The Wolf

IV.

It pains me greatly to continue this narrative, though it is the only way now to the truth. Should Father Horace have his way, the truth will have been destroyed with Ezekiel Martin. Little doubt is left in my mind now that I was his only friend left among the people, and so this responsibility falls to me.

'Twas the day after he first set off to hunt the creature when he came back. Had I only encountered him first upon his return, I suspect we would be sharing cider right now in the same place we had shared breakfast just the day before, however it was David Briarton who first alerted the others to his presence.

I feel no small amount of guilt in the admission that I was one of the last to make my way to where the crowd had already surrounded him. By then he was acting wild, as the particular accusation of being the wolf had again befallen him upon his arrival. Some say his madness was proof of the affliction of shapeshifting, but I think he was not mad before the mob had penned him. It was this accusation, I believe, that drove him to insanity that day.

It seems necessary to state that the night Ezekiel was gone, a second child was stolen from the village, that being the babe of Elijah Norring and his wife. 'Twas quite a convenience for the town to attribute the guilt of such a crime to Ezekiel, and with it the guilt of many others.

Not long was it before they grew hostile towards him. Though he fought them and their accusal tongue and tooth, a man is not fit to face a mob alone. 'Tis because of this that I, too, could not sway the people in favor of Ezekiel. Fear had taken them wholly, and they would not be convinced that they had not found the devil among them.

Father Horace, I shall assert, was responsible above all else for the following actions of the townsfolk. He was one of the last to reach the crowd, and by then his word was all that was needed for a condemnation. He proclaimed Ezekiel the beast as soon as he laid eyes upon him, and his "inspection" of him, which was proof of nothing to a sane man but seemed enough for the people, was little more than a fresh glance and a memory of their quarrels. His proclamation, given before the crowd atop the pulpit of a hay wagon, was one that has yet to fade from my memory.

"I have once before proclaimed this man, Ezekiel Martin, devoid of the light of the Lord. And now we find him guilty of such sin that only a wretched creature could commit. Only a beast without the word of God could be capable of such evil and terror! He that does the devil's work shall burn in the flames of his hell!"

At the final word, the crowd raised their fists towards heaven with a righteous huzzah. I was then reminded of Father Horace's sermons on the Lord's wrath, which seldom omitted a sense of accompanying terror to even those pure and free from sin. I often wonder if Ezekiel's terror was that of a guilty man or an innocent one. Which would be the worse? The painful responsibility to note Ezekiel's following death at the stake falls to me here, though I lack the will to detail it.

I have since left Ruth and set out to plant my crop elsewhere. Never again do I wish to see her people. Since that day, I have prayed many a time to know if Father Horace and his flock had taken the power of God as their own, or if our Lord simply works through us. Though my faith remains, I have received no answer. Perhaps we are his instrument. We carry out his will. We are his agent of death.