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Vignettes in the life of a witch girl
Hic est a striga, et sepultus est in inferno anima ejus contorquet...
(A witch is buried here while her soul twitches in hell)
I
Dawn barely broke over the shamrock hills, giving the dull masonry walls of the old mansion a lighter shade of gray. Inside two women observed with frugal grief the funeral team walking in the living area. One of the men climbed up a two step wooden ladder and with excessive care untied the neck of the lady that hung herself the night before. More pitiful than gross, the pale and stiff body still oscillated completely naked. The parts in her body supposed to be rosy were cyanotic purple. Eyes empty, haunted while her lips were tight in a line as if she'd forced herself to not fight for air in her last moments.
"Poor creature... she witnessed everything." One of the ladies whispered to the other, pointing to a little girl, no more than seven years old, sitting in a corner on the floor watching unscathed how the corpse of her mother was covered with a white sheet and carried out of the house on a stretcher. Dressed in a pink velvety pajama and embracing a matching in color teddy bear, the young girl observed everything, her round apple shaped face framed in long red locks.
"In the end it was the best for both of them Annelie, God forbids me. It was living in hell for little Magnolia to see how her mother's mental condition deteriorated day after day", the youngest of the ladies stared fixedly to the child as she spoke.
"All of this is incredible Bertha, too scary to think our sister knew of our decision of taking her to the asylum."
"But not strange, Agatha always knew things ahead. Always the tormented clairvoyant, trying to conceal the voices inside her head...and this time, her demons went too far. Now she's with them in hell."
"Don't say that Bertha, please! We must pray for her soul finds eternal dwelling in Heaven."
"Don't be silly Annelie. Witches don't go to Paradise. They are condemned souls since birth... And you know she always was one." Having said, Sophia walked towards the girl and kneeled in front of her. "Come on Magnolia, let's pack your clothes. We must leave now".
II
The gibbous moon was a pearlescent sphere illuminating the clear in the woods. The pyre burnt. Incandescent, the coal glowed and cracked and around the fire, the witches danced. With profane cadence their naked bodies writhed in frenzy singing their spells in unintelligible ancient tongues. They passed around a gilded chalice, gulping in a thick red liquid; a mix of wine and the blood of the white pigeons sacrificed. The hollow feathered remains were piled in a corner, next to an empty iron cage left outside the inverted pentagram formed with pebbles around the bonfire.
