Part One can be found here.

Walking through the hallway, the light eventually got brighter and brighter, but I didn’t feel any warmer. Out in the square, I was nearly blinded for a moment. The sun was just too damn bright. Why couldn’t it be a cold, dreary day? The sun never decided to come out here. As my eyes gradually became accustomed to the light I noticed that there were a lot more people here than I would have thought. I mean sure, I was expecting to see my mother and my father, as well as my older sister, maybe even an uncle or an aunt or an older cousin. I wasn’t expecting all of the initiated Witch Hunters to be there!

I could hear my heart in my throat. I just had such a bad feeling about this. It was a feeling so strong that even the sword’s coldness couldn’t override it. Then I saw it, the great splintered pole. I really didn’t want to look at it, the bottom anyways. That was where the witch I had to kill would be chained. “Daniel?” a weak voice said, sounding as though it was not used to making words.

I looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. It sounded familiar. Perhaps it was a cousin playing a joke on me? Or maybe I was just hearing things. But then I heard it again, this time as soft as a kitten’s meow. Looking down the pole to where the witch was chained, I noticed that one of my worst fears had come into fruition. My heart sunk all the way to my feet. If I didn’t want to kill someone that I didn’t know, I certainly didn’t want to kill someone that I did know.

The girl was around my age, maybe a year younger. I never really asked her because I didn’t think that was important to know. She looked around my age anyways. Something about how vibrant her green eyes were. They almost matched the vibrancy of my own. Young people always have vibrant eyes because they’re full of life. But today, her eyes seemed to remind me a lot of when I first met her.

We had to have been in elementary school. She was sitting all alone on one of the swings, just slowly rocking back and forth, not really paying any attention to any of the other kids. Her dark hair was being tossed around by the wind. I’m not quite sure what made me go over to see her, although, knowing what I know now, I might have an idea. I took the swing closest to her and started tracing shapes in the dirt underneath with my feet. “Don’t do that,” she told me, hardly looking up.

“Do what?” I asked, looking at her with what I am sure must have been the weirdest looking face I could have mustered.

“Scuff your feet across the ground like that. You’ll disturb the worms. Worms are very important you know.”

“Worms? And how are worms important? They just squiggle around all day! They don't do anything!”

“Yes they do,” she said as she got off her swing and pushed me to the ground. “Look,” she said, pointing to the dirt patch where I had been digging. Sure enough, there were worms there.

“So what are they doin’ then?” I asked, feeling rather upset that I had just been knocked to the ground by a girl. All the worms were doing were squirming around. They still seemed rather unimportant to me.

She let out a rather annoyed sigh. “They’re making sure that the soil’s nice for plants and stuff. At least that’s what I think. My mom tells me that everythin’ is important.”

Being seven, and raised in a very hateful atmosphere, this was news to me. I had been told that some things just weren’t important, things such as witches, and so we had to kill them. Could it be possible for everything to be important? Could my family have lied to me? It all seemed so possible. What the girl said made sense, about worms anyways. But I was now confused about witches, and I sure as hell couldn’t ask her.

We sat there watching the worms for a while longer. Long worms, short worms, bright pink ones and mud covered ones. The went about their day, hardly noticing that they were being watched by two children. Each one seemed to have its own path, never crossing another, and hardly running into each other.

We would have been content just to sit and watch the worms all day, except for the loud blast that nearly sent me jumping out of my skin. I looked up to see my classmates swarming my teacher over by the doors. “Sorry, I’ve got to go. It was lots of fun....” I said, pausing as I realized that I didn’t know the girl’s name.

“Aisling. My name is Aisling,” she replied, not really telling me, but rather telling the worms.

“Thanks!” I called out to her as I ran off to join my class.

Looking back at Aisling now, her long black hair now torn and uneven, she hardly seemed like the same person I met all those years ago. The same person that I spent nearly every chance I had with. The woman tied to the pole in front of me couldn’t be that little girl who taught me that witches weren’t as bad as I thought. I don’t even remember when we found out each others secrets. I just remember us laughing it off. As long as nobody knew that we were friends, nothing would happen. At least, that’s what we thought.

If I didn’t want to kill a witch before, I certainly did not want to kill one now. Aisling was my best friend, and, well, maybe I might actually wish that we could be something more. Now, all of that hung in the balance. And for what? Some hatred that was older than time itself, and based off nothing but some dead man’s opinion!