examining the cuts and bruises that the chains had left.
“Listen to me, Mary. I haven’t much time.” Zelda whispered as she placed her hand over a deep gash that had been made by a chain about her wrist. By a guard that liked to handle her a bit too roughly. Mary’s eyes widened as she watched the cut disappear beneath Zelda’s touch. “I know that what they charge you of is a lie. You are no witch.” Zelda continued to examine the marks on her arm, to tend to each calmly, efficiently. Her hands were warm, alive with some inexplicable force. It frightened Mary, watching as she was as her outward scars faded away.
Zelda met her frightened gaze, staring serenely into her eyes. “No, you are not a witch, but I am. And so is the man who persecutes you. Judge Blackwood is not a mortal man, but he holds his position in polite society to ensure that no one finds out.”
“But he...but witches...”
“I know this is all very confusing, but he owes me a favor. You will not be charged with anything. You will be free tomorrow.”
The thought of freedom now felt so foreign to Mary that it seemed like a trick. She was being fooled. “You can’t possibly expect.... but I....”
“Ms. Wardwell...Mary, if I may...Sabrina thinks very highly of you. She’s sick at the thought of what has happened. Personally, I commend and respect you for what you teach her. And I know that you.... though perhaps you have had those sorts of feelings.... would never have done anything that she did not want.”
“I would n-never!” Mary gasped.
Zelda smiled. “I know that. You needn’t defend yourself to me.”
Mary stared at Zelda bewildered. “Why...”
Zelda caught Mary in her arms, forcing her to look at her. “I refuse to see someone die for something she did not do. These people are making a mockery of witchcraft.” There was a sound in the hallway that seemed to frighten Zelda. “I must go. But tomorrow, tomorrow you will be free.”
And just as quickly as she had come, she disappeared. Mary sat shocked, stunned for a moment at the sudden loss of Zelda’s presence. She had been warm, consoling and now she was here alone again. Behind these bars, in this sad, disgusting pit of filth so that she collapsed, tears sliding from her eyes in confusion.
Could she truly trust Zelda Spellman? She had seen her every day at the trial looking pieced together, perfect, sitting rigidly, primly beside Sabrina. Callous, unemotional.
But she had seen the emotion only moments before…perhaps she was not so cold.
But what of Judge Faustus Blackwood and his unfeeling eyes? The way he ridiculed her on the stand, badgered her for her supposed witchcraft, for ruining the town’s children. How could he be a warlock?
Since when were there warlocks and witches anyway? She had read of such things, but they were works of fiction at best...
No, she could not get her hopes up. To be rescued by a witch! No...it couldn’t be. The God she had been taught to worship had put her here, had decided to take her life. He wanted her to die, didn’t he?
Death would at least alleviate her from these sins, these fears she harbored deep down inside that she had never expressed before. This want of hers to live a life alone, away from others. Because she couldn’t stomach the thought of living some kind of lie. She had already let Adam down all those years ago. Because she hadn’t been strong enough to live a life with him.
And how had Zelda known that she had had those kinds of feelings? Zelda was a spinster herself, of course. So perhaps she knew…but she could not know how it was Mary truly felt. How hideous and ugly she was inside.
Her head spun as she laid atop the dirt and strands of hay. The food Zelda had brought rested in its basket, untouched. Her stomach hurt. She could not bare to eat the bread despite its enticing aroma. She seemed only capable of smelling its delicious yeasty odor mixed with the lingering fragrance of Zelda Spellman. The scents swirled together in her mind as she lay half-asleep, half-dead the rest of the night.
“In light of evidence which was brought to me late last evening, I find that the claims which have been brought against you do not stand. I cannot find you guilty of the charges placed against you.” Judge Blackwood looked almost bored by the ruling.
The towns people called out loudly, crying in protest against him. He had to slam his gavel several times, yelling at them to be silent. And finally a hush pervaded, Mary’s stomach in knots.
Judge Blackwood continued. “Though I am freeing you, you are sentenced to no longer teaching the children of Greendale as it would be irresponsible of me to place you in such a precarious position. I think that is fair, wouldn’t you say?” And with that he raised an eyebrow, brought his gavel down hard. The sound reverberated in the chamber.
Mary’s legs quivered beneath her. She went light-headed. She collapsed.
It was in Zelda Spellman’s arms that she found herself when she came to and Sabrina and Hilda Spellman looked on, concerned. There was a great roar of protest and upset and confusion around them.
The men of the court had no option but to free her. And there was the guard that had looked at her with a look of disgust and lust who begrudgingly freed her hands, roughly. He did not notice that his wounds had been healed about her wrists. Healed the previous night by Zelda, who had looked at her neither with hatred nor lust...but something else.
The guard looked the most unhappy with this turn of events as he yanked her arms free of the chains. As if he had wanted, needed her dead. He left fresh wounds in her flesh, but the pain hardly registered. For she was free. She was free and yet she was not.
She felt the outrage around her, hurled at her from all directions. She was a spectacle and her death had been highly anticipated. Now there would be no show.
She was frozen, unknowing as to what it was she should do next.
A hand fell lightly against her arm. She turned, bewildered, to find Zelda. The older woman enveloped her in her steadying embrace. “You’re coming with us.” She whispered and Mary found herself surrounded by the Spellmans. A protection, a shield. They somehow managed to get her through the crowd unscathed and then escorted her to their home on the hill.
She had never been to the large, dark house, had only seen it from the road on her way to and from the school house. Upon entering its elegant front foyer, a wave of relief washed over her and she very nearly fainted again. It was Hilda who pushed their bodies together and caught her. “There, there love. Let’s get you up to bed so that you can rest.”
Mary could not understand this strange hospitality, but she was too weak to complain, to question it. She allowed herself to be taken to a room, tucked into bed and then she dozed on and off, slowly drinking soup that Hilda patiently fed to her until her body began to understand its normal functions again.
It felt like no time at all and yet an eternity when she awoke blurrily to see the dull blaze of sun which marked the mid-afternoon. She sensed that she was no longer alone, either. Turning, she found Zelda sitting in a chair beside her bed, book in hands, but staring directly at her as she awoke.
Her savior. More beautiful up close and personal like this. In the sunlight. Her hair shown red, like fire against the sun, wrapped up atop her head. Her lips were a deep hue of pink, she smelled again of that floral musk that Mary had spent the evening in her prison cell inhaling. It had been her only sense of calm, of encouragement and now here it was again on the other side of the whole ordeal.
“How are you feeling?” Zelda inquired, reaching out to place her hand atop Mary’s forehead, as if a mother taking her child’s temperature.
“Better.” Mary’s throat was hoarse from too many tears and too much time without speaking, from screaming in the night when she had been reminded of her death sentence. Only now...she was free. “How did you...”
“Please.” Zelda held up her hand, dismissing the whole thing as if she hadn’t just saved her life. “I will hear nothing more of it. But....I would feel much better if you might stay here. With us. I think for now it would be safest.”
Mary conceded, for she could barely raise herself to sit up. There would be no leaving any time soon.
“Rest now.” Zelda whispered, tucking her back in.
And her eyes closed, as if she’d been cursed to sleep. And she slept like the dead, waking again when there was no sun.
The light of the fireplace danced about the room, illuminating the space. There was a pull of disappointment at the fact that Zelda was no more present. Instead there was silence.
Mary listened to the quiet house. It felt somehow mysterious, as if it held all sorts of worlds of which she knew nothing about. There was a warm flow of energy that made her skin tingle, washed over her, relaxed her back into the bedsheets which so contrasted the hard floor she’d made her bed for the past week. No, this was much preferable and yet…it was the home of witches. Of real witches?
She heard the soft patter of feet outside the door, coming down the hallway. She wondered what time it was, who might be awake at this hour.
The doorknob began to twist and fear shot through her body, momentarily anxious by what it was that might be on the other side.
But it was only the soft blonde head of the darling, young Sabrina. Sneaking into her room. Her eyes caught Mary’s, widened when she saw that she was awake. “S-sorry.” Sabrina whispered in the evening, paused between entering and running away.
“It’s alright. Come here.” Mary dragged herself up in the bed, motioning for Sabrina to come to her.
The girl smiled widely. She silently closed the door behind her and moved to the bed, climbing up at the foot of it. She had come with a book which she held between her hands. “I…I was worried about you. I thought I’d come sit with you and read.”
Mary felt the corners of her mouth lift, felt herself smile for what felt like the first time in days. She reached out, patted the girl’s leg.
Sabrina smiled bashfully back, ran her finger along the spine of the book. Her face dropped just as suddenly as it had warmed. “You don’t…you don’t blame me, do you? I feel that it was all my fault and I’m so-sorry… “
“No.” Mary sat up a bit straighter. “No, it was neither of our faults. Don’t even think that.” She leaned forward, tucked a strand of Sabrina’s hair behind her ear, cupped her cheek and forced her eyes upwards. “This town will always look for someone to martyr. I was an easy target. It had nothing to do with you.”
“But if Harvey…if he hadn’t told his father…”
“They would have found another reason.” Of this Mary was certain. There had been whispers before all of this. A woman alone was a threat.
Sabrina nodded, smiled a bit shyly. “I am glad, though, that you’re here. Now. I wanted it…I wanted you here.”
Mary should be dead and yet here she was.
How curious it all seemed. Saved by these people whom she hardly even knew, saved by this young girl who looked up to her, perhaps revered her as she had revered Sister Angelica at the orphanage… Of this she understood.
“Come here, come read to me.” Mary held out her arms and Sabrina climbed into her embrace, fitted easily into her side. She wondered if this was what it might feel to have a child, a family. It was foreign to Mary and yet felt surprisingly comfortable.
The girl’s body was warm as she easily snuggled in close. “Aunt Zelda thought you would want to read this book. It’s about our history. Well,” Sabrina’s brow furrowed, “about her and Auntie Hilda’s history. It’s only half my history.”
Mary regarded the book curiously. Bound beautifully in skin colored leather, it bore the name The Unholy Bible.
A chill raced down her spine.