Chapter Sixty-Seven
Sybil
Rain drizzled, alternating between strong and weak, as though struggling to do so. And yet the flames persisted, dancing closer
to Sybil, tongues of fire determined to burn. To destroy.
“Let me through,” a male voice called. “Sybil.”
But Sybil could not look up, not when the fire leaped between the split logs and licked at her feet in blistering bites.
Her mind, unbidden, flashed to Margery, to what she must have suffered through in her final minutes on this earth. What terror.
And what might Jacinda face if anyone suspected she caused the storm?
Sybil’s mind went hazy as she recalled her mother and the faint rosemary scent about her, the way she hummed the hearth’s
song before Sybil had ever heard it. How Henry sat by her side, the tender drone of his voice as he read to her. The way John
stroked her hair as they lay in a field, basking in the warmth of the sun.
Strong hands were at Sybil’s wrists, wrenching the rough rope free.
Pain flooded her body and she gave a gasping cough for air.
Finally free of their restraints, Sybil staggered forward on legs suddenly unable to bear her weight.
Reassuring arms came around her. “I have you.”
She looked up and recognized the man who carried her as he navigated the fire-strewn pyre.
John Griffin.
“John?”
“I couldn’t leave you.” Gently, he set her on the ground.
Sybil gasped in a lungful of fresh air and reveled in the sensation of the cool, wet grass against her feet. “Thank you.”
Her voice was thick with emotion, with gratitude.
“God love ye, John Griffin.” Kat hugged him first, then Sybil, catching her in an embrace that smelled of lavender and baking
bread.
“Kat, you saved my life,” Sybil said into Kat’s riot of red curls.
Her friend released her, shaking her head. “Yer good heart did that. They just needed a reminder.”
Anne stood solemnly aside, tears welling her large eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know how far this would go.” Sybil took the young woman’s hand and with the fullness of her heart said, “I forgive
you.”
Anne began to sob and Kat pulled the younger woman toward her.
“I wanted to do more.” John looked up to where the eighteen lifeless bodies still hung, rain dripping from their limp feet.
“I preached for days against the magistrate, against these trials.” His jaw flexed, his face lined with remorse as he repeated,
“I should have done more.”
“You will,” Sybil said.
He gave a single firm nod of determination. “I will.”
The dais where Matthew Hopkins once stood was now empty, evidently having abandoned the magistrate to his fate. Another coward
seeking only to save his own skin.
The younger guard approached, iron keys in his hands. He knelt at Sybil’s feet and looked up. “May I?”
There was such reverence in how he spoke, affording her the courtesy of choice when she had been robbed of so much in those
past weeks.
Throat too thick to reply, she simply nodded.
“Your mother saved my life.” He unlocked the left shackle first. “I’d have died at my birth were it not for her.”
Sybil put her hands over her heart, cherishing this memory of her mother as he unlocked the other shackle.
The iron fell away and the earth’s energy poured into her, a beautiful note that picked up where it had left off. As if there
had never been a separation between them. The sweetness infused her soul with love, with power, with strength.
And then Jacinda was there, and Sybil folded her into an embrace, breathing in the sunshine scent of her, her whole heart
bursting. Jacinda wavered on her feet, face pale even as the clouds overhead broke away in filmy white threads.
“I tried,” she said softly.
Sybil tightened her hold on her daughter. “You did well, my girl. You did well. And you sacrificed so much. I would never
have asked—”
Jacinda smiled tiredly at her. “I know. But I would do it again. No matter the cost, I would always do it again.”
When they finally pulled apart from one another, the guard was gone. But his story remained, another memory of her mother
for Sybil to tuck against her heart.
A riot of emotions charged through her. Relief and gratitude to be saved, joy to hold her daughter in her arms once more. And sorrow.
Such intense sorrow for the horror brought on by the day. For the eighteen who had been so viciously murdered before the mob.
“This is not the place for a reunion,” Sybil said sadly.
“Yet this is when we need one another most,” John said, opening his arms to both of them.
Sybil fell into this embrace, as did Jacinda. They remained there, a broken family reunited, quiet, humbled by tragedy.
A howl of rage sounded in the distance as the mob caught up with the magistrate.
Sybil found her gaze once more pulled to the eighteen innocent souls, all lost. She only hoped there would be no more. One
never knew how long spells took to manifest.
“I will speak against the abomination of witch trials to my dying breath,” John said as he released her and Jacinda.
She reached blindly for his hand and closed her eyes in relief when his fingers folded around hers.
There would be no rest until the world was safe for them all. For the women who society felt were useless because they could
not bear children. For the women who were too powerful for men to abide. For the women who dared reject men in positions of
power. And for the men who dared stand by those women.
The world was not safe yet. But on this day, everyone had been forced to see, to remember. And if nothing else, it was a start.