Like a Duck
390 words, Gen, G-rated, Post-Serenity. For challenge 134, "trials".
***
It was clear to all that the girl was a witch. They saw it in her clothing, dark and fey. They heard it in the words she spoke, sing-song and beyond human ken. They sensed it in the air she had about her, unearthly and dire. Not one among the townsfolk had any doubt at all.
The difficulty was that in all the many years their town had stood, not one witch had appeared among them. They knew that witchcraft was against God's law, and indeed the town charter prohibited such unnatural acts, but as to how best to deal with a witch, they had been left to their own devices.
So the debate raged in the town hall. Most agreed that some sort of trial was in order, not because the truth was in any doubt, but only in the interests of civility. The merits of various methods of proving witchery were compared and discussed, without any real consensus being reached.
It was an outsider who provided the answer, a wandering Shepherd who called himself Book. He was very young for a Shepherd, and very handsome; some of the townsfolk had already approached him about marrying one of the town's eligible young ladies and settling down here. So far he had refused every one of them.
Book offered them a solution to their dilemma, though. He claimed to have officiated at a witch-dunking on Whitehall a few years back, and with excellent results. The townsfolk quickly agreed to defer to his experience in the matter.
The townsfolk gathered at the pond at the edge of town to bear witness to God's justice. Everything seemed to be going well until the girl failed to surface, which, according to the Good Shepherd, proved that she was not a witch after all. The townsfolk mostly felt a bit bad about this, but they all agreed that God's will had been done.
They returned to their homes to discover that they'd been robbed. True, every missing thing had been appropriated from the bodies of dead soldiers following a nearby battle of the war for independence several years back, but the townsfolk had been entitled to everything that they took, a reward from God for not taking part in the conflict.
Young Shepherd Book was nowhere to be found, and the girl's body never did turn up.
***
It was clear to all that the girl was a witch. They saw it in her clothing, dark and fey. They heard it in the words she spoke, sing-song and beyond human ken. They sensed it in the air she had about her, unearthly and dire. Not one among the townsfolk had any doubt at all.
The difficulty was that in all the many years their town had stood, not one witch had appeared among them. They knew that witchcraft was against God's law, and indeed the town charter prohibited such unnatural acts, but as to how best to deal with a witch, they had been left to their own devices.
So the debate raged in the town hall. Most agreed that some sort of trial was in order, not because the truth was in any doubt, but only in the interests of civility. The merits of various methods of proving witchery were compared and discussed, without any real consensus being reached.
It was an outsider who provided the answer, a wandering Shepherd who called himself Book. He was very young for a Shepherd, and very handsome; some of the townsfolk had already approached him about marrying one of the town's eligible young ladies and settling down here. So far he had refused every one of them.
Book offered them a solution to their dilemma, though. He claimed to have officiated at a witch-dunking on Whitehall a few years back, and with excellent results. The townsfolk quickly agreed to defer to his experience in the matter.
The townsfolk gathered at the pond at the edge of town to bear witness to God's justice. Everything seemed to be going well until the girl failed to surface, which, according to the Good Shepherd, proved that she was not a witch after all. The townsfolk mostly felt a bit bad about this, but they all agreed that God's will had been done.
They returned to their homes to discover that they'd been robbed. True, every missing thing had been appropriated from the bodies of dead soldiers following a nearby battle of the war for independence several years back, but the townsfolk had been entitled to everything that they took, a reward from God for not taking part in the conflict.
Young Shepherd Book was nowhere to be found, and the girl's body never did turn up.