Maggie's Grave

by David Sodergren

Bind her wrists and ankles and throw her in the river. If she floats, she’s a witch. If she drowns…she’s innocent.

Justice, aye? There was no justice. Just men with a perverse pleasure in the destruction of women’s bodies.

People talked, and there was nothing more suspicious to small-town minds than a woman living alone.

People just drifted away like fine grains of sand on an autumn breeze.

The town was ageing them prematurely, a decrepit vampire sucking their life-force with each dreary, wasteful day.

There was only so much you could say to the same people every day before staleness set in.

Was this parenthood? Love and fear combined into one tiny ball of unimaginable stress?

There, in the window of Maggie’s cottage, flickered a single candle.

Things are different at night, when the sun goes down and the spirits come out.

Once you’ve seen a witch tear a man inside out from his arsehole, you’ve seen it all.

It struck her that modern life was people talking, talking, talking, and no one really listening. She was as guilty of it as anyone.