The Year of the Witching

by Alexis Henderson

It often seemed like everything she owned was either too big or too small, like she wasn’t fit for the world she was born to.

“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?”

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.

“People do foolish, reckless things when they’re desperate to find ways to escape themselves.” He sighed and hung his head. “As ugly as it is, sometimes the truth is nothing more than that.”

Sometimes I wonder if my secrets are better swallowed than spoken. Perhaps my truths have done enough harm. Perhaps I should take my memories to the grave and let the dead judge my sins.

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.

“Good people don’t bow their heads and bite their tongues while other good people suffer. Good people are not complicit.”

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.