Holy Witches: A Salem Retelling

We were hunted for our spells. They accused us of using black magic; they torched our sisters for their involvement in witchcraft. Our flesh burnt while children and other villagers watched through the haze. We were monsters, deviants, devil-worshipers. We were the bane of the sanctity of our village.

We were humanity’s last hope.

Salem was a hallowed land, endowed by the auras of the ancient ones to protect the world from the dark void that threatened to devour all life. The void vacuumed the life from our sister planet, Mars, several centuries ago. Only we witches knew of the fate of the ancient world. We saw through the cosmos and mourned for Mars.

We began practicing a holy art that would wrestle against the void. We sang enchantments beneath the full moon; we infused nature in our alchemy cauldrons. We sought to create, to nourish, to rejuvenate. We were the ambassadors to the sacred life that breathed in every part of Mother Earth.

But the mortals of Salem were the first victims of the void that found its way from Mars. Tendrils of that darkness seeped into our atmosphere, curling insidious fingers of death around the souls of the innocents. The void dipped into the consciousnesses of the great leaders of our town, directing their hearts. A war was thrust upon us.

The battle against auras soon took on the form of flesh. We struggled to sever the void from its hosts, but to do so would mean to slay the sons of man. Innocent by conscience, their dark deeds were controlled by the void that still fell upon the world in torrents of chaos.

Thus, we accepted our fate. We took to the flames like women of faith, defenders of the world and protectors of life. The void saw our charred bodies as a symbol of victory. But what they couldn’t perceive was that this victory of theirs was, in fact, their demise.

Caught in the throes of merciless predators, we fell back to the cellars of our ancient arts. We called upon the auras of the ones who went before us. We sought their spirit one final time so that we could save Mother Earth where they had regretfully failed Mars.

Blessed by the Holy Ones, we infused ourselves with the nature of the cosmos. We became partly divine entities in the final moments of our sacred ritual before the doors collapsed beneath the heavy foot of the Void. The innocent men of the city controlled by the mind of darkness spilled into our refuge like a sickly wave of death.

They dragged us through the streets of our beloved town, proclaiming to the villagers their success in ridding the world of witches and dark magic. The pyres were readied for us as stones hurled past our heads. With rough hands, we were bound to the stakes and put on display for the whole of the village.

A monologue of the Void inspired the village to chant for our deaths. I looked into the innocent eyes of a child no older than five who cried out for my flesh to burn. A flash of darkness crept behind her eyes, a sign of the void already deepening its roots in the hosts of humanity.

And so the torch fell, and the fires devoured. My feet were the first to feel the vile tongues of the flame eat away at my flesh. The smoke blackened the sky, and the cold winter breeze carried our dying breaths through pleased crowd.

But as I drew in my final, agonized breath, I saw the wisps of the ancient holiness surround the Void hosts like a holy storm. I heard a shriek that belonged not to the brave women martyred for humanity but to the heartless Void, retreating from the Earth and penetrating the shield of our atmosphere.

My dying eyes looked upon the enlightened visage of the man who had thrown the torch. He returned my gaze and I offered him silent forgiveness.

We were hunted, but from our ashes rises the breath of salvation.