Every Sunday, at exactly 12:00 PM, the witches are meant to burn. This, the United States has declared, is the National Witching Hour. It is the time I dread the most during the week, but it is not because I am afraid.
No.
It’s because of the memories it inspires.
As is typical at approximately 11:55 AM, I stand at the kitchen window and try, with little success, to drown out the sound of the Republic’s anthem as it streams from the television resting above the living room fireplace. It is a dreadful sound—all tubas and trumpets, patriotism and nationalism—and is enough to instantly make me remember.
Smoke—
Fire—
A woman’s screams—
Her children’s lamentations—
You can do this, Salem, I think as I ball my hands into fists. You know you can.
Still—the fact remains that the television is still on, and cannot be turned off, is utterly damning, especially when the government mandate requires that all children under the age of eighteen bear witness to the events that take place during the Witching Hour.
It’d be bad enough if it were just me listening to this. But to know my little sister must suffer it, too?
Swallowing, I attempt to release the tension that lays dormant within my shoulder blades and lift my eyes to face the clock resting over the threshold.
11:56, it says.
“Dad!” I call, hoping, to whatever kind God might be listening, that he can hear me. “Where’s Dorothy?”
“Coming!” my little sister calls.
She bursts down the hall, shortly followed by my father, whose grim face and pale expression is enough to remind me that this is not only my burden to bear. “Sorry,” he says. “I was making sure our internet connection would stick.”
“We’re still having micro-drops?” I ask, frowning as I turn my head to regard the smart television in the living room.
“Yeah. We are.”
“You would think the government would make a better effort to keep our connections stable if they want to brainwash us.”
“What’s brainwashing?” my little sister asks.
“Hush, now,” my father says, before turning his head to look at the TV. “It’s almost time.”
I shift my eyes to look at the clock, only to find that two minutes have passed.
11:58.
Sighing, I nod; and, with effort I know should be beyond my composure, make my way into the living room.
My little sister has already seated herself on the couch. She holds a stuffed bear that’s almost as big as she is, and has seen equally as many years as she has.
“Dor,” I say, grimacing as I settle down beside her. “Move over, please.”
“I’m not a door!” my little sister pouts. “I’m a girl!”
“I know.” I set my gaze on the television and struggle to keep my emotions in check. “Please, move.”
She obliges without issue, though I can’t tell if it’s because she’s a tenacious five-year-old and can’t stay still or because of our father’s watchful eye. All I know is that, as the Republic’s anthem comes to an end, and the screen fades to black, I feel every muscle within me tense.
Eight words appear on the screen not long after.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
I try my hardest not to tremble as the words, and the black screen they are imposed upon, fade to reveal the Burning Fields that lie outside the White House in Washington, D.C.
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Stark and imposing, with seven iron stakes upon the once-pristine front lawn, the Burning Fields stand as a testament to our country’s history of cruelty, torture, and misunderstanding.
“Daddy?” Dorothy asks, turning her head up to look at my father, who stands behind the two of us girls. “Why do we have to watch this every Sunday?”
“Because our government wants us to,” he replies.
“It’s the same movie every time, though!”
I grit my teeth.
My father shakes his head.
I purse my lips and force myself to look forward.
It’s still hard for me to fathom that my father continues to keep my little sister in the dark about the injustice our country is facing. While I can understand it in theory, the reality is that this is no movie, nor is this make-believe.
No.
Witches are real. Just like magic.
Magic.
Magic that saves some, but kills others.
Just like it did our mother five years ago, when Dorothy was just a baby.
Try as I might to ignore the feelings assaulting me, I find that I cannot, especially when the National Defense System against Magical Threats sensationalizes the weekly Witching Hours.
It begins like this: first with a view of the White House, glistening and white in all of its might, then of the Burning Fields, ashen and blacken and sparked with white. Panoramic video footage from a drone shows a close up of the men and women who serve our military soon after, followed by a close-up view of the iron-coated trucks that carry the convicted through a side entrance at the far edge of the property.
Today, there are only three of these coated vehicles, which means there are only three people who have been convicted.
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, I think.
I swallow the lump in my throat as the Senior Confessors of the United States of America come to stand before the three iron stakes that have been specifically prepared for today’s burnings. Trembling, now, more than ever, I latch my hand around the wooden frame of the couch and force myself to look ahead, if only for my sister’s sake.
Just remember, my father had once said. She isn’t innocent forever.
As true as that might be, innocence does not make her impervious. One day, she will know.
On the television before us, we watch as the three vehicles come to park before the three prepared stakes, then as several members of the military step forward to open the rear compartments in which the witches are held. Before them stand the Confessors—who, in their chain-mail robes, hold staves tipped with red crosses as their inferiors work to remove the witches from their transports.
“Daddy?” my little sister asks. “I thought there were four in this movie?”
“You miscounted last time,” my father says.
“Oh,” my sister replies, and turns her head back to the TV.
Sweat breaks out along the back of my neck. Runs down my shirt. Slides along my spine.
When the witches come into view, they look like ordinary people—albeit women who have been dressed in plastic garments in order to prevent them from potentially bewitching the threads in their clothing. This, I know, is what’s most startling to many. The idea is: if an ordinary person can be a witch, why couldn’t it be your neighbor? Your sister?
Your mother, I think.
Two of the three witches march solemnly behind the Confessors who guide them. One, though, struggles against her bonds.
Let me go! I imagine her crying. I didn’t do anything!
The Confessor spins in an attempt to stifle the woman’s cries, holding the head of his staff steady and preaching what I know to be holy words.
Fortunately for him, her hands are bound in iron.
Unfortunately for him, a desperate witch will attempt anything to save herself.
Several sparks of bright light—like fireworks bursting in rapid succession in the sky—shoot out from the witch’s palms, eliciting a bloodcurdling scream that can be heard even despite the distance of the drone and what it is filming.
A soldier flails in an attempt to back away.
He falls to the ground.
The Confessor steps back.
The soldier’s companion lifts her gun and fires a single shot into the woman’s head.
My father grimaces as she slumps to the ground.
I, meanwhile, can only tremble.
If killing a witch were that easy, they would not go through the trouble of burning them. The fact is: a strong enough witch with even the gravest injury can always come back to life, or be brought back to life, through the use of her own or another’s magic. That is why witches are burned—because the reality is that, once reduced to ash, and scattered across the wind, no magical being can ever return.
It is this knowledge that compels me to watch the soldiers carry the witch’s body toward, then as they bind her to, the iron stake.
Several tense moments pass as the Confessors hold their crosses high for the witches to look at, as fellow soldiers work to douse the straw surrounding the three stakes in gasoline.
Then, a moment later, the straw is set ablaze.
It takes only seconds for it to catch fire, and for the two remaining witches bound to begin flailing, screaming, and attempting, with all their might, to free themselves from their mortal binds.
Sadly, this is a process the United States has perfected. Rarely can a witch free themselves after they are bound.
When finally the screen cuts to a black, a series of words appear on the screen.
Those words are:
If you, or anyone you know, are in possession of magical powers, please call our national hotline. Together, we can make America safe again.