The Cleansing of Rowan County

Rowan County

1840

Jeremiah 17:9

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked…”

Sarah:

Elizabeth was at it again. Such a busy, little bee. I watched her chiseling her way through the maple wood. Gnawing on her lower lip, leaning in toward the candlelight. Her face distorted with determination. Her small hands worked feverishly.

“Dawn is approaching, sister,” I reminded her. Elizabeth showed nary a reaction.

With my hand curled around the twisted barley candle stick, I stood and watched Elizabeth’s shaky hands continue to whittle. She was a woman on a mission. It had been a long evening, and longer still for my sister. I had seen her that way many times before. Self-destructively preoccupied. Manic.

Poor thing.

Perhaps, her hands would tire, and eventually sleep would take her. Or perhaps not.

I left her there churning in her own emotional turmoil.

Narrator:

No, rest did not come. Not for Sarah’s sister, Elizabeth. She refused to close her eyes because all she could see were foul images of him.

Reverend Claymore! The local vicar. The village’s so-called man of God.

A human stain was more like it. At well over six feet, he towered above most of his peers in both stature and ego. Horace Claymore wasn’t much to look at with his crooked nose, skinny, vulture-like neck, and cloudy eyes. But, in his cleric’s clothing, Reverend Claymore appeared downright frightening.

Elizabeth grimaced, as the tiny, cream-colored flakes of maple formed small piles beneath her hand. This would be her greatest creation, she thought. Her truth. The people, the God-fearing folks of Rowan County, needed to see Reverend Horace Claymore for the depraved sinner he truly was.

Just his name alone turned her stomach. Granted, she did not actually see the vicar and the widow Babble in their sinful embrace, but she needn’t have. Her sister did. Sarah saw them with her own eyes.

Poor woman, Elizabeth considered. Claymore took a confused, broken-hearted widow woman and ducked behind the church with her to have his fill. The home of the Lord, no less. Her sister had described the tawdry scene she’d witnessed. The vicar sneaking around, whispering in the widow’s ear, and then wrapping her up in his arms. Faces close.

Blasphemy, Elizabeth thought as her left eye twitched anxiously. Sin, pure and simple.

Elizabeth’s fingers sped up, catching yet another second wind. It was time to expose them. Simple-minded, Mary Babble, too. The widow’s impropriety was just as vexing. What female, in her right mind, would think it appropriate to tease a man while still in mourning? Lester Babble wasn’t even cold in his grave. One spring was all that had passed since he’d been put in the ground.

Elizabeth’s wood-working skills were not being wasted on yet another bowl. No, this would be something different. Something chilling.

“Claymore…” she hissed softly to herself as she continued her work.

Beneath Elizabeth’s clenched jaw, she could feel the uneasiness building up inside of her chest threatening to explode. Tight. Thick. God would want her to end Claymore’s reign of exploitation. The widow Babble’s deeds were no less wicked. However, she was a broken woman with no one to protect her.

“You are not who you present yourself to be,” Elizabeth mumbled beneath her breath.

In her mind, there was a picture. An image of what would come forth from her works and surely shock them all. Her eyes narrowed as the chisel continued to dig at the round. Dig. Claw. Elizabeth could not stop. Despite the fact that her fingertips were numb from working.

It all ends tonight, she promised herself.

No matter what.

The Bradley sisters had been engaged in a ruse, of sorts, for nearly two weeks. An artifice, yes, but a necessary one. Rowan County had an immoral sinner in its midst and his name was Reverend Horace Claymore. And, since men did not listen to women, Elizabeth found another way to speak.

“You will hear me,” she added blowing away the shavings of wood with one breath.

Sarah:

Hours later, I awoke and as expected, found my sister, Elizabeth, still toiling away at her design. I yawned sleepily and wiped at my eyes.

“Have you not slept, sister?”

She glanced up with her bloodshot eyes. No. Elizabeth had been awake all night. Digging. Carving. Cutting. The limb of maple was no more. In its place, a hollowed, sphere shape with two prominent holes. She held the finished product up for my inspection. What I had mistaken for a bowl was actually a face. A cold, amber-colored, inhuman face mask with a thin cross carved into the center.

I gasped as the next breath caught in my throat.

“What, pray tell, is that horror?”

The words came out harsher than even I’d intended.

Elizabeth furrowed her brow. Perhaps, it was my choice of words. She spun the mask back around for another look and simply giggled.

“’Tis a mask, silly.”

Unlike my sister, I was not amused. What was the intended purpose of such a vile facade? If my sister’s intention was to frighten Reverend Claymore; her creepy, hand-crafted vizard would certainly do the trick. But what bothered me more was that the idea had come from Elizabeth, herself. What kind of person would think of such a thing? What did it mean for her state of mind? I had been asking myself that question for years. Too many years to count.

I turned away. My sister’s declarations had already upset the entire village. The Laudanum she’d put in Claymore’s cow feed had killed the poor creature, stone dead. Then, she had another fiendish idea. She created a pile of tree twigs in front of both Reverend Claymore’s parsonage and the widow Mary Babble’s dwelling. The act was a mark, of sorts, linking the two miscreants together. Somewhere in the village, Elizabeth had heard a frightening tale of a mean, old hag who was rendering curses upon neighboring houses using piles of sticks. Curses? My sister, in her demented state, found the story humorous, and the idea intriguing.

We heard later that the woman was a witch. A frightening thought.

Nonetheless, Elizabeth’s messages had been received loud and clear. Poison. Curses. The mask would be the final affront.

Reasoning with my sister had never been an easy task. Her moods were quite unpredictable. And, when she set her mind on something…

Well… that was that.

“Elizabeth, the villagers are appalled,” I started somberly, eyes low. “I’ve seen them turning out their pockets. And, yesterday, on my walk, I saw Mr. Ira Hanson hanging a sprig of mistletoe above his doorway.”

I’d heard tale that mistletoe could ward off magic. I had hoped to see some sign of reason register within my sister. Perhaps an acknowledgement of the warning. But Elizabeth was stale. Frozen like ice. Unmoved. Uninterested.

She simply stared at her masterpiece…unfazed.

Narrator:

People were genuinely afraid. Elizabeth could not accept that the gambit had run its course. Still enthralled by Reverend Claymore’s mask, not the kind made of maple, but the fake one that he wore for church. The one that gave him the confidence to stand in a pulpit and judge everyone else. He was not a man of the cloth, but a man of his own inspirited loins.

Doing God’s work? Nonsense. Claymore did his own work. A Puritan believer who still practiced public humiliation to cleanse sin.

“Mistletoe, you say,” Elizabeth muttered, mostly to herself. She met Sarah’s disappointed gaze as she pondered the inevitable end. Sarah couldn’t see it, but the only true realization was that Elizabeth had come to be her own demise.

Silently, in her soul, she accepted her fate.

Sarah:

There was something in her tone of voice that sent a chill down my spine. Something sinister. A warning, perhaps.

But, for whom?

I continued to stare at Elizabeth’s face and the dead calm that I found there. Once upon a time, my sister had been beautiful. In her younger years. She had long, wavy hair and dewy skin. What had time done to her? Elizabeth had changed. What I saw was no longer beauty. She had lost her innocence and with it, her charms. All that had been good had been replaced with ugliness. She wore the discolorations of abuse and neglect. Wrinkles exacerbated by hate and her own bigotries.

I conceded. Throwing my arms up, I crossed by her and made my way to the pantry. There, I found a biscuit from the previous evening’s supper and added a spoonful of maple syrup to sweeten the roll. I closed my eyes and tried to enjoy those few minutes of peace.

When I opened them again…Elizabeth was gone.

Lazily, I changed out of my bed dress and into my shawl-collared blouse. Using only my fingers, twisted my hair back, pinned it neatly, and began my daily chores. I tossed two fresh logs into the stove and set the pot to boil. Comforted by the mundane, I took the basket and headed outside to collect a few vegetables from the garden. The tomatoes and carrots were glorious.

I dropped down to my knees and leaned over the vine. The sun, just beginning to peek over the horizon, brought forth a new day. A day to correct wrongs. A day to forgive. A day to experience life to the fullest.

I couldn’t help but think about Elizabeth. My sister had become so bitter. Cynical and weary of the world. Harboring her disapproval. Growing more and more in her hatred.

I had to shake her out of my head. No more frustrating images of my sick sister. Instead, I replaced the mental pictures with him.

Samuel.

The neighboring farm boy. A few years younger than that of a husband, but I knew he would be the one. I had selected him just as I had the vegetables I placed into the basket. And, yes, marriage would come. Perhaps even children. Giddy with hope, I couldn’t help but smile while plucking the ripe tomato from the safety of Mother Earth’s umbilical cord. Samuel, the neighbor’s son, would someday be mine.

No matter what became of Elizabeth.

It was then that I heard her grating voice echo in my mind.

“You are tempting that young man,” she’d said just as Samuel and I had made eye contact. My long eyelashes flapped in his direction not so innocently. “Sarah! Stop that, at once!”

More blasphemy, of course.

Everything was bad in my sister’s eyes. Especially Samuel. My sister detested men. She’d once referred to them as swine. Could it be true? Were men swine?

Wasn’t life about love and family? What could possibly be wrong with wanting to be with Samuel? His father would consent to our marriage in a year’s time, I predicted with a smile. I had considered that future and chosen it willingly, even began praying for the union. I liked his strong hands and kind eyes. My sister’s eyes, on the other hand, were full of shadow and madness. Her hands busied themselves with damnable deeds.

Yes, of course, it was wrong to have lied to Elizabeth. I know. I’d been in prayer for days. But I had to, you see. I had to expose her for what she’d become. A cold, authoritarian. A woman with nothing to offer the world except her biases. A tormented female obsessed with the Reverend and even with poor, innocent Samuel. A blameless farm boy who had done nothing to deserve her disapproval… other than being born male.

Yes, yes, I know, all of her difficulties stem from our father. One, painfully ordinary man, and yet powerful enough to destroy both our lives. His sickness. His vile acts. What he did was unforgivable. After mother died, our father sacked Elizabeth with the wifely duties.

All of them.

That was why she killed him. She had to. And, because she was my sister… I helped her. The terrible memories of the past, an eternal plague, had to be pushed away.

On the walnut tabletop, I slowly began to dice the vegetables that I had collected. Plump tomatoes and healthy carrots. Soup seemed a fine idea. A welcomed distraction. Mid cut, I heard a deafening crash.

The front door burst open and three exasperated men grabbed me by my arms. My knees buckled. Violently, they drug me from the safety of my home and out into the blinding sunlight. A crowd, already forming, began to circle me. My eyes, trying to refocus, frantically searched for my God. The Lord that Reverend Claymore told us about in church.

Save me!

I heard Elizabeth’s call. She was there, hands bound behind her back, standing next to the Reverend Claymore. The gangly man with his pale face and stormy eyes stared upon me with such aggression that I shook inside. His oversized nose scrunched beneath his heavy brow and nostrils flaring like a poked dragon.

“Sarah Myrick Bradley,” he began, enunciating each of my names carefully. “You are hereby accused of practicing witchcraft!”

The word dropped onto my consciousness like an anvil. His skeleton-like finger pointed at me. Me!

Even amid the weighty judgment, my eyes discovered Elizabeth’s wooden mask dangling loosely from his other hand. A reminder of Elizabeth’s darkness, and equal responsibility.

The crowd circled us like a pack of wolves. They knew anyone practicing witchcraft would be put to death. Reverend Claymore had always been his own judge and jury, with a long history of vicious exploits. So-called justice. More than one woman had been stoned to death. Three men, last winter, violently drug behind racing horses. I literally couldn’t count the number of children who had been publicly beaten for his amusement.

The village already had blood on its hands, and yet I could see the condemnation in their eyes. A palpable fury that blurred the line between good and evil. They craved the sacrifice. Two dozen ordinary people lost in their own ideology. Trapped in Reverend Claymore’s version of sanity. Or insanity.

Perhaps my sister’s damaged mind was a less tragic place to exist. Maybe, it somehow protected her. I imagined the world’s darkness to be less violent if light never shone, in the first place. If Elizabeth were at peace with her choices, it could not be observed. Her face, stoic as ever, appeared dead already.

“I am not a witch,” I cried out. I wanted them to hear me say the words, publicly deny the vile accusation. The villagers needed to hear it and I needed to say it. Just then, the man that I knew to be the blacksmith, began winding twine around my wrists. The unbearable squeezing caused me to struggle. It was then he spat in my face.

The stench of the tea-colored chaw took my breath away. I felt the sludge sliding down my right cheek. I wanted to shake it off. Make him and the entire terrible situation disappear. How could Elizabeth be so calm? Not once had I seen her shout, kick, or try to run away from them.

Reverend Claymore stood in the center of his captivated flock with the wooden mask out for all to see.

“This,” he shouted, raising it up high in the air, “is a device of the devil!”

His steel-like gaze narrowed, gauging the reaction to what had become a fully formed lynch mob. They were completely engrossed. Eyes glazed over with abhorrence. Completely under his spell.

Emboldened by his loyal subjects, he howled, “These women are servants of Satan!”

A barrage of audible gasps ripped through the summer wind. I tried and failed to force my eyes shut so as not to see my neighbors and friends slipping into mass hysteria. Mothers, with their children at their feet, sneered and bared their teeth like wild animals. Heartless men shook their fists and jeered at us. Even the children, caught up in the frenzy, looked upon us with shame.

Reverend Claymore’s wrathful glare inched back toward me as his voice dropped, “And, witches must die!”

It was only at that moment that I fully understood the gravity of my error. The story that I invented about the preacher and the widow Mary Babble had been intended only to rile Elizabeth. To anger her. Set her, already mad emotions, into motion. I knew that my sister would not take kindly to impropriety.

I knew Elizabeth would reveal her own judgments to Claymore. I knew she would publicly denounce him and eventually be arrested. They would take her away, and I would finally be free of her. Free of her control. Free of her judgements. Free to pursue my heart’s desires.

Samuel, marriage, family.

What I never considered was that… they would come for me.

“Kill the witches!” The outraged rabble began to shout.

I felt the rope as it landed on my shoulders. The weight of it almost tipped me over. The men pulled at the noose and my chin rose with the restriction.

I’m sorry, Elizabeth! I am so sorry! My eyes couldn’t miss the Maple tree limb above me or the one next to it that was missing.

The rope tightened and…

Narrator:

Appreciating the chaos he’d commanded, Reverend Claymore stood back and, with a smug expression, watched as the townspeople took the matter into their own hands. The Bradley Sisters were no more. Even in their moments of denial, they reeked of sin and immorality. He could smell stink of sin on them. He knew they had poisoned his cow, planted seeds of doubt within his congregation, and lied in both manner and deed.

But the worst indiscretion of all was challenging his authority.

Reverend Claymore’s eyes followed the two sisters, as their bodies violently swung backward as the men pulled the ropes, yanking the girls into the blue sky. Gasping. Sputtering. Trembling like leaves on a wind- blown branch.

Claymore waited for the convulsing to stop. He wanted to enjoy their ascent into righteousness. After all, it was he who had purged them. His forgiveness, palpable. Even his constituents, in their vulnerable states, would soon feel the wonder of the beyond. He watched as Sarah and Elizabeth’s bodies slowly began to rock, side-by-side. Captured in the grasp of the great by and by.

Reverend Claymore masked his smile. The Bradley Sisters had been eternally cleansed of their wickedness. The good reverend was satisfied.