Guilty
She was arrested immediately.
“I was bewitched by her,” her love interest cried painfully.
“Once, my husband was too,” a woman said.
“When she was a teenager, I saw the two of them in a room. She was the one who made advances toward him. I should have known she was unnatural.”
Soon, the village began to uncover the “truth” about her.
Some remembered how disrespectful she had always been toward elders who tried to arrange a good marriage for her. Others remembered how she never seemed serious about religion or afraid of God.
A few had nothing to say, but fear of missing out produced the most thrilling stories, each more detailed and convincing than the last.
Her house was burned. Her books were confiscated. They were filled with strange drawings, unfamiliar words, and numbers—three things nobody in the village understood and, therefore, three excellent pieces of evidence.
At the trial, the judge patiently heard every accusation.
“She is a witch,” the chief accuser said. “She used witchcraft to surpass Marito, the greatest mathematician in the kingdom. During competitions, he solved every problem correctly, yet she produced answers nobody could understand.”
The judge turned to her.
“Did you?”
She looked at him.
“Yes.”
The judge nodded.
“Guilty.”
