Mischief Following Anger

By Jeff Baker

I discovered one of my ancestors was a witch right before my twenty-fifth birthday. I inherited a box of pictures from my Great Grandmother. It included a letter from her Great Grandmother warning about the influence of Naomi Harker, who had died in 1699. I had the feeling the letter was meant for me. That was when I started doing research into the family history. The internet was a wonderful resource. I found out that a lot of women in my family had greenish-blue eyes, like mine. But I wasn’t a woman, of course. I found that Naomi hadn’t been the only family member accused of witchery; there had been four sisters burned in England, and several others had been accused during the proceeding centuries.

Time, some sources said, meant nothing to a witch. But a witch was nothing until reunited with her coven. Twelve witches and a male sorcerer; an acolyte who was their go-between in their dealings with the dark forces. I lay awake one night, wondering what it had been like for these ancestors in the superstitious past. I suddenly remembered: I had found a line of witches stretching back to the Fourteenth Century. Twelve witches in all.

There was a wind blowing in my room, a fire burning in the ancient stone fireplace (where there had only been a space heater before.) I could hear the call of wild animals outside, and see moonlight, but there was no moon.

My eyes were glowing blue-green as I rose to greet the twelve women who appeared in the dark and to take the flowing robe they offered me.

—end—

NOTE: The title comes from a Seventeenth Century charge brought against supposed witches. —-jsb.