The Coven

Chapter Three: Henry Wellington

It was 15th century Europe. European expansion had begun and the renaissance was flourishing. The world was changing, but some cruel things about humanity would never change.

A twenty-two-year-old young man was to be hanged for stealing food for his family in a local province in England. He lied in his jail cell  waiting to hear even the faintest sound to trigger his death. The dungeon smelled like grime, faeces, dead rat and was filthy and sticky all together. The man's raven hair was falling out. At such a young age, the burdens of the world were already on his shoulders. He stayed there-not making a sound. They fed him twice after two days-it never extended to thrice. It seemed as if they locked him away and threw away the key.

No one was coming. He was chained and bound and yet no one came to relieve him of his pain. Not an inch of light could get in. So how could food? Air? Warmth? Hope?

After eight days, the cell door creaked, the locks unbolted. He turned his face slightly to see if it was the grim reaper, an angel of death or Satan himself who came to visit.

"The grim reaper is a man. A pale, raven-haired, short man." His voice was hoarse, laced with an outlandish dryness.

The man extended his arm, the wooden bowl was only the size of one's palm but he drank from it as if it was an oasis.

"Can you speak?" The man asked.

The young man looked confused. He licked the last droplet from the bowl and rubbed his eyes to make sure he was not hallucinating. His stomach growled and he asked the well-dressed man, how could an executioner speak the common language.

The man removed his cloak and said frankly, "To how insignificant you are, they have forgotten about you."

He turned to face the other side. He looked up for a bit and coughed after attempting to clear his throat. "As long as there is no harm to my family-"

"Wishful thinking."

"What?" He leaned up and asked hoarsely, showing only one side of his boney jaw.

He stole some bread to feed his family of four. His sickly mother. His sister who couldn't walk. His twin baby brothers and a missing father, who left them a plot of barren land and debt. He didn't need him to tell him what happened. Before he began, before he could even register who this man was and why he was speaking to him, he already had a cruel fate in the back of his mind. His mother would finally pass away and the debtors would take the children as payment. Such a thought that he had concocted brought tears to his eyes. But the man was able to drain any last ounce of hope and life from the peasant.

The debtors found a cripple, two starving children and a sick widow to be of no use to them.

"But in this world...trash can always become treasure." He explained in detail the tragic encounter. He was attending a party with some acquaintances, mortal enemies he would stress, but he agreed that one must keep up appearances. But all the wine, dancing and chatter came to a halt when their leader hit the wine class four times with the untouched pristine spoon bottom.

"Probably if those debtors sold your family to human socialites...their fate would have been different." He described smelling their blood in the air. The people around him were moaning and licking their pointy teeth. He could notice the shift in many of their blue eyes to a bloody red.

"We can no longer feast upon humans but no one will miss them." Their leader loudly stated. Their servants held them over a bearing. The ballroom floor was entranced by not only their blood but the sick woman's unnerving fear, the babies' wails and the little girl screaming at the top of her lungs. The servant pushed her first-she was too loud. He could clearly hear her spine break once she hit the floor. The babies were next. The woman screamed out their names and kept coughing blood. Unable to watch, he reached the second floor in the blink of an eye and broke the servant's neck. Everyone fought over the dead bodies that were bleeding out on the floor. More of their people were coming, he grabbed the lady's hand but she leaned over to the railing and pushed herself over.