8

Nuala was guided in front of a young man dressed in casual clothes. He didn’t look like a jailer, just an ordinary many. She kind of recognised him like she’d seen him around the village on occasion. From the back of the court room he guided her across a hallway and around a wall to descend a flight of stairs. She tried her best to take her time as she was not able to hold the handrail with her hands still cuffed behind her and the heels that she’d slipped on that morning were making her feel unsteady, but the man behind her was insistent that she moved on quickly. 

As they descended the stairs Nuala turned to him and said, “Slow down will you, I’m having difficulty in these heels. Hey, don’t I know you?”

“You don’t know me. I don’t associate with Witches”

“Come On! You know I’m not a Witch. This whole think is a set up. Do you have any idea what is going on?”

“A set up? That’s not what I just saw. I saw a Witch being convicted and sentenced to hang.” he replied, “Now shut up and get your arse down these stairs.”

Nuala turned back and continued down the stone stairs. She was lead through a heavy wooden door with a small viewing hole in the centre and into a small cell. Before she had had time to turn around the door slammed and the bolts were thrown across.

The room was small maybe only two and a half meters in length and about one and a half wide. The ceiling arched and there was a single window in the end wall high up, with bars crossing it. She suspected that the window looked out just below the town house. There was very little in the room, a small toilet bowl, a sink a bed of sorts, more like a cot, and a small shelf on the wall in the corner. 

Despite her cool demeanour,  Nuala was now beginning to get a little scared. What the hell was wrong with everyone. This situation had gotten way out of hand way too quickly.

With nothing better to do she sat on the only chair in the cell to, ‘how had he put it?’, admit my sins and atone for them. She sat there for what seemed like hours. She watched the sun slowly crawling across the barred window and mulled over the situation situation. For the first time that day she realised her feet ached, she kicked off the heels and placed her feet on the floor. The stone felt good on her aching feet. Now if only she could get the cuffs of her wrists she maybe able to get comfortable. As she sat there she could hear voices. That was Laura out there. Had she also been bewitched? Was she out there blabbing about Nuala’s magic? Surely, also being Fae she could not easily be bewitched. She walked back over to the door to hear better. 

“Let me see her!” Laura insisted, “I want to see my friend. You’ve got it all wrong. She’s not a Witch.”

“I’m sorry Miss Laura, she has been fairly tried and convicted. She is a witch in the eyes of the law and that’s all that matters now.” It was the voice of the man who’d brought her down here. Laura was trying to fix things. Nuala shivered, the stone had gone from being a relief to her tired feet to being a heat sink. The sun was now sinking low and its warming effect was fading. The stone floor was sucking the heat from her. She walked back over to her chair and plonked herself down whilst she squirmed her toes back into the unforgiving heels once more. The noises continued for some time. Laura wasn’t giving up on her friend so easily. But the man was as stubborn as Laura and she was making no progress. Eventually Laura was ushered out of the front of the town house and she saw her friends feet disappear as she walked across the plaza.