Emily Stowe

I woke up, head pounding hard with every beat of my heart. I sat up slowly and began to touch my face. The dirt from my hands burned my eyes a little and I strained to see my surroundings. It was unfamiliar. A dark room. Beside me was a straw mattress and a wash basin. A small, barred window to my right, and to my left was a door of smooth metal bars from the ceiling to the dirt floor.

"It wasn't just a bad dream", I thought, realizing I was sitting in a cell in the town's jail. I began to go over the despairing details of the day I had just experienced, though my mind was far from clear and my thoughts were vague and fuzzy. Then it hit me like a sharp blow to the gut.

"She cursed my son! Just an infant. My innocent baby boy and he... he died in his sleep. Lost in his dreams. Never to awaken again! He's DEAD!" The screams and painful sreeches of Elizabeth Cook pierced ears of those in the town meeting hall.

Another woman rose, readily presenting an accusation directed towards myself. "Emily Stowe has been worshiping Satan for years in those woods behind my house. My home burnt to ash just last week! IT WAS HER!". The crowd gasped and looked at me, their hot eyes burning and drilling into my face, steady and fierce.

The prosecutor, Judge Hutchson, looked in my direction. His chairman proceeded to do the same, looking up from their papers to meet my red eyes; salty tears falling to my chin.

"I'm innocent! I'm not a... a... w-w-witch", my voice broke as I attempted to plead my case. "I AM NOT A WITCH!", I barked at the unbelieving faces of the town I once called family.

My outburst sent the room into mania. Soon everyone was standing, shouting out at the judge, pointing fingers at me as they told their tales.

"Hang her! She spat on my land and my field has been bare two harvests."

"Boil her in hot oil!"

Execution propositions spread like wildfire.

"Let us tie rocks to her feet and watch the witch drown!", Mary Hogg cried, gripping onto the child in her arms. "Allow my poor baby to sleep in peace! She's up through the night crying with no promise to cease and it's that witches curse that stirs our homes! She cannot go unpunished!"

Cheers spilled out with every mention of executing me, the defendant, the alleged witch. I shuttered at the thought of being tried for this crime. God and I both knew that I had not commited this ungodly crime of witchcraft. Was that enough?

The room was brought to a calm murmur when the prosecutor pounded his mallet onto the wood-crafted, unfurnished table he was seated behind. Those before him sat slowly onto the pews of the hall and gradually quieted, silently permitting Judge Hutchson to speak.

"We have gathered enough suspicion to try and convict Miss Emily Stowe on the account of practicing witchery against the laws of the church of Farebrook, against the will of we, the town, and most of all, disobeying God and the Christian way. Miss Stowe, how do you plead to the charges against you?"

The room was stone cold then. Bodies of the townspeople stilled, besides their eyes, which moved into the direction of myself. I could feel hundreds of glares. The hate surged from every soul. The fear and passionate urge to gather rope was evident from the look on the disgruntled faces before me.

I froze, peering into the eyes of the young and old, seated in the long rows of pews. I thought to myself one question, "Why?". The unspoken inquiry lingered in my throat, never to be given breath.

"How do you plead, Emily?"

I then sat straight up in the handmade wooden chair beneath me and took in a giant gasp of air, letting it out slowly. I concentrated on the words I wanted to come from my mouth next. I had seen Sarah Good's fate. And that slave from Barbados. "I plead innocent and I'm sure to hang, unless I set another accusation. If I plead guilty I'm just as sure to be dangling from that Oak in the square." My thoughts flew, racing from one to another.

"I plead... g-gui..." I cleared my throat. "I, E-E-Emily Stowe plead g-guilty to the charges of witchery."

Gasps let out all around.

"Burn!"

"Hang her!"

"I knew it all along!" People cried out all throughout the crowded room.

"Order. Order. ORDER!", Hutchson tamed the frenzied crowd and broke the hysteria. "We now find the defendant, Emily Stowe, guilty as charged. She shall be hanged, noon tomorrow in the town square. Men, Take her to her cell."

I shook in fear and knew it was impossible for me to change my plea. The men ordered to take me away lifted me by my arms, tearing the sleeve of my mother's dress. I wished to fight them off but I was paralyzed with shock and fear of the upcoming day and the fate it inevitably brought me.

Once in my cell I vomitted in the far corner. Wiping my mouth I felt an unbalance in my feet, as if a soft gust of air was blowing me downwards. I fell, collapsed on the dirt floor of my cell, hitting hard against the ground with my head and fell into a deep, empty sleep.