Anise ran down another long alleyway, her skirts flying about her legs in a flurry as she scrambled through the city to find a safe hiding place for her and the child. She knew now that it would not be possible to attempt to leave the city without arousing suspicion or risk being captured by the king's royal soldiers. She knew she had to be smart and find a hiding place within the city. But where?
The one place that came to her mind was an old, abandoned row house rumored to be haunted. And due to mass superstition surrounding the place, no one ever dared to go there. Her plan now was to hide away in the abandoned house until this whole witch hunt had blown over and the royal soldiers had left the city. All she had to do was make it there before she was discovered again. She just had to be more careful this time.
As she ran, Anise cradled an injured Effie in her arms. The girl's ribs had bruised to the bone from the toe of that horrid soldier's boot.
"Coward," Anise huffed to no one in particular. "What kind of grown man could hurt a child like that? A coward, that's who."
"W-what did you say?" Effie peeked up deliriously from Anise's bosom, her eyes swollen and tired from pain.
"Oh, nothing," Anise smiled down at the girl. "I was just speaking to myself. Anyway, we're almost somewhere safe. Just don't stop holding on to your Auntie Anise. Yes, that's a good girl. Hold on tight, we'll be there soon."
Effie grasped at the edges of Anise's apron with her little fingers, and burrowed her face deep into the warmth of her auntie's mousy-brown hair which was pulled over the woman's shoulder in a single, loose braid. Then little girl let out a jagged sigh. Each breath was agony but she tried hard to be brave. Brave just like her mother.
Her poor mother who had been captured by those terrible, bad men who were probably going to do horrible things to her. Maybe... maybe even kill her.
The rims of her eyes stung with tears, but Effie rubbed them away with the backs of her hands defiantly. Now was not the time to cry, she thought. Her mother was going to be alright, wasn't she? Hadn't she told Effie that she would be okay? Even Auntie Anise told her so. All she had to do was be a brave little girl, and soon she'd be home with her mother, and have all the warm, delicious cheese danishes she could fit in her mouth at once.
Just a little longer... Just a little further...
"We're here," Anise said, approaching a ramshackle old building that was decrepit with age and abandonment.
Anise peeked around the corner, making sure no one had seen her lurking in the shadows, and then quickly she slipped in through the back door which was barely hanging onto the frame by its hinges.
The inside of the house was mostly empty, except for a few broken-down pieces of furniture here and there. Spider webs hung from every corner of the place like tattered curtains, and a thick layer of dust lay untouched along each surface. The floor boards creaked and moaned under Anise's weight as she scurried through the room and made her way up a narrow staircase to the top floor, before finally clamoring into the attic.
Gently, she sat Effie down on the floor in a corner of the room, placing the two little yarn dollies in each of her small arms. Then Anise struggled for a few moments with a dilapidated old dresser which was quite heavy, working to push it across the room until it came to block the door from any intruders being able to open it from the other side without a struggle.
Inside the room, it was relatively dark, except for a few slivers of golden sunlight that shone like ribbons through the slats of the boarded up windows. Anise was confident that the two of them would be able to hide here for quite some time without being caught, maybe even throughout the remainder of the witch hunt.
Once her work was done, Anise settled down on the floor in the corner next to Effie, and carefully pulled the girl into her lap. Then the two sat in silence for a while, both too exhausted to speak. But soon, Effie plucked up enough strength to ask a question.
Effie was a naturally inquisitive girl, always asking questions because she always wanted to know the answers to everything. But for the first time, she was asking a question that she feared to know the answer to.
"Auntie Anise... Do you... Do you really think mama will be okay?"
This time Anise didn't hide her worry behind a smile. She didn't try to say pretty words to make Effie feel better. This time, she answered the question with a small, quivering voice that didn't try to mask her fear.
"I... don't know, Effie. I just don't know..."
Effie's violet eyes were obscured by her long, dark lashes as she cast her gaze down at the two dollies cradled in her arms, expecting tears to blur her vision at any moment. But those tears never came. She was just too tired to cry. In fact, all except for the pain that throbbed in her chest with each breath she took, she found that she was too tired to feel much of anything. Her lashes fluttered; her lids drooped, growing heavy. So very heavy.
"It's alright to sleep," Anise said, stroking Effie's long hair in almost the same way that her mother had always done. It was comforting. "You must be so tired, my dear. Lean back on me, just like that. And close those heavy eyes. I'll keep you safe from harm while you take a little nap. That's a good girl..."
Effie slowly drifted off into a dream where her mother was waiting at home. And she had baked one hundred cheese danishes just for her. And Effie ate every last bite without getting a stomach ache.
-------
A commotion just outside the window roused Effie from her brief nap. The voices of soldiers were shouting orders to calm the cacophonous noise of townspeople who sounded as though they had gathered in the streets just below the abandoned house.
At first, confusion filled Effie's head like a fog. Why wasn't she waking up in her warm bed next to her mother? What was this cold, dark, unfamiliar place? Slowly, Effie lifted her head from Anise's lap, glancing up at the woman who sat as still as a statue over her, looking toward the boarded-up window with danger edging in her tight expression. Then, the familiar pain of a bruise throbbed in her chest, and Effie remembered exactly where she was. She wasn't safe at home with her mother. She was in a strange place with danger surrounded her on all sides.
"Auntie Anise?" She groaned groggily, rubbing at her eyes which still ached with exhaustion. "What... What's going on?"
"The soldiers..." Anise spoke in a voice that was nearly a whisper. "I think they're bringing the witches to the public square to have them exicu- to make an example of them."
Anise was no longer trying trying to sugar-coat the situation for the child. It was probably not even possible at this point. The whole ordeal had gotten so bad that it seemed pointless. Effie was about to witness something horrific, and there was no possible way that Anise could shield her from it.
"Is mama one of those witches?!" Effie cried, bounding to her feet, and then wincing at the pain that action brought to her bruised ribs.
"Shhhh, hush, child. We don't want the soldiers to hear us and come looking for us, do we?"
Effie certainly did not want to be found by another one of those mean soldiers like the one who hurt her earlier. She screwed her mouth up so tightly she almost forgot to breathe.
"That's a good girl. Now come sit next to me. You must be very brave. No matter what kinds of scary sounds you hear outside, you must stay very quiet and very still."
But this time, Effie didn't obey. "I want to see mama," she said, standing stubbornly in one spot as though her feet had been nailed to the floorboards.
"I'm afraid you can't right now," Anise smiled wearily at the child. "My job is to keep you safe, so that means you stay right here in this attic until the witch hunt is over. And then, if your mama is still..." Her voice broke off there, not wanting to finish the last part of that heart-wrenching sentence.
But Effie still didn't budge. Somehow she intuitively knew that her mother was right outside; that she was one of the witches out in the crowd being punished for the simple crime of having been born a witch. And something told her that if she didn't look now she would miss her last chance to ever see her mother again. Hands balled up into little fists at her sides, Effie turned, flying to the nearest window in one fluid motion, her long, chestnut hair and brown, patched-up skirt fluttering behind her. Then she was pressing her face against the boards that covered the window, desperately trying to see between the slats. And as her eyes began to adjust to the bright sunlight, she began to make out the scene down below.
A throng of townspeople were gathered around the square, enthralled; their expressions held in suspended animation as if they were holding their breaths for the climax of some epic play. Some looked intrigued, some looked horrified, and some looked on with unreadable expressions as the event unfolded before them. In the center of the crowd, a handful of soldiers were pushing three women bound in chains toward the heart of the square -- toward three large pyres that had only recently been erected, each stacked high with piles of wood and kindling for burning.
Effie searched the faces of each of the three women in bondage, praying in her heart that one of them would not be her mother. But she knew. She just knew. And when one of the women turned her face up toward the sky, Effie's worst fear was confirmed.
"Mama..." she mouthed the name, her throat so tight that she was unable to find her voice.
Anise had gotten up from her spot on the floor at some point, but instead of dragging the child away from the window, she was watching now too, peering through the spaces between the boards and holding her breath. It was so quiet inside the room that Effie could hear the sound of her own sharp breaths, and of her heart throbbing painfully in her ears.
Outside, the soldiers kicked, shoved, and spat at the three women as they forced them onto the pyres. Even some hecklers in the crowd got riled up, shouting curses and throwing rotten vegetables at the women.
Rage welled up inside Effie's chest, replacing the pain of the bruise until her heart was blazing. She gritted her teeth at the utter injustice being played out right before her eyes. She gathered up handfuls of her skirt into her tiny fists, clenching them so tightly that her knuckles turned white. How could this be? How could such evil exist in the world? What had these women ever done to the soldiers, to the townspeople, or to the king, to deserve this treatment? What had her mother ever done but be a beautiful, loving mother to her only daughter, and bake the world's most delicious treats?
"Hear ye!" A soldier began shouting at the crowd. "These three women have been detained under the suspicion of being witches. And in the name of His Royal Majesty King Jaspar Alistair La Croix, these witches have been sentenced to death by fire for their crimes, in accordance with the law. Let the burning begin."
Effie was certain her heart had stopped beating as three of the soldiers then tossed burning torches into the kindling below each of the pyres where the three women were tired up, and the fire started to grow around their feet.
"No..." Anise whimpered next to her. "Morgana..."
But Effie couldn't hear anything. She had drowned out the world, watching with unblinking eyes that reflected the fire in them as the flames grew higher around the women. As the flames began to overtake her mother. And then, as if she'd sensed her daughter standing there in that window, her mother lifted her head, and smiled at Effie, one last smile of pure love before the fire engulfed her completely, obscuring her form from sight.