His salty tears mix with snot and the bitter taste of the ashes that still hang in the air. He recalls her last frantic glance when they tied her up and raised her above the pyre.
He had warned her.
She knew it might end in disaster – but as she’d said, they needed the money. And he hadn’t asked her more about it, and she hadn’t elaborated or told him any more. Hadn’t told him what she did when the villagers came to her with their illnesses and miseries. When the harvest failed, the livestock got struck down with boils, and people lost their loved ones to fever – then they came to her and paid to have their fortunes turned around.
But this time, fortune didn’t budge.
That young girl who didn’t want the bastard she was carrying in her belly – she had been warned. Getting rid of an unborn child takes poisonous and dangerous plants, his wife had told the girl. There’s a reason why people around here call these herbs Maidens’ Palm and Child Killer.
The girl died shortly after drinking the bitter herbal brew, and his wife was declared guilty – guilty of peddling in dangerous magic.
He lets his fingers drift through the pale ashes. It’s getting dark. He had warned her. She knew very well that it might end in disaster.