The Platform

The wood creaks beneath my feet as I look out at the audience.

I must be so special that all these faces have come out to see me… all preparing to watch my final performance. My final act.

My neck feels itchy and tight, and all I can think in this moment is that the final thing I will see are the people who betrayed me.

What vengeance I have for each and every one of them.

Then I hear the loud bang and my floor drops beneath me.

For a slight moment I think that I am levitating. Gravity has no hold on me and possibly I am this wicked creature they all so believe I am.

But the slight second of levitation betrays me, and I am without any abilities I thought I might suddenly have.

With a sharp crack, the world fades out and I am left in darkness.

A deep slumber befalls me....

I scream.

I shout.

I yell.

I grip the blankets so tight I can feel my nails digging into my palms. I release and look around, trying to recollect where I am.

My dog jumps up and gives me a lick, my only companion or should I say my chosen companion.

I am what they call a spinster in my community. I am 34, own a tavern, and have never been married and never plan to.

I have no desire to be married.

All my female friends have wed, but I have yet to bestow one bit of jealousy towards them.

Their swollen eyes, their husbands’ mistresses, their inability to form a sentence without their “beloved” interrupting them to share his story.

Why would I want to stoop to that quality of life?

I am as happy as one can be. I have a say in everything I want to do and no one can defy my choices.

No one can ridicule me.

No one can hit me.

I will not allow it.

My bed is just above the tavern and I make my way down to do my daily preparations for the day’s customers.

I hear the door’s bell chime.

Before I even turn, I know it to be Mr. Percy.

I turn and see him coming toward me. He is a man of short stature, silver hair with an exception of bright white hair around his temples, and quite good-natured.

Mr. Percy is a court elder and has been coming here frequently during the past few weeks. I suspect his wife has been giving him a bother as of late.

“Hello, Mr. Percy. What brings you in so early?”

“Hello, Bridget. Would you be opposed to sitting down with me over here?” he says, pointing to a chipped wooden table covered in ring marks from the mugs.

“Well, of course. Let me just—”

As I wipe my hands on my apron and remove it swiftly, I sit down.

“What can I help you with?”

“Well… Bridget, there seems to be some word of your... unfamiliar nature.”

“Unfamiliar nature?”

“You are in your mid-thirties, right?”

“Yes, I am.”

“And you own this tavern, correct?”

“Well yes, Mr. Percy. Who else would it be?”

His lips slightly tighten, hands folding over one another.

“Do you know the twins Sarah and Sarah?”

“Yes, I’ve heard they’ve gone away for insanity.”

“Well, Bridget, I don’t believe it is insanity. The court believes they have been performing witchcraft.”

“The governor is starting to run a tight ship and has been suspecting sorcery in the village.”

“Oh! I did not know. I mean, I’ve heard whispers of course, but nothing of grave concern.”

“Well, Bridget… they suspect you of witchcraft.”

“What?”

My body feels a familiar tension.

My throat dries almost instantly and I cough.

“That’s absurd. What have I done?”

“Well, it’s not something you have done, but what you haven’t. They find it highly peculiar, your choice of life. You are the only woman not married besides Beth, but she is a recent widow.”

I scoff.

“And so that makes me suspect of witchcraft?”

“That is absurd.”

“I know, Bridget, but I need to warn you that you are being watched. You might need to change your lifestyle to not end up like Sarah and Sarah.”

“I just wanted you to know because it would not be of good conscience of me not to tell you.”

I get up from the table.

“Well thank you, Mr. Percy, but I think you can drop this from your conscience at once. I know who I am and I am not going to change it because they think it peculiar.”

“I’m the only sane one in this whole village. Everyone accusing others of witchcraft because they are not married.”

Mr. Percy, disappointed with my take, nods.

“Well, Bridget, the choice is yours. Good day.”

He tips his head and exits the front.

What a stupid man, thinking that will happen.

Preposterous.

The week goes on and I am my usual outspoken self. Mr. Percy has yet to come into the tavern since our discussion and quite frankly I’m glad.

He boiled my blood with his assumptions.

But I do get this chilling feeling that something is coming.

I don’t know why. I have had my usual customers, my usual conversations.

But tonight feels eerily familiar.

I must just be having a spook.

As I reach for my glass, I instantly look to the corner of the room where a wall plate is just a second before it falls....

I am too tired to pick up the pieces so I wait till morning....

The swoosh of my door smashes into the wall.

My eyes flutter open and I am met with multiple men of the court grabbing me by the arms.

My dog starts biting the leg of one of the men who then kicks my sweet Boaty.

I yell and try to break away.

I know what this is for.

Oh how I just know.

I am looking out at the same faces I have seen before in my dreams.

This is a dream.

This all has to be.

I am not physically here.

I know I must not be.

Tears stream from my face and I suddenly hear the loud bang and crack that has happened before.

The deep slumber befalls me once again.

I wake up in a sweat.

I grab my neck, feeling the ghost of something around it.

But this is a dream.

That was a dream.

I go downstairs, not even bothering to get out of my pajamas. I am so out of it I can’t understand what has just happened.

The bell chimes.

I look over.

It is Mr. Percy.

“My Percy, what have you done!” I scream.

He stares at me with wide eyes.

“Bridget, are you okay? May we sit down?”

“What is this about, Mr. Percy? Witchcraft? Is that it?”

“Oh, well… did someone say something?” Mr. Percy asks.

“Get out, Percy! Get out!”

He rushes out and the door slams behind him.

The tavern is closed the whole week. I am too scared to come out of my room, hoping someone thinks I left town.

The last day of the week comes around and I am petrified.

I lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, hoping tomorrow will not have any horrors in it.

Crash!

I look over at the corner and it is the plate. The plate that has smashed onto the floor into hundreds of tiny pieces.

Tears run down and panic fills my body until I finally fall asleep.

SLAM!

The men grab me and I start to cry.

“No, no, you are making a mistake! I AM NOT A WITCH!”

But they disregard me and I am back looking out at the audience as I stand on this platform.

BANG.

CRACK.

I have done everything.

I try to close the tavern, leave town, speak less, make friends with the court elders.

Anything that could possibly sway their decision.

Over and over again I do this for months.

One day this will work.

One day they will change their minds.

But yet again, I am standing on the same weathered wood platform I have seen so many times before.

My neck tight and itchy, yet I do not struggle.

The same faces staring at me.

But I do not stare back.

I see a bird in the sky.

So high above me.

Oh how I hope that I turn into that bird.

Flying free under the blue sky.

At peace.

I no longer scream and shout.

I have no tears.

Just numbness.

I no longer beg for mercy, for this is my fate.

I have done everything.

Anything that could possibly sway their decision.

Over and over again I do this for months.

But I am left in the same predicament.

For I have settled on the fact that no matter what I do, I am still right here.

Was it ever the witchcraft they feared?

Or the strength of a woman?

And that will always be my crime.