“Witch!” Gaspard bellowed, his voice carrying across the village square as he dragged me toward the center of town. “Come and see! A witch hath been among us!”
Windows opened. Doors creaked. Faces appeared, curious at first, then horrified as they realized what was happening. Gaspard Coventry, their beloved hunter and protector, was dragging the village beauty through the street, her hands bound, her dress torn, her face bruised, proclaiming her a practitioner of dark arts.
“A witch?” someone called. “The Dubois girl?”
“I found her performing unholy rituals,” Gaspard shouted, the lie falling easily from his lips. “She tried to enchant me, to bend me to her will with demonic powers!”
People began to follow us, a growing crowd that reminded me sickeningly of the night Papa had been taken. The same faces, the same morbid curiosity, the same willingness to watch another’s destruction for their own entertainment.
We reached the village square, where the wooden stage used for the Harvest Moon ceremony still stood. The platform where just days ago, Papa had been selected for sacrifice. Where Father Simon had pulled our family crest from the bag through a honey-coated piece of wood, condemning my father to death by Gaspard’s design.
And now it would be the place of my condemnation as well.
Gaspard pulled me up the wooden steps, my bare feet catching splinters from the roughly hewn planks. He positioned me at the center of the platform, his hand still gripping my arm tightly enough to leave fresh bruises, as if he expected me to flee or perhaps vanish into thin air.
The crowd gathered, their faces a blur of suspicion and fear. But among them, I spotted two that stood out from the rest. Colette, her face streaked with tears, her hands pressed to her mouth in horror. And Margaret, standing nearby, her expression carefully blank but her eyes communicating a world of sorrow.
“Behold!” Gaspard shouted to the assembled villagers. “The witch Isabeau Dubois, whom I have caught in the act of dark sorcery!”
Murmurs spread through the crowd. Some nodded, already convinced by Gaspard’s word alone. Others looked uncertain, glancing between him and me with confusion in their eyes.
“She lies in the form of beauty to tempt good men,” Gaspard continued, his voice carrying across the square. “But beneath that fair skin beats the heart of a demon!”
“That’s not true!” I cried out, finding my voice at last. “He’s lying! He’s been hurting me, forcing himself upon me!”
The crowd’s murmuring grew louder. A few people exchanged uncertain glances. They had known me my whole life, had watched me grow from a child into a young woman. I had never shown signs of witchcraft, had never harmed anyone.
“Look at her neck!” someone called out from the crowd, pointing. “What are those marks?”
Every eye turned to my throat, where the choker Gaspard had given me couldn’t fully hide the ring of raw, bruised skin left by days wearing the iron collar. The evidence of his cruelty, visible for all to see.
Panic flashed across Gaspard’s face for an instant before his hunter’s instincts took over. “The marks of her dark magic,” he declared smoothly. “The demon she channeled left its touch upon her.”
“That’s not true!” I shouted, desperate now. “He chained me like a dog! He put an iron collar around my neck!” I turned my pleading eyes to the crowd. “Please, you know me. You’ve known me all my life. I am no witch. I’m Isabeau Dubois, the inventor’s daughter.”
For a moment, doubt flickered across many faces. People began to whisper among themselves, some pointing at my neck, others at my bound wrists and torn clothing.
“She’s lying,” Gaspard insisted, but I could hear the first note of uncertainty in his voice. He hadn’t expected me to fight back, to challenge his narrative.
“I’m not lying,” I said, my voice stronger now. “Gaspard has kept me prisoner since my father’s sacrifice. He’s been hurting me.” I looked directly at the women in the crowd. “He plans to force me to marry him. He was about to...” I swallowed hard. “He was about to breed me before the ceremony.”
A gasp went up from several of the women. They knew what I meant. They understood the horror of what Gaspard had intended.
For a moment, I thought I might have reached them. That they might see through Gaspard’s lies and recognize the monster beneath the handsome exterior.
Then Father Simon stepped forward from the crowd.
“My children,” he called, his voice carrying the authority of his position. “Do not be deceived by the witch’s silver tongue.”
He climbed the steps to join us on the platform, his black robes swirling around him like the wings of a carrion bird. His eyes, when they met mine, held no mercy, no doubt. Only cold certainty.
“We all know the goodness of Master Coventry,” he continued, gesturing toward Gaspard. “How he provides for our village, how he protects us from the dangers of the forest. Would such a man commit the sins this girl accuses him of?”
Heads shook throughout the crowd. Of course not. Not their hero, their provider, their protector.
“And let us remember,” Father Simon added, his voice dropping to a more ominous tone, “this girl’s lineage. Her mother never attended church, preferring to practice her... ‘herbal medicines’.” He made the words sound filthy, corrupt. “Witches have long used herbs in their evil spells. Like mother, like daughter.”
“My mother was a healer,” I protested, but my voice was drowned out by the growing murmurs of the crowd.
