The young men of the village, bored with the monotony of farm work and fuelled by ale and idle gossip, found themselves with a dangerous idea. Who else but Clara, with her strange concoctions and solitary life, could be the source of their misfortunes – a blighted crop, a cow’s illness, a sudden fever? The whispers grew into shouts, the shouts into a decree. She was a witch, they decided, and they, in their self-appointed righteousness, would put her to the time-honored ordeal by cold water. It would be sport, they reasoned, a righteous sport.
They came for her at dusk, a dozen strong, their faces alight with a cruel excitement. Clara, stirring a simmering pot of feverfew and willow bark, looked up as her door splintered open. Terror seized her, colder than any November wind. Hands, rough and unyielding, seized her arms, dragging her from her hearth. She cried out, a thin, reedy sound lost in the triumphant shouts of the mob.
"Witch!" they roared, their voices thick with accusation. "To the pond with the witch!"
They dragged her through the village, past shuttered windows and faces peering out with a mixture of fear and morbid curiosity. Her bare feet scuffed on the cobbled path, pebbles biting into her skin. The chill of the evening air, sharp and unforgiving, bit through her threadbare gown, a premonition of the deeper cold that awaited her.
The ducking pond lay on the edge of the common, a murky, stagnant stretch of water used by geese and cattle. A few weeping willows dipped their branches into its dark surface, like mourners at a graveside. When they reached the bank, the men, their faces distorted by the flickering torchlight, began their profane ritual.
"Strip her!" one bellowed, a burly youth named Thomas, his eyes glinting with a savage zeal.
Her homespun gown was torn from her body, then her shift, leaving her stark naked in the biting cold. A gasp went through the small crowd that had gathered, though no one stepped forward to intervene. Her dignity was stripped with her clothes, leaving her exposed to the leering gazes and the sneering whispers. She hunched, trying to cover herself, but it was futile.
Then came the binding. Crude rope, stiff with grime, was produced. They forced her down onto the muddy bank, the wet earth chilling her skin. Her right thumb was tied tightly to her left great toe, and her left thumb to her right great toe, twisting her limbs into an unnatural, helpless knot. As they worked, securing the knots, their hands lingered, deliberately, indecently, brushing against her bare skin, pinching, fondling. Laughter, coarse and brutal, punctuated the silence as she lay in the cold, slick mud, an object of their perversion and their judgment. A sob caught in her throat, a choked, desperate sound. Every nerve ending screamed, not just from the cold and the pain of the bindings, but from the raw violation of her body and spirit.
Finally, they were done. She lay a grotesque, helpless bundle of flesh and rope. With a grunt and a collective heave, two of the men lifted her, her body stiff with terror. For a horrifying moment, she hung suspended in the air, framed against the moonless sky, before they swung her out and tossed her with a mighty splash into the middle of the pond.
The shock of the cold water was immediate and agonizing, stealing her breath. It was filthy, laden with weed and the invisible grime of the village, and it closed over her head with suffocating finality. She struggled, instinctively, but her cross-bound limbs rendered her useless. She thrashed, a grotesque, silent ballet of a dying woman, but she could not kick, could not paddle. Her hands, tied to her feet, pulled her down, pulling her face into the murky depths as she tried to surface.
She swallowed a mouthful of the foul water, choking and retching as her lungs burned. The taste of mud, rot, and something indescribably foul filled her mouth, burning her throat. Desperation clawed at her, sharp and merciless. She was drowning, not in a storm-tossed sea, but in a village pond, at the hands of those she had tried to help.
Just as the darkness began to close in, just as the last of the air rattled from her lungs, a rough hand seized her arm, dragging her backward through the slop. She was pulled, sputtering and gasping, back onto the bank. She lay there, shivering uncontrollably, her body convulsing with coughs and retches, expelling the vile water from her lungs. Mud, weeds, and her own vomit clung to her, a grotesque shroud. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably, and her limbs, freed from the water, still felt impossibly heavy, useless.
The crowd stared down at her, their faces grim, their verdict already formed. She was utterly exhausted, every muscle screaming, every ounce of strength drained. The water, in its cold, indifferent cruelty, had rejected her. She had floated. And as the chilling silence descended, broken only by her ragged gasps, the judgement was delivered in a low, collective murmur:
"The water rejected her," a voice intoned, filled with a terrible, self-satisfied certainty. "She is condemned. A witch."
