🥮 please send 🙏 The autumn of 1704 smelled of woodsmoke and rot. It was a scent that clung to the wool of Elara’s cloak as she stood by the magistrate’s window, the glass pane cold enough to sting her fingertips. Inside, the fire roared, casting long, dancing shadows against the whitewashed walls, but Elara felt no warmth."Speak up, girl," Magistrate Thorne rumbled. He did not look at her; he was busy scraping the wax from a seal with a small, silver knife. "The Lord has no patience for whispers, and neither do I."Elara’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She could still feel the phantom weight of the dried hellebore and sage she had hastily buried beneath the floorboards of her father’s barn an hour ago. The village of Oakhaven had been on edge for weeks—cows souring, children waking with fevers, the sky turning a bruised purple at sunset. They needed a name. They always needed a name."It isn't... it isn't easy to say, sir," she stammered, her voice trembling not with the cold, but with the enormity of what she was about to do."Sin is never easy to confess, but silence is a sin of its own," Thorne said, finally looking up. His eyes were grey and flat, like stones in a riverbed. "You came to me claiming knowledge of the blight. Was that a lie?""No, sir." Elara closed her eyes. Behind her eyelids, she saw Sarah.Sarah, with hair like spun copper and a laugh that terrified the church elders because it was too free. Sarah, who had shown Elara how to listen to the roots growing in the dark and how to whisper to the bees so they wouldn't sting. Sarah, who had held Elara’s hand just yesterday by the millstream and promised they would be safe as long as they kept their secrets between them.But the Witchfinder was coming from Boston. Everyone said so. And when he arrived, he wouldn't stop at the surface. He would dig.Elara opened her eyes. Self-preservation was a bitter root, but she swallowed it whole."It’s Sarah Goodridge," Elara said, the name tasting like ash. "I saw her... I saw her by the old oak, near the Miller’s creek. She was burying something. A poppet, wrapped in twine and hair."Thorne went very still. "Sarah Goodridge. The weaver’s daughter?""Yes," Elara whispered. "She... she speaks to the ravens, sir. I’ve heard her. And the milk in her father’s pantry never spoils, even when the heat is high."It was a lie mixed with dangerous truths. The milk didn't spoil because Sarah knew which herbs kept it cool. She spoke to ravens because she was lonely. But in Oakhaven, difference was the devil’s fingerprint.Thorne stood up, the chair scraping harsh against the floor. "You have done a righteous thing, child. Go home. Lock your doors. Tonight, we purge the rot."Elara walked home in the deepening twilight. The wind bit at her cheeks, drying the tears before they could fall. When she reached the top of the hill, she looked down toward the Goodridge cottage. She saw the torches before she heard the shouting—a jagged line of fire moving through the dark like a wound opening up in the night.She watched as they dragged Sarah out. She was too far away to hear the screams, but she imagined them. She imagined Sarah’s eyes scanning the crowd, looking for her friend, looking for the one person who knew her heart.Elara turned away, pulling her hood tight. She was safe. The floorboards in her barn covered her own jars of nightshade and her own book of shadows. She was safe, and she was alone, and the silence of the night felt heavier than any shackle.
