Free The Witch's Trinity by Erika Mailman Page B

passeth judgment, we beg your hand to guide us today in rooting out evil and restoring piety to this village. Your Son died for our sins, and in sure confoundment of his purpose, we find sin increasing and spreading. We see that women are become wicked and in love with wrongdoing, that when they can no longer bring children to the earth they instead bring malevolence. We ask your guidance in breaking the spell that has kept Frau Zweig’s womb empty when it was many times clearly filled. We beg you to return sense to the hen, that she may give the eggs that are her earthly duty. If we have wronged Künne Himmelmann in our accusations, leave her flesh as untouched as the snow that drives outside. But if we are right in our surmise that she traffics with the devil and his demons, let the flesh speak for itself. We proceed upon your blessing. Amen.”
    The friar stepped onto a block so that he could reach Künne’s arm. He lifted it out of her lap, and it was so limp it was as if she were fever-struck or lay in the plague cart.
    How I longed to see unburned skin beneath! What joy it would be to laugh in the Töpfers’ faces and to shoot Frau Zweig a shaming look. Künne would climb down from that stool and Jost would carry her home, where I’d feed her…I didn’t know what I could feed her.
    I would press a kiss to that smooth skin and thank God for saving her. All day I would rub that stretch of arm and marvel.
    Künne made no grimace as the friar unwound the cloths, and the hope began in my heart. Should she not be twisting in pain if blisters were beneath the bandages? Yet she calmly sat as if no further sensation came than that of a housefly crawling her arm.
    The Lord is merciful, I thought. He knows she has not bewitched anyone and he will set her free.
    I grasped Jost’s hand. The friar continued pulling on the cloth. And then, suddenly, his efforts were curtailed. The cloth was stuck. He pulled harder and Künne shrieked and tried to pull her arm away. We could all hear the tearing of the flesh as it clung to the cloth. Künne writhed and bit her lips to keep from screaming. The friar did not try gently, but ruthlessly yanked with all his strength, pulling his arm out to full length like a woman measuring cloth for a garment.
    I could see the mottled pink of her burned skin and the trickles of blood arising from the torn flesh. Künne whimpered, and thankfully the friar was soon finished. The bandage was a ghastly sight, brown with dirt on one side and stained with blood and mess on the other. The friar held it in the air, dangling, like an important scroll.
    Künne tried to set her arm back down onto her lap, but it was too painful. She held it hovering in midair, staring at the cloth in the friar’s hands as if she hated it.
    “The spot of murderer is upon you,” said the friar. “You have killed young babes who were not yet of this world.”
    “Murderer!” screamed Frau Zweig, and she stood up to point at Künne. “You owe me for the souls of three!”
    And all was suddenly mayhem, with the few benches knocked over as people jumped to their feet and pulsed forward, everyone shouting, all in a frenzy to denounce Künne. They advanced upon her giant stool and would have torn her from it if the friar hadn’t stopped them.
    “We will not abuse so crudely,” he said in a low voice that somehow still penetrated through the clamor. “We will send Künne to a higher judge in a goodly manner, not like pups attacking the runt. Step away from her.”
    It was done. His words had as much power as a prince’s. There was a respectful ring of space around Künne.
    “To cleanse this soul to return it to God, we must burn the malefaction from it.”
    I heard an intense wail of anguish, which was abruptly stopped when Jost clamped a hand across my mouth. The rest of the villagers moved from foot to foot, restless, barely containing themselves from seizing Künne. She sat as a stone, the burned arm still hovering, too