A Death Displaced by Andrew Butcher Read Free Book Online Page B

your help … please.’
    ‘How do you know these things aren’t actually there?’
    ‘I don’t know, but strange things keep happening and I want it to stop,’ she said, frustrated, and hoping to avoid more cryptic responses.
    ‘Come sit back down and you can tell me the whole story. But first, let me tell you a little about me.’
    They sat at opposite sides of the room facing each other, and the fire glowed behind Tamara, silhouetting her body.
    Juliet used her gloved hands to dab her tears. She quickly recomposed herself and pushed her blonde hair out of her eyes.
    Tamara’s eyebrows squeezed together as she looked down at the floor and rubbed her hands together awkwardly. Then she peered about herself in an eerie manner, as if she was seeing through the walls and viewing the entire hamlet in one sweep.
    ‘Do you know the history of this island?’ she asked.
    ‘I know what I learnt at school. It’s impossible not to know anything about it when you live here.’
    ‘Yes, but do you know the real history?’
    ‘Is what I learnt at school not the real history?’ Her eyebrows lifted.
    ‘Of course it’s not. I know the truth about my ancestors.’ Tamara’s voice compressed with a serrated sound. ‘I’m the only living descendant left. My sister died ten years ago, and I have no other family.’
    ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
    ‘Do you know what the witches were capable of, my ancestors who lived here before they were burnt? They were powerful. They worshipped a willow tree in the centre of this hamlet and it flourished with their magic. They helped crops grow, they controlled the weather, they healed the sick and the wounded,’ frantically, she picked up pace, ‘they communed with the dead, they communed with the animals, they spiritually travelled between this world and the Otherworld. You come here, and you say you don’t believe in the work I do, in the gifts that have been passed down to me in my blood, the gifts that I’ve practiced with my whole life. You can’t be helped, if you don’t believe.’
    ‘I believe you know your … trade.’ Juliet said, instantly regretting her choice of words.
    ‘But you don’t believe the history of my ancestors, the real history of Lansin Island?’
    ‘It’s just not the history we were taught.’
    ‘You were taught wrong.’
    Juliet ignored the medium for a moment and thought about the history she’d learnt at school. She’d never liked history; it had no practical use in her mind so she paid little attention. But she would have to walk around covering her eyes and ears her whole life to not know about the witch burnings. It was the tourist attraction on the island: The Burning Grounds, the nearly five-hundred-year-old weathered courtyard of stone platforms.
    From what she remembered, in 1542, King Henry VIII introduced a Witchcraft Act declaring it a crime punishable by death to practice witchcraft. That included sorcery, enchantments, conjuring sprites, or invoking any spells that could manipulate others, cause harm, or be used for acquiring money. The population of Lansin Island at that time was roughly eight hundred people … but Juliet didn’t like to think about the rest of the story. One reason she didn’t pay attention in the lessons was because it frightened her at that age, knowing what happened in the centre of the island.
    When the islanders heard of the Witchcraft Act, paranoia spread and a group of women in Willow were accused of casting spells to destroy crops and livestock. They supposedly sacrificed animals and engaged in devil worship and orgies. The women of Willow, many other females, and a few men across the island were rounded up: a total of one hundred and forty-three. Over the course of five days they were burnt alive, thirty at a time, before it was put to a stop.
    There were no trials. The island people took it into their own hands, using cattle to bring rock from the hills to build platforms: each made circular with a