I can recount that my sleep was heavy and my dreams were terrible. Everything was in a blur; I remembered seeing the woman in front of the Tavern, and I re-lived the encounter with the man of ivory hair. I am still unsure of how long I was asleep but at the time it seemed no where near the amount that it was. I suppose that Vivica left me in bed, not willing to wake me to begin another fight. I had left what little money that remained on my bedside table, Vivica hated it when I hid our money from her. She always said that one day she might need money for something and if it was hidden then she would have to do without. Although our marriage was turbulent I did love her, and every chance I got I tried to treat her like the princess that she was to me. My memories that follow may move quickly, I honestly remember everything foggily and I am trying to recount things as accurately as possible.
"Darian! Open your eyes my fellow! You have been at rest for two and a half days! If you have no respect for your family at least have respect for god!"
It was the voice of none other than Mr. Orwell, I had to force myself to a sitting position and also to open my eyes.
"Two and a half days? Orwell you must have par taken in one too many lagers my friend! I have only been asleep since before daybreak, this morning is the sabbath and I make a good habit of never missing the lord's message!"
My tone was annoyed but when my sight finally cleared I noticed that he was in earnest, it was not pale morning but yet the dark of night! What he told me next is what actually brought me wake.
"No my friend, we were all quite scared for a while there. Vivica came into town to get some vegetables and some scraps of meat for dinner earlier this morning and collapsed in front of farmer Michaelson's wife. She is still in the middle of giving birth and I was sent by the church keep to fetch you! Soon enough my friend you shall be a father, and then you can pay off that bar tab of your's, eh?",
Upon hearing this I turned and jovially threw a pillow at Orwell.
"I jest Darian, I jest!"
He then broke the overdrawn silence by emitting a very hardy laugh and clapping hard on my sore back. Standing up he turned to leave as I put on some worn out shoes and continued getting dressed. I hastily followed Orwell to the town hall.
When we arrived things were almost completed, the head midwife and the church keep were in the room along with Vivica. I was the only other allowed in the room as the child had begun to crown. In the following time that my child was born Vivica had lost all lucidity and had almost entered a dreamlike state; finally in the last gasps of pain the child was brought to birth and the midwife severed the link between child and mother, and stole her away to wash my daughter of her fluid coverings. Vivica opened her eyes wide and spoke to me.
"Darian? Are you there Darian?"
"Yes my love, I am here."
"Darian make sure that our child is named Lilith, after her great grandmother. I have to have a private word with the church keep, so would you be so kind as to help the midwife in the cleansing of our daughter?"
It had seemed odd that she already knew that our newly born child was a lovely little girl, but at the time I suppose that no one had realized what she said. She was acting very out of character, it then seemed perfectly fine so I stepped out of the room as Vivica had requested and went to assist the midwife. Once again however, things went queer. I had noticed on the walk to the town hall that there was no moon out that night, it was there. It was under the mask of a grouping of dense clouds though.
Upon my entrance to the bathing room the midwife turned and began screaming that there was something wrong with the child. I rushed to see the problem and immediately discovered what had set her into a discomfort. I was set aback as my little daughter Lilith had eyes of the blackest night. Where I had expected the dull green of her father, or the bright azure hue of her mother; a white of the cleanest marble had taken its place. Her hair too was wrong. Vivica and I both have dull blonde hair but my child's was as red as blood.
After backing herself into a wall the midwife collapsed onto the floor. Her health was unimportant to me at that moment in time; I was more concerned with my daughter. I approached her carefully and though I knew that something wasn't right, I treated her no differently than if she had been normal. She was warm and dripping wet in the water that the midwife had fetched and I drew her into my arms, slowly and carefully as I dried her in the cloth that the midwife had set aside. She was the most beautiful sight that a father could see, and well tempered to no end. She hadn't cried once since she was born and she simply stared at me while I held her. Time seemed unimportant and before long I had come to my senses again. Vivica would want to see her beautiful little girl, so I hastened back to the room where I had left the church keep and my wife.
"......and let not those who forsake the lord nor those that worship others falsely guide you or you shall follow their path into hell! Let only the holy spirit and those filled with the grace of the almighty redeem those who have fallen from the path! Look upon the grace of the lord and feel his presence lest you delve into the land of evil and be driven by the false belief that the morning star himself shalt be your divine redeemer! I cast you out demon! Leave the body of this poor woman! I set you free to return the the hellish pit from whence you came!"
I had walked in on an event that shook me to my soul. Vivica, my dear wife and the mother of my newborn child was staring down the church keep as if locked in a battle of wit. Her hatred could be felt across the room from where I was standing. Ever so slowly I began noticing things about the room that had been perverted by the touch of evil.
Every candle in the room that had once been a holy white had been discolored to the darkest of pen inks and the flame that they carried was a sickly green. The smell of spoiled eggs and burnt wood began to fill the room. The only thing unchanged was in the hand of the priest, a single holy candle and its pure flame filled the room with light. The priest was doing his best to exorcize what demon had taken hold of Vivica but it was to no avail. Mr. Orwell burst in directly behind me shouting that the moon was shining as brilliantly as fire in the night sky when he took sight on the room.
"Darian are you just going to stand there like you've fallen asleep? The church keep needs our help my friend!"
With that said, Orwell strode over to the bedside of Vivica and lifting a water dish from the small table he broke it on the back of her head putting her into a forced sleep. She fell back onto her pillow and blood began to soak the sheets.
"What just happened?"
My voice pierced the dread in the room and caught the attention of Orwell and the church keep.
"This would explain why she hasn't shown up for my sermons, Darian."
The church keep took a breath and then continued,
"I belive your wife to be a witch! A defiler of the lord Darian! Shortly after you left she began to speak in a tongue that I couldn't recognize and hurled a candle holder towards me. Whether or not she is a witch, she has been tainted by evil and there is only one way to keep her from plaguing the town with her lunacy! She will be taken up to the church grounds and burned to ash, you will lose her but it might be the only thing to save her soul. Is the child tainted Darian? It can only mean misfortune for our community if she has been, speak the truth man! God shall know the truth!"
My eyes then filled with tears as I came to my damnable decision. I then had the choice to save my self and my daughter; or I could try and save Vivica and risk the lives of us all. Do not belive for an instant that I am trying to justify my actions. At the time I was more worried about the well being of my newborn daughter than the impact of my decision at a later time.
"My child has not been tainted by that abomination that was once my wife! She is pure and shall not follow her mother to the grave, church keep!"
When I spoke those words I knew that I had damned my dear Vivica but I believed it to be the only way to save my child. Lilith was the only one I could save now, Vivica had already damned herself to a death in the name of god.
"You speak as one who shant lie in the face of god, your child shall be safe but give her to one of the women here and help me remove the garments of this demon. No longer shall she hide in the wool of sheep."
He turned to face Orwell with a face of rage and religious devotion.
"Orwell! Run through the town and get everyone together, my flock shall learn what happens when you abandon the holy spirit!"
The church keep spoke as if it were just another sermon to him, my mind is plagued now and forever by that night every time I close my eyes. If I could ever go back and change it there would be no second thought. Following the church keep's instruction we stripped the witch of her clothes and woke her with a pitcher of water to the face. Her head had stopped bleeding, and she seemed as if she had no recollection of what had happened not a few moments ago.
Let me speak the truth when I say that I wanted no part in the murder of my wife, however I was not even the mud on an honest man's shoes when I followed that church keep. Had I not done what I am writing about at this moment Lilith and I both would have been tied to that stake screaming into the night. Later I would find out that the reason that Vivica had stopped going to church was that the church keep used the holy rite of confession as a way to make her act out of wedlock. Her shame and hatred led up to her abandonment of the church and eventually she wrote to an old acquaintance of hers in England for a tome of the wicked ways.
The nights that I would leave her for the tavern she would practice the forbidden ceremonies, all the forsaken power she had gained however had been passed onto Lilith during the last few weeks of her pregnancy which is why she was born looking so different. Had she not passed that power on she would have been able to kill the church keep and to escape from this godless settlement with myself, and Lilith. I love my wife to this very day, and Lilith dear, if you happen to be reading this, know that your mother gave her life for you and that if she were here today you would never have to ask what happened to the life you could have had; know that this isn't your fault dear, and that I love you very much. You are one of the few things I have done right in my life and I am joyous with the thought that you shall not remember what a horrible man your father was.
In this following entry I shall detail how my dearest love dies and how the town became stirred into a religious frenzy and took away the only good thing we ever have in life, freedom. If you don't wish to disturb your mind then look away from this page, but if you want the account of her last moments read on and learn from my mistake.
"Darian? Darian what is happening? Where is my child? Where are my clothes?"
She was screaming and nearing tears, I never answered her but shortly after she became completely aware Orwell strode in with two lengths of rope and we three held her down and tied her arms together at the wrists and her legs together at the ankles and with what was left over we gagged her mouth with so that no spells could be cast to save her.
Orwell threw her over his shoulder and carried her kicking and struggling outside where a horse and cart awaited. The entire town square was lit by torches and angered townspeople. Each one leering at the witches shame, one of them helped Orwell tie her to the back of a cart so she could be dragged through the cold dirt and beaten by the members of the town on the way to the church grounds.
The church keep climbed atop the back of the cart and began speaking to the people of how my wife had turned to witchcraft, in our loving Christian community. That she wasn't really a human anymore and that she deserved our fit punishment because she had blasphemed against god. At the closing of his speech he bent down and took hold of the whip used by the cart drivers and began whipping her in front of the mass. I belive he was trying to set the example that she really was evil, fore the mob took the hint and began to throw rotten food at her.
Eventually after the cart driver had begun to make the slow trek up to the church grounds, a few of the churches more devout followers began to throw small rocks at her bare flesh. They kicked her in the back when she tried to shield herself and in the ribs when she began to cry. My silence was never broken for fear that the mob might turn on me for halting the witch hunt.
When we had made it half way up the trail the church keep stopped the cart driver to send Vivica into a new realm of shame and punishment. He picked her limp body up and bent her over the back of the cart and whispered something in her ear before he pulled the whip once again from the driver and began to beat her with the handle of it. Every time someone new would take the whip and try their turn at it. I couldn't take it anymore and I turned my face away from the sadistic show of group fear and hatred.
After everyone except myself had whipped her they once again started the slow march up towards the church grounds. All the while the mob was beating and spitting on her. I was almost relieved when we reached the church because I thought that it was all over that they would kill her mercifully and then it would be the end of it all. I however was once again mistaken and everything that led up to the church was just the mob warming up.
A few of the men ran ahead and began making the burning pit and gathered tools to assist them. When the rest of us reached the church Vivica had almost completely passed out from everything that was being done to her. To keep her awake however the priest filled a bucket of water from the churches well and tossed it on her, and then being joined by a few of the men they began to pull out knives and cut into her skin, not deep enough to kill her but deep enough to make her scream through the gag. When they ran out of room on her body to cut, they began to take the small hand axe and sever her fingers and toes from her body one by one. Tears were streaming down her face as if her eyes were waterfalls and all I did was hold the torch and watch as they prepared for the final cut. I grimaced and began to feel ill when they removed her thumbs and end toes.
To add to the humiliation even more; one of the men that was really getting into the destruction of my wife cut the gag from her face and asked her to speak her last words, that if she asked gods mercy maybe he would forgive her and save her soul from the depths of the pit of a thousand flames. She spit the blood from her mouth in his face and tried to bite off his nose but the other men held her back and pried open her mouth while the man that had cut off the gag proceeded to pull her tongue out of her mouth and cut it with a dull knife. Yelling to her that she would no longer blaspheme against the Lord with her witches tongue again.
Shortly after that they finished setting up the witches post and tied her to it, they let her hang there for a few moments while they started the fires beneath her. The church keep said a prayer both damning her and attempting to save her.
It took a short while but eventually they had the fires built up and she laid against the pole tied vertically looking on all her former peers before the flames crept up the pole and she screamed into the night. I would hope that she passed out from the heat and didn't feel her death but it is up to god to decide her fate, not mortal men.
The church keep said that if god chose to save her he would have, he then said a small prayer praising the townspeople for their just acts later on in the week as part of his sermon. Everyone after church that day said that they felt my loss. That I did right by not attempting to save her. I knew that it was all lies; they knew nothing of what I went through that night. Although they can freely wash the blood from their hands with forgiveness from that damned church keep. I shall carry my sins to my grave, and I shall never ask forgiveness from god. If there is a god then he has a sick sense of humor, I lost my wife because he was too cowardly to step forward and stop his children.
Lilith my dear, if you have read this far then you know the truth about your heartless and cowardly father. Please do not hate me dear, your mother is in a better place than I will be. In my last words dearest Lilith, I love you, learn from my mistakes and try to make someone very happy when you grow into a young lady. You have family in England, and if anything should happen to me I have willed a message to them. Hopefully one day you can forgive me for not taking action when I had the chance. Live for today Lilith, for one day that may be all you have.
Stumble!