Granny shoved the thin white dress over my head and pulled it roughly down. She’d stripped me of all my clothes, and made me stand stark naked in the cold dark of our basement for almost an hour, before she brought the dress down to me. The elders were still there when we returned from the forest. From the look in their eyes, my punishment was going to be far more serious than taking away the college slot.
“Please, Granny, I have nowhere else to go,” I told her through my clenched teeth. “Don’t make me leave Hanna. I won’t survive.”
“I should’ve done this years ago.” Her voice was cold and harsh. “I knew the day your whore of a mother brought you into this world that you would attract evil. This is the only way to cleanse us of your abomination of a life.”
She shoved me up the stairs. I tripped and caught my hand on the wooden boards, scraping my palm and drawing blood. There was no time to cry about it. Granny was already right behind me with the shotgun in her hands.
The elders stood at the top of the stairs in long dark brown robes that fell to the ground. I couldn’t read the expression on their faces, which struck a spark of fear in my gut. They were going to toss me out of town without so much as a scrap of cloth or dollar in my pocket. I’d never imagined they could be that cruel.
“Please, don’t do this.” I fell to my knees and grabbed the bottom of Elder Sarah’s robe.
Her face didn’t change as she pulled the robe out of my grasp and backed away.
“You have disobeyed the goddess, Lizzy Redding,” Sarah squeaked. “She requires a sacrifice to atone for this sin.”
A sacrifice? Her words repeated in my head over and over again while they marched me outside and down the road to the empty campground where tourists stayed during the busy summer weekends. Right now, it was empty of tourists and full of Hanna’s townspeople. They were crowded around a makeshift wooden platform built on a dead tree. Piles of dry logs were strewn around the base of the tree with hay stuffed in between the gaps.
“Lizzy!”
I immediately recognized Kate’s voice coming from the crowd. She pushed her way through to me, grabbing my arm.
“I’m so sorry, Lizzy,” she sobbed.
I stared at her with no comprehension of what was going on.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she continued. “I’m so sorry.”
Faces and voices blurred together in my head like I was on the tilt-o-whirl at the county fair. Occasionally, a familiar face would jump out at me. There was Ms. Undine, my first grade teacher. In the back was Dr. Richt. Queenie grabbed my hand at one point and pulled me into a quick hug. That was all I could process, as they marched me up to the platform and tied my arms behind the dead tree.
“Lizzy Redding, do you deny the charges of assisting a demon and setting it free?” Granny’s voice rang out above the hubbub of the crowd. She leaned on the hilt of her gun, chewing slowly on the inside of her cheek.
“Nn…nn…nooo,” I stuttered. What else was there to say?
The first few drops of rain fell on my face from the rolling clouds above us. A storm was moving through the Black Hills. In the distance, a lighting strike lit up the sky.
“You have broken one of the goddess’ greatest laws,” Granny called. “You were given a chance to redeem yourself and you spat in the face of our goddess. For that, the punishment is death.”
Her words didn’t regi
ster with me at first. Death? But only hours ago, all I’d been worried about was losing the college slot. They couldn’t kill me. That was ridiculous.
I stared down into the crowd that had gathered around my feet. Many of the women looked up at me with anger burning in their eyes. Kate was standing in the back with her mother, their arms around each other. From the light of their lanterns, I could see the tears running down Kate’s swollen face. That’s when it truly began to sink in – I was going to die.
“Granny, please,” I wept. “Please don’t. I’m so sorry.”
She ignored me and took a handful of hay from the pile beneath my feet, holding up her favorite Zippo lighter next to it. With a pang of horror, I realized what the wood and hay was for. They were going to burn me alive. Just like a witch.
The hay caught fire in an instant and Granny threw it on the pyre. Flames began to lick at the sides of the platform, throwing sparks in the air.
“Lizzy Redding, this is your just punishment,” Elder Sarah called out. “Pray that the goddess would save your soul.”
I shook my head back and forth. If this was the goddess’ punishment, I didn’t want to have anything to do with her. Besides, I wasn’t sure if I even believed in some mystical goddess that supposedly protected the women of our town. I’d been preached to all my life, but never actually seen any proof of her. That didn’t stop the women who stood at my feet from crying out for the goddess to punish me.
The flames grew higher, licking at my bare feet. The heat was becoming unbearable. Somewhere, somebody started screaming. The noise hurt my ears, it was so loud and desperate. With a start, I suddenly realized the screaming was coming from my own throat. Panic had driven me out of my mind.
The logs at the bottom of the pyre collapsed, sending a spray of ashes and sparks flying high into the air. It was sprinkling now, but not enough to dampen the inferno burning around my heels. I was dying.
My own grandmother was killing me. It didn’t seem possible. All for saving one demon? A demon with green eyes that could look straight into your soul. A part of me hated him for coming into my life, but another part of me knew that it had been worth it.