The Day She Burned

Not everything is as it seems in this lonely town. The buildings look abandoned, and they are. A town that once thrived, now lays dormant like a volcano that's ready to explode at any minute. A town that others never venture to. A town with a horrible past, that is never forgotten.

The scorch marks still burn the ground where grass no longer grows and the smell of burning flesh consumes you with the crossing of the border. It never leaves the town, nor do the spirits of the ones who were lost. Can you hear their cries? The sound of their screams as the fire consumes them, and they ceased to exist.

Her face haunts me everyday, the crackle of the fire, watching her burn, and her screams. Everyday I replay those memories, the good, and the bad. Every night I awake to my own screaming, as I had that day she burned.

Not many are left, and few witnessed the horror. Many look for the spirits that haunt the town, but they don't want to be found.

Sometimes I see her face, she walks by my side, but when she turns she is not the girl I knew. She is a monster with only half a face. And I scream, as I had the day she burned.

94 years old and I have never left this town. The town who raised me as it's own, when I had no one left. I can't leave, I won't leave, I can't leave her, she's all I have left.

I still practice. To see her face, perfect and pristine, as I remembered her.

The candles that we used so many times, sit in a circle on the floor as she left them, so many years ago. I have not touched them, but sometimes they move but just slightly. Just enough to know that she's there.

It's my fault she burned, I could have saved her, I could have confessed, I should have burned, not her.

"Alice! Alice! They're coming for you! Take Magg and get out of town! Before it's too late."

I awoke with a start. I knew that voice. The voice of my mother. She always knew all the gossip when she was alive. I miss her dearly.

But wait, why was she coming to my dreams now? I hadn't dreamed of her for years, since before Maggie was born. How did she know Magg, she never met her? Maybe it was just my subconscious.

Looking through Magg's door on my way to the kitchen, I see her sleeping like the angel she is. Well, almost angel.

The kitchen looked as it always had when I was a little girl. The old stove still sat in the corner. I had begun cooking breakfast, when I heard a thump.

Rushing to Magg's room, I find her on the floor, still fast asleep. How does she do that? Sleep through everything. And not give a care in the world. If only she could conjure like she sleeps.

When I had woken her up, she showed her dark side. The side I saw of her every morning. She was my little night owl, and nothing would change that.

"Alice!" It was our neighbor Ginger.

"Come in, Ginger!" when she walked in she had a sickened look on her face. "Ginger, what's wrong?"

"They've called the list. It's on the church door. Oh, Alice I can't bear to look at it. What if we're on it? What if Magg's is on it, or my little Ruthie?..." She continued to ramble. I took her by the shoulders and shook her.

"Ginger, the girls will be just fine, don't worry about them. They didn't even question them. They questioned us, and we had nothing to do with Mr. Williams. They can't charge us. We will be fine," Mr. Williams was murdered three nights before, and it was believed to be witchcraft.