Ten Tales of Terror and Terra by Joshua David Bellin

Author:Joshua David Bellin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, horror, fantasy, short stories
Publisher: Joshua David Bellin
Published: 2018-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

SARAH POST’S FATE WAS sealed that night. In the span of a day, evidence piled against her, till scarce a man, woman, or child had naught to contribute. Lucy, it was true, lay unseeing, pinned to her bed as if a spike had been driven through her frail body. But that was not all. The town stank of mushrooms, and Martha Teach fell from a ladder after yelling something at Sarah Post’s indifferent back, and Matthew Cook’s dogs ran mad and hurled themselves at passersby. The great Daniel Oldfather (“I do not believe in witchcraft, but I do believe in people who do”) cut a new quill and readied his hand. Of the four burnings this past year, each had been less spectacular than the previous: Agatha Simmons had broken free of her bonds, run a short distance then collapsed, blood streaming from her teats and belly; Hester Rand had rent her clothes and, laughing, let the flames lick her flesh; Annie Samuels had done little but beg for mercy and scream when the fire took her; and Tillie, her eyes wide and blind, her mouth whimpering mucus and spittle, had gone limp on the stake and simply melted in the blaze. But Sarah Post, all agreed—Sarah Post the child slayer, Sarah Post the Devil’s handmaid, Sarah Post with whose death the town might finally be cleansed of the black blood that clotted its streets—Sarah Post would put on a better show than that.

They took her as she emerged from the forest, her hair slick with water or witchcraft, her gown muddy, her eyes, as foretold, preternaturally calm. Agatha Simmons’s eyes had been wild and red, as if flame had scorched her soul away; Annie Samuels’ had been scornful as winter; Hester Rand’s reckless and purple; Tillie’s vacant as a doused hearth. But Sarah Post’s eyes, all agreed, exerted a power of unknown harm. You could get lost in those eyes, scramble through brush, tumble thicketed slopes, and arrive all unready at the altar of your worst fears. Andrew Ward, who was there, said (though only at night, knees locked, hands clenched) that he felt himself being sucked through those eyes and then, breaking the green and mirror-like plane, saw himself emerge in a place wholly unfamiliar, filled with shapes he dared not name, and deadly.

There was no trial; there could be none; there was no crime. There was only what she was, and that was not a crime but a curse, and a curse can only be removed, not tried. Still they took the testimony of Eli Rand and equally scrupulous men, they mulled a trifle, they cut wood. Tomorrow, at midnight, she would burn.

It was on the night before that last night that the great Daniel Oldfather came. None dared refuse him, as none had dared the four times previous; his motives being beyond ken, he was ineffable and therefore invincible. The gaolers waited in febrile anticipation; they listened for the clocksound tap of his cane on the

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