Shadowed Desires

Chapter Four

"Thou shalt NOT suffer a witch to live!!"

With a jolt, I shot back in my chair and stared widely at the stout man standing in front of me.

Professor Burroughs began his lecture of the day with a shout, while slamming his hands upon the lectern. Eyes piercing as he gazed around the room.

"Thus was the battle cry shouted throughout countless villages and cities throughout much of Medieval Europe before travelling across the Atlantic; spreading like a wildfire throughout the superstitious minds of our early settlers."

The room gradually became eerily silent as he continued. Not even a whisper was heard. Some out of shock, others out of sheer curiosity. I was counted amongst those in shock.

"Crimen exceptum -- literally exceptional crime -- was a law passed down from Roman times to exact punishment upon an offense so foul, that standard legal proceedings were superseded. It was eventually adopted by The Church, and anything considered demonic was swiftly litigated under this practice. After all, the Devil was not one to merely confess his involvement or his crimes; therefore, it had to be extracted painfully from the accused by means of torture. To inflict bodily harm upon the human vessel was to inflict pain upon the Devil himself."

I wondered briefly if Mrs. Lockhart felt that pain while she possessed people during the Middle Ages.

"Cutting . . .dunking. .. the Iron Maiden. . .the heretic's fork . . . burning. . . the pear of anguish. . . "

Depictions of each method and device were displayed upon the overhead screen as he named them.

". . . these methods and more, were employed to force a confession of guilt out of the condemned, before finally being led to an equally gruesome death. The stench of righteous indignation filled the air as decaying and already rotted corpses lay in shallow trenches within the forest; for a witch is not worthy to be laid to rest within hallowed ground. It was a stench that would not recede for well over five hundred years."

More depictions filled the screen as he continued his lecture. My breakfast was slowly finding its way up from my stomach. Glancing around briefly, I noticed similar looks upon several of my fellow classmates.

"And yet, even today, the blood of these innocent martyrs still cry out for justice. Witch hunters still exist who employ many of the aforementioned methodologies. Many such atrocities have been cited in third world countries, such as Africa, India and various areas of Eastern Europe. And all perfectly legal."

As he continued, each statement became more and more appalling to the point that my mind started fading out.

". . . and that poor merchant's daughter in Strasburg, 1578; beheaded while her bodily remains were thrown upon a pyre as her head watched from atop a pike . . . "

There was only so much blood and gore I could take this early in the morning. Although he likened most of the condemned as victims of political intrigue and convenience, I wondered just how many of them were truly witches. In my private studies with Satan . . I mean. . . Mrs. Lockhart, a very brief overview was provided about "The Burning Times," as she called it, but only in regards to the ancestral bloodlines of The Grove. It was actually the persecution of the witches in Europe that forced their ancestors to flee to the Colonies.

A sudden ringing of the bell signaled the end of class and brought me out of my thoughts. I wasn't the only one struggling to pack up my books to make a quick exit. It seemed the entire class couldn't wait to leave for a breath of fresh air.

"You okay?"

Benny's voice seemingly came out of nowhere as I exited the classroom. He was carrying a red apple in one hand, a book in the other. I didn't get a peek at the title, but I could tell it was old by how dog-eared and worn it looked in his hand. Of course, the leather binding was a dead giveaway it wasn't a textbook. It was dark brown and the pages were on the cusp of turning a bright yellow. There was no telling how long the book might have been in his possession, but it seemingly looked like it had been read and studied multiple times over the years.