"Hide your wands!" Winifred cried. She had been waiting patiently in front of the drafty window for half an hour. Squinting through the handblown glass squares stitched together with lead, she saw glittering orange light winking at her through the dark trees. Night had fallen moments before.
Behind her, there was a scuffle and the sound of wood smacking a stone floor. She rounded on her sisters "They are almost here and you two still fight on who gets to put there's in first?"
"Sorry Winnie," Mary replied wearing the same confused expression as always, not really certain what she was apologizing for.
"It matters not" Winifred replied walking briskly away from the window, her long red curls bounced on her shoulders and her black cloak billowed out behind her.
When she reached Sarah she waved her wand over her sister's head and uttered "Hair, pale as the moon."
Next was Mary "Hair, black as night."
Mary giggled and waved her own wand in return over Winifred "Hair, orange as fire."
Next, all three swirled their twigs at their feet.
"Hide your wands" Winifred repeated, stowing her own inside the wooden pencil box that had just been knocked over, her sisters followed suit. The wands appeared to be sticks snapped from trees but they were not, they were special, crafted and infused with cores of unicorn hair, dragon heartstring, or phoenix feathers. Still, they rattled inside the box when it was snapped shut, as if nothing special.
Concentrating hard, Winifred stared at the box and whispered an incantation. Red letters appeared on the edges, sealing its contents inside, Winifred threw the box on a random shelf and steeled herself as angry voices could be heard outside.
"Out witches! Out!" a booming voice bellowed at them.
Sarah cackled and said "You'll have to come and get us Proctor!" She cackled again before turning to Winifred with a gleam in her eye "Are you sure we can't use our wands?"
"Yes! Let them do what they will" the door burst open "do not resist!" She urged her sisters.
John Proctor stepped through the threshold, his biceps were his most pronounced feature, bulging tightly out of his rolled-up sleeves. No doubt a product of pushing a plow through his field, season after season, at fifty nine and a little soft around the middle, he still looked menacing. Narrowing his brown eyes through a curtain of dark, greasy hair, to survey the three sisters standing there, not putting up a fight, he said "Mary, Winifred, and Sarah Sanderson" his voice rang loud and clear inside the single-roomed home, there was shuffling outside as, what seemed like the entire village, moved in to hear better. "You are accused of several crimes against the town of Salem-"
"And who are you, barkeep?!" Mary hissed "To accuse us?! I don't remember you being magistrate!"
"I was appointed by the people of this town an hour ago during an emergency session" he tried to sound proud but it was clear that this was a burden he did not want to carry "it is my duty to try and punish you for your crimes."
It was Sara's turn to hiss at him "What crimes are those?"
"Last year I blamed Giles Corey for setting fire to my home because he was found at the scene-"
"What does that have to do with us?"
"He has filed suit against me and claims he was attempting to stomp out the fire shortly after seeing three women fly away on broomsticks" Proctor said the last word with incredulity but plowed on nonetheless. "Besides arson and being seen flying, sixteen children claim to have become ill before being kidnapped by three women, one of them with orange hair." He locked eyes with Winifred's hair as if it had offended him.
"Were these children harmed in any way?" Winifred moved close, he could smell flowers, herbs, and wood smoke.
His eyebrows creased "No, they were all returned the next day confused, telling frightening stories of maniacal laughter and a black cauldron billowing green smoke."
Winifred leered at John which made him shift his weight uncomfortably "Sarah has always had a peculiar laugh. This has convinced you that we are witches then?"
"I am merely carrying out a trial set by the good people of Salem."
"It sounds as if this is no mere trial…"
"It is trial by fire" John replied weakly. It took six burly men to seize the sisters.
Even then, it was only when Winifred said "Do not resist, they will not stop until they have blood!" that they were captured and marched out of the house.
A crowd, a hundred strong, had come to witness. Half of them carried lit torches, a few farmers had brought their pitchforks and were throwing a mixture of hay, twigs, and dead leaves at the base of an old willow tree that had shed its leaves on the first blustery day of fall.
The crowd went quiet when the sisters were hoisted onto the top of the piles and tied to the trunk, wrist to wrist.
John pulled his hat off and wrung it in his hands before turning to a man in a black robe wearing half-moon glasses "Reverend Hale?"
Hale's voice was high-pitched and quivering as he recited the Lord's Prayer and several excerpts from the tattered Bible held open in his shaky hands. Winifred rolled her eyes as the man droned on and on before, finally, he said "You will be purged with fire, if you do not burn, you are guilty of being witches. If you do burn, you will be delivered into the Lord's arms. Do you have any last words?"
"IF WE DON'T BURN, I WILL PERSONALLY COME AND EAT YOUR CHILDREN IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES!" Sarah screamed at him and let out another gleeful cackle.
"Burn the witches!" Reverend Hale shouted, the crowd joined in, starting a chant.
"Burn the witches! Burn the witches! Burn the witches! Burn the witches!"
Proctor's eldest son Benjamin, lowered his torch into the base of dry leaves.
The fire flared quickly and savagely making everyone scream, the crowd stepped back from the wailing of the witches. Everyone looked around at each other to confirm that they were not the only ones hearing it although the flames obscured their bodies, Sarah could be heard laughing her maniacal cackle louder and louder until some of them clamped hands over their ears.
"Burn the house!" Reverend Hale cried and torches were thrown through the air, landing on the porch or roof immediately consuming the thatch and wood structure in large, unnatural flames.
The laughing stopped and a deafening silence made the crowd look back to the burning tree just in time for the trunk to explode, pelting the onlookers with thousands of flaming splinters, which dispersed in every direction away from the toppling tree.
Fiery branches smacked the ground which erupted in more whipping and convulsing flames. Small fiery tornadoes sprouted from the middle and started chasing the spectators.
Reverend Hale, who had fallen over backwards when the tree exploded, scrambled to his feet making raspy noises unable to produce a coherent sound because of the spectacle that happened before him.
Within seconds every villager was gone, running at top speed in the direction they chose, only to congregate an hour later back at Proctor's tavern. The fire was still ablaze upon the hillside, it was spreading slowly through the dry brush, carried by the wind, thankfully, away from the town.
Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief, sure that they had finally purged the threat that had been looming over them for the better part of a year.
Almost three days later, a strange sight appeared at the edge of the clearing that had once been the home of the Sanderson sisters. Now a blanket of char lay over everything, wisps of smoke rose from logs still glowing red, scattered randomly among the gray and black ash.
A fox with a coat of dark orange sat staring at the rubble of a ruined foundation, above it, on a scarred branch a snowy white owl was perched, hooting serenely. Behind them both, half-covered in shadow stood a large black dog, its red eyes were staring fixedly at the ruined structure as well.
With a long leap, the fox bounded out towards the pile of debris, skipping over the hot ground with a graceful ease. The owl circled overhead, gazing down at the fox almost expectantly.
The fox dug through the ashes and only stopped when it pried out an unscathed, simple wooden pencil box. When the box was clamped tightly in its jaws, the fox turned around and with a few more great leaping bounds, made its way back to where the black dog waited. Together the unlikely trio scampered off into the darkest part of the woods.