The guards began to tie the women to the stakes, three to each one. When a guard tried to separate Jenny and Finwell, Jenny began to scream. “No! No! Let me stay with her!” she shouted, and the guard relented, shoving her roughly against the stake so that she banged her head. She started to slump as they tied her, and I realized she’d blacked out.
My mother was tied to the stake opposite me. She was scanning the crowd, and I waved until she saw me, and her face brightened.
I will never forgive myself for what I did then.
I froze.
There were too many words I wanted to say to her. I wanted to pull her away from the stake and save her and I wanted to push all the guards and the judges and tie them to the stakes, and at the same time I wanted to run away and hide in a cave and pretend none of this was happening. But instead, I froze and stared blankly at her, and she stared back at me, terror laid nakedly on her face.
The guards tossed gunpower around the stakes and threw in the torches. In seconds, the flames were creeping up the wood, sending black clouds of smoke whirling into the air. The noise of the sea and the crackling wood grew louder, but suddenly a loud voice sounded from the front. I looked up and saw it was Finwell, her head reared back and her mouth open.
“I curse you, sons of Duncan, and your sons’ sons, and all the people who stand before me now. I curse you that Lòn Haven will atone for our blood, and that there will never be peace on this island until our innocence is spread throughout the whole of Scotland!”
The other women started shouting their own curses, calling up the fae, conjuring the powers of darkness on the island, a chorus of rage rising up amidst the flames. It was an astonishing sight, and the crowd were shocked into silence. And as the women started to fall unconscious, consumed by smoke and flame, one voice in the crowd sounded loudly.
“I curse you all, people of Lòn Haven! I curse you to burn your own children just as you’ve burned my mother!”
It was Amy, shouting at the people around her.
The crowd moved back, wary of the cacophony and the flames, which were being driven by the wind toward them. The sky darkened and the waves lashed at the rocks. In a moment, I watched as a guard grabbed Amy by the hair and started to drag her toward the stake, apparently with the intention of burning her with the others. My mouth was wide in horror, and I was still rooted to the spot, nailed down by fear and the strange, weightless sensation that this wasn’t real, that it wasn’t happening.
A judge shook his head at the guard, who gruffly shoved Amy to the ground. I would learn later that the only reason her life had been spared was because the Royal Inquiry had a strict judicial process in place for witches—a barbarous process, yes, but one that had order.
In a moment, the rest of the women’s cries died out, their voices quenched by the flames. The crowd began to tire of the scene; children grew restless, babies cried for milk. I stayed until Amy rose up from her spot on the ground and huddled close to me, both of us watching our mothers and Amy’s sister consumed by the fire, black smoke rising into the darkening sky.
LUNA, 2021
I
It’s morning; Luna wakes with a drumming headache and a strange euphoria at having survived the night. The sun is shining, the loch a bright lens and the hills proud and purple with heather. Last night’s torrential downpour is a distant memory, save the pans full of water on the kitchen floor and the wet patch on the ceiling. She stares up at it and sighs. She’ll have to message the owner. There will be money owed for repairs. But first, she needs to deal with Clover.
Luckily, Clover seems a little less hell-bent on destruction this morning. She asks for Pop-Tarts—which Luna bought on request—and they eat those together at the dining table, both in their pajamas. For a moment, Luna considers not mentioning the overflowing bath episode. But she knows, from her training, that Clover needs to talk about this. Silence never works.