Elizabeth Proctor

I would have died today. I just recalled. It feels strange to remember a time I was sure I was fated to die, even more so that I had welcomed the thought. I can still feel the grit of the stone walls and floor trapping me, vividly recount the putrid smell from rows of prisoners going months without bathing, unable to be seen with my eyes, but quite clearly with my nose. I'd refused to lie. I could not bring myself to fabricate stories of witchcraft, ghouls, drama, to save my own soul. My mind was drawn only to John, how he had died refusing to relinquish his name and self respect to the clergy, and their cruel judgements. John, now dead. Hanged. Just like all the others. All those I had called friends. Now, I had nothing. No one. My home, my loved ones, my sense of belonging and community, they'd all been taken away, somewhere they'd never return. All that was left of me was a shell of a human, and the life growing inside it. My pregnancy had been the only thing keeping me from an immediate execution, but for the longest time it made no difference to me. I did not care whether I lived or died. Day to day, I woke up, walked in circles, ate, drank, sat down, got up, walked around some more, and went to sleep, all in this little cell, no larger than a washroom,  smelling like one too. Sometimes, I would scratch drawings on the wall with my fingernails for entertainment, or if I was feeling particularly depressed, stare out of the room's barred window, into freedom. The wildlife, little bright yellow and red blossoms, the sheep out on a stroll, coming out to graze, the sunset with colors like that of a peach, all of these things I had taken for granted when I had been on the outside. Now, the only life with which I could interact was the odd rat that stumbled through, sensed there to be no sustenance around, and left. As the days turned to weeks, and as the 9 months of guaranteed survival ran dry, my pessimism only grew. All that I could hope for was a swift birth and death.

After perhaps eons of waiting, biding my time until the inevitable, my time was up. The hours of labour were torturous, even with some of the remaining townsfolk entering to help the process, but after the months spent trapped inside this cage, with little stimulus aside from eating the same tasteless slop left at my feet, the excitement was strangely refreshing. Yet through it all, my plans had remained decidedly unchanged. All I could do was mentally prepare myself for what was to come. In fact, I had been so wrapped up in my thoughts as a way of escaping my agony, I had neglected that agony's outcome. When the procedure ended, I looked at the creature that had given me so much pain, and yet had sustained me the past year. It had been a concept in my mind until then. The baby, the resentencing, the hanging. I had gone over it perhaps thousands of times. But it hadn't occurred to me for a long time that this being would one day grow into something real, something tangible, not just a landmark to be awaited. And as I watched its crying face, kicking and shoving those trying to calm it down, something odd happened. The tears streaming down its cheeks. The incessant howl that would not be stopped. Seeing these things, I suddenly imagined this same child, five, ten years in the future, the same tears, the same cry, wondering where mother and father had gone. Why they had left it to die. All the pain I had gone through not just those past days, but those months trapped in that place, the burden of knowing my fate, exactly how I was to die, all of it had been lifted from me. As I reached out for my baby and held her in my arms, left a kiss on her forehead and watched her face soften, her eyes no longer wet, I realized then that I had to live.

As soon as I was able, I met with the clergy and confessed urgently and enthusiastically. I spoke of demons larger than trees, spirits unheard of by any prior human, personal conversations I'd held with the Devil himself - but, I refused to name any of my co-conspirators. When faced with stories of such magnitude, such new and never before seen ideas, through shocked expressions, they relinquished that I was owed that much. When I finally left that prison after all that torment, the mind-numbing solitude, I did not stop to look back. My daughter and I had new lives to lead, and they would not include anything like what I'd experienced there. (We live as nomads now, moving from place to place, but never close to civilization unless we need to. I've seen how they treat outsiders.) It's been 3 months now. They would have executed me today if not for my false confession. I did not enjoy giving it, but I believe God will look upon me favourably in lieu of my reason. Her name is Rebecca. Her hair is starting to grow, and she can nearly follow along with the lullabies I sing to her. Looking down at her beautiful face, I forget for a moment how long it was that I believed I'd never love again. That I would be resigned to my terrible fate, and that there would be no reason to change it. But watching this precious child sleep, babbling as she dreams, one cannot help but wish to move the highest mountains to see her at peace.