Philippe groaned as all around him villagers marched up the hill, lighting the night with fire. He clawed at their arms, trying to knock the torches from their hands, when a farmer grabbed him by the hair and threw him to the ground.
“Stay, you dog.”
Philippe dug his fingers in the dirt and growled. During times of stress, he always resorted to his animal ways. Simple-minded they called him. Everyone except Colette.
At the top of the hill, Révérend Père d’Amboise stepped onto a crude wooden platform. Philippe wanted to tear out the man’s throat, but he was only a child. He did the only thing he could do—he crawled up the hill to watch his only friend die.
“Don’t let him do this to me,” Colette yelled to the crowd, bucking against the ropes that bound her to the stake. “I’m innocent. D’Amboise is not a man of God. He’s a monster. Please listen to me. Someone help me. Please.”
No one listened.
Philippe barked.
No one listened to him, either.
Révérend Père thumped his staff on the platform and waited for silence. “We gather tonight to execute the will of God.”
“Blasphemer,” Colette shouted, making the villagers grumble and Philippe swell with pride. Colette was the bravest person on Earth. Even now, about to face a horrible death, she would protect Philippe as she always had, no matter the cost, even when he had begged her not to.
“Gag the witch.”
The man who yelled these words lived across the creek from Philippe and Colette. He was an ugly man, mean as a badger, who had sniffed around their cottage many times trying to entice Colette with biscuits baked by his wife. As the badger-man gagged Colette, Philippe hugged Maman—the mother lent to him by Colette since he didn’t have one of his own—and snarled at Révérend Père.
The priest smirked at Philippe then turned to the rest of the villagers. “Take heart, my children, there’s nothing to fear. The witch has made herself known.”
Révérend Père gestured to the baker, standing beside him with a torch, to move forward and light the pyre.
“Let those who embrace the darkness burn in the righteous flames of purity.”
The baker ignited the grass stuffed beneath the kindling. The blacksmith and weaver advanced to do the same. Philippe screamed and lunged at a farmer boy barely older than him, but the teen just swatted him away. The wood caught fire, the thinner branches first and then the logs, until the entire pyre was ablaze.
Colette screamed through the gag as flames caught on her gown and climbed her legs.
Philippe screamed as well.
He screamed as the fire ate Colette’s flesh. He screamed as the villagers went back to their homes. He screamed as Révérend Père faded into the night. He screamed away the last sounds he would ever utter.
Colette was gone. Philippe was to blame.
He picked up a polished tin, left behind by one of the villagers, and studied his reflection as ash and hair blew across his miserable face.