Free Burning : A Tale of the Dark Apostle (9780698144743) by E.c. Ambrose

The Burning
    The fight for my son’s soul began just after the witch burning. We’d gone up to London together, leaving little Nate with the Cutlers as I didn’t think he’d handle the journey. We were far from the stake, given the crowds, but we did have the farm wagon to stand on, so we could see the witch tied up there, and the piles of wood. Once the fire started, smoke obscured everything but the flash of the bishops’ golden crosses as they warded us against evil. Owain gave Elisha a penny to buy a banner from one of the vendors, so that’s what led him away to where it happened. What with the smoke we couldn’t see the Devil manifest in the flesh of his witch—saints be praised! we couldn’t see that—but Elisha’d run right down in there, and it was that brought corruption to our house. I’m sure it was.
    When the priest who found him brought him back to us, the boy was different. Insisted he’d seen an angel, not the Devil at all, and no amount of praying nor beating would get it out of him. He kept touching his cheek, like he’d been kissed, and it was Father John told me the Devil had touched my son.
    Owain smacked the boy’s cheek hard after that. Me, I’m at my wit’s end. Not only my son’s been touched by the Devil, but Owain’s gone on a tear, trying to beat the evil out of Elisha’s flesh, and the whole time looking scared half to death. But I never seen him look so scared as he did when Father John come up to the house after Elisha’s outburst. Taking him to church more often should’ve shown him back to the Lord, yet it only made him wilder, saying the priests had let an angel die, and he’d seen it all. It was me brought Father John back to the house, after bringing Nate down to the Cutlers’, but I mightn’t have done it if I had known how Owain would react.
    I gave the priest the chair, and me and Owain took opposite benches, Elisha kneeling at his father’s back, still bleeding a little from the corner of his mouth. That boy did look wretched—not like he wanted to believe what he said, and it’s that makes me sure of the Devil’s touch. My boys’re strong-willed, no doubt, and Elisha was fighting the Devil with all of his nine years, but he needed help, and Owain . . . well, my husband didn’t know what to do but beating and pleading and neither of those did any good.
    Owain sat with his hands gripped between his knees, not looking at the priest, but his eyes flashed white now and then in the firelight, round and gleaming. “The lad’s always been headstrong, Father, you know that. There’s no Devil in him.”
    â€œWitchcraft requires a firm response, Owain.” Father John leaned forward, shadows deepening his features. “People are beginning to talk. They know what happened at the—the city.” Father John managed a wan smile. “And the interventions of the church on behalf of your son have not gone unnoticed, so incidents like this cannot simply be ignored. Some are beginning to suggest a dunking.”
    A dunking! If Elisha floated, he was the Devil’s and if he sank, he went to God. I clamped my hands on the edge of the bench.
    â€œFather.” Owain drew up at that, the line of his chin strong and handsome still. “I have disciplined him—” He reached back and caught Elisha’s chin, tipping the boy’s face to display a reddening bruise. “He’s got this idea stuck in his head, and I’ll beat it out of him, I promise you.”
    Elisha’s blue eyes glinted in the dim light, staring openly at the priest, and I clucked my tongue at him, trying to encourage at least a show of obedience.
    Owain’s back stiffened and he let the boy go. “What is it, Edith? Don’t you think I’ve beat him well enough?” He always did know when I had something on my mind.
    The priest nodded at