Chapter Sixty
Sybil
Sybil was forced outside and pushed onto a wooden cart. Her eyes ran with tears against the brilliant sunlight, trying to
adjust after being so long in the darkened prison.
Still squinting, she took in the condemned women and men alongside her, their faces drawn, haggard with exhaustion.
Crowds of people pressed against the cart as it rolled forward, making slow progress. They’d come armed with rotten food and
insults to hurl with vicious abandon.
After only several minutes, the cart stopped before a small, narrow building, just outside the market.
Sybil had spent much of her life in this area, procuring food and sundries. Then there was the Maypole in the spring, and
at Christmastide in winter the mulled wine and hot roasted chestnuts that Jacinda always burned her fingers on in her haste
to get to the sweet nut within.
These memories clogged in Sybil’s throat, blazing with the realization that there would be no more.
Rough hands grasped Sybil by the shoulders, hauling her from the cart with such force she stumbled.
Several women descended upon the prisoners with scissors. Sybil looked up at the woman before her, recognizing her wide blue
eyes.
“Mrs. Jones?” Sybil asked as the woman took her hands.
The woman looked up, her brows lifting in startled recognition. “Mrs. Brantham.”
Mrs. Williams was there, as cold and steely as she’d been when shaving Sybil’s hair from her body and prodding at her with
a hollow bodkin. She shot a hard glare at Mrs. Jones.
“Forgive me,” Mrs. Jones whispered.
Before her arrest, Sybil had softened her cuticles with lavender and calendula-infused rose oil, her nails kept clean and
perfectly rounded. Now they were black with grime, the cuticles ragged, the brittle nails uneven and chipped.
With surprising care, Mrs. Jones snicked the broken nails into a brown jar and twisted the cap into place.
Likewise, the other prisoners were having their nails hastily clipped. The ones who still had hair lost locks that were crudely
shorn and stuffed into jars.
Those brown jars would be tucked into the basement of the building, separating the nails and hair from the witches being killed.
For those not buried whole would be denied entry into heaven. Or so they believed.
Once the jars had been sealed, the men and women were crammed back onto the cart. Margery’s hair had been hacked with intentional
cruelty, an obvious attack against her beauty.
She clasped Sybil’s hand and squeezed her grip. Sybil squeezed back. For strength, for comfort.
Beneath the jeers of the mob pressing around the cart, the unmistakable murmur of the vicar droned on in prayer, begging mercy for their souls.
When they finally came to a stop on Thingoe Hill, a crude wooden beam awaited them, affixed with eighteen ropes. To the right
was a pyre of split logs with a stake jutting from the center. For Sybil.
Beside her, a woman whimpered, and a puddle formed beneath her feet.
Though many townspeople followed the procession of the cart, many more were already waiting by the gallows. Hundreds.
Mayhap even thousands.
Lightheadedness overwhelmed Sybil and she swayed on her feet.
A breeze stirred from the east, and she closed her eyes, letting its sweetness wash over her cheeks, savoring the moment of
nature, breathing in the verdant fragrance of sun-warmed grass and late summer blossoms.
Oh, how she longed to have her shackles removed, to let the earth embrace her into death.
The wind picked up, whipping her shift against her body.
She blinked her eyes open. Clouds crowded the horizon, ferociously dark in contrast to the clear sunny day only moments before.
Unnatural.
Frantic suddenly, she searched the faces of the gathered crowd when Margery’s hand was abruptly ripped from hers. Too late
to stop, Margery was pulled away along with the other condemned until only Sybil remained.
The women and men were marched to the gallows in a single line and nooses were looped around their necks. A charged silence
descended on the crowd and lightning flickered in the clouds.
Matthew Hopkins stepped forward. “You die today for your admission and evidence of witchcraft. As of this day, the world will be rid of your wicked ways.”
The crowd cheered, a cry of savage bloodlust.
The executioner slid behind the row of prisoners, a black hood masking his face.
He stood behind the first woman—Mary Bacon, whose husband had recently been arrested for trying to help her. Just that morning,
she had learned her son had, indeed, embarked on the journey to the Connecticut Colony in the New World.
With a single shove from the executioner, she flew from the platform. Her scream was cut short by the brutal snap of the rope.
Her feet thrashed as her body swung, jerking in helpless spasms.
The masses roared with approval.
Sybil gripped the splintered railing of the cart.
The horror had begun.
The executioner did not wait for Mary Bacon to die before he moved on to the next soul, the old vicar whose mouth still moved
in prayer, no doubt offering support to those around him until his last, dying breath.
Next…
A sob choked in Sybil’s chest.
The executioner stopped behind Margery, her beautiful hair jaggedly hacked, her face crumpled. Her voice rose above the crowd
in a desperate pitch. “Tell my husband I love him. Please. Tell—”
She flew forward and was yanked back by the rope about her neck. Her legs kicked in desperation, body swinging like a fish
on a line.
Cheers erupted at the death of a woman with too much life left to live.
Nausea churned in Sybil’s stomach, and she turned away.
She could see no more.
But though her eyes stopped the horror, her ears caught every groan of the taxed wooden beam. Every gurgled choke as the rope
caught. Every effusive cry of excitement for another innocent murdered.
Thunder rolled overhead and rain spit down at her.
When the final victim had been sent to their death, the creak of the cart opening once more drew Sybil’s attention.
Two guards hauled her to the grass, her feet heavy and awkward in her shackles. At the gallows, eighteen bodies swayed as
the wind whipped about Thingoe Hill with a frenzy.
She knew that kind of storm. And the young woman who could cause it.
Please not today.
Even as she thought it, she caught sight of reddish-gold hair in the mob.
Jacinda.
Sybil’s blood ran cold.
Jacinda should not have come. And certainly, she should not be brewing this storm before an excited crowd who would eagerly
see her swing from a rope.
Regardless of what Jacinda intended, it would not be enough. The risk she placed upon herself was in vain.
Sybil would be dead within the hour and no longer able to protect her daughter.