Her brown eyes glimmered brightly as they captured one of the few rays of light that were allowed in by the drab windows of the Puritan Church. The reverend mumbled on, glorifying the Christian God from behind a bare altar, no flowers, no candles, not even any statues, not in a Puritan Church. Nothing was permitted that might distract from prayer. But Anna-Rose’s mind was far from the altar as her hand rested on her well concealed bump. Beside her, her mother raised her head pretending to pray, her mouth making the shapes of all the words but none were given the life of sound. Anna-Rose sighed as she resisted the urge to scratch her head, the bonnet that was restricting her auburn hair itched something fierce, but she had been told off enough times by her mother to know that scratching ones head in public wasn’t very lady-like. She hated living in the Puritan town in Salem County, but she knew she would hate starving in the wilderness even more.
Her eyes passed over the rest of the congregation, falling upon the handsome face of one Jonathan Squire. She couldn’t help but smile, and even after all this time she couldn’t stop her cheeks from flushing rosy as his grey eyes met hers. Her heart still pitter-pattered at the sight of the father of her unborn child. They were to be married in a month, and until then Anna-Rose would continue wearing many layers, and eat very little, in an attempt to hide her ever growing bump from the town’s people, even though on this fresh spring morning the extra layers made her more than a little uncomfortable, and she was more than a little famished. She allowed her gaze to linger on Jonathan a little longer, taking in his long wavy dark hair that came down to his shoulders, his dazzling grey eyes and his charming smile, before moving onto the scrawny figure of Samantha Hart. Samantha’s beady eyes glared at Anna-Rose as her features twisted into a wicked smirk, a smirk that made Anna-Rose’s blood run cold, a smirk of knowing.
“There is a witch amongst us!” boomed the voice of the reverend as his heavy fist pounded down onto the altar. Anna-Rose sat more upright, but tried to stop her face from betraying the terror she was feeling inside, she could feel her mother beside her tense up as the congregation broke into fear-filled whispers. “There is a witch amongst us!” He repeated and his flock were silenced. “At this very moment she sits in our midst, before our all seeing God, trying to hide her shame!” His eyes locked on Anna-Rose’s and she didn’t dare break his gaze.
The sermon was interrupted by a shrieking cry of pain. It echoed off the walls of the church as Samantha flung herself from where she was sitting onto the ground, clutching her head in her thin, talon-like hands, shrieking as though she was being burnt alive. “It’s Anna-Rose!” Samantha shrieked hysterically. “It’s her spectre! Can’t you see it? She’s hexing me!” She cried. Anna-Rose’s jaw dropped in shock, she could see right through her act, but being exposed as a witch, by a fellow witch, by a member of her own coven, that’s what was shocking. She shook her head in disgust.
“The girl’s accusations are ridiculous!” Her mother snapped in outrage as she stood up.
“Silence! Get the girl out of the witch’s sight or I fear it will kill her” Ordered the reverend, his face flushed red with anger. Two girls helped Samantha off the ground as she squirmed in their grip. Before leaving, Samantha managed to shoot Anna-Rose a smirk of accomplishment.
“I never knew she was such a talented actress” Anna-Rose mumbled bitterly, her mother elbowed her in her ribs to bite her tongue.
“This young woman before us has been accused of using witchcraft. Just yesterday a young woman came to me to tell me, and just now we witnessed that very girl being struck down by magic.” Anna-Rose shook her head as her world began to fall down around her, but she would not allow a single tear to fall from her eyes.
“Good reverend clearly a wise man such as yourself can see that this is just a childish squabble over a boy that got out of hand, surely you don’t believe that Samantha Hart was really struck down by a hex?” Her mother said using a soft, persuasive voice. She was the leader of their coven, she had seen this happen time and again, when a witch, weather guilty or not was accused, and it rarely ended well she knew this, but she also knew her daughter did not hex young Samantha Hart. They fled Ipswich to get away from this kind of persecution, but apparently the free world wasn’t so free after all. She looked like an older version of Anna-Rose, a young widow of forty, but she lacked that spark, that intensity, power and passion that Anna-Rose held in her eyes, instead her eyes looked sad, as though they had seen far too many sad sights to ever have that spark again.
