Wicked Mortals by Aaron Mahnke

Author:Aaron Mahnke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2018-05-29T04:00:00+00:00

WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE

A few months later, Elizabeth Hill returned, blaming her recent miscarriage on Grace, and the women went to court. By March 1706, two separate juries were called to serve in the trial. One was sent to Grace’s home to search for evidence of her witchcraft, while the other was tasked with examining Grace’s body for witch’s marks.

On March 7, Grace was stripped naked by twelve local women, who examined her from head to toe, looking for dark spots or raised parts of her skin. You know, things we might call moles, or skin tags, or freckles. And—surprise, surprise—they found some.

Oh, and the woman in charge of this gang of angry mole-hunters? None other than Elizabeth Barnes, the woman who had failed to get Grace arrested eight years earlier. Someone was holding a grudge, I think.

I won’t bore you with court details. There were more trials. There was a bit of controversy, and a clear lack of solid evidence. And yet, the judge felt that something had to be done, and so on July 10 Grace Sherwood was taken to a plantation at the mouth of the Lynnhaven River.

A crowd gathered to watch that day as Grace was stripped naked and examined again by the group of women. This time, though, they were looking for tools Grace might have hidden on her body. Because they were about to do something insane.

They pushed her into a boat with the sheriff, and he rowed it about two hundred yards out into the water. Then, after her hands and feet were bound to each other and a thirteen-pound Bible was tethered to her neck, she was brought to the side of the boat.

Their logic was about as solid as a cloud, and should sound insanely familiar to fans of Monty Python: if she floated, she was a witch. Drowning was the only acceptable proof of her innocence.

Grace Sherwood plunged into the dark waters of the Lynnhaven River around 10:00 a.m. on July 10, 1706. And like so many women before her, this was the end. The delicate balance of life and death hinged on the crazy notion that witches were so immune to Christian baptism that they actually floated.

And so, with a firm shove, into the river she went.

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