C R O N E

Many names had she. In her presence, the townfolk found it in courtesy to call her by her given name, the one she had carried as a child but shrugged off as an old woman, which was Deliverance. But recessed in their parlors and bedrooms, amongst the gossips and fearful exclamations, the people of Salem regarded her as the Hag. The elders of the church knew her as Harridan. Some, who had pitied her and dared to approach her ramshackle hut – if only to spy her face and turn away – had seen that her features suggested a fairness in youth, and they called her Harpy. The children feared her, and lacking the words to describe the feelings in their stomachs she wrought, named her Witch.

They were right to be afeared. She fancied herself a Crone, for she knew in all truth that her aging body was wracked and corrupt, and that her foreroom was indeed filled with the instruments of witchcraft. Aye, her practice of the Craft was studied, violent and sure, taught to her thirty years afore by a witch doctor who lived in the nearby wood. The Crone (in her fiftieth years at the time) held regular company with the man, pleasing him with salted meats and skins of milk in exchange for bizarre texts and recipes. And the witch doctor, tearing into the meats with crazed hunger, would question: “You see the life of the witch doctor. All filth and hunger. What want you from the Craft?”

Never did an answer come. The Crone in privacy studied for thirty years, in pursuit of nebulous ends. The witch doctor, long after his death, was surpassed by her in the knowledge of all things supernatural. And though the Crone did perfect her dark art, long did she keep the fruits of her toil hidden from the public eye. Years passed and still she waited.

The day was come on the nineteenth of September, in the year of our Lord 1722. Just thirty years agone did the people of Salem hold their witch trials, and their crazed fear then was present still in hurried whispers and the slurs of drunkards. The Crone was stood in her parlor, toying with her instruments of dark magick. Her skeletal hands worked a jagged blade into the body of an arrested crow, before its blood was drained into a concoction of queer objects. Her arm bled still from the slash upon it she inflict’d, and that blood too was added to the mixture. She did pause on occasion to behold a large black tome bound in leather, reading within its yellowed pages of witchcraft and sorcery too strange and profane to be printed here, or to be truly understood by men. The old woman with a great effort lowered herself unto the floor, and with palsied fingers did plunge the boning knife within its wooden planks.

She carved a pentagram, that terrible and powerful symbol, with five meticulous strokes of the blade. At each point she placed some evil oddity: hotwax and candlewicks, rat tails, bird blood and peculiar herbs – each item accompanied with a muttering of some vexing incantation. Whilst this nasty work was done, a series of painful moans did come forth from her bedroom, the cries of an injured child. The boy was not hers; too much a misanthrope was she to ever foster a babe. “Quiet, boy!” she scolded in a voice ragged and unused, “Quiet, or else I’ll split you wide.” And with that, the boy fell silent. He in panic would slip into a feverish dream away from the wicked old woman and back into the arms of his father.

The curse now was finished. The Crone unwore her cloak and into a chair settled by the fire. The cold this year had come early, and though it was day, strong enough was the chill outside to brown the crops and cause ache in the old woman’s bones. Her eyes closed with a heavy sigh. Back and forth did she rock, half a-slumber in a widow’s dream. She knew this day that she would die. It was this thought that made her cracked lips to form a secretive smile.

* * *

It began with the fluttering of wings. At first only the flight of a single bird roosting atop the Crone’s shack – but steady did it grow into a flock. The old woman’s ears pricked at the growing cacophany outdoors, the caws and squawks and rattles -- the click-clack of dozens of talons did play upon her roof. On brittle bones, the Crone stood and through her window spied the town square. Clusters of cabins broke apart the horizon, their slanted peaks reaching for the highest limbs of trees. In the streets, young’ns laughed and played with stray cats, to the dismay of their mothers. The fields were occupied by tired young men bent at the knees to harvest broad beans and spinach. They shared the land with unburdened livestock, free to grow fat for slaughter. The meat would fill bellies until plow season’s return.

In the center of the forum the old gallows still stood, where thirty years prior the accused (some wicked, some blameless) were put to death. As though their ghosts now were present, the crooked noose began to swing in a growing breeze. The daylight as if in a mounting storm dimmed, and a passing gust of wind put chill in the air. The courtyard soon was approached by a swelling shadow. Slowly did it creep across the square, up the steps of the blood-stain’d scaffold, above the wooden homes and further ‘til it swallowed the town entire.

The men abroad halted their labors. Women burst forth from their homes with babes still abreast. All peered high at the growing clamor, quiet for a time, struck still in awe of the sinful mess above. A great inkblot of black tore the sky asunder, a massive and undulating swarm of crows. Deafening was the summation of their frantic caws. The sun was suffocated in their numbers. Scores of beak and claw streaked the heavens in such a mass that Salem itself was covered in nightfall. The townfolk clutched at one another, frozen in the maw of this eldritch horror, throats a-screaming hoarse prayers and scripture at the growing darkness. But the night was godless. This indeed was the work of Satan.

The rising cry from the horizon made the Crone shiver. A conjuring of crows this many was an act of witchcraft unprecedented, so complex in its performance that her own abilities the Crone had called into question. She swayed, blinking in the darkness, her hooked nose a-run with tears and mucus. Her years of secrecy now had finished, and her thoughts did turn to her father Giles, sweet Giles, who would find in death the justice he was denied in life. The man was denied a noose’s mercy, and now at the Crone’s discretion would the town Salem share in his damnation.

The townfolk now were frenzied. Out in the darkness trembled a precious few points of light. Torches. In time the number grew, and the balls of flame in the distance began to converge. A chant came forth from the night: “Witch, witch, witch.” The hums of nature soon were smothered by the footsteps of an encroaching army. Out of the darkness was revealed a congregation of frightened and angry men, their gaunt faces awash in the orange glow of torchlight. Some carried pitchforks and scythes. Others brought armfuls of hay and jars of pitch or tar. On ginger feet they stepped into the forest clearing before the Crone’s house, eyes a-bug within their sockets. The pitch and tar were mixed with hay and on her dwelling thrown en masse.

“Out, witch!” came the scattered cries. “Out with you, or be burnt a-cinder!”

The Crone out her window leanest. Her face a-mask with lunacy, eyes wide and smiling with wicked satisfaction. The townfolk knew her as reserved and gentle; the sight of her now was stark in difference indeed. “Ye will do no such thing,” she spat. “Aye, a boy shares this room with me now.”

“What boy is this?” questioned one Thomas Digor from the shifting crowd. “Be it Johnathan’s boy?”

“Nay, he sits at home with his mother and sister,” answered Johnathan.

“What boy has the woman taken?” cried old Benjamin Forester, striking up a clamor. The men’s voice soon were drowned in one another.

The Crone spake: “I know not his name. He was lost in the wood.”

There was a dialogue among the men. “An’t a boy in there, in truth,” called Gregory Smith, ever the skeptic. “Were there, he’s been et now,” answered Josiah Tull. “The woman’s et him.” This accusation threw the Crone in disgust, but her tongue was held. The men knew not what a witch even was, yet they hung them all the same. “He’s not been et,” she answered. “Such a skinny thing. Bother be to render his fat from bone.”

A sound of disgust came forth from the mob. This erupted a quarrel betwixt the men. Benjamin insisted that the house be set aflame; Johnathan and Thomas wished the door pushed in and the woman set upon with pitchforks. Amidst the shouting, one man from the group forthward stepped and towards the Crone’s hovel. He carried not a weapon, but nonetheless was the Crone put at unease. “Careful now. Lest the boy be slaughtered.”

The man slowed to a halt. The face of a thinking man had he, and though doubtless was his fear of the Crone, his discomfort was hidd’n well. He looked to be in his fortieth years – he was just a boy when the town Salem had gone mad. The man eyed the old woman’s rumpled face, but to the crowd spake: “Mayhaps the boy lay inside. We’ll know not ‘til he’s shown.”

The men quieted. “Caleb,” Thomas said, “Hold no congress with this witch. The boy’s but a foul trick.” This naysayer the man Caleb silenced with a raised hand. “If you speak true, I bid you: let the boy be shown.” His eyes rested steady upon the Crone’s misshapen form.

The Crone stole into her bedroom. The boy on her gnarled bed lay, wrists crimson and swollen from his binds. He cried out as she carried his fragile weight, all bone and sinew, struggling all the while until with a clatter on the floor he dropped. His head was placed on the pentagram’s northernmost point, and the Crone bade him not move. His face went alabaster upon the sight of the men outside. His eyes darted through their numbers a-search for the face of his father, but returned fruitless. The man had bade him ne’er go into the wood, for fear of wild animals or the devil’s trickery. But at night the child heard enticing whispers and siren song from beyond the black trees, and in youth’s folly had ventured within. His curiosity now had placed him in the witch’s abode, far from his father’s grasp and ever closer to the belly of the old woman, Satan’s disciple.

Clangs arose shrill in the air as the men’s weapons were a-shift. Startled crows whooped and shuddered far overhead. “Aye, she tell it true,” Caleb to his men called, and then: “Boy, what art thy name?” The boy opened his mouth, but to the men the Crone spake foremost: “Speak not to him. ‘Tis I you’ll address.”

Caleb sighed. “Prithee, has the boy a name?” The Crone let the boy have his word. From trembling lips he put it forth, as though the sound of it would the witch new powers bestow. “Jonas,” she echoed out the window. A horrible moan sounded from within the men’s ranks. From their columns did the large man Jacob outward stagger, and onto his knees fell and rose again. “Jonas, my boy. Just this morn I told thee...”

With guilt and shame did Jonas look up into his father’s eyes. In years past when in misbehavior the boy feared his father’s look of anger and the sharp pain of a switch on his arse. But now upon the man’s face Jonas glimpsed something darker: an expression of terror. The boy began to wail.

Jacob advanced on the Crone’s hovel but was held fast in Caleb’s embrace. “God damn you! Death to the Hag!” cried he, voice a-quiver and throttled with tears.

At this the Crone grinned. Her knife she unsheathed and raised glowing to the torchlight. “Hear me now. Jonas will this day perish if ye do not. Send back for your wives and children. My hungry crows may well have them picked apart. Bring them me – keep them distanced, I care not. I’ll see ye all stand trial, aye, just as they did years agone. Ye claim to be men of God, but ye are sinners all. Your hearts be rife with mischief and your parlors with gossip. Ye are wicked in soul and now will be judged. In years past ye branded me Hag, as Harpy. As Witch. This day, know me as Deliverance.”

* * *

The sky was still a-ruffle with wings upon the men’s return. In rows behind them trudged the women and young’ns, clad in dirtied shifts and armed each with makeshift weaponry and books of gospel. Trembling in fright, their aura of torchlight fought off the darkness of the wood as it settled into the clearing. For a moment naught was heard but the wind whistling betwixt the branches of the skeleton trees. The night hummed with insect song and the cooing of crows. As afore, the man Caleb stepped forth and took his place as negotiator. His eyes gleamed as behind them thoughts and schemes were a-tumble.

“We come hither. As you wish it.” He thought to continue, but in patience let the silence stand. The Crone rasped, “I would you come closer. But aye, this’ll do.” It pleased her to witness their reluctance.

“What want you from us?” said Caleb, inching nearer. “You talk of trial. Would you see us hang? On what grounds?”

“None are innocent. Man, woman, and child. Hate and fear plague every heart. Ye preach the gospel but defy the Lord at every turn. Some of ye murder.”

Caleb straightened and to his people turned. “Who among us has kill’t another? Not a man gone missing from our congregation. A peaceful and God-fearing people, we are.” There was a murmur of agreement.

“My father,” the Crone squawked. “Thirty years agone. Giles Corey. Ye pressed him to death.” The elders of the crowd gasped. A new fervor was cultivated within the mob, a shift of balance too tangible to be ignored. The feeling of unease so palpable became that a number of children commenced to wailing.

The Crone upon the foreign crowd gazed, each face unfamiliar. In youth, she had ignored suitors and partaken in chatter with other young girls. She’d passed the days with needlepoint, or the churn, or on some fortunate occasions with fanciful play. She bethought of happy mornings in the chapel by her mother and the men of God, the wooden pews that groaned and the dusty sunshafts through the windows. The congregation then was smaller, and each face could she recognize. All were dead now. Even the babes. She knew not the afeared people outside, just as they were ignorant of her. This folk had kill’t her father and left her in isolation.

One face in the crowd she recalled. From the window the Crone extended an arm and with a jagged black nail at the man Caleb pointed: “I’ve not forgot your look, Caleb. You count with the men who did the deed.”

The mob sounded in confusion. Caleb in a hurry turned and with hands raised fruitlessly tried to calm their furor. The man Jacob’s focus shifted from his son to Caleb. He stepped forth and took the older man by the shoulders – out of comfort or rage none could tell. “Caleb, speak she true?”

Caleb now seemed a wild man. “I was but a boy, Jacob. ‘Twas not I who pressed him. The old man was a warlock, and was that we put him to death.”

“Lies all!” the Crone spat. Caleb, now a-sweat and wide-eyed in the face of the mob, turned to her with a jerk of the head. The Crone’s finger was pointed still. “You kill’t him,” she accused. “I’ll not forget. You were ten-and-two at the least. All giddy as the man died. Never did he practice the Craft a day in his life.”

“He refused to plea!” yelped Caleb. He in Jacob’s grip twisted and jerked to spy the mob again. “Young Mercy Lewis, poor girl, did testify he put the whip to her and beat her most dreadfully. She was prone to fits through his use of dark magick. He was a wizard in truth. Were he not, he should plead innocent! What sane man would not? Yet he held his tongue.”

“Yea, his tongue was held,” answered the Crone. Her hands now gripped the window ledge so tightly that the knuckles colored white and grooves were carved by her nails. “That very tongue I saw flop from his mouth as he was kill’t. Ye laid’st him bare and cover’d with a board. He made not a sound when ye placed the stones atop.”

In rage the Crone quaked – the old woman looked as if she would soon convulse. In bursts of spittle she recounted the sight of her father’s eyes bulging and how his tongue was forced from his lips. How the men hoisted young Caleb above and let him dance and jump upon the rocks. The boy had pushed the old man’s tongue back in with his tiny bloody fingers.

The mob shrank in terror. Caleb now was furious. He himself freed from Jacob’s arms and stomped ever closer to the hovel. “’Twas justice!” he screamed, all sweat and spittle. “Death forever unto witches! I long for those days in memory. No sight pleases me half so much as witches at the noose.”

The Crone hefted the boy Jonas in her arms and to his neck placed the knife. The boy struggled in her arms, a-screaming for his father, making hoarse promises to never again wander within the wood. For an instant Caleb approached her regardless, arms a-stretch to throttle her throat. This business was halted when the man Jacob in panic threw him upon the ground. There they struggled, and erewhile the Crone spake:

“Giles Corey knew his sentence pass’d afore he enter’d a plea. The girl Mercy’s envy was plain – she said him a witch and it was done then. Guilty or innocent matters not concerning the court of witchcraft.”

Her shoulders did shake in rage, spastic and jerking with every hateful word. Her black garb in the air twisted like a ghastly smoke. “For two days did ye press him, each with more weight. Molded bread and stagnant water nightly was he fed. At every hour they bade him plea, and every turn he answered, ‘More weight.’ As the shite did run down his legs and the blood come forth with every word, he said again ‘More weight.’ And so it was ‘til his death.”

The townfolk rustled with horror. Some wept for the actions of their fathers; some cried out at Caleb and Jacob’s quarrel; others still were maddened at the sight of poor Jonas with a knife to his throat. The mob came lunging forth, its amorphous form expanding and tightening as its members ran and fought and fell. Caleb again liberated himself from Jacob and scuttling backward yelled to the witch, “Death unto you! Death unto witchcraft!” The mob undulated with unease, swinging like a pendulum toward the Crone’s shack and away from the terrible scene. Above, the black birds shrieked in distress.

Over the chaos could the Crone be heard: “Kill me if you would. The Craft cannot be. Violence cannot kill belief as it does men. Religion is borne in death.”

Jacob, crazed at the sight of his boy with the boning knife at his gullet, took up his pitchfork. He saw the fear and anguish in his son’s face, saw the day he had first taught the boy the plow, saw the man his son could become. Up from his Jonas’s eyes did he look and into the dark pits of the Crone. He thought for a moment to charge her, through the window to leap and drive the fork into her black heart. But within the Crone’s face he saw her willingness to kill and to die. And he saw the hurt and lonesome of old age and the death of kindred. He saw within her wrinkles the years of toil and hatred, the steadfast belief in strange ideology and the thirst for vengeance.

Jonas cried, “Father!” and watched as Jacob with a roar drove the fork into Caleb’s chest. The prongs erupted from his back, red and dripping, tangled in pallid pink innards. Caleb with a forced exhale backwards fell and lied twitching on the grass. The mob erupted in hysteria. The townfolk scattered as ants, and thinking Jacob possessed, took up arms in defense of some unseen evil. Scythes, wildly a-swing, opened flesh and cast streaks of blood upon the soil. In the confusion, blades sliced through air and men alike. Many keeled limbless and bleeding on the ground. Jacob’s arm was rended from him by a passing blade, and he fell atop Caleb in a mass of seizing muscles. Jonas moaned in horror. A focused few peasants cast their attention on the Crone, and forthward ran with blades held high. A roar sounded from their collection, senseless and bestial. The Crone stared down their numbers, arms a-wrangle about the thrashing boy but otherwise perfect in serenity.

Somewhere from the crowd was a torch thrown. It mattered not who cast it. Endlessly it spun through the darkness, with every yard illuminating the gruesome scene alow. Frightened men with eyes gouged and throats slashed. Panicked young boys and girls with hands a-rooting for their mothers touch. Some would later say that Lucifer himself leanest a-right on a nearby oak, with curl-ed tail and twin horns complete.

Further and further flew the torch ‘til in the air it rested above the Crone’s hovel. The pitch and hay cover’d it still. Within, the woman Deliverance stood smiling, eyes closed as though in prayer. Her arms did ease around Jonas, and loosen so that he slipped from her embrace. Dancing flames licked at his heels as he through the window dove. The old woman made not a sound when the air around her took to flame. The curse now was finished.

* * *

In the daylight they found the ash-cover’d body. The Witch, burnt to black gristle. They left her corpse unburied. The boy Jonas stood shivering over her charred form, his face streaked with hot tears. In time, the breeze would cool them upon his cheeks.

The dead men counted in the dozens. The living carted the corpses into town on the backs of oxen. It took four trips in total, and in hours twice as much. Past this day they would ne’er return to the spot of the witch’s abode.

On the final voyage, after the carcasses were loaded, the boy Jonas sat backward atop his saddle and peered on the witch’s land. Naught remained but the skeleton of her home, atop a black mark of scorched earth. The boy saw the violence still, the bloody image within his head frozen. He could not repel his thoughts of the man Caleb, and his father, and the queer old woman. He would wonder if the strange things rustling in the wood at night were not so strange at all.