13

As Nuala came to the door, in the bright morning sunshine she froze on the threshold. So many people. They’d all come to see her hung. To see her executed. Her once friends, now jeering and laughing at her standing, naked on the threshold to the town house. Her mind reeled at the fact that they were all bewitched and she was about to hang. She was going to be executed, by this monster. At the back of the gathered crowds, Nuala saw her best friend. She was red faces and clearly angry. She tried to imagine what her friend was thinking, clearly the situation was making her angry, but anger seemed to be the wrong emotion, sadness would have been more appropriate.

Laura wailed inside herself, she had never felt so impotent. She stood there with her fists clenched tensing and willing the fairy dust to come but nothing happened. She’d always been latent when it came to her natural fairy magic. She couldn’t summon it at will, like most fairies. The only thing that she could do better than any of her kin, was change. She could change in a snap. Everyone warned her that it was not good to change that quickly, that she’d hurt herself or damage her inner magic, but it was the one thing that she was good at and she’d be damned if she wouldn’t use that gift. She watched as her friend was led out of the town house and towards the waiting gallows and noose. ‘Come ON, will you’ she willed the fairy dust in her mind. The fairy dust that was now infused with the spell to break the demonic enchantment. She had to save her friend, she just had to. But all the time she was willing the fairy dust, she still didn’t 100% believe what she was seeing.

Nuala was led up the steps onto the platform and the crowd cheered as Matthew turned her to face them. There were chants of “Hang the Witch!” Over and over. Matthew waited a few moments before calming the crowd with a hand gesture. A young man carried over a ladder and propped it against the post of the gallows and the crowd erupted once more crying “Hang the Witch!” There was very little that The Witch Finder General could do. The crowd would not be calmed.

Laura watched in horror as Matthew turned her around and placed his hand under her crotch between her thighs and half lifted her onto the stool. As Nuala turned to face the crowd, Laura saw Matthew put his fingers into his mouth and suck them clean. Nuala was bright red even before the hanging had begun. 

Matthew stepped up a couple of steps onto the ladder, took the noose and loosened it wide. He quickly slipped the noose over Nuala’s head before she could react and pulled the tethered end through the coils tightening it around Nuala’s neck. He then hung the coils over her right shoulder and stepped back down.

The Mayor then stepped forward in front of the platform and ushered the crowd to silence as he began to speak, “Before we begin the proceedings today, I think we can all let out a cheer for The Witch Finder General who appeared in the village only yesterday morning and has swiftly brought the town witch to trial and will perform the execution in a few minutes. Hip Hip”
The crowd cheered and hollered and whooped before being quieted once more by the mayor, “Now before we begin, I must once more read the charges and the sentence to the condemned witch then I’ll hand back over to The Witch Finder General to carry out the sentence.” Turning to Nuala, he began, “Nuala, you have found guilt of witchcraft and casting evil incantations on the people of this village. For these crimes you have been sentenced to hang by the neck until you are dead. Mr Witch Finder General, you may proceed with the sentence.” The crowd erupted once more.

Laura watched the scene unfolding before her in horror. She was completely helpless to do anything. As she stood there at the back of the crowd willing her errant magic to produce the enhanced fairy dust, deep down inside her, a tiny part of Laura still couldn’t believe this was actually happening. That tiny part of her held on tightly to the magic and would not let it form. If it wasn’t really happening then her magic wouldn’t be needed. If her magic wasn’t needed her latency could remain. The latent magic was the part of herself that she hated the most. The part of her that meant she couldn’t call on her fairy dust when it was needed. The part of her that could, when called, produce a single grain of dust as soon as bury her in the stuff. The part of her that had let her give up trying to make the god damned stuff ever again. And now she stood here, the only person in the world who had the faintest chance of helping her friend and her impotence was doing its damnedest to condemn her best friend, her life long friend, the only person not to judge her for her impotence, to death. Laura screamed inside, ‘Come on you bastard, damn you, work.’ To her amazement a few sparks shot from her clenched fists with fairy dust. She opened her eyes with the shock, she was doing it! But as quickly as it had begun, it failed. A few random stray motes of dust. Laura felt a tear rolled down her face as she stared across the crowd at her friend. Her friend who starred right back at her. As Laura looked into Nuala’s eyes she could see that there was no anger there. She didn’t feel cheated that her best friend couldn’t help. She only felt sorry that Laura tried so hard and yet couldn’t quiet manage it. Nuala was going to die. She was going to stand there and watch her best friend die. She was going to see this bastard kick the stool from under her friends feet. She was going to see the rope grab her from falling. She was going to see the noose slowly crush the life from her friend. And there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it. 

As Laura watched she felt a second tear roll down her cheek and time slowed to a crawl. She saw Matthew slowly lift his left foot, place it onto the edge of the stool upon which Nuala stood. She saw Nuala’s eyes close as she felt the stool move beneath her. She saw the stool  slowly begin to move. She watched as Nuala’s legs compensated for the movement. She watched as the edge of the stool pass the centre of gravity. She watched as the edge pass the point where Matthew’s persuasive foot was no longer needed to carry the stool over. She watched as gravity took over and the stool skittered out from beneath her friend. She watched as it clattered off the platform. She watched as the rope grabbed her friend by the neck and she watched as her friend swung back under the jib dangling inches off the platform.

Laura looked down. Her clothes were on the ground. She was beating her wings and hovering over the crowd. Fairy dust streamed from every pore on her body, not the uncontrolled explosion that sometimes engulfed her like an avalanche, but a controlled release, falling gently onto the crowd below her.