Letters of the Accused: Voices from the Witch Hunt
- A HumanKind
- Mar 18
- 8 min read
They didn’t die for witchcraft. They died because fear needed a name. And the flames still haunt us.
You find them in a wooden box, tucked away in the corner of an archive no one visits anymore. The pages are brittle, the ink faded, but the voices—oh, the voices—are alive. The fire took their bodies, but not their words.
Each letter is the last breath of someone accused, condemned, erased.
They did not die because they were witches.They died because someone needed them to.
And you, centuries later, are the only one listening.
Letter 1: The Healer
“To whoever holds this paper when I am gone,
They came at dawn, their breath thick with the stench of last night’s ale. A priest, a magistrate, and three men with torches. They told me to kneel. I asked them why.
They said I knew too much.
For twenty years, my hands have cooled fevers and coaxed breath back into lungs. I have crushed leaves into poultices, whispered prayers over broken bones, begged the earth for healing. When Bertha’s child burned with fever, I cooled his skin. When Jacob’s wound festered black, I drained the poison from his flesh.
They thanked me then. They blessed me then.
Now they say it was never God’s work at all.
The priest tells me that women who call upon the earth for aid are meddling with things not meant for their hands. That knowledge, when wielded by a woman, is power. And power, when not given by men, is wickedness.
Tell me—if the Devil whispered in my ear, did he also teach me how to stop a child from dying? If my hands were his tools, then why did they only ever bring relief? If I had let their sons wither in their beds, would they have named me holy instead of damned?
I have no answers, only fire waiting at the pyre.
But I will tell you this: if I had power, true power, would I not stop them? Would I not set them all to burn instead?”
Letter 2: The Widow
“They say I did not mourn him properly.
Not enough tears, not enough screams. I did not claw at my cheeks or throw myself upon his grave. I did not let grief consume me.
I kept my home. I tended my fields. I did what I had always done—only without a man beside me. And that, I think, was the problem.
A woman alone is an unnatural thing, they whisper. A house with no master is a dangerous one. A widow who does not crumble beneath sorrow is a woman who does not need.
And a woman who does not need is a woman who cannot be controlled.
I have watched them watch me. I have felt their eyes trace the steps I take each morning, their voices turn to murmurs when I pass. It is not right, they say, for a woman to be so still. It is not right for her to stand so tall.
Perhaps if I had wailed louder, torn at my dress, collapsed in the dirt, they would have pitied me. But I did not.
And so, my name has left their lips in hushed tones, wrapped in suspicion, carried to the magistrate’s ear. A woman alone is a woman against the world. A woman with no husband is a woman with no shield.
So now I will be taken, and when I am gone, my home will no longer be mine. My name will be a warning to every woman who outlives her husband.
I have played the game wrong.
And for that, I will burn.”
Letter 3: The Child
“I did not want to say her name.
But the man with the book leaned close, and his voice was soft. Gentle, like my mother’s when she sang to me at night.
'Tell me what you saw,' he said. 'Tell me the truth.'
I tried to tell him I saw nothing. That my grandmother kissed my forehead and tucked me into bed. That she held my mother’s hand when she cried, that she placed mint leaves in the fire to keep away sickness.
'You are a good child, aren’t you?' His voice was kind, but his hands were not. They gripped my shoulders too tightly.
I nodded.
'And good children do not lie.'
I shook my head.
'Then why do you protect her?'
I blinked. The room was small. Dark. The priest stood in the corner, silent, watching. The magistrate sat before me, waiting. The man with the book dipped his quill in ink. He had not yet written my name.
'You are afraid,' he said. 'But you do not need to be. The Devil is afraid too. He hides in people’s shadows, whispering in their ears. Have you ever seen her listening?'
I opened my mouth. Then closed it.
'Have you ever seen her mutter to herself?'
She hummed sometimes, when she stirred the pot. Was that muttering?
'Did she teach you things? Strange things?'
She showed me how to dry flowers for tea. How to braid my hair so it did not tangle in the wind.
'Did she ever curse the fields?'
No.
'Did she ever touch a sick animal and make it well again?'
She wiped dirt from a lamb’s eye once, when it had been blinded by dust.
'Did she ever tell you not to speak of what she taught you?'
She told me never to speak in the cold without a scarf.
'Did she ever say words you did not understand?'
She spoke to my grandfather’s grave, whispering so softly I could barely hear.
'Did you ever feel afraid when you were with her?'
I was afraid now.
The magistrate sighed. The priest shifted his weight.
'Do you know what happens to little girls who protect the Devil’s servants?'
I shook my head.
'They burn too.'
The quill hovered.
'But if you are good, you will tell us what we need to know. If you are good, you will speak the truth.'
I did not know the truth anymore.
So I nodded.
And now, my grandmother is gone. They told me I did well. That I am safe now. That I have done God’s work.
But when I close my eyes, I see her hands. I hear her voice. I smell the smoke.
And I do not feel good.”
Letter 4: The Outcast
“They did not come for me because of spells.
Not because I cursed their crops or soured their milk.
No, the whispers started for something much smaller.
Because I did not braid her hair when she asked. Because I did not smile when I passed them in the square. Because I did not belong, and I did not pretend to.
They watched me for years. Not openly—no, never openly. But I felt it in the way conversations quieted when I walked by. In the way mothers pulled their children close when I passed. In the way the priest’s eyes lingered on me when he spoke of temptation and sin.
A woman alone is a dangerous thing. A woman who keeps to herself, more so.
At first, it was nothing. A murmur behind my back. A laugh I was not meant to hear.
Then the first accusation. A cow fell ill in the night. A baby was born too pale. A woman’s bread refused to rise.
A hundred small things, strung together like beads on a rosary.
And then came the knock at my door.
They asked me questions I did not know how to answer.
'Why do you walk alone?' 'Why do you refuse the company of good women?' 'Why have you never taken a husband?' 'Who do you whisper to when no one is near?'
There were no right answers. There never were.
So I said nothing.
They took that as guilt.
And now I am here, in the dark, waiting for the dawn that will not come.
I wonder if she sleeps better now, the one who first spoke my name.
Does she feel safer? Do they all?
They say a woman should be soft. A woman should belong. But I did not belong, and that made them afraid.
Fear does not need proof. Fear only needs a target. And that day, it was me.”
Letter 5: The Marked Man
“They say only women burn.
That men accuse and men judge, but never suffer.
But I know better.
The fire does not care who it takes.
They took my wife first.
They said she danced with the Devil. That she cursed the fields and soured the milk. That she called storms and whispered to the wind.
I did not fight them. I did not scream. I thought—perhaps, if I let them take one, they will not take more.
I was wrong.
A month after she was gone, the whispers turned to me.
'A husband must know his wife’s sins.'
'A man who shares a witch’s bed cannot be clean.'
They called me to testify. I swore I had seen nothing. That I had known nothing.
But silence is its own kind of guilt.
They watched me in the weeks that followed. How I prayed. How I spoke. How I worked the land my wife had left behind.
'He keeps to himself.'
'He looks thinner, does he not? As if something drains him in the night.'
'He has not remarried. A widow with no wife is unnatural.'
I woke to a sign carved into my door. A warning. A mark of suspicion.
A week later, they came for me.
'We only need to ask you some questions.'
'If you are innocent, you have nothing to fear.'
I sat in the magistrate’s hall, the air thick with candle smoke and quiet murmurs.
They searched my skin. A freckle on my wrist. A mole on my shoulder.
Proof.
They locked me away. Said I would have a fair trial.
But I had already seen the verdict in their eyes.
Because when the fire runs out of witches, it turns on those who let them burn.”
The Last Testament
There is no name on this page. No sender. No date.
The ink is smudged, blurred by what could have been tears, sweat, or trembling hands. The letters are uneven, as though written quickly—before the door could be broken down.
“They took Olivia yesterday. They came for Thomas at dawn. I do not know who spoke their names first. Perhaps it was a child, a neighbor, a priest. Perhaps it was a whisper that turned into a scream. But I know how it will end. I have seen the fire. I have heard the crowd. And soon, I will feel the rope.
They do not call it death.
They call it justice.
They call it cleansing.
They say it will make the village safe again. They say, when we are gone, the sickness will pass. The fields will grow green. The cows will no longer birth still calves. The winds will not knock down the harvest.
They say this, because they must.
Because if it is not witches, if it is not us—then who is to blame?
The blacksmith’s son grew ill. His mother wept. But grief is not enough for them. It must have a cause. It must have a name.
We gave them names.
And the fire took them.
But the sickness did not pass.
And so the fire must take more.
One by one, we vanish. We are marched to the square, our hands bound, our voices unheard. We are pressed under stone, drowned in the river, burned until only ash remains.
Not because we are witches.
Because we are needed.
Because the fire must eat.
And they are afraid to see what happens when it starv…”
The ink stops abruptly, the last word only half-formed. The sentence left unfinished, like a life stolen before its time.
You set the page down.
Your hands tremble. The paper is old, fragile. The words are centuries dead.
But still, they breathe.
Still, they burn.
And then, a thought—chilling in its simplicity.
Fear has never needed fire to consume.
And history is always waiting for a new name to be written.
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