Chapter Twenty

Dreaming of fire was nothing unusual for Janice. The heat was nothing unusual. She could feel the flames licking her skin, rolling luxuriously along her body. She could even, on occasion, feel the pain, or at least the pain she imagined one would feel when engulfed by flames.

But she’d never actually experienced the pain of burning. Outside of foolishly putting her hands into a candle flame like all children must do, or so she’d later convinced herself. And she’d never seen, never even in a dream, never even thought of the possibility, never - ever - seen a person burned alive.

She’d heard stories, of course. Tales of villages on the far-flung outskirts of civilization blaming their ills on the most spirit-attuned of their people. Where the word, witch, meant a person to be feared. Someone who preyed on the just and god-fearing. Someone of such intense, foul and evil power they could only be stopped by being tied to a stake and burnt to toast.

But this was a practice for only the most ignorant. Where Janice lived, the word witch was a title for only the most learned, the brave few who dared to practice in the art of the unseen. Those like her grandmother.

Some chose not to believe in that power. But no one, whether they believed in it or not, believed a witch to be deserving of death.

Janice approached the distant flames with a mix of joy and trepidation. She watched as a dozen hooded figures gathered in a circle, each holding a torch in hand, kneeling about a central figure, also dressed in a black robe and hood. He spoke though Janice was too far to hear his words.

Leaning on a tree, surrounded by bushes over a hundred yards away, Janice chose to remain in the dark and watch. Every pain in her body screamed out for her to approach and ask for help. Her back wanted a soft bed. Her stomach grumbled for a warm meal. Her aching feet, a chance to rest, splayed in the air, toes fidgeting in the wind.

But the sight of the naked figure perched atop a massive pile of sticks and tinder held Janice at bay. She watched as the heavy, braided rope wrapped about the stranger’s body seemed to pulse and strain with every breath. Her mass of curly, long black hair blew across her face, but Janice could almost feel the stranger’s eyes fixed upon her from her hiding spot.

“Girl,” she could almost hear the stranger speak, as though she possessed a corner of Janice’s brain. “Come, girl.” The voice was gentle, soothing and utterly without fear.

The sun set on the horizon, and to Janice, it seemed as though the stake were already on fire in an intoxicating hue of reds. The huddled crowd parted, and the once surrounded figure removed his hood. He was ugly, and Janice felt revulsion when his face erupted into a cruel smile as he brandished his torch in the air.

He tossed it upon the pyre and walked away as the other hooded figures followed suit. The fire rumbled and spat behind them as the group huddled once again to kneel in prayer. They barely spoke a word before a screeching wail sent them scattering.

Janice watched them run with not just urgency but panic. Several tripped upon their flowing cloaks, stumbling to the ground, scrambling to get back on their feet with childish ineptitude. No one stopped to help. Not a one even looked back.

“Girl.”

Janice burst from her hiding spot and ran toward the quickly engulfing pyre, her feet screaming for her to stop with every step.

She reached it and looked up, the stranger a shadowy haze behind the billowing smoke. She never flinched for a second.

“Why are they doing this to you?” Janice shouted. The flames were so loud she wasn’t sure the stranger would be able to even hear or understand her words.

“They’re afraid.” The voice emerged from the flames. It was soft. Confident. Thoughtful.

“Why aren’t you?!”

“I stopped being afraid many years ago. I’ve always known I would die. For a long time I wished it. Now seems as good a time as any.”

The wails continued. They sounded strangled, strained and guttural. They also sounded human.

“Are you afraid,” the stranger asked.

“Y-yes,” Janice stammered.

“You need to leave.”

Janice regained her composure as she gazed upon the stranger, whose face was visible for the first time. Their eyes locked, and Janice found herself entranced beneath the weight of the stranger’s auburn gaze. Janice’s first thought was how much she loved her bone structure.

Her second was that she was gazing upon an absolute goddess. And for just a moment, Janice imagined she might be dreaming. Even as sweat streamed down the stranger’s shimmering skin, soot from the smoke caking every inch of her muscular body not covered by the rope, she never once winced or displayed a single, solitary moment of pain or discomfort.

“I want to save you,” Janice desperately shouted.

“Why? Death comes to us all.” Janice watched the stranger’s mouth move as she spoke, though the sound seemed to not come from her but from the air itself.

Janice knelt to her knees digging into the earth, heaping as much dirt upon the flames as she could. It made little dent.

The wails were soon joined by screams. Not human-sounding or human-adjacent, but the very real human screams of the dying.

“Throw me your dagger, child.”

Janice looked up. She could feel the heat from the pyre licking her brow. Her hands were slick with sweat and mud as she dug into her boot for her hidden knife. She gazed at it stupidly, holding it in both hands as though she’d never wielded a blade before in her life.

“You know what to do.”

Janice shook her head. “No, I don’t!”

“You don’t have much time. Neither of us do.”

“That’s crazy,” Janice said shaking her head, but the stranger did not respond.

“It’s crazy. I can’t. I just can’t.”

“Of course you can.”

Those words were all Janice needed. She gripped the blade of the knife in her hand. She felt it bite into her skin, blood coursing down her wrist. She flipped the knife up, caught it between her thumb and fore finger. She took but a moment to aim for the part of the stake near the stranger’s right hand. The arms were tied, but the hand was free.

“I’m left-handed dear.”

Janice re-aimed and let fly. The flames roared with such a ferocity she fell back upon her butt and obscured her vision of the stranger. As a few seconds passed, Janice sighed, certain that she had been too late. Or that, most likely, her aim had been off. She thought that not even the unimaginable searing pain of immolation would elicit a scream or even a whimper from the stranger.

She thought the stranger was dead. And that she was next.

She thought about her sister. And her mom. She had time to think about them and so much more. The wailing grew louder.

A crash and a voluminous whoosh brought her back to her senses. Janice looked up to watch the stranger soar through the air, arms stretched like a dive-bombing falcon. She landed with a thud upon her knees and a single fist into the ground at Janice’s feet.

The stranger slowly rose her head and looked upon Janice, who trembled with both fear and excitement. The stranger’s once gloriously flowing head of curls clung to her blackened and sweat-dripped skin. Her shoulders heaved with every heavy breath, each muscle tense and powerfully flexed beneath her shimmering skin.

“Do you want to live?” she said, turning her gaze upon Janice.

Janice nodded. The stranger rose to her feet and reached out.

“Come with me, child.”

Their sweat-drenched hands clasped like iron cuffs, and Janice stood and ran with the naked stranger back into the forest. The wails grew closer, more desperate. But Janice did not look back even for an instant as the sky blackened behind the canopy of grand fir trees.

Together, they ran. And for that moment, Janice felt happy and free.