Page 86 of A Time of Witches

At the memory.

What she had endured assaulted her memory, playing again with details she wished she could forget.

Her fingertips trembled as they ran over the plane of her skull once more, some areas prickled with patches of hair, unevenly shorn, others scabbed where the blade had cropped too deeply.

And who would come here to see her thus?

Robbed of the only feature she’d been proud of, gaunt, filthy.

Defeated.

A hand curled around Sybil’s. She looked down to find Edith gazing up at her.

“Have hope,” she whispered.

Walking slowly on feet that could scarcely hold her weight, Sybil was led to a square room where manacles hung from rusty nails, and several buckets lined the side of one wall. All were visible by the narrow cut in the stone that allowed in a scant amount of light.

A cry wrenched from her throat.

For there truly was someone there to see her.

Jacinda.

Her eyes went wide, the shock of Sybil’s appearance written as plainly on her face, as if in stark black ink upon a page.

“Sybil?” Jacinda approached slowly, cautiously.

Sybil nodded. Tears blazed in her eyes.

She wanted to apologize for her appearance, to tell how they had stripped her bare. How she had been thusly violated as they picked and preened over every bit of her scraped skin. How she had been so weak, she’d given up.

Instead, she simply nodded. Such horrors were too great to give voice to. Some were best locked inside, where a key could twist them shut forever.

“You have only a few moments,” a guard called from the corner.

Jacinda blinked, brought round by the reminder.

Sybil shifted her weight from one agonized foot to the other, the manacles around her ankle bones clanking. “Jacinda.” She choked out the single word, barely a whisper.

The guard stared with bored disinterest, his heart numb or missing.

Jacinda gazed at her shoes. At the wall. Anywhere but at Sybil.

But Sybil was not offended. She understood she was a hard visage to take in, her shorn head nicked and scabbed, her body skeletal beneath her shift.

“It has only been a fortnight,” Jacinda said brokenly. “How could they have done this to you in so short a time?”

“They are persuasive in their efforts to encourage a confession of witchcraft.” Sybil tried to give a wry smile, but her lips had split from lack of moisture.

Jacinda shook her head, incredulous. “Why?”

“They sought a witch mark,” Sybil replied. “When one could not be found, they insisted there must be one beneath my hair. There was not.”

Jacinda covered her mouth with her hand, suppressing the emotion welling in her eyes. “They arrested you for Henry’s murder.”

Jacinda had loved Henry. For a girl who had never known her father, he had easily stepped into the role, guiding her, educating her, marveling at her cleverness and making her feel worthy of praise and affection.

Sybil nodded. “I know.”