INQUISITION
A gust blew in through the open door of the perfumery, scattering dead leaves across the wood floor.
Four men stood in the doorway of the shop, muddy boots and filthy hands. Stinking of fish and tobacco. Against the stark white walls and the air tinged with the delicate intermingling of perfumes, their presence was alarming.
Hazel stared at their filthy boots and not their faces, thinking only of the soap and water she would need to scour the floor clean once they had left. She did not yet realize the men’s intent or that she would never see the perfumery again.
The men grabbed the sisters by their forearms and dragged them from the shop.
The Swan sisters were being arrested.
They were hauled down Ocean Avenue for everyone to see; fat drops of rain spat down from the sky; muck from the street stained the hems of their dresses; the townspeople stopped to gawk. Some followed them all the way to the small town hall that was used for town meetings, a gathering place during bad storms, and occasionally but quite rarely, also for legal disputes. A squabble over a missing goat, disagreements over dock anchorage, or property lines with neighbors.
Never before had an accused witch been brought into the building, let alone three.
A group of selectmen and town elders had already gathered, awaiting the Swan sisters’ arrival. Marguerite, Aurora, and Hazel were brought before them and made to sit in three wood chairs at the front of the room, their hands tied behind them.
A bird fluttered in the rafters, a yellow finch, trapped just like the sisters.
Quickly, the women of Sparrow came forward, pointing fingers at Marguerite and occasionally Aurora, telling lurid tales of their misdeeds, their infidelity with the husbands and brothers and sons of this town. And how no woman could be so enchanting on her own—it surely must be witchcraft that made the Swan sisters so irresistible to the poor, unwilling men in town. They were merely the victims of the sisters’ black magic.
“Witches,” they hissed.
The sisters weren’t allowed to speak, even though Aurora tried more than once. Their words could not be trusted. Too easily spells could be uttered from their lips to charm those in the room and then they could use their power to demand they be released. They were lucky, one of the selectmen said, that they hadn’t been gagged.
But there was another voice, one of the elders, a man who was blind in one eye and would often be seen standing on the docks staring out at the Pacific, longing for the days he once spent at sea. His voice rose above the others: “Proof !” he called. “We must have proof.”
This single demand forced silence through the courthouse, overflowing with spectators. A crowd pushed against the doors outside, straining to hear the first-ever witch trial in the town of Sparrow.
“I’ve seen Marguerite’s mark,” a man called from the back of the room. “On her left thigh, there is a birthmark shaped as a raven.” This man, who had emboldened himself to speak at the urging of his wife, had shared a bed with Marguerite some months back. Marguerite’s eyes went wide, and fury brewed behind them. She did in fact have a birthmark, but to call it the shape of a raven was the result of a clever imagination. The mark was more of an inkblot, but it made no difference; a mark of nearly any kind was considered the brand of a witch—proof she belonged to a coven. And Marguerite could not wipe away that which she was born with.
“What of the other two?” the half-blind elder called.
“Aurora,” spoke a much quieter voice, a boy of only eighteen. “Has a mark on her shoulder. I’ve seen it.” And he had, as he had claimed, seen the collection of freckles on her right shoulder. His lips had pressed against her flesh on several nights previous, tracing the freckles that dotted much of Aurora’s skin. She was like a galaxy, speckled with stars.
Aurora’s gaze met the boy’s. She could see the fear obvious in his eyes. He believed Aurora might in truth be a witch as the town had claimed, and perhaps she had used dark magic on him, making his heart race whenever she was near.
“Two honorable men have stepped forward with proof of guilt for two of the accused before us,” said one of the selectmen. “What of the last sister? Hazel Swan? Surely someone has spied the mark of a coven on this enchantress’s skin?”
A stir of whispers carried through the room and echoed off the steep ceiling, voices trying to discern whom among them might have found themselves ensnared by Hazel, coaxed to her bed unwittingly.
“My son will tell you.” A man’s deep voice broke through the chatter.
Owen’s father appeared at the back of the courthouse, and trailing behind him, head down, was Owen. “My son has been with her. He has seen what marks she conceals.”
The air inside the room condensed, the damp walls stiffened. The yellow finch caught in the rafters fell quiet. Not even the floorboards creaked as Owen was pulled by his father to the front of the courthouse. Hazel Swan looked as if she might faint, her complexion drained of all color. Not from fear for herself, but fear for Owen.
“Tell them!” his father barked.
Owen stood stone-faced, eyes locked on Hazel. He would not.
His father marched up to where the sisters sat in a row, hands bound by rope. He drew a large knife from the sheath at his waist and placed it to Hazel’s throat, blade pressing against her alabaster skin. Her breath hitched; her eyes quivered but did not stray from Owen’s gaze.
“Stop!” Owen cried, stepping toward Hazel. Two men grabbed his arms and held him in place.
“Tell us what you’ve seen,” his father demanded. “Tell us of the marks that riddle this girl’s body.”
“There are no marks,” Owen shouted back.
“Her spell on you has made you weak. Now tell us, or I will cut her throat and you will watch her bleed out, here in front of everyone. A painful death, I assure you.”
“You will kill her anyway,” Owen said. “If I speak, you will accuse her of being a witch.”
“So you have seen something?” the half-blind elder asked.
Those in the room that day would later say it was as if Hazel Swan was conjuring a spell before their eyes, the way she peered at Owen, forcing his lips to remain silent. But others, the few who had known real love, saw something else: the look of two people whose love was about to destroy them. It was not witchcraft in Hazel’s eyes; it was her heart splitting in half.
And then Hazel spoke, a soft series of words that sounded almost like tears streaming down cheeks: “It’s all right. Tell them.”
“No,” Owen answered back. He was still being held by the two men, his arms tensed against their grip.
“Please,” she whispered. Because she feared he might be punished for protecting her. She knew it was already too late; the town had decided—they were witches. The selectmen just needed Owen to say it, to prove what they already believed. He only needed to tell them of one little mark; any imperfection on the skin would do.
His eyes watered, and his lips fell open, the air hanging there for several breaths, several heartbeats, until he uttered: “There is a small half-moon on her left ribs.”
A perfect freckle, he had once whispered against her skin in that very spot, his lips hovering over it, his breath tickling her flesh. She had laughed, her voice bouncing along the eaves of the barn loft, her fingers slipping through his hair. He had wished on that half-moon many times, silent desires that someday he and Hazel would leave Sparrow, steal away on a ship bound for San Francisco. A new life far away from this town. Maybe if she really had been a witch, his wish muttered softly against her flesh might have come true. But it did not.
A gasp passed through the room, and his father lowered the knife from Hazel’s throat. “There it is,” his father proclaimed, satisfied. “Proof that she, too, is a witch.”
Hazel felt her heart sink into her gut. The room echoed with murmurs. The finch resumed its chirping.
The half-blind elder cleared his throat, speaking loudly enough so that even those outside the town hall with their ears pressed to the doors would hear. “In our small town, where the ocean brings us life, it shall also take it. The Swan sisters are found guilty of witchcraft and sentenced to death by drowning. To be carried out at three o’clock this afternoon, on the summer solstice. An auspicious day for the assurance that their wicked souls will be extinguished permanently.”
“No!” shouted Aurora.
But Marguerite’s lips pinched shut, her cold stare enough to curse anyone who dared look at her. Hazel remained quiet, not because she wasn’t afraid, but because she couldn’t pull her eyes away from Owen. She could see his regret, his guilt. It wrenched him apart.
But he did not condemn her—she and her sisters were doomed the day they arrived in this town.
The men seized the three sisters before Hazel could mutter a word to Owen, leading them into a back room where five women stripped them naked of their clothes, verified the marks that had been claimed against them, and then dressed them in white gowns to purify their souls and ensure their eternal and absolute death.
But absolute, their death was not.