A Judgement

Good Hannah Kent found herself in the village stocks the year the lake froze. The winter was vinegar bitter, and food supplies were low. Rumor went from house to house, knocking at each door and telling all within that witchery was to blame.

Eyes everywhere were on the lookout for a follower of the dark arts, a bride of Old Nick. It was said you could tell a witch by certain signs, such as fiery eyes or extra fingers, but the villagers were at first unable to lay blame on anyone.

But then, one day, Hannah Kent was dragged before the magistrate, the hem of her dress soaked through with mud. She had been seen talking to a mysterious cat in a clearing at the edge of the forest. The gray creature has approached her unbidden, emerging from the trees like a long suppressed secret.

It was likely Hannah was going to be brought in for something eventually that winter. With her dark looks and far away demeanor, a person simply couldn’t help but feel uneasy in her presence. And in these difficult times of tribulation, an uneasy sensation in the pit of the stomach was sufficient for an accusation.

Hannah pled not guilty of association with the Devil, insisting she had merely been trying to shoo the cat back into the woods. No one believed her, but the lake was frozen solid, so it was impossible to dunk her and find out. Instead, the magistrate opted to place her in the stocks “until suche tyme as she doth confess unto her wickedness.”

Hannah had no intention of admitting to such an accusation, however. It would mean certain hanging or, if the circumstances severe enough, death by bonfire, an agony beyond agony. She would die in the stocks, if need be, before allowing herself to be staked and incinerated.

Led to the center of town by a chain around her neck, Hannah was made to climb aboard a low platform and place her head and wrist into a wooden yoke. The top of the contraption was then lowered to meet the bottom half, and Hannah found herself immobilized in the village square.

It was still early dark out. The weather was pensive, the sky a troubling shade of black. Distant stars winked out as sunrise crossed the horizon. When the cock crowed, the villagers emerged from their homes to see Hannah pinioned in the stocks.

“For shame!“ the housewives called out to her. “For shame, Hannah Kent!”

“Conversing with Old Nick, she was,” one of them told the others, even though everyone assembled already knew the cause of her confinement. “It’s on account of her, the wheat has gone to mildew in the storage bin. It is her wickedness that hath brought this starvation upon us!”

Hannah bravely endured her public shaming with much grace that first day of her imprisonment. Keeping her eyes downcast, she silently bore the villagers’ caustic oaths.

As night fell, a cluster of pious housewives began calling on Hannah to confess. “Do not let this day pass without the unburdening of thy grave sin,” one of them cried to her.

Hannah kept her eyes lowered, refusing to acknowledge the woman’s blandishments. Then, night came on, stealing across the late afternoon the way death steals across a fallen soldier.

All went indoors but Hannah, who could not. As the night deepened into darkness, Hannah felt an isolation as heavy as perspiration settle up on her. Her kinfolk had kept away from the Square today, hiding their faces in shame. Exhaustion and hunger vied for her attention, but she chose to dwell on other matters instead. She could not but wonder who had milked the goats today, who had kept the kitchen fire going? How was the household faring without her?

Then, of a sudden, a sickness came over her as she felt a movement about the ring of her ankles. A furry presence traveled around one foot and then the other, purring loudly as it moved in circuits between her feet.

“Go, cat, go!” she hissed, kicking at the little creature as best she could. “You’ll get me killed, you will!” she told it. “Git!” she said, adding a measure of venom to her voice.

But the cat would not leave. Instead, it hopped to the top of the stocks, in a bound that measured at least 6 feet.

“No!” Hannah told the cat. “Go!” But the feline visitor merely ambled to the center of the structure, where it sat idly above her head, licking its paws and flicking its tail.

“You know,” it said to her, “you don’t have to accept this treatment. You’re better than they are. More powerful.”

“You wish to see my burning,” she told the cat. “Else you would not be here in this manner.”

“I wish only to see you claim your rightful powers,” the animal replied. “I wish only that you give these townspeople exactly what they deserve.”

“Well, you will see none of that if the two of us are discovered together,” Hannah answered, “For they will certainly burn me on the morrow.”

But the cat was unmoved. “Tomorrow will be even the worse for you,” it said. “You have been given a full day’s passing to confess and repent. Yet you have remained stubborn in the face of their talk. Now they will take recourse with additional measures. And that is as it should be. For by their tauntings you will be empowered. You will find your anger and you will strike them down. Then you and I will leave here together.”

“Oh yes, and where will we go?” she asked of the cat.

“You will see,” it replied before slipping off into the night.

As the moon passed overhead, she stood there suspended in the stocks, locked in position, her legs becoming sore, her hands swelling from lack of circulation. Occasionally she would drift into sleep, but in a few short moments a chill wind with slam about her face and whip her hair up around her head. In the cold air she shivered feverishly and her hands grew numb as frostbite threatened to overtake her fingers.

Then morning brought with it a ruder contingent of townspeople, all of whom had seemingly grown bolder over the course of the evening. No longer did they merely call out to her and offer up insults. Now the abuse became physical as well. What started as brisk slaps in the face that morning had progressed to hurled rocks by noon. As the sun came to a pause directly overhead, a quorum of villagers stood ringed in a semi-circle in front of her, taunting her and drawing bruises and bloodshed with a series of hurled projectiles that included pine cones, dried corn cobs, and even round discs of horse and cow manure.

“You witch!” they all chanted. “Whore of the devil!”

“Confess now and receive a quick hanging!” one man yelled.

At last, anger began to bloom within her. It came on slowly at first, made shy by the frightful nature of her predicament. She did not welcome the anger, but feared the consequences it might bring to her. And yet it came anyway, moving through her the way a fever moves through a plague victim.

At first, she merrily raised her head and stared with insolence at her abusers, locking eyes with them with such a glare upon her face they couldn’t help but look away, warm shame reddening their faces and stealing their bluster.

A handful of people peeled away from the crowd, frightened by the thought that a hateful witch had glared upon them with murderous intent in her eyes. They worried a curse might now hang above them, and wanted little more than to be forgotten by Hannah Kent and so slunk away to finish chores and engage themselves elsewhere.

Those who stayed behind became even worse in their treatment of her. The rocks got even heavier, the dung fresher. The breaking point came when a pregnant wife walked all the way to the front of the yard and hurled a container of pig slop over Hannah’s head. The swill matted in her hair, clumping it together, inducing Hannah to nausea with it smell of rotting vegetables and week-old fish meat.

The wife glared at Hannah, a smirk setting confidently upon her face.

“I would lose that expression, Mary Taylor,” Hannah said to her. “For two months hence that child you bear shall come forth into the world as dead as that soul of yours. And it will be your only one. You will never bear life again.”

Mary Taylor paled in the wake of her pronouncement and began backing away, so frightened was she by the rigid certainty in Hannah’s voice.

Now other abusers came forward, forcing Hannah’s ire to even greater heights. With each exchange she found even greater hostility within herself, belting out egregious insults and hostile pronouncements.

At last the villagers found an anger to match her own. Moving to the front of the assembly, a young man by the name of Daniel Truegood raised his hands and instructed the women to leave the yard.

“There is only one way to bring one such as this to heel,” he told the waiting crowd. As the women walked away, Daniel motioned the men forward.

“Hannah Kent, you know not your station,“ he said with an air of self importance. “It lies upon the townsmen to teach it you.” And with that the men began to close in on her, laughing and jostling as they grabbed at her haunches and began forcing her legs apart. Other hands pressed at her waist, forcing her body into the pillar and rendering her motionless against their will. She felt her skirt lifted upwards and her underthings ripped away. There was a pause and then something firm and fleshy began to press into her.

“No!” she screamed. “No by Old Nick himself! I am not yours for the taking!”

And with that she began mumbling beneath her breath, sending out an implication that charged the air around her with a new energy that caused her attackers to look up in surprise. From out of nowhere, a storm had a risen and was now settling in over the village. Then violent thunderclaps shook the yard and Daniel Truegood, who only moments before had entered her so shamefully, now fell dead as a bolt of lightning slammed into him.

Then a second bolt bit into the pillar itself, breaking the wooden half and freeing Hannah from her restraints.

The men began scrambling away from her, terrified at this unexpected display of power. Though stiff with soreness, Hannah bent and retrieved a section of broken wood, driving it into the head of one of her attackers. He went over without a sound. A scream traveled forth from her lungs as she summoned more of the carnal power the villagers so feared.

“I will slaughter you all to the child,” she wailed as her eyes grew bright and fiery.

But then there was a motion at her feet, and she looked down to see the cat once more. “No, Hannah,” it said to her. “Now is not the time. Now you come away with me, deep in to the woodlands, where you can perfect your abilities and render yourself untouchable. Come now, Hannah, before it is too late.”

And with that it began moving off towards the forest once more. Hannah stood with her arms at her side until it looked back and beckoned with its head.

Hannah followed, leaving the town to quake in its fear.