Free Flash Fiction: Why We Burn Witches

The overhead lights went out.

A soft, warm light filled the classroom.

Billy looked up from his book.

A man putting down a match from lighting a huge three-foot candle stood next to the teacher’s desk.

He turned. “Welcome to witchcraft 101,” his deep voice filling the room far better than the English teacher’s had. “I am a witch. Your witchcraft lesson is 13 hours long. That’s how long this time candle last. When it burns out, time resumes. When time resumes, the room will go back to exactly how it had been before I lit the candle, with two exceptions. Some of you will have learned enough witchcraft to keep your memories and some of you will have had spells placed on them that will still be on them. For the rest, it will be as if nothing has happened, and your English class will then start.”

Billy’s pulse thundered. He’d always known magic existed, but had doubted he would ever see real magic like this.

“In either case, those peoples’ lives are ruined. The Church, and other groups, hunt down witches, and those under their power, kill them, and burn their corpses. They have good reasons to. They will, in time, figure out here is where I taught magic and investigate every person known to be here. If you remember this, you die if they catch you.”

A shiver ran up Billy’s spine.

“Rachal England, come up here, take off your clothes, fold them neatly, turn around and face the class. These people need to understand why everyone kills witches, and those that are affected by them.”

Billy watched the hottest girl in the class, a girl who would not give him the time of day, stand up two rows over, walk to the front, and start undressing.

Damn, but she was hot. And a natural red head.

“This is the main reason why they kill witches,” the voice interrupted Billy as he looked the big chested red head over. He’d wanted to see her naked for years. “No non-witch can disobey any order a witch gives.”

He held out a knife to Rachel. “Take this and kill the student you hate the most.”

Billy’s heart thundered as he saw she did not hesitate to take that knife and stalk across the room.

“I am sorry Rachel,” the blond said. “Please don’t.”

She slashed the throat of the boy beside her right arm, and blood went everywhere.

Eyes bulging; he fell to his knees.

Blood sprayed both girls.

He took minutes to bleed out.

“Kim, you ain’t worth hating. You are nothing. But him, he betrayed us both.”

Going back to the witch, she held out the knife. “I really wanted to do that ever since he posted those pictures, but didn’t have the nerve.”

Fear froze Billy’s blood.

“Don’t get too happy,” the witch said. |He’ll be alive again as soon as the candle burns out and will not remember a thing. At best, you cost him his chance to learn witchcraft and you will still be my slave and whore. What you did is temporary. Some of what I am going to do to you is temporary, like this.”

 Her hair went from red and curly to black and straight.

“And some will be permanent like,” his voiced deepened and changed slightly, “You are a loyal slave that will always work hard to please, and do everything you can to protect me and my interest.”

He took the knife from her and looked out at the class. “People under the influence of a witch do everything they are told and act on impulses they would normally control. Nothing can change that, so the controlled too are under the sentence of death should the wrong people find out.”

He looked at Rachel. “They will kill you now if they find you.”

Wide-eyed, she nodded.

The witch faced the class once more. “The only people the witch hunts actually burned at the stake were either innocent or people under the influence of a witch. Real witches they strike down from hiding. It was far more difficult to do before guns. We can usually heal a knife or arrow wound before bleeding out. But even now, most survive the attack on them and their attacker then dies unless the attack is a complete surprise and instantly fatal.”

Visions of all kinds of ways of taking out someone before they knew it came to Billy’s mind.

The witch went to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, and started drawing a bunch of crossing line. Then he turned. “If what I did to Rachel upset you, you have almost no chance of learning witchcraft. You have to have not only no problem doing that to others, but no problem seeing it done to people that means nothing to you, to have a chance. But that only gives you a chance.”

Seeing Rachel like that didn’t bother him. Could he learn?

Tapping the board, the witch said, “This pattern is incomplete. The completed pattern is the essence of witchcraft. If you can visualize what the completed pattern looks likes, you will also understand how to give someone a command that they have to obey, and how not to be affected by those doing the same so you will be able to keep your memories when the candle dies. Good luck.”

Billy studied the pattern.

So did others.

It made no sense to him whatsoever.

He focused his entire attention on it.

An hour later, it made no more sense.

Nor did it 10 hours after that.

He looked around the room. All but two others had given up trying.

He looked at Linda, the girl behind him.

“Please don’t make me a slave.”

He grinned, she thought him a witch.

It hit him. The pattern was a lie. But he had the key.

“Strip slave,” he said, giving her an order he knew she couldn’t refuse.

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