The Year of the Witching

by Alexis Henderson

“A curse,” she whispered, still smiling to herself. “A little curse, just as she said. Just as she told me.” The midwife clutched the child close, locking her fingers to still their shaking. She gazed down at her daughter, lying limp on the table, a dark pool of blood between her thighs. “Just as who told you?” “The woman in the woods,” the dying girl whispered, barely breathing. “The witch. The Beast.”

From the light came the Father. From the darkness, the Mother. That is both the beginning and the end.

As for the girls like Immanuelle—the ones from the Outskirts, with dark skin and raven-black curls, cheekbones as keen as cut stone—well, the Scriptures never mentioned them at all.

But Immanuelle knew this much: She had far too many sins to count.

Immanuelle was a strong reader. As a matter of fact, reading was one of the few things she felt she was truly good at, one of the few things she prided herself on. She sometimes thought that if she had any Gift at all, it was that. Books were to her what faith was to Martha; she never felt closer to the Father than she did in those moments under the shadow of the book tent, reading the stories of a stranger she’d never met.

“Isn’t it strange how reading a book is a sin, but locking a girl in the stocks and leaving her to the dogs is another day of the Good Father’s work?”

She wasn’t just Immanuelle now. She was more. And she was less. She was in the Darkwood. And the Darkwood was in her too.

It is an odd love between the Father and the Mother, between the light and the darkness. Neither can exist without the other. And yet they can never be one.

I have seen the evils of this world, and I have loved them.

We have broken ourselves to be together. The fragments of me fit with the fragments of you, and our remnants have become greater than the sum of who we used to be.

“Goddamn it, Immanuelle.” She turned on him then, so fast her heel dug deep into the dirt. “Such a filthy tongue for a prophet’s son.” “It’s a filthy world,” he snapped.

The woman is a cunning creature. Made in the likeness of her Mother, she is at once the creator and the destroyer. She is kind until she is cruel, meek until she is merciless.

The forest is sentient in a way man is not. She sees with a thousand eyes and forgets nothing.

This was the great shame of Bethel: complacency and complicity that were responsible for the deaths of generations of girls. It was the sickness that placed the pride of men before the innocents they were sworn to protect. It was a structure that exploited the weakest among them for the benefit of those born to power.

“It’s almost the witching hour,” said Martha, and a bitter smile touched her lips. “Perhaps that’s what the Prophet should have named this wretched year. It’s more fitting, don’t you think? The Year of the Witching.”

“I hope you said your prayers,” said Ezra, yelling above the wind. “Because we’ll both have sins to atone for by the time the night’s through.

To be a woman is to be a sacrifice.

“You’re a sick, sinful girl, do you know that?” Immanuelle almost smiled in spite of it all. “So I’ve been told.”

True evil didn’t lurk in the depths of the Darkwood. It was not in Lilith or her coven, or even in any of the curses they cast. True evil, Immanuelle realized now, wore the skin of good men. It uttered prayers, not curses. It feigned mercy where there was only malice. It studied Scriptures only to spit out lies.

“You can cut me if you wish. Chain me to the pyre, douse me with kerosene, and light a match. But it won’t be enough to save your life . . . or your wretched soul.”

For Ezra, she said to herself, turning his name over in her head. For Honor. For Glory. For Miriam. For Vera. For Daniel. For Leah. For Bethel and all of the innocents in it.

I have seen the beasts of the wood. I have seen the spirits that lurk between the trees and swam with the demons of the deep water. I have watched the dead walk on human feet, kept company with the cursed and the crucified, the predators and their prey. I have known the night and I have called it my friend.

And finally, to the survivors, to the underdogs, to the people who speak the truth when the world tries to silence them: thank you.