Chapter 1: Preacher's Passion

<"Tell us a story!" "Yeah -- we want to hear a story while>
<we get ready to go another round!" "Make it a funny story, >
<'cos Jo gets all weepy and forgets who she's supposed to be>
<doing if you tell sad ones...">

Most people have at least vaguely heard of the infamous Salem Witch Trials. Most people, generally, seem to have a vague impression that several witches were condemned and burnt.

As a matter of fact, almost certainly none of the condemned were actually witches (witches have always been pretty scarce on the ground even where they are wanted or even merely tolerated; anyone intelligent enough to master the Seven Magics and the Four Summonings that make up the requirements to be granted even the lowest witching degree, that of BW (Bachelor of Witchcraft, which certifies one a true witch, and here's the door, sorry we don't have any job openings on the faculty here at Trismegistus U, write if you get work, we hear there's a gingerbread house five counties over whose original owner was just roasted in her own oven by two smart-arse kids, good luck, bye! [Slam!]) is fully cognisant of the local vibrations, as it were, and has no trouble knowing exactly when she really ought to be going to visit Aunt Matilda, who's getting on in centuries and has that lovely hut just north of Bad Ass in Lancre in the Ramtops and doesn't get around as well as she used to, with the result that the local villagers arrive at her thatched cottage at quarter eight with torches, ropes, scythes, rakes and other more obscure agricultural implements and find themselves reading (if they can indeed read) a note on the door that says "Gonne to visitt mye Anty. Please milkke cowe everie daie and looke afterr the batts, Luv, Griselda thee Blacke".

<What did you just say? " "Sorry, the management promises closer>
<control will be kept over sentences in the future." "Quit>
<interrupting, Roberta, or we'll never hear the story.">

No, most if not all of the women and men (eleven women, eight men) condemned for witchcraft at Salem in 1692 were innocent, and were, in fact, hanged, and not burnt. Charged, be it noticed, on the basis first of the hysterical ravings of apparently spiteful little girls, and then further tried and condemned on the basis of rather fantastic "evidence" produced, for the most part, by those who were to sit in judgement over them. Thus does humanity -- not really far advanced from his original killer ape days -- deal with those who differ from the pack in some way.

<"Those interested in the real-life details of the Salem trials can>
<find a day-to-day chronology of them at <http://www.salemweb.com/memorial/default.htm, >
<and photos of the memorial dedicated in their memory in the tricen->
<tennial year after the trials at http://www.salemweb.com/memorial/stonesintro.htm, by the way">

However, this is not a story about Salem, the Salem witch trials, nor the rather nasty vengeance some real witches have worked there from time to time in killer-ape vengeance frenzies of their own, but rather about the nearby town of Winston, Massachusetts.

You've never heard of Winston, Massachusetts? Not surprising. The townspeople of Winston decided that they wanted to hang some witches, too. Their town, however, differed from Salem in one important and (for them) unfortunate manner -- there really was a witch living there.

Unfortunately for the townspeople and to her own subsequent displeasure and discomfiture, Mistress Nicola Hawkworth had a bit of a cold in the head that left her foresight a bit cloudy and uncomfortable to use, so she had momentarily stopped using it about the time the village elders decided that they needed a witch trial to be thoroughly up to date.

<"I must say, if that was all it took to be thoroughly up to>
<date in Massachusetts in those days, it must have been a much>
<more restful time and place to live than, say, Kansas City around>
<the beginning of the Twentieth Century..." "Huh"? "'Oklahoma!', >
<you dummy!" "Huh?" "Never mind.">

And, so, when there was a knock on her door one pleasant evening, and she opened it, expecting to find any one of several young (or one or two not-so-young, but still virile) men from the village, come to improve both their evenings, she instead found most of the village with torches, ropes, scythes, etc. in hand; led by the father of the wife of one of her more regular not-so-young but still virile callers.

<"In the interests of full disclosure, it is probably necessary to>
<reveal that the not-so-young but still virile caller in question>
<stood a few rows back in the mob, looking sheepish but still half->
<heartedly brandishing a left-handed Cornish hop-reaper's hook...">
<"Wow. That's obscure all right!" "Three-to-one it's so obscure 'cos she>
<just made it up." "No bets and get your hand off there till the>
<story's over, you pig!" "Oink.">

Before she could spew anathema upon them, or even ask if they'd care to come in for tea (she had just worked out the bigger-inside-than-outside spell, and wouldn't mind seeing if she could, indeed, fit the entire population of the town into her small one-room cottage), Rector Titearse seized her and stuffed a gag in her mouth, as two others grabbed her hands and tied them to prevent any gestures. Another tried to catch her cat, on the theory that it must be her familiar and would bring demonic help if not stopped (correct in theory, but the cat wasn't her familiar) and got severely clawed and bitten about the hands, arms, neck, face, scalp and left ear before fifteen pounds of spitting snarling blood-covered black cat burst through the center of the mob like a well-hurled ball through a stand of ninepins.

In the aftermath of the cat's strike, things were a bit confused for a while, and it was only because the reverend and his two helpers held her so tightly that Mistress Nicola didn't escape. Somebody copped a couple of feels in the process, which she normally wouldn't have minded [sometimes she even enjoyed a little bondage though she preferred to be the one tieing the knots] but this time she suspected that it was the Reverend Titearse, who was, after all, about fifty and wretched. She had always sympathised with his departed wife.

Not that the Reverend's wife was dead, you understand, just departed years ago, leaving him with a baby daughter who grew up to just as rigidly anti-fun as he was, which is why her husband, Goodman Hector Strongpencil, often dropped by Nicola's cottage of a summer evening when he was supposed to be at the tavern.

"Ha, foul enchantress, we have you!" barked out the Reverend. People talked like that in those days, right out in public, instead of decently out of hearing in the back rooms of game stores.

Without further ado, she was dragged off to town and clapped into the town gaol. There she was confronted by the Reverend, her accuser, who was the Reverend's daughter, Goodwife Prunaprisma Titearse Strongpencil, and (still rather sheepishly and definitely keeping behind the others) Goodman Hector Strongpencil, at whom she couldn't really remain angry, as he was one of her more favored evening visitors.

As they stared at her, she glared back, almost scorching them with the fire of her huge luminous eyes, probably the most striking feature of her incredibly lovely face...

<"Hey! No fair gilding the lily!" "Right -- we know just what those>
<'huge luminous eyes' looked like..." "... and, luv, I'm sorry to say>
<that while 'very pretty' would cover it, or even 'striking', >
<'incredibly lovely' just isn't in it... '" "Oh, all right...">... her glowing eyes. Even knowing she was still gagged with a scold's bridle and so could work no spells, the three shrank away from her.

Of course, as has been said, it's not what you don't know; it's what you do know that ain't so that will hurt you.

In this case, "everybody knew" that a witch could cast no spell or pronounce no curse so long as she was prevented from speaking and from gesturing. That was even true about some witches.

Mistress Nicola, however, could control the actions of others with nothng but the power of her mind. Often, such control was more trouble than it was worth -- a good old fashioned curse or potion was simpler and more certainly effective.

But, if the person were particularly susceptible to her control, she could cause them to perform almost any act. And those whom she so controlled would either believe that they were acting of their own volition, or would simply not realise what they were doing nor remember it afterward.

She knew, from experience that her greatest control was most easily exerted upon those of small intellect or those of a repressed nature; those of little intellect simply were overborne by the power of her will, while the repressed often were denying strong desires within themselves which they found shameful, "shameful" desires upon which she could play. It was obvious, as her mental "touch" moved over the three, that Goodman Strongpencil, while a pleasant fellow, and endowed with a tremendous... muscle... was not overly bright. The Reverend, while intelligent enough, was so twisted and repressed that his psyche felt to her "touch" like a tightly-wound spring. And Goodie Prunaprisma (Titearse) Strongpencil, while even less of bright-glowing intellect than her husband, was indeed her father's daughter -- so bound up in repression she scarcely needed corsets.

Nicola decided that she would play with these three a bit, while she bided her time until her "trial". And then she would deal with the whole town of Winston.

"Oh, Father," Prunaprisma was prattling, "You are so brave and strong to dare to cast this vile enchantress down. Not," she added, less worshipfully, as she cast a scornful glance at her unhappy husband,"at all like some I could mention, who succumb so easily to her foul blandishments!"

"Well, Daughter, I am, after all, a man of the cloth, and the Lord will protect me if I am strong in his ways. This Daughter of Lilith, who so resembles your wanton mother, shall not deceive mo nor prevail even for a moment over me as she did!"

Smiling inside her head, Nicola "touched" the Reverend's mind a bit.

"But, Daughter, you have never told me precisely what it was that this creature forced your husband to do under her evil spell or even how that spell was cast; if I am to prosecute her properly, I should know."

Prunaprisma turned a deep shade of red, and stammered, "Oh, F-father, I cannot... cannot bear to speak aloud of such disgusting things!" As she simpered, Nicola "touched" her mind as well.

"Well, perhaps, instead of telling me aloud," the Reverend judiciously said, "you could whisper to me... ?"

Another "touch", and Pr, blushing even more hotly, stepped to her father's side and began to whisper in his ear. As she spoke, his eyes grew wider and wider, and fixed first upon the sullen face of the girl in the cell, then, as if despite himself, began to move downward, across her rather lowcut bodice, downward to her broad and shapely hips.

With an almost visible jolt, he brought his attention back to his daughter.

"You say that she 'touched' him and thus enticed him?" he asked. His red-faced daughter nodded. "In what manner did she 'touch' him?" When she cast her eyes downward and didn't speak, he came to a decision.

"I must know what happened. If you will not tell me, Mistress, can you not, for the glory of God and the confoundment of the Devil, show me what the witch did?"

His daughter was in danger of spontaneously bursting into flame, it lmost seemed, so hot was her face. She shook her head slightly, and turned away.