Charity
“God loves you, but not enough to save you.”
-Ethel Cain, Sun Bleached Flies
Charity was on fire. Her legs, her lungs- everything burned as she tore through the woods, making no effort to dodge the branches that clawed at her face. She could see their shadows in front of her, stark against the light of the torches they bore. She stumbled over roots and fallen branches, but she couldn’t slow down. She wouldn’t allow them to catch her.
The morning had been quiet. Charity fell asleep in the barn while reading her evening devotionals, and upon waking she rushed from the frigid barn into the stillness of her home. She had awoken before her mother- a rare occurrence in the household. Charity’s mother was a disciplined woman, always waking before the sun rose to begin chores and stoke the fire for her two daughters. The family had mostly kept to themselves since the death of Charity’s father the previous year. They had been surrounded by suspicious murmuring and sideways glances nearly every time they had ventured to town since the funeral, and Charity’s mother had eventually forbade her daughter from entering town alone. They only journeyed to the market when absolutely necessary, skirting through back alleys and speaking in hushed tones.
That morning, Charity had quietly stoked the fire. As a child she had often stood for hours in front of the hearth, transfixed by the unrestrained dance of the flames. She had recently begun to see the same fascination in the eyes of Grace, her baby sister, and Charity decided that once she had fetched the eggs for breakfast, she would bring her sister into the kitchen and they would watch the flames while their mother cooked.
The hens in Charity’s mother’s coop had always been fruitful. Their entire farm was perhaps the most successful on the outskirts of the village; unfavourable conditions seemed to simply avoid their land entirely. Their harvest had not failed since the death of Charity’s father, and Charity’s mother had attributed their success to devotion to God. Once while gathering sticks as a child, Charity had overheard her neighbours whispering about spells and hexes, mentioning her mother’s name and tutting disapprovingly. She had asked her mother what they had meant, but her mother had told her flatly not to broach the subject again. She had obeyed, even when she had heard mutterings of a devilish curse on the town’s crops the week prior. Charity always listened to her mother.
As she approached the chicken coop, Charity again remarked upon the stillness and silence of the morning. An eerie feeling settled in her stomach, growing with each step she took towards the soundless coop. She hadn’t fully reached the fence when she saw it- the mangled hens, the torn roosters, and the blood smeared upon the walls of their coop. Charity threw her basket onto the blood-soaked soil, holding back her feelings of sickness as she ran towards her house.
The kitchen was still been silent aside from the crackling of the hearth. Charity felt as if she were moving through molasses as she approached the room where the family slept. The door was ajar, and Charity hesitated, afraid of what might wait on the other side. Slowly, carefully, she pushed on the smooth wooden surface and allowed the door to creak open.
She saw her mother first. She was lying on top of her thin straw bed, hands limp at her sides, her throat slit and caked in blood. Next to her, a still bassinet held Grace’s motionless body. Grace’s delicate face was smeared with blood, her innocent eyes sullied with the glaze of an untimely death.
Charity was unable to scream. She was frozen, horror and grief rising like acid in her stomach. Then, like a spider cut from its web, Charity sank to the floor, vomiting and retching at the foot of the bed. She was hardly able to breathe as her body convulsed on the floor until she finally fell onto her side, a guttural moan clawing its way out of her throat. She crawled towards Grace, lifting her delicate frame into her arms. The brutal attack had almost detached her head from her soft body, and Charity wailed as she held her sister, rocking back and forth in a futile attempt to soothe the child, who would never again cry. Charity scraped her knees on the floor stumbling towards the bed, collapsing with Grace still in her arms onto the body of her mother. They were both still warm and soft.
Raising her head from her mother’s chest, Charity held her mother’s face in her reddened hands. As her tears dropped onto her mother’s cheeks, she used her thumbs in an attempt to wipe the blood from her mother’s face. Charity had caressed her gently at first, but the blood was sticky and frustration began to descend upon her. She scrubbed vigorously at her mother’s soft cheeks, trying to cleanse them of the murderous stain. It wasn’t until she scraped her mother with her fingernail and opened a fresh wound that Charity slammed her fists upon the bed, letting out another cry as she slowly slipped onto the floor.
After a few minutes, Charity felt an unfamiliar sense of peace descend upon her. Slowly, shakily, she stood, gazing silently at her blood-soaked dress. Then, carefully, she lifted her sister, tucking her snugly in the arms of their mother and pulling the blanket over them both. She was taking in the sight of her family one last time when she noticed the blood-smeared word on the wall above the bed.
Witch.
Charity stared at the message for a few moments before silently leaving the room. She walked out of the front door, not bothering to close it behind her, and made her way to the barn. Atop one of her father’s old workbenches, she caught sight of a hatchet. She remembered watching her father use it to chop wood when she was a child, although it was now dull from a lack of use. Charity grasped the handle tightly, gazing into her distorted reflection in the metal for a moment. Then, she started towards the centre of the village without looking back.
The village had been bursting with activity that morning. The markets were alive with motion, and everyone seemed almost too preoccupied with buying and selling to notice Charity, dripping with her family’s blood and dragging a hatchet behind her.
Almost.
It was Goody Browne who had first seen Charity, the cry she let out as she dropped her basket of eggs alerted those around her. The bustling market fell completely still in seconds, and Charity gazed around at the frightened eyes fixed upon her. After a few moments of nothing, she spoke.
“Which devil amongst you people hath murdered my family?”
A murmur swept across the crowd. Charity felt rage descending on her once more.
“Enough whispering. Out with it! Who hath-”
“Silence, witch!” a man called out from the doorway of the blacksmith’s forge. At his words, the silence dissolved and the town erupted with noise. Charity felt the hatchet being torn from her hands, but she had no time to see who had taken it before she was thrown to the ground. She could barely see through the flurry of legs and arms flailing in her direction, and the cries of her neighbours were barely decipherable through the mess of violence.
“Witch!”
“Bitch!”
“Thou shalt join thy mother in hell!”
“Thine body shall hang in the town square!”
Charity crawled desperately across the dirt road, spurred on by a rage more potent than any emotion she had experienced before. A burst of energy filled her body, and Charity managed to break free of the screaming crowd just long enough to take to her feet. Before they could pull her back, Charity ran, determined to reach her home before the mob that followed her. They had killed her mother, but she would not die unavenged. Charity would have revenge.
It didn’t take her long to reach her home. Charity burst through the front door, recoiling slightly at the stench of decay that had begun to permeate the wooden walls. She couldn’t bring herself to look into the bedroom, but she knew her mother and sister would still be there, embracing one another in death. She sat for hours at her kitchen table, only moving to refresh the hearth, debating how she would continue.
As the sun was setting, she began to hear a commotion. She didn’t need to look outside to know that the townspeople were approaching, intent on murder. Charity glanced frantically around her. She didn’t know how, but she was sure that she wouldn’t let the town have her.
Without thinking, she reached into the hearth, ignoring the fire licking at the tips of her fingers as she began pulling out burning sticks and throwing them in different directions around her kitchen. The flames caught the furniture, the floors, the walls, and Charity ran for the door as the smoke began to engulf her small home. Once she had reached the edge of the forest, she turned and watched her home succumb to the flames, surprised by how quickly the fire had overcome everything her family had spent years building.
I am sorry, Mother, and Grace. I could not let them have you. Not after what they hath done to you.
The mob crested over the small hill beside Charity’s home, pausing briefly at the sight of the flames before turning their attention to the forest. Charity had hoped that they would suspect her suicide, but it seemed a man at the front of the mob had spotted her at the edge of the woods, and he called out as she turned, running deeper into the darkness of the trees.
Charity didn’t know where she was going. She had never been allowed to venture further than the edge of the forest to gather firewood, and she could only hope to outrun the villagers or find somewhere to hide. The ground was slick with mud, and she wiped the blood that dripped from her forehead as she pushed further into the woods.
Charity stumbled to a halt when she felt her shoes growing heavy with water. She had run into the lake that marked the middle of the forest that bordered the outskirts of the village; the lake of which she had been warned as a child with whispered stories of ghosts and creatures that lived beneath the waves. But now, in the darkness and reflecting the torchlight of the men who planned to murder her, Charity felt the tranquil embrace of the water surrounding her. She waded deeper until the water reached the top of her knees, turning to the shore when she heard a man calling out for the mob to wait. Charity stood surrounded by the floating hem of her dress and watched as the men spread themselves out across the riverbank. A bearded man stepped forward.
“What say thee, young witch?” he called out, nearly chuckling. “Wilt thou drown, or wilt thou surrender thyself to the law?”
“Wicked men!” Charity called to the shore, coughing on the tears that had begun to slide down the back of her throat. “Thou wouldst murder a mother and her innocent babe as they slept. And now thou would send my soul to heaven to join them.”
“Believe you me, daughter of Satan,” grinned the man with the beard, “thy soul will be joining your mother’s- not in His glorious kingdom, but in the depths of a fiery hell.”
There was nowhere to go, nobody to hear her cries. Surely, she thought, I cannot pray to God. The same God to whom these men pray will not help me.
Terror began to settle in Charity’s bones. The mob was approaching slowly, wading carefully through the water as though they, too, were afraid of the creatures dwelling within. Charity took a few steps back and felt her heels strike a ledge. She stumbled briefly, knowing that another step backwards would mean drowning to death, but that remaining where she stood would mean falling into the mob’s hands.
Please, she thought, gazing down into the flame-coloured ripples of the lake. Please, help me, Mother. Please.
A guttural scream tore itself from Charity’s throat. The sound was involuntary and primal, like that of a cornered animal calling out to the world one last time as the predator approached. Charity raised her hands to the sky, feeling a sudden surge of tingling energy in her stomach.
Around Charity’s legs, the water exploded, creating a wave of motion that raced towards the scattered men. The villagers tried to flee, but water pulled at their legs, dragging them further from the shore and sweeping them into the depths. Their torches and their screams were extinguished by the water, and all of their cries were quickly replaced by the gargling of drowning men. Charity saw the face of the local blacksmith clawing at the surface, but he was dragged back down as if being pulled by some unseen entity. Then, just as quickly as the commotion had begun, it fell silent and the water went still.
Charity looked around. There was nobody left to run from, no men floating on the surface of the lake. Everything was silent- almost tranquil. Still dripping with blood and soaked with water, Charity trudged towards the shore, collapsing onto the mud as soon as she reached the edge of the water.
After a few moments of pressing her forehead into the grass and steadying her breath, Charity turned her gaze back to the lake. Her eyes were met not with a still lake, but with a creature, unlike anything she had ever seen. Its yellow eyes stood out from its face, which seemed to grow straight from the torso rather than from the head. Four horns adorned the sloped forehead, and two mouths of sharpened teeth sat just below the face. Its arms and legs were covered in scales, and its hands were punctuated by knife-like talons.
Charity stared at the monster, but she felt no fear. This creature had saved her- this must be her God, and the God that had so many times blessed her family. Charity sat up on her knees, leaning forward into a bow in front of the creature.
Thank you.
The creature made no sound but blinked slowly and sank back into the depths of the lake, disappearing into the darkness. Charity watched the surface of the water until the ripples subsided. Then, once all around her was still, she staggered to her feet, making her way slowly back towards the edge of the forest.
By the time Charity reached the end of the trees, she could see the sun’s pink tint seeping over the horizon. She made her way towards the ruins of her family’s home. The flames had settled and only ashes remained in the place where the house had once stood. Charity stepped through the ashes, unsure of what she was looking for. A flash of colour caught her eye in the place where the bedroom had once stood. Charity moved closer to look, and she felt a tear fall from her eye as she saw what sat atop the ruins.
There, in the centre of the destruction, sprouted two purple flowers.
