We’d grown up with her.
We would all be playing and we’d see her skipping rocks by the river or singing in the front pew at church.
She was the preacher's daughter.
She was kept separate from most of us kids.
She and her mother practiced singin.
Her father and her studied scripture.
Her grandparents taught her how to pray.
We didn't really know until we were teenagers that she was different than us.
It was like she couldn't function socially.
Sometimes, we’d be walking by her house and she’d be sitting under the nectarine trees
We’d try to talk to her but when she’d look up she wouldn't speak
Her eyes always seemed distant, like they were portals that belonged to somewhere else
Eventually, we stopped talking to her
Years later her mother had another daughter and in that birth, had died.
Naturally, she raised the girl.
By this time most of us were married, some with children, others with children on the way.
We got to see a new side of her because of her litter sister.
She was so in love.
She would run, just as she did as a little girl, through the woods
And skip rocks with her little sister
We would hear them laughing and singing… sometimes we would even come up on them praying in the woods..
We didn’t understand her.
She was rather peculiar.
She was like a child, but she was an adult.
Our entire town knew her from the church and because she was the daughter of the preacher I guess we all just assumed that she was always talking with God.
When her little sister was about seven, their father died and we got a new preacher.
Our new preacher was fancy and he valued fancy things.
Being country and hill folks, we found our value in each other not in fancy things.
He bought the church new hymnbooks.
We did not know any of the songs in these books.
Most of the songs were solemn, void of much feeling.
But, we followed our preacher's direction and sang them solemn songs.
What was once a vibrant community became hollower and hollower over time.
I guess the solemn songs were not the way she wanted to grieve her dad’s death or worship so instead of coming to church, she’d take her little sister out into the woods and together they’d sing the old songs.
Honestly, some of us would skip church and just sit on the outskirts of those woods to listen.
They sounded so beautiful.
Some of the girls would be teary eyed listening to them.
We’d see them twirl and spin and sing and cry and pray.
Sometimes, they’d lay down onto the Earth as if it was their Mother.
Sometimes they’d be out there all day and even into the night.
And at night sometimes, we’d hear them howling.
We didn’t know what to make of it.
We just went along with our lives.
One day something felt amiss.
There was a frenzied energy in the air.
Seemed like something unusual was happening, so I followed the business and noise until I got to the center of our little town.
I froze when I got there because of what I saw.
There was the preacher in the town square on a podium.
He had her with him.
She had a noose around her neck.
All of us stood there confused, shocked.
We waited for the preacher to speak and while we did I looked into her eyes like I used to when we would see her under those nectarine trees.
But this time for the first time
(Not even at her father's funeral)
Her eyes, those portals, were closed
I flinched when I saw
A new feeling crept into me, it hurt my stomach
Clenched by throat
Something horrible was about to happen
In the place of her angel eyes was fear.
The preacher spoke
“This woman is a witch.” he said.
“She is possessed with a wild and dangerous spirit that is coming for each of your souls”
He looked at her and then out into the crowd and then to me.
“For this she must die.” said the preacher.
I looked back at him and then to her and we caught eyes.
Then he pulled the lever, and she was hung.
My breath got caught.
I couldn’t breath.
I couldn’t believe this was Christianity.
That this was Love.
I’d never seen a lady, nonetheless a holy lady, be hanged before.