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Title: The Burning
Author: WillowMina
Rated: PG
Characters: Drusilla
Disclaimer: All characters are the property of Joss Whedon and ME, I'm just
borrowing them for a while!
Summary: Drusilla amuses herself one Hallowe'en by looking back on what might
have been.
Author's notes: I'm aware that this is not historically accurate. But I
hope
that people are able to look past that and appreciate the story for what it
is.
London 1860
It was Hallowe’en,
that was why they’d caught her. She’d been talking to them, but when she
tried to explain, they’d said she was a Witch. They didn’t understand that
they were there all the time. They didn’t understand that she was a good,
God-fearing woman, who wouldn’t do anything intentionally bad in her life. She
hadn’t wanted the voices… they’d always been there. But they’d been
getting louder… and there was another one there now… a soft, musical voice,
a woman’s voice… but she hadn’t said anything. She just giggled, not all
the time. But every so often… she giggled.
They dragged her out of
the vault which they’d thrown her in… as they left the church she was amazed
to find that the sun was setting. They must have left her there all night and
all of the following day, so it must be the evening of All Saints day, the day
she was supposed to be taking her Holy Orders. The voices realised and started
shouting… trying to pass on their warnings… but she couldn’t make any of
them out… none at all. Then the giggle came again… and the new voice
spoke… or rather sang… “Ding dong, the Witch is dead! La la la, la la la
la!” and then the giggle again. The voice, now it had spoken, seemed
familiar… but she couldn’t place it.
This was it then…
they had her tied to the stake… wood piled around her feet… there was no
escape.
“You are hereby
convicted of being a Witch, of receiving the devils instruction, and of
attempting to cause chaos by spreading his evil word! For perpetrating these
despicable crimes and intending through praxis of unholy words and deeds to
bring the human race to ruin, and for the graver crime of sacrificing your
family to the devils servants, you are sentenced to be burnt, in the hope that
God may have Mercy upon your Soul!”
Her family… that had
been nothing to do with her… She’d come home one day… it seemed an age
ago… to find them dead… two puncture marks on each of their throats. That
had been why she’d gone to the priest, so she wouldn’t be killed by the
demons, and that was when the voices had started shouting at her.
They lit the tinder at
her feet, which smouldered a little, smoke curling around her face, before
taking full hold, and blazing. The giggle came again, and then the voice…
“La la la la la, Smoke gets in your eye’s.”
She didn’t recognise
the tune, the words, just as she hadn’t recognised the last one’s, but they
unnerved her. It was if the voice was watching for amusements sake. If voices
could watch… “You’re going mad!”… the voice cut into her panicked
thoughts. “Just as I did!”… it was almost as if the voice knew her. As if
the voice were part of her.
The voice started
singing again. “Run and catch…..la, la, la, la” It was the song that her
mother used to sing to her… how did the voice know about that? She panicked,
screaming “Stop!” at the top of her voice.
The priest looked at
her… the priest who’d told her she was so evil so long ago, the priest that
had driven her to the convent, so that she could atone for her sins, although,
she thought, how can the visions and the voices be a sin… I didn’t ask
for them. He spoke over the deadly hush that had fallen over the mob. “You
wish to repent? Not only have you been communicating with the devil, but only
two days ago, I witnessed you giving confession to a demon, making a mockery of
God”
A demon? She
thought, but then she realised that the voice she’d heard at confession
hadn’t been familiar to her, and it certainly hadn’t been the priest who now
stood and accused her. But surely a demon wouldn’t have sounded… so…
angelic?
“He would.” the
voice replied. “I know…”
The girl panicked, she
had to get out of the fire, it was burning, maybe the heat was making her
imagine things. “I’ll repent, I’ll devote my life to the Father. I’ll do
anything, please, forgive me Lord!”
She looked around
hopefully at the faces, which were blurred by the heat rising from the flames.
But it was, alas in vain.
Fate had decreed that
this was the day she was to die.
Somewhere in Southern
America, 1999
She lay on the sand
inside the cave, against all expectations a pumpkin carved into a Jack
O’Lantern at the entrance. She was staring at the roof of the cave,
occasionally giggling or speaking, as if she were watching her own private
cinema.
After a while she
sighed. Whatever she’d been watching had finished. “And so the witch is
burnt, right down to the gusset of her pretty little bloomers!”
Then, almost as if she
were holding a conversation with herself, “But they could have let me live,
I wasn’t a witch!”
“No, Fate said that
you had to die on that day… otherwise there would have been confusion”
“You didn’t
die… you were supposed to die, but you’re still here!”
“But I did die, I
just… cheated… a little. If you’d embraced your Angelus like I did then
you’d still be here as well!”
In the dark of the
cave, Drusilla lay back down onto the floor of the cave, and looked up to the
stars.
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