Jack was well liked in the settlement, always being trailed by the littluns and trusted by parents as he was. The children shrieked with joy as he played with them, and the stories that he told were as addicting as the buzz of alcohol. Yes, he was very much liked.
His sister, however, was not.
She was immature and strange and hated the traditions that governed their little growing crop of buildings, but she was beautiful. She begged and she whined and she cried, but she was beautiful. She loved to play and she loved to laughed and she loved her brother, but she was beautiful. She hated doing housework and would rather dirty her dress through games with the littluns, but she was beautiful. It was not long before that exquisite beauty caught the eyes of a local settler, so he immediately proposed the idea of her hand in marriage to her father.
Once the subject was broached to her, she, naturally, declined.
"Papa," she cried, absolute disgust and panic echoing in her protests simultaneously. Even her voice, conflicting with such ugly emotions, still was beautiful. "I cannot! He must be over thirty years old, at least!"
Her father, for what it was worth, looked just as displeased as his daughter with the situation. No one could ever accuse him of not loving his children, even in such a situation. "Please, my darling," he soothed, eyes sympathetic, "consider his offer. He's very well off and can give you a doted life. From what I have seen, he is a kind man."
"I will not. I'm not even of marrying age, yet!"
Standing outside the front door, Jack's ears pricked at the raised voice coming from within his home and suddenly a great sadness engulfed him. His little sister, getting married? But she wasn't even ten years old! They couldn't possibly be asking already. But she is beautiful, he told himself, though it didn't help his heart to lift, and it makes sense. The voices inside continued, quieter now. So quiet, in fact, that he was unable to make out their words for several minutes.
"My daughter," he finally heard his father say, "if you still feel the same way in three days time, I will turn him down." Relief overcame Jack's unhappiness for a moment, though it returned only mere seconds later with the next words: "But remember, this will happen again. Refuse too many times and the suitors will stop coming to our doorstep completely."
"Good! I don't want them here anyway!"
The next day passes, as did the second, and the third came and went with Jack's sister just as stubborn as before (not that anyone blamed her, really, not even their father). On the fourth day, their father remained true to his words and dismissed the suitor. Jack was happy to see him go.
The suitor was not, to say the least.
It wasn't until the sixth day that a problem arose. The suitor was shouting the street about a witch, a witch in their fine little settlement. The witch had put a spell on him, he said, in order for him to make a fool of himself. He had been bewitched, he said.
Naturally, the townspeople that had gathered were wary of his tales. A witch? Here? But they listened all the same and gradually began to believe. His stories became testimony and his anger became their terrified rage and soon a mob had formed. They craved and begged him for a name, the name of a witch, in order to protect the town. He gave it to them.
That night, the townspeople burst into Jack's home.
They carried torches and pitchforks and knives and guns, weapons found on short notice. They ripped his family from their beds and dragged them outside, ignoring their fighting and pleas for hit Jack over the head when he grabbed at the ice skates hanging (oh, god, he was supposed to take his sister skating in the morning) by the front door and cut one of his captors with the sharp metal edge. They gagged his crying mother and slapped his sister across the face when she wouldn't stop screaming and held a blade to his father's throat after he struggled to help his dazed son.
Then they dragged them into the center of the small town, just outside of the church. A wooden pyre had be erected during the night, Jack barely noticed with a deep sense of dread as his captors threw the siblings to the still partially-frozen ground. The two of them weren't flight risks with the townspeople surrounding them and the children knew it too, grabbing for the other and huddling instead of running. The mob screamed insults at the small group of four, accusations and superstitions. The suitor was amongst them, jeering right along with the lot.
Suddenly, the crowd quieted as a man, one of the officials, stepped in front of Jack's sister. The little girl was quaking on her bare feet, her face swollen and too scared to cry. The man's eyes were hard when he announced, "You are hereby accused of witchcraft and the use of black magic on a fellow neighbor. How do you plead?"
The poor girl didn't know how to respond, tears welling up and shaking her head no, no, no! Her father roared in outrage and her mother wailed through her gag. Jack himself was in shock until he caught sight of the suitor to his left. The man was smirking, the shadows of the night creating sharp angles on his skin. The suitor was not the nice man that their father had thought he was.
And then Jack understood.
"The punishment for your crimes, monster," the official continued, relentless and spiteful, "is death by fire."
Jack wasn't surprised, or shocked really, but he was terrified for the girl clutching at his threadbare sleeping shirt. So he came up with a plan, an awful plan but at least it had a chance, and he whispered quietly when the mob grew louder in anticipation, "Don't worry, I'm gonna get you out of this, I'm not gonna let them hurt you. We're, uh- we're gonna have a little fun instead! You're gonna be...you're gonna be fine." She looked up at him, tears streaming in huge round droplets. "I promise. Would I trick you?"
Under any other circumstance, she would have said that yes, he always plays tricks. But now was not the time to argue, she knew, so instead she only murmured back, "I trust you."
Her brother smiled, with only a tinge of nerves. "Good. Now, do you wanna hear a story?" She was apprehensive and terrified, but she didn't object. "It, uh, it starts like this: my sister is not a witch," he began, louder and determined. His voice fights over the uproar, demanding the attention of the mob and soon the enraged people were warily listening.
"My sister is not a witch," he repeated, "it wasn't her that put someone under a spell. It was me." The enraged shouts that follow almost scared him into stopping, into taking back his words, but he had been prepared for the sudden backlash and plowed on.
He told a story, one of his famous stories, about a brother that loved his sister. He told them about how his sister was growing older and how he knew that soon their days of playing and ice skating would be over and she would be fought over by suitors. He told them about how selfish and jealous he had been, about how he had schemed to scare away all of the possible suitors, about how he had taught himself magic because it seemed fun, about how he used that magic to cast a charm over his beloved sister. He told them about how the spell would cause men to fall into a sudden love for her, but that she would reject them all. He told them that after rejecting too many of the bachelors, they would stop coming to their doorstep completely.
In the end it was only a story, but a story was more than enough.
The mob grabbed at him, dragging him towards the pyre and away from his shocked, crying sister. She began to reach for him, desperate to hold on to him for even just a second more, but another member of the crowd snatched her hand and started to pull her up along with her brother. Others heeded his example, surging to push their parents in the same direction. The rest of the family were affiliates of the devil, harboring a witch boy in secret and betraying the whole settlement. They deserved to die as well, each with a bit of metal in their skulls.
"Wait!" Jack shouted, "they're innocent! They didn't know!" Their neighbors ignored his protests, so Jack played his last card, his final trick. "If you don't let them go, I'll curse the children!"
The mob froze, fearful of his next move. If they believed his last story, why would they not believe a direct threat? "That's right. You were fools to trust me with your children so often, so carelessly. Just imagine what I could've done to them." His words were meaningless, though. He would never hurt the children, not in his life, but the townspeople were frightened and angry enough not to question his sudden change in character. "Just let them go and the children will be unharmed."
Slowly, the settlers released his family. His parents hugged his sister close, staring at their only son as he was tied to the wooden pyre with thick rope bindings. He didn't struggle, didn't cry, but instead gave them one of his trademark smiles, reassuring and full of love. It was only through that smile that he could properly convey his unsaid sorrows and apologies. I'm sorry, it explained, I'm sorry that this is goodbye and I'm sorry we never got to go ice skating, but you'll be okay, I promise.
Jack turned his gaze up to the moon, so full and bright and sad, and the mob lit the pyre ablaze.