Framing Marta
James Romag
Normally Marta enjoyed bonfires in the town square on autumn evenings, though not this time. Not when she was secured to a post atop a waiting mound of kindling and logs. She understood it was standard procedure for exterminating witches—as outlined in the village “Igniting All Mannere of Bad Thinges” manual—but she also knew she was not a witch. Of that she was certain. Absolutely certain. She also had no intention of ever becoming one, regardless of what Sorcerer Drycreek prophesied. Yet here she stood in her best black dress and new boots, falsely accused of said crime and scheduled to be burned alive at the stake shortly after sundown.
She cursed Drycreek for trying to impose on her something for which she had neither enthusiasm nor inclination. More than a decade earlier, when she’d been content learning the cobbling and sewing trades by day and studying her passions of Latin and astronomy by night, Drycreek had called upon the shoe shop “purely by chance” one afternoon with glorious ideas and grandiose plans and proclaimed she was destined to become one of the most celebrated witches ever. It seemed innocent enough at the time. So how did things reach the point where she was about to be served up hominum flambé?
As she pondered Drycreek’s persistent misdirection that had led to this moment on the platform of a soon-to-be raging bonfire, a rotten tomato smacked her on the cheek, smearing across her jaw and concealing half her face. She peered at the small crowd gathered around her and focused on Younge Ethan, a local boy perpetually in need of a bath. He started to laugh but fled when he caught her evil eye.
Marta flicked her tongue and shook her head to free the bits of Younge Ethan’s tomato face covering and sighed. Surely, they’ll see the real me behind this contrived drama and agree I’m but a lowly cobbler and seamstress, she thought. In the meantime, must I endure this theatrical twenty-four-hour viewing? I know many of these folk. They wouldn’t really burn me, would they? She squirmed a bit up on the platform. And where’s a loo when you need one?
Over the course of the fifteen or so hours she’d already endured on public display, she’d accumulated plenty of fruits and vegetables—enough to start her own market stand and soup kitchen—but no offers of assistance. A church bell tolled somewhere in the village, a reminder that her scheduled incineration was approaching a bit too quickly, in the hour after dusk when the moon began its rise. Would she really be set ablaze?
A soft breeze ruffled her long dark curly hair, sending it swirling around her head, masking half her face. Someone in the crowd whistled as the breeze lifted her dress just enough to show a bit of striped stocking over the top of a tall boot. Marta squinted at the man, whose whistle turned into an uncontrollable cough.
Her initial fear and anger following her capture yesterday had worn off long ago and been replaced by boredom, with a dash of impatience. She scanned the crowd before her.
“Mrs. Winslow,” Marta called out. “Ahem.”
A woman in a dark dress and gloves talking with a man next to her lifted her head.
“Yes, you, Mrs. Winslow. Did I not tell you that black was a mistake due to the way it accentuated your pale complexion? When you came to me—somewhat prematurely—for mourning attire, did I not provide the draught that brought your husband back from death’s door?”
Mrs. Winslow’s reply came in the form of a displeased snort.
“You’re best off with that medium blue frock I stitched for you,” said Marta.
“But you’re in black,” said Mrs. Winslow. She held her hand above her eyes to shield the sun.
Marta looked down at her own dress. True, her original pattern called for a simple frock of red fabric, and that’s what she started with. For reasons still to be sorted out, when she finished sewing it, she had a ruched dress and cloak in black, which she now wore as she stood for all to see above that waiting heap of dry wood.
“Well, yes,” said Marta, “because it suits me and my complexion. Plus, one can’t deny it goes well with my boots. And my stockings.” A gust of wind raised the dress just enough to show a flash of leggings. This time, no one dared whistle and instead most of the men in the crowd averted their eyes.
Marta had taken the idea for the stockings from the uniforms she’d designed for a team of young men playing that new Rugby Sporte over in the town of Luna. Initially, she wasn’t sure she’d like the pattern when she was stitching the socks, but the black-and-white horizontal stripes turned out to compliment her whole ensemble.
“If you say so,” said Mrs. Winslow, who returned to her chat with her companion, ignoring Marta.
Marta puffed her cheeks and blew her curly locks from her chin. The curls fell right back to wrap across her nose and mouth. If only she’d had time to get her hair trimmed before they came with torches and pitchforks to pull her from her thatched-roof cottage in the woods. Seeing how it was midafternoon when the clumsy mob showed up at her home the first time, she felt the torches were overkill; nothing but an overwrought, melodramatic trope used by unimaginative witchfinders.
Thunk! Instead of a tomato, this time it was a rotten cabbage that hit her and pulled her from her thoughts. She cursed Drycreek again and searched the gathering crowd. Where was that reptile of a man in her moment of need?
From the time a good twelve years ago when he’d proclaimed she had an aura, through her lackluster efforts at witchcraft schooling, Sorcerer Drycreek had taken credit for any of her successes, however minor, and blamed her for her failures. Now, though, when she was erroneously accused of full-blown witchcraft and counting down the final hours of her life, he was absent.
Their most recent argument had been over her dedication to the craft. That was three and three and three days ago in Marta’s cottage. The argument had started during her usual Friday midnight lessons when Drycreek exclaimed once again that she wasn’t trying hard enough. She knew he was right, but she simply didn’t care. After all, she was not and would never be a witch, so what was the point?
At first, when she was barely a teen, the prospect of witchcraft was new and exciting, but soon it was dull and dry, and who had the patience to collect gnats’ wings and midnight shadows and wolves’ howls anyway? For Marta, it was all a bit eyeroll inducing. Give her a sturdy piece of canvas or leather and she could make the best shoes or boots this side of Styks. Give her a swath of fabric and she could stitch an outfit that would make a person look like someone new.
The night of their fateful disagreement, she explained to Drycreek yet again that that was where her skills lay. “Stitchery, not witchery,” she said. Expect her to cure a wart on a big toe, well, that was something entirely different. Hard to find inspiration there. Unless it was a wart on her own nose, which she did remove rather handily a year ago, and yet when she checked herself in her silver mirror last week it seemed to be returning. Nevertheless, Drycreek still wouldn’t listen and implored her to learn the witchcraft trade.
Mid-argument, Marta picked up the besom from the wall near her fireplace and shooed him out the door. Drycreek threw his hands in the air and walked away, through the cobwebs and down the thirteen steps in the overgrown path, cloak flapping behind him in the darkness, voice trailing off with distance: “You’re living a masquerade behind your well-crafted façade, not showing yourself as you really are. Someone needs to light a fire under your scrawny little . . . .”
Following the altercation, Drycreek simply disappeared. Presently the rumors started: Marta was placing curses on the villagers’ cabbage patches, Marta was the head witch in a secret coven stealing children’s dreams, Marta was making the mayor’s hair fall out. Not a word of it was true. She assumed Drycreek would drop by to quash the gossip, she’d then show her gratitude by paying closer attention to his lessons for a couple weeks, and in time things would return to normal.
Drycreek, to Marta’s disappointment, never showed. Given her predicament, Marta surrendered her pride and felt it best to locate him. It was at that moment she realized she’d never asked where he lived or where he spent his time. He always came to her, most often when she didn’t want him. Still, she searched, starting with her favorite haunts. She tried the moor. She explored the cairns. She checked down in Reaper’s Hollow and Goblins’ Grove, with no luck in any of those places. Marta gave up looking. She was better off without him. She returned home and stayed there, avoiding her shop and the townsfolk, waiting for the imbroglio to pass.
Then yesterday as she was finishing her late lunch of belladonna salad and about to start on a bowl of newt-eye soup, the small, inept mob came for her. She declared her innocence, but they wouldn’t listen. She demonstrated for them her inability to cast a spell, her unskilled ways of reading runes, her lack of levitation. She let them know, why, she could barely boil undergarments on laundry day, which caused several of the men to blush.
“If there be but one thing I’ve no question of,” she proclaimed to them, “it’s that I’m not a witch. As you’re certainly aware, I’m a cobbler and seamstress, and if I’m not mistaken, at least a half dozen of you have unpaid tabs at my shop,” which caused several of the men to avert their eyes.
They bundled her up anyway and dragged her to the town square where other townsfolk were still arguing over who was going to supply the firewood for her pyre in these impoverished times. After a bit of deliberation, they sent her home for an hour or two with a warning to stay there until they could get things sorted out.
Had it not been nearly harvest time for her mandrakes and rosary peas, Marta would’ve left town right then. She also doubted they’d be foolish enough to come after her a second time if they seriously thought her a witch. On top of that, she was certain Drycreek would yet intercede. She was wrong on all counts. At least she’d had time to extinguish the fire under the cauldron and set out a small plate of sardines for Salem, her faithful, ageless black cat, when the smaller—consisting only of those with tabs paid in full—but still misguided mob returned a second time to whisk her away and tie her up at the stake.
That was yesterday. As the church bell tolled and the sun crept toward early afternoon, here she stood today tied to a post on a still-growing pile of old barn boards, chopped firewood, brittle newspapers, and what appeared to be an outhouse door. Someone had smeared lard on the kindling to help it burn faster and brighter when the hour came to set spark to tinder. And that hour was approaching faster than she’d like. Perhaps, Marta thought, it was time to get concerned.
“You there, good gentleman,” Marta called to one of the bored people in the group in front of her. She made sure to pick out someone who wasn’t holding any fruit. She had to spit out the strands of hair that had twisted their way across her lips before she could continue speaking. “Pray tell, what be the time?”
“Not late enough,” said the man. He tipped his hat and turned away. “Best to return when it’s the hour to set kindling alight.”
“I’ve not placed myself here for your entertainment, dear sir,” she said. “This isn’t some lark.” Marta glared at the man’s back and watched him stumble and fall.
A thin, gray-haired woman with an earnest expression moved toward Marta. Marta smiled beneath the locks of hair swaddled around her jaw. “You see well my predicament, Widow Brighton?” Marta asked. “You understand I’m not a witch even though my potions and words helped you with your arthritis, and I assume you’re here to help me?”
Without effort, the elderly woman leapt onto the unstable pile of wood and climbed to the top. She pulled the hair away from Marta’s face to get a clearer look at the woman tied to the stake.
“Aye, ’tis you. Wasn’t sure,” said Widow Brighton, hair still in hand. “It’s as if you’re hiding up here behind all those curls. You’d do well to pull your locks back, more off your cheeks. Show off that bright smile and—oh!” Widow Brighton caught a glimpse of Marta’s wart and released her grip. The strands of hair blew back, obscuring much of Marta’s face.
Widow Brighton stole another look at Marta, then bent down and tugged at a board. She pulled harder until the board came free. “A pox on that Younge Ethan,” said the widow. She lifted the board, a halfmoon cut into it. “He’s the one perhaps best set aflame. Stealing my outhouse door and adding it to your bonfire pile when there be already more than enough wood here. Tonight brings the burning of but a single witch, not an entire coven. I’ve had my good fill of his pranks.”
The woman dragged the door from the pile.
“Wait ye one moment,” cried Marta. Her wild mane caught in her mouth before she could say more.
Mrs. Brighton continued walking and looked back only to say, “Nice boots.”
And they were. The boots were Marta’s most comfortable pair yet, although much like her dress, the finished product hadn’t turned out as expected. They were intended to be brown, yet inexplicably ended up black. The toes of the boots were much more pointed than the original design, the tops much taller with many more eyelets. It pained Marta to think they would be destroyed in the fire.
As she pondered her boots, the afternoon grew warmer. The winds had died, but in the humid air her hair stuck to her chin and cheeks. Pyre and stake notwithstanding, the morning had been comfortable enough, but now Marta wished she’d worn a head covering when they came for her the day previous. Her sunhat had been right there, next to the front door, on a hook under the shelf with her tarot cards. Why hadn’t she grabbed it as they hauled her out the door?
Back on the first day of spring she’d joyfully sewn that sunhat for the warm days to come when she’d be tending her patch of foxglove, death caps, and other delights. The odd thing was, after she’d finished the hat, it wasn’t a bright thing with a lovely yellow ribbon as she’d envisioned it. It was black and pointy with a sigil or two up the side, but it fit perfectly and the brim blocked the sun quite well. She wore it every day while toiling in her garden out near the standing stones and the two-hundred-year-old box elder.
Tied to the stake and exposed to the elements for nearly twenty hours at this point, Marta had plenty of time to think about her sunhat and so many other things. What she thought about was mostly this: Drycreek was despicable, Drycreek was tenacious and unforgiving, and Drycreek was the only one who could help her. If only she’d been more inspired in her pursuit of witchcraft—though she obviously wasn’t a witch—she wouldn’t be in her current predicament. Were she a more serious student, more competent in her craft, she’d at least be able to cast spells and work magic—or whatever it was that witches did in those tired stereotypes perpetuated by hysterical zealots—to free herself from the ropes that bound her. Better than that, she would’ve foreseen what misfortune was coming her way and avoided it altogether.
She tried to remember her Latin studies and some of the incantations Drycreek tried to teach her. Ignis, aqua, er, wings and weather. What else? Oh, yes, exspiravit, vindicta . . . . There was more, she was sure, and somewhere in those words was her escape. If only she’d paid more attention. As far as she was concerned, this town square bonfire charade had gone on long enough and was starting to worry her. They were truly intending to burn her alive. She fidgeted against the post and tried again without luck to slip her narrow wrists and ankles from the binding cords.
Another church bell tolled. Dusk would soon be at hand. Marta puffed her cheeks and attempted to blow the hair off her face while she tried to recall Drycreek’s lessons.
Pluviam, and, and, uh, rolling thunder. If she couldn’t stop the fire, maybe she could conjure rain, except she couldn’t fully remember that spell, either.
Oblivious to her predicament, the sun kissed the horizon. Oh, why hadn’t she listened to fat old Drycreek? This was all his fault. If only he’d been more persistent in teaching his young apprentice, if he’d tried harder to make her learn, if only he’d pushed her beyond her resistance. He always claimed she was descended from an ancient line of witches, that she had innate powers and inborn skills, that she’d kept her true self under wraps. None of it true, of course, but she wished she’d only listened and learned and practiced anyway.
Libertas. Why couldn’t she recall the spells and magic she needed? He’d repeated them to her often enough, and she’d parroted all of it right back at him without thought.
Marta looked toward the last of the sun and bedamned her sorcerer again. If her estimate was correct, she was to be set aflame in less than an hour’s time. Her heart fluttered. Best to focus on Drycreek to distract her from her pending demise. Lentum mortis. Tyrant and tutor.
Commands were formulating in her mind. She couldn’t save herself but perhaps she could hex Drycreek as she blazed her way off this mortal coil. Indeed, there would be some satisfaction in that. No one could see her lips move beneath the hair covering her face as she began uttering snippets of spells.
The crowd surrounding her grew as darkness crept in and the air cooled. Several townspeople carried torches, as if it were a requirement for events like this. Marta squirmed on her waiting pyre. Fear cleared her thoughts of pity, anger focused her mind. She had a definite deadline here, the dead-most of deadlines, the kind which concentrated the mind.
She shut her dark eyes and chanted softly. A new breeze moved the air around her. The slight wind lifted her hair and made it dance in front of her face, catching on her lips. “Drycreek, acerba funera ascriberet—”
“Death to the witch!” someone shouted.
“Light the fire already!” yelled another.
“Sandwiches and biscuits,” called someone else. “Git yer sandwiches and biscuits.”
“Occidere,” said Marta. “Sanguinem.”
She opened her eyes to see the mayor approaching while she continued murmuring her spell. The faces in the crowd twisted under the flickering light from a hundred lanterns and torches. She gazed at her executioners. Her head turned from left to right and stopped on a single face. Drycreek! He stood there, anonymous in the energized crowd, his walking staff the only giveaway.
Relief welled inside her. Surely, he would save her.
Instead, Drycreek nudged the man next to him and pointed at Marta while the two of them laughed. Relief became rage. She locked eyes with the sorcerer and began her chant again. Proditor, sangui. Drycreek’s eyes glimmered in the torchlight. The breeze picked up, sending torch flames dancing toward the sky under the rising moon.
Marta writhed against the stake, twisting her wrists and ankles, struggling for escape, yet her movements served only to tighten the ropes. She blasphemed Drycreek once more and glanced at the sky as storm clouds rolled in. Her chants continued, muffled beneath the thick hair caught around her face, yet Drycreek showed no ill effects from her efforts.
The mayor carried his torch high. “We honest village folk gather this night to pull back the mask, to unveil the truth, to witness the just death of Martha Ophidia Sortilege, witch queen of the swamps—”
“Not true!” shouted Marta. “You have failed even in the pronunciation of my given name. ’Tis Marta, not Martha. No h therein. How dare thee decree my death without knowing on whom you place this charge? You speak as if you see nothing of the woman standing here in front of you.” She spat a lock of hair from her mouth. “Where are these swamps of which you speak?”
“—stealer of children’s dreams, bringer of cold death.”
“Come, now. Name but one child, any child, who’s gone without dreaming.” She spit more hair from her mouth and wished her face could be free of its snarled covering.
With dramatic flair, the mayor spiked his torch in the ground near the pile of kindling at Marta’s booted feet and held aloft a shard of metal and a large rock for all to see. “The witch has been named guilty of crimes again this town and its honorable citizens. As our village handbook decrees, the witch has been placed on public display for a night and a day, and when the clock has passed at least twenty and four hours and the sun passed to the moon, then I, the mayor, must strike flint and ignite the fires of justice—”
“You’ve given me no trial, you’ve not allowed me to speak on my behalf. I am no witch, nor have I ever been one. Who you see before you is what I am, a seamstress, a cobbler.”
“Aye, and a fine one at that,” said the mayor as he extended one leg to show off some custom footwear. “You’ll be pleased to know my bunion is cured,” he added before bending forward to rearrange bits of wood. Marta noted with satisfaction the thin spot on the top of his head.
“Would I have allowed myself to be tied up if I were truly a witch?” she asked. “Would I not have condemned the fools who bundled me up and brought me here? I offered no resistance despite their rough handling. Did they tell you they dropped me along the way and bruised my shoulder?”
“Nay, we take no blame for that,” came a man’s voice from the crowd. “You fell from our grasp only when a murder of crows swooped in from blue skies, scattering us righteous men until we could collect our wits and gather you back up to bring you here where you belong.”
“Fools you be. Were I a witch, would I not have smote all of you right then?”
Marta’s hair came free of her face and twisted like writhing tentacles in the gathering winds. Anger and desperation grew. If she couldn’t free herself, couldn’t hex Drycreek, might she at least stifle the fire? She glared at Drycreek as the words formed in her mouth, but the conjuring was no longer directed at him. Ventus, deluge and purge. Those were the words, yes, yes, it was coming back to her. She would extinguish any and all flames.
Clouds raced across the sky, drawing a curtain toward the rising moon. A burst of energy pulsed through Marta’s mind and body.
Ventis, without mercy, pluvia.
Marta looked down at the mayor and rocked her head. Her incantations grew louder, more rhythmic. Towering storm clouds obscured the moon. Shadows gamboled around her in the flickering torch light.
The mayor struck flint on metal. A lone spark appeared and was lost to the wind. Marta’s chanting increased. The mayor hit hard a second time, sparks falling into the kindling and disappearing. The next spark rose up and danced before Marta’s face before sizzling in her hair, where the glow extinguished. Marta looked to the sky. There would be no escape. One spark more, and fire would surely take hold and consume her.
Again, the mayor struck flint and a single spark launched into the dry tinder. For a moment, nothing happened, as if the winds killed it. Then the kindling caught, flames licking at the lard, grease sizzling. The crowd surged forward with a cheer and tossed torches on the fledgling fire.
Marta’s voice grew louder, more desperate. Certainty overpowered fear. She felt the warmth of the flames seeping through her pointy-toed boots. The lace and netting around the hem of her dress would soon be alight, she knew. She couldn’t hear the crackling of dry wood over her chanting. She was shouting now, feeling lighter than air. She shifted her arms, and the rope binding them fell free, she—
Lightning rent the sky. Thunder shifted the ground. The townspeople tumbled and yelled, cries lost in the gale.
The rain hit hard and fast, from left and right, above and behind, a deluge that terrified the townsfolk and drowned the flames of the pyre. Marta stood dazed for a moment before shaking her head and clearing her thoughts. She climbed down from the smoldering pile to seek Drycreek.
The sorcerer followed the frightened crowd as it scattered, but he made no real effort to hide. She gripped his shoulder, twisting him to face her. Wind and rain battered them both without mercy.
“You have forsaken me. You made no effort to spare my life, Drycreek!” Marta had to shout above the winds.
“What could I do that you couldn’t yourself do? No harm has found you; your boots and dress suffered no damage. You breathe still, and all have witnessed your intrinsic power. This night, ’twas no more than a nudge, a dash of inspiration to help you disclose your lineage and reveal your inner being.”
“I’ve no witchcraft in my veins, there be no magic in these hands, and I shall want for none of your foolishness!” She turned away, then spun around as understanding flitted through her mind. Veins on her temples throbbed. “You.” She directed a long, bony finger at him. “Be you the coward who instigated this? The voice who publicly branded me a witch and riled the town and sent a mob to my humble cottage? Speak only truth.”
When he said nothing, she turned away, reconsidered, and turned around again. Lightning spiderwebbed across the sky.
Marta pointed once more. “Despicable you be, Drycreek. May I never lay eyes on you again.”
She turned and started to walk away. He called after her. “Yet you discovered your powers, unmasked your true self. You found the inspiration you nee—”
She spun a third time and pointed a cracked nail, fingertip almost glowing. Dead leaves tumbled away in the driving rain. Drycreek was nowhere to be seen.
Marta’s mouth hung open. She stared at the spot where Drycreek had been moments before. The winds died, the deluge ceased, the clouds opened to let the moon shine through. Marta pulled back her hair as she looked about for Drycreek.
With a trembling voice she called into the night air, looking in every direction, uncertain where the sorcerer had gone. “You see, Drycreek? I’m but a seamstress and cobbler. Were I the witch you proclaimed, would I not have called on weather and wings to set me free? Would I not be providing ointments and cures to the townsfolk? Would I not have rid myself of your meddlesome presence? Would I not have unmasked myself to show who I truly—?”
Marta’s brow furrowed in concentration.
Her eyes grew wide.
“Oh.”
James Romag spent his childhood pestering teachers, librarians, and bookshop clerks for recommended reads, from nonfiction to science fiction and all plots in between. His philosophy has always been “Why get one book when five or six will do?” James recently was awarded an MA in Publishing from Western Colorado University. He edited The Santa Claus Stories of L. Frank Baum and co-edited the Monsters, Movies & Mayhem anthology, both from WordFire Press. James is an Air Force veteran who lives in the foothills of the Colorado Rockies, where he spends his time hiking, running, cycling, reading, and writing as much as possible. He also enjoys a craft beer now and then, particularly when someone else is buying.