When she touched his cheek, she wondered if it had always been so cold. She pressed her hand to her own warm cheek. She put her hand to his again. Dead. The priest came to close his eyes, and a man with a foul, stained wooden cart came and picked up his body, throwing it in with others.
As she thought on this, Bjorn exhaled heavily as he continued following along with Bastion’s prayers. Bjorn had found her shortly after Thomas died. He spied her stealing bread, and when he grabbed her to arrest her, she pushed herself into his arms, not caring if he put her in the jail. He would have to hang her if he wanted to be free of her.
Bjorn threatened to at first. But soon he realized how many things she could do and that she never complained at his treatment, and never complained when he stayed out late, and never demanded newer clothes or a fancier house with mirrors to catch the fleeting sun in winter.
He could continue his life just as before, she promised, only now he would have someone to keep him fed and warm.
“The wise man is the one who builds his home upon the rock,” Bastion proclaimed, bringing her back to the moment. “When the storms came, his house stood. My friends, a storm has come to this town. Can you feel the wind rising? Yes. A storm has come, and the wise man’s house will stand.”
When he smiled, something sweet crinkled around the edges of his eyes, something that made her want to encourage him further. He might be overcome with this kindness.
But the hard blue stones that were his eyes flashed and cut through the crowd, refusing to acknowledge her again. He spoke, using his hands as teachers do, waving them through the air to emphasize some emotions, using a single finger to jab a word straight at one person. Mia thought he looked like a sculptor, his hands working with some invisible material, shaping it before their unseeing eyes, creating and building, stacking words upon words, so that when he finished, there would be something unseen but finished between them.
“Eve stood in the garden. Though she walked with the Almighty God Himself, though she had the love of a perfect man, though she had paradise stretched before her, Eve took of the apple and ate,” Bastion said.
Mia licked her lips without meaning to, hoping it didn’t make her look foolish. She glanced at the other women transfixed by Bastion. None seemed concerned with her. She knew of Eve, she knew of the apple, but she had never understood. This had the sound of truth.
“Eve, the first woman, the woman who experienced complete paradise and knew nothing of sorrow, or starvation, or death—Eve could not be satisfied. What evil is in the heart of a woman, my friends! God offered her everything He has, and she wanted still more. What man, then, could ever satisfy a woman? Women want more than they are due.”
Mia put a hand to her stomach, willing it to be quiet. Just like Eve, she wanted more than what she had.
“The good brothers in Christ have, in response to the Holy Father’s proclamation that all witchcraft be rooted out and destroyed in God’s kingdom, completed a book called the Malleus Maleficarum. It is in this book that I find my work, my law. I do nothing except that which the church has commanded and the civil authorities require. Before I pursue God’s good pleasure among you, tell me: Do I have your permission to perform a great deliverance here?”
Some called out the word yes. Others nodded. Mia’s heart lurched. Deliverance might be for Alma, too. Bjorn squeezed her shoulder, calling out, “Yes!” He was surely thinking of Alma.
“Then understand the word of God: Eve had a carnal heart, which led her to damn all men for eternity. And now this same evil has caused great mischief among you. I have been brought here to deliver you from these women, to save those of you whose foundations are not upon the rock.”
The crowd murmured. Mia strained to hear their words but couldn’t. She heard only the name of Catarina. Bjorn gripped her hand so tightly she winced.
“Friends, for what reason did Satan visit paradise? Did he come to talk with God?”
“No,” the crowd answered.
“Did Satan come to tempt Adam?”
“No.”
“Satan came to paradise because a woman walked there. A woman’s weakness, her carnal lust, called the Evil One to the very gates of paradise, and she alone bade him enter.”
Bastion raised his hands above his head, listening.
“Satan,” Bastion called, “you cannot enter here. I am watching these gates. I will protect this flock.” Bastion looked back at the people, his finger a little dagger that he thrust at them one by one. “And when I discover a witch, when I find her black heart dead beneath a woman’s sweet face, I will tear it out and burn it so Satan will cry out in despair and see this town is lost to him forever.”
“Death!” the woman in the cage screamed with a voice that sounded like a shrill cry of an animal. As she did, she tore out a clump of hair and spit at the crowd.