The Most Random Book Ever

The Executioner's Daughter

The herbs that father was brewing on the fire smelled wretched. Ansley pinched her nose in disgust as she watched her sister swallow the strange concoction her father had made for her throat sickness.

"Ansley, go get some more sage." her father said, and Ansley watched as her sister, Shea, choked on the foul remedy, and turned heel out the door. She was glad to be out of the house, since her sister had been sick all week and she had to tend to her while her father worked most of the time.

When he came home, her father never mentioned much of his work. But Ansley knew why. He was the town executioner, considered a privilege among many, but not to Ansley. She hated the thought of killing someone, even if they had done something bad. She hated being known as 'The Executioner's Daughter', since it sounded demeaning to her. Therefor, her father would say nothing of it.

When she was alone in the garden, she pulled something out of her pocket, a dark blue square of cloth with stars printed all over it. Her mother had given it to her before she died, and said that she might need it some day. Apparently, that day had not yet come, not for five years. She flattened it out on her hand, the stars shining in the sunlight. She sighed and put it back inside her pocket, and began to dig up the sage, an herb plant with blue blossoms and pointy green leaves.

While digging up the sage, she thought of her friend, Gus, who was on death row for stealing two cows to feed his family. Her mouth went sour at the thought of her own father killing him, and thought of something else. She thought about the cloth. Her hair got in the way, digging up the leaves, and she hesitantly used the cloth to put her hair up. Maybe this was the use her mother spoke of. Ansley laughed as she carried the basket of sage out of the garden. She took the cloth out.

It was then she noticed people staring at her, their mouths agape.

"Why, that girl was invisible!" she heard someone murmer. She looked around. Were they really talking about her? She shrugged it off and walked on. Then she heard,"Could she be a witch?", and she ran. Everybody knew the punishment for witchcraft. Ansley wanted nothing of it. She said a silent prayer.

"I've gotten the sage." she said when she returned. Her sister was sleeping and her father was sharpening his swords and knives. She cringed at the sight of them, and began crushing and stirring the sage into water to make the throat solution. Her father didn't acknowledge her.

"What is it?" she said as she crushed some basil.

"Your friend, Gus." he replied. She stopped.

"His execution date is tomorrow afternoon." he said grimly. The world stopped. Everything stopped. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. She ran out the door.

She ran with no sign of stopping. She ran and ran, until she finally came to a tree and fell down. She pulled out her mother's cloth and stared at it again. She tried to throw it away, but it stuck to her hand, and a note fell from it's folds.

'It is time,' it read,'You have twenty four hours to save him.' She looked back at her hand. It was gone. No, it was gone, like invisible. So it was her. She was that invisible girl. She began to panick. Reality came to her. She could save him! She could save him! She ran all the way to the Sherforde jail. She walked through the greystone wall, without any encounter with the jailer. Then she saw him. She ripped the cloth away.

"Gus!" she whispered. "It's me, Ansley!"

Gus looked up from his cell. The other prisoners began to whisper. Ansley was shocked his appearance. His hair was matted. Slash marks were all over his arms and there was a huge red gash on his face. Ansley realized that the gash was where he was branded.

"Huh?" he said. He gave her a blank look.

"It's Ansley, Gus, Ansley! Remember me? I've come to get you out of here!"

"I'll never get out of here...." he seemed to be talking to himself rather than Ansley. And put the cloth on and walk through the bars.

"Come on!" she yanked his arm, and Gus looked up in surprise.

"Ansley! You're invisible!" she ignored him and went back out.

"Here," she said, passing the cloth through the bars now that she's gotten Gus's attention. "Put it in your head." he did, and walked through the bars. He was free! They ran and ran, not stopping. Ansley hid him in the garden for a year and a day, when his title of a wolf's head was lifted. Her father knew, but didn't utter a word to anybody.