The Good Line

The steeled grey morning was still and the heavy, humid July air felt wet against Sarah's exposed flesh. Her shift was ragged, dirty from the weeks she had spent locked in the witches' jail and her eyes were sunken and dark in the recesses of her face. The steady drumming kept time, matching the thudding of her heart which lept against her ribcage. 

"Sarah Good, you have been found guilty by the high court of Massachusetts here in Salem, and are hereby condemned to hang by your neck until you are dead."

Hawthorne's voice, somewhere to her right, anchored her to the gallows. Her soul was leaden and her mind alone was able to drift far from the planks which had been so hastily assembled into this stage upon which the most macabre of dances took place. 

Sarah felt the rough twists of the rope against her neck as the noose was lowered and then tightened. The twine burned as it pulled against the delicate skin and Sarah hissed as the cord was pulled against her throat. There was a hushed mumble then from within the crowd of onlookers that stood before her, their greedy eyes hungry for the bloody spectacle that would shortly be upon them. 

There would be four others who danced the hangman's waltz with her this morning, and others were sure to follow. A powerful dark had come to grip Salem in its clutches, an evil that feasted on their selfish fears and petty ambitions. Sarah had heard it whispering in the night as she slept in ditches or in the fields of the townsfolk. The people of Salem had always hated her for begging, for the pipe that she smoked, and the daughters she bore to unknown fathers. 

Their hate was now manifested in the shape of a rope and excited by a hooded man whose sweaty hands held Sarah in place. The faces of the onlookers were bestial, vicious. Sarah saw a sea of snapping jaws and wrenching teeth. She saw her former neighbours, their masks askew, their fangs poised to tear at her flesh. 

Before the rope was too tight and before her nerve left her, Sarah Good raised her hands to the sky. The crowd before her shifted and recoiled. The air around Sarah became heavy with her malice and the promise of her threats carried forth in the cool morning breeze.

"You who murder me," Sarah called out, her voice croaking from thirst and sickness, "you who shall murder more, hear me! You will carry my death in the darkest chambers of your hearts, and I will fester there, I will rot! I will infect your bodies with disease and pestilence and you shall feel your very hearts be crushed between my fingers ere your spirits leave this world. Mine is a line that carries on! Mine is a promise that will live forever! I..."

The platformed was sprung and Sarah fell. All heard the crack of her neck.

She swung.