By Ruby Hanlon

Trigger warning: Contains themes of death, suicide and execution by hanging

They say it was me.

That I cast a spell on that child. That I was the one who made it have fits and think spirits were pinching it. If only I actually could, I’d cast one on the guard who keeps walking past my cell like he has nothing else to do. 

I’d turn him into a frog.

Ribbit. Ribbit. Ribbit.

Always entertaining to see a woman in prison. 

Strange.

I feel freer in here than I did outside in the pig’s pit of a town. They all stared at me. My mane of hair, the warts that mare my chin, apparently, they’re witches marks. Fancy that. If only it were true and I could set the whole place on fire with the flick of my wrist.

She did it! They yelled.

It was her!

The one with the big nose!

I didn’t think my nose was that big.

I thought I was invisible, just a beggar woman on the street. Funny how easily I became the centre of attention.

A stain on society!

How dare I curse that wee child. 

Honestly if I could, I would have, only to spite that bloody mayor’s wife. I think fingers started pointing her way too. Funny none of the fingers pointed at any of the men. I suppose only men can point the fingers in the first place.

A witch’s work it is!

Not a wizard.

Wizards were conveniently forgotten about apparently.

Can you hear that? I think they’re setting up the tree for my hanging. 

Why did I do it? Why did I confess?

Well, if I denied it, I’d just be back on the streets. At least in here I’ve got some moldy bread to chew on.

Maybe it was me that cursed that child.

I did see the little girl the day it all happened. She fell over in the mud, and I offered her an apple. It was the only piece of food I had. She was crying, her eyes sparkling like a little angel and I thought this child has everything; a home, a mother, a father, everything but someone to play with.

Maybe my inherent evilness cursed her. It seeped into her skin, staining her pearly white bones. 

A single touch was all it took. In my confession I said I laced the apple with poison. 

For I suppose there is a type of poison laced inside me.

I did think for a moment, if I had suffocated her in the mud, the mayor’s wife would finally understand what it feels like to be a beggar. To have nothing in the world and everything taken from you by the cruel hand of fate.

My father committed suicide leaving everything to the widow’s new husband. Nothing for his daughters, not a single pretty penny for me.

I wonder how many other women will die because of men. Probably half of the town. What will they do then? When there’s no women left to give them male heirs to their fortunes.

Die off.

A world without men.

No patriarchy. Women in charge? Imagine that! Me – in charge!

I’d make all those rich pompous ladies share the hard work – make them do it all themselves. The mayor’s wife scrubbing her own floor – now that is a vision.

Shame I’m hanging at dawn. All these ideas. Gone in a single pull of a rope. At least I’m not burning to death. That would be far worse.

I think.

I wonder what they’ll do with my body. Leave it in the tree, my head lulling to one side.

Part of me hopes my spirit will float away into that place they call heaven. Funny how all these people go to church in their best clothes, yet in those very same clothes accuse people of witchcraft. Is that inherently good? I suppose they think they’re saving the town from evil like me. Maybe they are. But what if I wasn’t evil. What then? Does that make them as bad as me? 

Another part of me wants my spirit to come back and haunt the town. For it to drift into their dreams and transform them into nightmares, forcing them to relive the moment they dared to hang me.

Again. 

And again 

And again.

They might take me down, put me in an unmarked grave on gallows hill. At least then I wouldn’t be alone.

What if the rope doesn’t kill me in one clean go? I hadn’t thought of that. I thought it would be quick.

But what if it isn’t?

Can you hear that?

The crows have come early. No eyes to peck out yet.

If they peck out my eyes, will they peck out my soul too?

What if they eat it up whole and then I can’t come back to haunt this place or go to heaven. What if the crows get to my spirit first!

Let me out!

I didn’t do it!

It wasn’t me!

But I didn’t say any of that. I confessed.

‘Take me in!’ 

‘I did it!’

‘It was me!’

I felt such relief saying those words. As though by confessing my evilness, the world could go about being good again. But what if people are good and evil? Not just one or the other.

I suppose then we’d all be hanged.