Hale
Snow blanketed Salem that winter, thick and soundless.
The roads vanished beneath it, the fields lay pale and hollow, and even the church bell seemed to toll from some other world.
It was then that Reverend Nathaniel Hale returned.
He came not as a man of God, but as one undone by his own sermons—his robes torn, his eyes sunken and wild.
In his hand, he carried a single book, the pages warped by damp and ink.
It was his ledger, his record of "sins confessed and purged."
On its last page, one name stood alone, written darker than all the rest:
Prudence Ashcroft.
---
The villagers had long since ceased speaking her name aloud.
They spoke of her shadow, of the crow, of strange lights in the hollow—but never of the woman herself.
When the Reverend entered the square, no one came forth to greet him.
He fell to his knees before the gallows beam, where the snow had gathered thick upon the wood, and laid his book at its base.
"I wronged her," he whispered.
The wind stirred, scattering ash across the snow though no fires burned.
He closed his eyes.
"I wronged them all."
---
That night, as the village slept, a sound rose from the church—a hollow knocking, as of someone rapping from beneath the floorboards.
The sexton, waking in fright, opened the doors to find the Reverend standing before the altar, candlelight flickering around him.
He was not praying.
He was speaking—to the shadows.
> "I named you witch," he said softly. "But it was my own fear I condemned."
The candle nearest him flickered, and the shadows deepened.
A voice answered—not cruel, not vengeful, but sorrowful and still.
> "Fear is a flame, Reverend. You built a pyre and called it holy."
The air grew heavy with the scent of thyme and ash.
He turned—and there she stood.
Prudence Ashcroft.
Her shape glimmered, her hair flowing like smoke, her eyes reflecting candlelight that did not come from this world.
In her hand she held a lantern—the same one Elias had seen burning in the hollow.
> "Do you seek forgiveness?" she asked.
His lips trembled.
"I seek an ending."
> "Then speak the truth."
---
Hale bowed his head, trembling.
Before the altar, he opened his ledger, pages whispering like wings.
And there, by the pale light of her lantern, he began to read aloud the names—
each soul condemned by his fear, each life burned in God's name.
With every name, the flame in Prudence's lantern dimmed, growing smaller, gentler, until only one name remained.
> "Prudence Ashcroft," he whispered.
The lantern went out.
---
Silence.
Then—the faint caw of a crow from the rafters above.
Hale looked up, tears carving rivers through the dust on his face.
> "I cannot undo what I've done."
Prudence stepped closer, her presence neither cold nor kind—only infinite.
> "No one can," she said. "But you can remember."
She reached out, her hand passing over his brow.
Light flared—soft, gold, blinding—and when it faded, the Reverend was kneeling alone.
The ledger lay open before him, its pages blank as snow.
---
When morning came, the villagers found him there, frozen in prayer.
His lips were curved not in horror but in peace.
And though the church was cold, the altar candle still burned—its flame steady, golden, eternal.
The crow flew one last time above Salem, circling the steeple thrice before vanishing toward the woods.
And deep in the hollow, beneath the roots of the ash trees, the lantern glowed once more—
not as warning,
but as memory.
---
Thus ends the Tragedy of Prudence Ashcroft—
a tale not of witchcraft, but of remembrance,
and of the fire that endures when fear is gone.