Rating: PG
Setting: Anytime Post Buffy Season 3
Disclaimer: If you recognise it, it ain't mine, but Joss & ME's... But I promise I'll be careful.
Authors Note: Written in response to the Hallowe'en Challenge at the BBBFic, to be no more that 1000 words, Be set around Hallowe'en, include a Jack O'Lantern and feature the words 'praxis' and 'gusset'.
Authors Note 2: I realise that this is in no way historically accurate. We didn't burn our witches in the UK, we tended to hang or drown 'em. But hanging and drowning tend to be too quick to have this sort of thing happen, so I'm using artistic license. Hope you enjoy.
London 1860
It was Hallowe'en, that was why they'd caught her. She'd been talking to them, but when she tried to explain, they'd said she was a Witch. They didn't understand that they were there all the time. They didn't understand that she was a good, God-fearing woman, who wouldn't do anything intentionally bad in her life. She hadn't wanted the voices... they'd always been there. But they'd been getting louder... and there was another one there now... a soft, musical voice, a woman's voice... but she hadn't said anything. She just giggled, not all the time. But every so often... she giggled.
They dragged her out of the vault which they'd thrown her in... as they left the church she was amazed to find that the sun was setting. They must have left her there all night and all of the following day, so it must be the evening of All Saints day, the day she was supposed to be taking her Holy Orders. The voices realised and started shouting... trying to pass on their warnings... but she couldn't make any of them out... none at all. Then the giggle came again... and the new voice spoke... or rather sang... "Ding dong, the Witch is dead! La la la, la la la la!" and then the giggle again. The voice, now it had spoken, seemed familiar... but she couldn't place it.
This was it then... they had her tied to the stake... wood piled around her feet... there was no escape.
"You are hereby convicted of being a Witch, of receiving the devils instruction, and of attempting to cause chaos by spreading his evil word! For perpetrating these despicable crimes and intending through praxis of unholy words and deeds to bring the human race to ruin, and for the graver crime of sacrificing your family to the devils servants, you are sentenced to be burnt, in the hope that God may have Mercy upon your Soul!"
Her family... that had been nothing to do with her... She'd come home one day... it seemed an age ago... to find them dead... two puncture marks on each of their throats. That had been why she'd gone to the priest, so she wouldn't be killed by the demons, and that was when the voices had started shouting at her.
They lit the tinder at her feet, which smouldered a little, smoke curling around her face, before taking full hold, and blazing. The giggle came again, and then the voice... "La la la la la, Smoke gets in your eye's."
She didn't recognise the tune, the words, just as she hadn't recognised the last one's, but they unnerved her. It was if the voice was watching for amusements sake. If voices could watch... "You're going mad!"... the voice cut into her panicked thoughts. "Just as I did!"... it was almost as if the voice knew her. As if the voice were part of her.
The voice started singing again. "Run and catch.....la, la, la, la" It was the song that her mother used to sing to her... how did the voice know about that? She panicked, screaming "Stop!" at the top of her voice.
The priest looked at her... the priest who'd told her she was so evil so long ago, the priest that had driven her to the convent, so that she could atone for her sins, although, she thought, how can the visions and the voices be a sin... I didn't ask for them. He spoke over the deadly hush that had fallen over the mob. "You wish to repent? Not only have you been communicating with the devil, but only two days ago, I witnessed you giving confession to a demon, making a mockery of God"
A demon? She thought, but then she realised that the voice she'd heard at confession hadn't been familiar to her, and it certainly hadn't been the priest who now stood and accused her. But surely a demon wouldn't have sounded... so... angelic?
"He would." the voice replied. "I know..."
The girl panicked, she had to get out of the fire, it was burning, maybe the heat was making her imagine things. "I'll repent, I'll devote my life to the Father. I'll do anything, please, forgive me Lord!"
She looked around hopefully at the faces, which were blurred by the heat rising from the flames. But it was, alas in vain.
Fate had decreed that this was the day she was to die.
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Somewhere in Southern America, 1999
She lay on the sand inside the cave, against all expectations a pumpkin carved into a Jack O'Lantern at the entrance. She was staring at the roof of the cave, occasionally giggling or speaking, as if she were watching her own private cinema.
After a while she sighed. Whatever she'd been watching had finished. "And so the witch is burnt, right down to the gusset of her pretty little bloomers!"
Then, almost as if she were holding a conversation with herself;
"But they could have let me live, I wasn't a witch!"
"No, Fate said that you had to die on that day... otherwise there would have been confusion"
"You didn't die... you were supposed to die, but you're still here!"
"But I did die, I just... cheated... a little. If you'd embraced your Angelus like I did then you'd still be here as well!"
In the dark of the cave, Drusilla lay back down onto the floor of the cave, and looked up to the stars.