The Right Thing...

I always thought Lydia was a strange girl. For one, her name was strange. Unlike mine and my sisters’, it wasn’t from the Bible, or a virtue name. Charity is my older sister. My two younger sisters are Tabitha and Mercy, and I am Patience. I love our names. They are there to remind us of our devotion to God, of people and qualities we want to emulate. But Lydia... A beautiful name, but strange.

It wasn’t just her name that was different. Even as a young child, there was something about her that was just... wrong.

I remember when we were very young, Charity found a kitten down by the river. The poor thing was soaking and shivering. Someone had obviously tried to drown it, but by some miracle it survived. Charity brought the kitten to where Lydia and I were playing with dolls we had made. Lydia thought it would be great fun to make dolls that looked like we did. We tied scraps of fabric into little shapes of people. We found some corn silk to use as hair. It worked perfectly for my blonde hair, and we rubbed charcoal in Lydia’s corn silk to look like her darker hair. After we had made these dolls, Charity approached us with the kitten. Wanting to warm the poor dear up, I stole the kitten away from Charity and wrapped it in my apron. I had no sooner gotten it, than Lydia stole it away from me.

In her arms, the kitten started behaving strangely. It moved its head left and right; its muscles convulsed and twitched so violently and unnaturally. Lydia stroked it passionately, and whispered something in its ear. She then put the kitten down on the stump where we had left our dolls. It rubbed its tiny, wet head against Lydia’s doll over and over. But then it turned its attention to my doll. After staring Lydia directly in the eyes, it slashed at my doll with its claws and bit down hard.

Immediately, I felt such an awful, searing pain in my stomach, and ran home screaming. I was sick with a stomach ache for the rest of the day.

Charity told Lydia’s parents, and they drowned the kitten in the river, and kept Lydia locked up in her room for almost a week.

She did many more small, unusual things. So many, that I forget exactly what they were. I know there were times that Tabitha and Mercy saw her muttering something, and ran home terrified that she had cast a spell on them. She always preferred the eerie quiet of nighttime to the bright and sunny daytime. In church, Lydia always looked uneasy. She shifted her eyes about as if she had something to hide, and she never paid attention to the sermon.

Perhaps the signs should have been clear much sooner.

Yes, she was always strange, but she was not always bad. She did her chores, and she sometimes helped me with mine. She had a great singing voice. She told great stories. We used to throw sticks into the river and see whose was the fastest. She taught me how to skip stones.

But I suppose none of the good matters when someone has turned so bad.

Her unusual incidents started to become more frequent.

My poor, poor Mercy! Two nights in a row, we all were woken in the middle of the night by Mercy’s screams. She swore that she had seen Lydia peering through the window, gnashing her teeth at her, and hissing an evil spell. Mercy’s sobs quickly became shouts; she fell on the floor and shook so violently. She had never had a fit like this before. I wanted to believe the best of Lydia, but when it was so clear that she had tortured my little sister into a fit, it was hard to be friendly.

As we grew older, and Lydia was close to marrying age, she was known to scream at her parents that she refused to be married. Lydia’s mother and father tried to discipline her and stop these outbursts. They tried everything. Her father beat her a few times. But she was so stubborn.

Somewhere the rumor started. It was whispered, then it was muttered, then it was spoken aloud in conversation. The reason Lydia didn’t want to be married was that she had already given herself to the devil. Lydia was a witch.

It was a perfect explanation for everything we had seen her do. It makes me sick that an agent of Satan was near me. I try not to think of the times I may have been under her power. . .under the devil’s power.

She protested so boldly at the trial, shouting and waving her arms. She never did cry. Over and over she declared her innocence, but there was just too much evidence. I spoke. I don’t remember what I said. I felt like I had betrayed someone... but I was doing the right thing. God would be proud that I had told the truth and fought against evil. I was doing the right thing...

Even today, after the trial, after the testimonies of my family and several others, including Lydia’s own family, it is hard to believe that someone so close to me could have been so evil. I don’t think I would believe it, if I hadn’t witnessed so much. She had seemed like a friend to me.

I am not sure I want to watch the hanging.