“There is only one way to be certain,” Father Simon announced, raising his hands for silence. “Only one method that never fails to reveal a witch.” He paused for dramatic effect, his eyes cold as they met mine. “Water will not accept a witch’s body. If she floats, she is in league with the devil. If she sinks... then God hath accepted her innocent soul.”
My blood ran cold. The water test. A death sentence either way. If I drowned, I would be declared innocent, but I would still be dead. And if by some miracle I survived, they would burn me as a witch. Everyone had drowned that went into the vile contraption.
“Bring the cage!” Father Simon commanded.
Three men stepped forward from the crowd, dragging between them what looked like a human-sized bird cage made of iron bars. Its door hung open on creaking hinges, a portal to my doom.
“Please,” I begged, looking out at the sea of faces I had known all my life. “Please listen to me. This is murder, just as my father’s death was murder!”
But it was too late. The villagers’ eyes had hardened, their minds made up. I was already condemned in their sight, already something other than human. The iron cage was dragged up onto the platform, its door yawning open to receive me.
I looked desperately for Colette in the crowd. She stood frozen, tears streaming down her face, clearly wanting to speak but too terrified to move. I caught her eye and shook my head slightly.Don’t, I tried to tell her with my eyes.Don’t sacrifice yourself for me. They’ll kill you too.
She understood. Her shoulders slumped in defeat, but she remained silent, saving her own life even as mine was forfeit.
Margaret stood beside her now, one arm around the younger woman’s shoulders in silent comfort. Their eyes met mine, two women powerless against the tide of hatred and fear that was about to consume me.
Rough hands seized me, shoving me toward the iron cage. I struggled automatically, but it was useless with my hands still bound. They forced me inside, the metal cold against my skin as the door clanged shut behind me.
“Take her to the river,” Father Simon commanded. “Let God’s water reveal the truth.”
Four men lifted the cage, carrying me as if I were already a corpse. The crowd parted to let them through, then followed in a grim procession to the deep river that marked the boundary between our village and the Forbidden Forest beyond.
The river that would be either my grave or the witness to my condemnation as a witch.
The journey was mercifully brief, though each jolt of the cage sent pain shooting through my already battered body. The sun was setting now, casting long red streaks across the water’s surface. Blood in the river, an omen of what was to come.
They carried me to the deepest part, where the current ran slow but strong. Where the water was deep enough to swallow me whole.
Father Simon stood at the riverbank, his arms raised in false supplication. “Lord, reveal to us thy truth. Show us if this woman is of thee or of thy enemy.”
The men holding the cage waded into the water until it reached their waists. I clutched the iron bars, heart hammering against my ribs. I knew how to swim—Papa had taught me in this very river when I was small. But with my hands bound and trapped in an iron cage, that knowledge would do me no good.
“May God have mercy on thy soul,” one of the men muttered, almost apologetically, as they prepared to submerge the cage.
I took one last, deep breath as they pushed the cage beneath the surface. The cold water rushed in, soaking my dress, my hair, climbing rapidly up my body. My lungs burned with the held breath as the cage sank deeper, the men’s hands guiding it down, down into the murky depths.
The light dimmed as I descended, the last rays of sunset distorted through the rippling surface above. The iron cage settled on the riverbed, mud clouding around it as the metal bars sank into the soft bottom. I struggled against my bonds, panic mounting as precious seconds ticked away.
My chest ached with the need to breathe. Spots danced before my eyes. I yanked frantically at the rope binding my wrists, but succeeded only in deepening the already raw wounds. The lockon the cage door remained stubbornly shut, impervious to my increasingly desperate attempts to break free.
This was it, then. The end. I would drown here, and they would pull my lifeless body from the river and declare me innocent…too late for it to matter. Too late for justice, too late for vengeance against the men who had murdered Papa and condemned me.
As my consciousness began to fade, that strange sensation returned. The humming at the back of my mind, growing louder, more insistent. Warmth spread through my limbs despite the icy water, a fire beneath my skin that defied the river’s chill.
The energy built like a wave, starting in my core and radiating outward through every part of me. My vision cleared, the spots disappearing as new strength flowed into my oxygen-starved body. I felt the power gathering, coiling like a spring about to release.
And then it exploded from me in all directions.
The iron bars of the cage bent outward as if struck by a giant’s hammer. The rope around my wrists disintegrated into floating fibers despite being in water. The lock on the cage door blew completely off, tumbling away in the current.
I was free.
My lungs screaming for air, I kicked toward the surface, my arms reaching upward through the water. The current tried to drag me downstream, but determination gave me strength I didn’t know I possessed. My head broke the surface, and I gasped, drawing sweet air into my burning lungs.
The shouts from the shore reached me immediately. Screams of “Witch!” and “She lives!” and “God save us!” The villagers backed away from the riverbank as if I might leap from the water and curse them all.
I treaded water, trying to orient myself. The current had carried me several yards downstream from where they’dsubmerged me. On the far bank, the dark line of the Forbidden Forest loomed, forbidding but also... beckoning. My only chance.
