OXFORDSHIRE ENGLAND, 2010
Molly legged it.
Too late.
She crashed into the seal wall — an invisible field that prevented criminals from escaping arrest. It only exists when you try to escape, like a barrier that is always in front of you. It slowed you down, like running through molasses. Trapped.
“A pox on yer tunic, I ain’t goin’ back in the cage,” said Molly in defiance.
The Sherriff was a bald man with a blade for a nose and no eyebrows. He was thick and wore his yellow tunic over matte chainmail. His dagger was out, and he pointed it down towards Molly, who was much shorter than he.
“You’re right about that; you should have stayed in your cage whore, and died like you were supposed to. Now it will be worse.”
Molly kicked dirt in his face, which the seal wall didn’t stop. The Sherriff sputtered and wiped his eyes. “Damn you! Seize her.” Two of his deputies grabbed her arms and drove her to her knees. The Sherriff lined up and kicked her in the stomach. The force of it made her curl into herself. “I was going to make it quick, but now I guess I’ll make it slow.”
The Sherriff stood up straight and lifted his dagger, which now sizzled and popped with magical intensity. “Molly Horsham, you have been condemned to die by gibbeting, and having escaped your just punishment, you will now be summarily executed by immolation.”
“No!” screamed Molly.
The Sherriff snapped his fingers at one of his deputies. “Bring the brimstone.” The deputy pulled a sack from his belt and offered it to the Sherriff.
“What are you doing?” the Sherriff asked.
“The brimstone, Sir?”
“Yes, put it around her neck, you twat.”
The deputy started in surprise. He turned circles in confusion before hopping over to Molly and staring down at her.
“Umm, Sir?”
“Yes?” asked the Sherriff.
“It’s just — well, she’s naked, is all. How can I put it around her neck if there’s nothing to stick it to?”
The Sherriff massaged his temples. “With magic, you idiot. With magic.”
“Ahh, right, Sir.” The deputy took out his dagger, and as he poured the sulfur around her neck, he used his dagger to focus and seal it in a thick ring.
Molly was shaking, and I could smell her urine in the air. She wasn’t crying, but she was groaning. She looked over to me and then back to the Sherriff.
She started crying. “Please don’t make him watch. Please.” Snot dripped from her nose, and she grimaced. The Sheriff looked at me. His face was monstrous and cruel, his eyes were dark, and his forehead was deeply lined. “He’s lucky he’s not dying with you. Associating with criminals. This will be a permanent sort of lesson.”
The deputy who had applied the brimstone around Molly’s neck took a torch from his short and squat compatriot and pointed his dagger at the tip, intensifying the flame. It shot straight out and made a whirring sound. A wave of heat reached me. I wrenched myself out of the grip of the deputy who held me and threw myself to the ground with my towel sack. I drove my hand into it, seized the wand, and perched on my knees; with my little hands gripping it for dear life, I pointed the wand at Molly and shouted the magic words she’d taught me. Sparricus Ferricus.
I wanted them to be real magic words. I wanted it so bad. I wanted to save my only friend and turn her into a bird so she could fly away and not die. The tip of the wand fritzed with jagged spines of blue and gold magic, but that was it. It made me believe I could do magic; I must have inherited it from my mum, though that’s rare for a satyr.
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I readjusted my hands and focused even harder, screaming the magic words and willing the wand to work. I imagined her transfiguring into a bird with flitting wings, like a sparrow. Be a sparrow, I kept saying over and over again. Ne a sparrow. Fly away, Molly, fly away.
But the men laughed. The deputy that had held me seized me again and jerked me to my feet. He wrenched the wand from my hand and threw it to the ground. With his massive armour boot, he crushed it. It crackled under his weight. The torch crackled and sputtered, and Molly screamed. She screamed so much. They burned her from her legs up, and every time she tried to run or crawl from the flames, the seal would stop her. And they would burn her more.
All I could smell was burning flesh and brimstone. The sulfur smell hurt my nose and forced my eyes open. It keeps you from passing out or fainting. The Sherriff turned around and walked away. He didn’t stay to watch. The man gripping me gave up as soon as the Sheriff had disappeared through the shrubs and walked off.
It was just the two deputies and me. They took turns burning Molly. I couldn’t run, and I couldn’t look away. Soon her shrieking faded into the night. It became gurgling. Then she collapsed with a thud.
“I think she’s dead, Ern.”
The tall skinny one with the torch, named Ern, poked her with the flame. “Nah, she needs a bit more.”
“Put it to her head then; I’d rather it was over.”
“S’makin’ me guts gurgle, to be honest, could do with a steak n’ a pint”, said Ern as he drove the flame into Molly’s face and let it sit there.
“She looks a bit weird, no.”
“Choo mean Ham?”
“I mean, it’s like she was tryin’ to crawl away and froze like that, only froze all ashed up,” said Ham.
“Yeah, I see what you mean; they do that, though, don’t they.”
“Don’t know, really, me first, you?”
“Nah,” said Ern, “done it a few. Look at that Ham; you can still see her cunt.” He pressed his boot to Molly’s burnt backside.
“Heh, I’ll be. Crispy cunt seems a bit rough; you wanna have a go.” Ham slapped Ern on the arm and guffawed.
“Nah, whore like that, don’t know where she’s been.”
“I thought fire killed them germs and such?”
“Maybe the crabs, but who knows what else she had.”
I curled up in a ball and sobbed. They ignored me and wandered off as the early morning approached. I crawled towards my friend, and as she cooled down, I moved closer. She didn’t have a face or hair anymore. I couldn’t see her grin or smile or the whites of her eyes. I’d never see them again. My friend. My friend. My friend.
As the sun rose, and the first rays broke through the thick leaves and shone on my tear-strewn face, I wiped my eyes and did my best to dig in the dirt. I clawed with my little hands and tore through the tiny roots and bits of grass.
I rolled Molly into the hole facing up, tried to fold her hands to her chest, and cried when they broke in my fingers. Like I had hurt her somehow in doing it. I raked the dirt back over her and then piled fallen bricks from the old barn on top of the grave.
I spent the next hour searching the riverside for smooth stones and built her a small kern like I had heard our kind did when someone died. I didn’t know any prayers, though; my family wasn’t particularly religious. But I washed my face in the river, and my hands, because it seemed like one should be clean-faced on that kind of day and stood over the grave I’d made for Molly. I didn’t know any good words, so I just said sparricus farricus.
It was all my fault. I’d led them to her, and I couldn’t save her because I was too stupid. Maybe if I had asked more questions of my aunt and knew more about wands and magic, I would have known how to transfigure Molly into a bird, and then we could have flown away from the Sherriff and made it to France, and we could have eaten croissants for breakfast and had smart conversations with all the birds.
At least she wouldn’t have to go back to the Dolly House. Even though I really didn’t know what that was, only I figured she didn’t like it there. I didn’t come back to her grave for many years. But before leaving for university, I visited the site and found the kern I’d made.
It hadn’t been disturbed, even though eight years had come and gone. The bricks were still piled there as well, though vines and grass grew over them. I slipped my hand into my waistcoat and drew out a beechwood wand. I sculpted one of the river rocks into a very detailed sparrow. I took one of the smaller stones and made a very little sparrow to sit next to her. So they could be together.
Molly the Dolly, and Bikky.
“I won’t be flying, Molly.” I looked around. It was nearing autumn, some of the leaves were turning brown, and it was damp. “I’ll take the train. They built a tunnel, you know. But I’ll be sure to eat croissants and drink coffee. Enough for both of us. I learned some good words, though. To speak over you. Only they don’t seem so good now that I’m here.”
I cleared my throat. “What a happy thing it is to have known someone you can’t forget, even after they are gone. What a happy thing it is, to have tears for someone, even after they are gone.” And here I cried, and my eyes blurred. “What a happy thing it is, to have someone to watch over you, until you are gone.”
I drew a bit of bread from my pocket with a slab of creamy butter on it. I set it on the stones next to the two friends I had carved, and I hoped maybe some birds would find it. Maybe even sparrows.