Disclaimer: I owneth not these Invader Zim characters... and THOU art a witch!
Witch Hunt
Chapter 2
"Art thou a witch?"
"Why dost thou deny that thou art a witch?"
"How dost thou know thou art not a witch?"
"How long hast thou been a witch?"
"Hast thou stopped eating babies?"
The questions, the pointed, relentless questions, kept stabbing through Dib's mind as he hastened toward the town jail to visit his sister. He well knew how witch trials proceeded, and he well knew that only one chance existed to survive the accusation...
The jail was a true hell on earth. Pickpockets, murderers, insane people, blasphemers, loiterers and God knew who else were crammed together in tiny, dark cells. The jailer on duty, a coarse, thickset fellow with a broken nose, was none too eager to show Dib to Gaz's cell, but after Dib explained that he had driven away the Mather ghost a fortnight ago, the jailer's reluctance dissolved and he nodded. "Follow me, then. But knowest thou that this visit be at thine own risk." He gave Dib a skeptical shake of his head, pulled a jangling ring of keys from his belt, and with a crook of a grimy forefinger, bade Dib to follow him.
At the end of a nearly deserted hall, Gaz slumped in the foul-smelling straw of a solitary cell, having been deemed far too dangerous to be in with the rest of the prisoners. She was staring at the wall opposite the door as if something was happening on it that only she could see.
Once Gaz ran out of dire threats to scream at him for not having arrived sooner, Dib began to advise her on what to do.
"Yes, Gaz, yes, I full well know that thou art not a witch. I come home to thee every day, and art thou flying on a broomstick? No, thou art threatening to hit me with 't. Canst thou turn me into a frog? Strike me dumb? No, because if thou couldst, thou wouldst have done so long ago. What comest from thy cauldron? Naught but soup... and very good soup 'tis too, the best in the vil- the, the county!" he added hastily, seeing the look that came to her face.
"I hath seen some witch trials, Gaz, and there be but one way to survive. I pray thee, listeneth thou to me, as thy very life doth hang in the balance... "
"IDIO'!" Gaz screeched as soon as Dib began to coach her. "I cer'ainly shalt NO' say 'A'! 'Ere AR' no witches!"
- - - - - - - -
In the strict, repressive society of the Puritans, just about everything was a sin, or at least a crime. Consequently the court docket was constantly filled with prisoners accused of everything from murder to overcharging, and unless they were either personally involved or happened to have free time to kill, few people even bothered to sit in the spectator's gallery any more.
However a witch trial was something everyone wanted to see, so on the appointed day the entire village crowded into the courtroom. As anxious to catch a glimpse of this witch as they were not to be seen by her and get hexed, they waited with increasing nervousness for the accused to arrive.
Growing weary with the tension, they had just about all relaxed their vigil and looked away for a moment, but they all snapped back to full alertness the instant the door opened. Gaz herself came striding into the room, a grim-faced bailiff on either side of her. She glared at the assembled crowd as if each one of them had personally pushed her into her jail cell. They all shrank back visibly, and this reaction seemed to satisfy Gaz somehow as she stepped into the prisoner's docket.
After opening the session with a rap of his gavel, the magistrate called the first witness.
A little old lady stepped forward timidly, never taking her eyes off Gaz for a second. When Gaz's scowl flared momentarily the old woman flinched and made as if to flee back to her seat, if not out the door. The biggest bailiff in the room had to step forward and stand directly in front of Gaz before the witness would to continue walking to the front of the courtroom to testify.
"She... " the old lady had to clear her throat, "excuseth me... she hath tried to put the evil eye on me!"
"What happened, please?" said the magistrate.
The old woman stared at the magistrate for a second. "Thou saw 't, Your Honor, 'twas right here in the courtroom!"
"No, I meaneth before. Before the arrest."
"Oh. One day shortly after G... the accuseth and her brother moveth into the village, I knocketh on her door to request the borrowing of a cup of flour... and she hisseth at me like a snake! She telleth me to get out, her house was not open to beggars! And she maketh such a FACE! Oh how my heart beganth to pulse! Every time I thinketh of that day my poor heart pulseth quickly again; she hath put the evil eye on my heart!"
"You're sure it wasn't someone else who put an evil eye on your heart?" the magistrate suggested.
"Indeed, no." The old woman shook her head. "It happeneth only when I thinketh of... her."
"I thank thee, Goodwife Cruff. Take thy seat once more."
The second witness was a farmer whose farm backed onto the thickest part of the woods.
"One day last fortnight I cometh in from the plowing. I heareth behind me a sound so fierce and ferocious, I knew 'twas surely Gaz growling at me. I turneth around, and saw a bear! Gaz canst turn herself into wild animals!"
At this, Gaz shook her head and rolled her eyes. Whispers flew around the courtroom. "Why doth she that?" got the reply, "She must be doing that to communicate with the Devil!" which turned into, "She is in communion with the Devil!"
Dib glanced around in mounting alarm. This was already going even worse than he had feared it would.
Another witness, the baker's wife, was telling the court about the time Gaz came to her stall at the market to buy something, something of which she had just sold the last one. "'Sorry,' I sayeth to her, 'we're "fresh" out!'" Here and there around the courtroom, a few faces lightened; the baker's wife was a cheerful soul, not sinfully so, but just cheerful enough to lighten the hearts of all who spoke with her. "And Gaz turneth around and walketh away, but as she doth so, she muttereth under her breath... something," the baker's wife wound up.
"What sayeth she?" the magistrate asked.
"I - I knoweth not."
"Magical curses and hexes, no doubt," the magistrate decided. Dib rocked back and forth, desperate for his turn as a witness; he knew Gaz said much that was neither curse nor hex. "If what she sayest be harmless, surely she wouldst not object to anybody hearing them," the magistrate added by way of explanation. To the witness, he continued, "And hath thee been visited by any calamities after that?"
The witness said immediately, "Oh, aye, indeed! My husband trippeth over a plowshare in the market and cutteth his shin open, and my children catcheth the measles, and my bread goeth moldy and the mold hath the outline of the Devil, and - "
The magistrate took notes for a while before finally thanking the baker's wife for her evidence and calling for another witness.
This time it was the town crier. "One day I runneth to get to work because I had some important news. I runneth past a house, and a dog cometh from the house. 'T chaseth me a ways down the road and biteth me. 'Twas Gaz; she canst also turn herself into a dog, for I hath heard her be called a 'bitch.'"
Still another witness came forward, a prim young mother from the newest house in the village. "I was in the market shopping, and I took the last loaf of bread in the baker's basket. I thought myself blessed, but in the next moment, I looked up to see... that woman! Her hand was stretcheth forth... and the look she gave me!" The witness covered her eyes against the terrifying image. "I... I canst not bear to describe it... she already hath her hand out to curse me! And she told me I would "suffer, horribly..." for taking 'her' bread. Well, some time later, after I had visited my poor sick neighbor Prudence, I fell sick myself! And then my whole family fell sick!"
As the spectators stirred uneasily, Gaz interrupted the proceedings. "'Ee go' sick because 'ee visited a sick woman, 'ou idio'! I 'ad naugh' 'o do wi' i'! And 'hy family got sick from 'EE!"
A gasp of shock tore the air. In front of a courtroom full of witnesses, the accused was scapegoating a poor sick woman for her evildoing! And as if that wasn't enough, she even blamed the witness for making her own family sick!
Citizens continued to come forward to describe something horrible that Gaz had said or done to him or her. To Dib, not even the most sulphurous threats or insults, nor even the occasional physical blow, sounded even slightly unusual. However, he had to admit he could understand how someone could suspect Gaz of being a witch; one blistering glare from her could haunt the mind's eye for days. But foul-tempered and antisocial though she was, Gaz was no witch.
"Hath we any more witnesses?" the magistrate was finally saying.
What made Dib say what he said next is something no one shall ever know. Had he been using any of his brain, he never would have blurted, "Gaz is not a witch."
In that one instant, Dib had forgotten that anybody who spoke a word in the defense of an accused witch immediately became the target of the accusations himself.
To be continued...
(A/N) Some of my reviewers have asked what a ducking stool is. A ducking stool was a device similar to a seesaw with a chair on only one end... the end that hung out over the water. It was used to punish a scolding, bickering, troublesome woman for disturbing the peace. She would be tied into the chair and dipped into the pond or river as many times as the judge saw fit.
I'll be the first to say that punishing only WOMEN for shouting and yelling was the height of discrimination. Thank God that instrument was done away with long ago.
Today, women have the rights to speak up and protest etc, but wherever she appears, Gaz abuses these privileges to such an obscene degree that she makes one piss-poor poster girl for "female empowerment." Threatening and intimidating others over little or nothing is abuse of power and can easily be used to justify reverting to keeping women ''in their place."
Had Gaz lived in the time period of this fic, her endless threats about nightmare worlds etc. over offenses small, tiny, and nonexistent would have made her a prime candidate for the seat of honor in the ducking stool.