I Will Mourn the Wicked

A/N: This story contains themes of historical violence, grief, emotional trauma, and the persecution of women.

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The fire crackled in the hearth, its light painting the walls of our home in shifting hues of orange and cast dancing shadows along the far wall. Outside, the wind howled, rattling the shutters and reminding all that colder weather had returned.

The weight of winter pressed against the house and seeped in through the cracks. However, the chill I felt came not from the draft—it came from within.

My mother sat in her chair near the fireplace. She had moved it closer so she could tend the stew she had hanging over the flames. Her hands were busy mending a torn apron. Her fingers worked with a practiced rhythm, needle, and thread darting through the fabric. It felt like any other night.

However, her face was a mask of quiet tension. Lines of worry and exhaustion etched her features, and though her lips remained pressed in a neutral line, I knew her well enough to sense the storm brewing beneath the surface. One that through years of practice, Mother would quell before it reached the world.

I sat across from her, staring at the rough wood of the table. My hands rested in my lap, but they trembled with barely restrained fury. The heaviness of the past days pressed on me. A weight that was suffocating—that I could neither shake nor ignore.

“She was not a witch,” I offered, my voice breaking the heavy silence.

While my words had been sharp, my voice was weak as it fought through my throat, scraped raw by mournful sobs and screams.

Mother’s needle paused mid-stitch. Her lips pressed together momentarily, and she took a measured breath and sucked her tongue back against her teeth before continuing her work. It minute gesture, but I recognized it instantly. Mother did this when she needed to steel herself against speaking out.

She was the perfect depiction of what men meant by holding your tongue and knowing your place.

“Let this go, Alice.” While Mother sounded calm, her words were heavy with finality that brooked no argument. “It is done. She is gone and was… fairly judged.”

“Fairly?” Like venom, I spat the word out, my voice rising. The word felt bitter in my mouth, as though it had been set ablaze by my rage and turned to ash on my tongue as I spoke.

“Alice—” she tried again, but I was not as practiced as her in subduing my wrath.

“Fairly judged men who fear what they do not understand?” Interrupting her, I paused to watch her hands halt in their work. “Ignorance and hate blinded them. They could not see her true nature—that she was brilliant and kind.”

Mother sighed and sheathed her needle in the fabric of her apron before setting it aside. Her hands then folded in her lap while she turned to face me fully.

From where she sat, the soft candlelight coming from the table beside her illuminated the left side of her face gently. Her gaze looked soft and kind in that light, the lines of her face lax and smooth. She knew her worth. She did not question her place.

However, on the right, the hearth’s light revealed the truth with its flames as it cast angry shadows across her skin. Her gaze was not kind—it was furious. Her lips were not pursed in complicit silence, but repressed rage. Shadows exaggerated the lines on her right side. Before me, I finally saw how tired, worn, and disheartened she truly was.

“They called what they did to her mercy,” I mocked bitterly, unable to stop the torrent of words spilling from my lips. “That the flames would cleanse her soul of wickedness… and they called it mercy,” I sneered the last word as my chest ached from the weight of my grief.

“Mercy,” Mother repeated, her tone preemptively giving kindness to words I knew would be anything but, “is not always good. It is decided by those with the power to grant it. Only they get to choose what their mercy is—and for… some—who wield that power… it is just a cruel shadow of righteousness bent to serve their will.”

“And we cannot question it?” I demanded while my nails dug into the palms of my hands, and I felt the skin breaking under their force. “We cannot question men who see and treat us as little better than animals? Who claim ownership over our bodies and cage our minds? Who drag us from our homes into the mud to pyres so they can burn us!”

Mother stood swiftly as I shouted, checking the window to make sure it was locked tight. Her eyes darted around the dusky world outside our home to see if anyone was near to hear my fury of words.

My voice broke, and the tears that burned my eyes fell freely as I wept, “We cannot question the men who burned my friend?”

“Sybil was brave,” Mother offered, her words measured as she turned back to face me. Her gaze was firm, unforgiving, but her voice remained kind. “But bravery in a woman can so easily become recklessness, Alice. And recklessness…” She faltered, her words trembling. “It can lead to ruin.”

Her words struck me like a blow. Sybil. Even hearing her name felt like reopening a wound that would never fully heal. She had been my dearest friend, my partner in countless adventures since childhood. We had spent long summer days picking berries, crafting stories under the shade of trees, and dreaming of a world far beyond the confines of Salem.

“She was not reckless,” I protested, unashamed and unbothered by the streaks of tears running down my cheeks. “She sought knowledge. Is that a sin, Mother? To read, to ask questions? To dream of a life that is more than this?”

“For a woman—yes. You know this.” Mother's eyes set into a glare as harsh as the words she had just spoken.

“How would I know it? If I may not read it! If I may not learn enough to understand it!” I seethed, only falling silent when the glare dropped from Mother’s eyes, replaced with one of pain and understanding.

“I know the fault is mine.” Mother’s eyes closed as she lay her right hand against her chest and shook her head. “I allowed and encouraged you both to dream, to hope… it is my fault. I know this—I should have taught you better. That for women… to dream of understanding, of knowledge can be dangerous… you saw where it led her.”

“She did not lead herself there!” I shouted as my grief screamed even louder inside of me. “They dragged her there! Those cowardly men who fear everything they cannot control. They burned her because she was better than them—stronger, kinder, smarter!”

Her shoulders sagged, and she bowed her head. After a muted moment, Mother shifted again, returning to her place by the fire. She sat and clasped her hands in her lap.

“Do you even mourn for her?” I knew she did. I just aspired to be cruel. To break through her practiced facade and see the same rage I felt.

Her gaze snapped back to mine with an unreadable expression. From the firelight, I caught the faint shimmer of tears in her eyes, though she blinked them away.

“You think I do not feel it, too? You think my heart does not ache for what they did to her? For the others, they have—but I cannot—” She stopped herself, taking a shuddering breath. “Women cannot openly mourn those men call wicked. Even if they are our mothers, our daughter… or our friends.”

Her words hung heavy and raw. I now saw Mother not as a stoic and unyielding force. She was trapped and knew escaping was impossible. Like an animal in a snare, time had drained her will to fight, resigning her to her fate.

“You are to not young anymore… your anger, your words… they would no longer be forgiven. They would burn us, too, Alice,” she continued, her voice soft but unrelenting. “For speaking out. For questioning. For mourning her. Do you understand that?”

I stared at her, my chest heaving with the weight of my settling anger and sorrow. “I do not want to let it go,” my voice broke, cracking with my reply. “She was the best of us. The bravest, the kindest. How can I turn away from that? How can I let it go and forget her?”

Mother reached across the table, her hand resting gently on mine. Her touch was grounding, but it did little to soothe the ache inside me.

“You do not have to let her go,” she offered quietly. “You do not need to forget her. But you must silently carry her memory in your heart. For now.”

“For now?”

Her gaze darted around the room, as if the walls themselves might be listening.

“This world will not change during our lives—we must keep our heads down. And one day, because of women like Sybil—like you—a daughter of our blood will lift her chin higher than we ever dreamed. Then her daughter will raise it higher still, until all women can hold their heads high, free from fear of damnation.”

I did not wipe away the freshly fallen tears that cascaded down my face—Mother did; she leaned forward and gently swiped them away with her thumb before resting her hand on my cheek.

“I am unsure I can do that. How can I silently carry her memory forever? Knowing her death meant nothing to those who condemned her and lit the flame? How can I… without it destroying me?”

“You carry it because it must be carried. Because she deserves to be remembered. Because forgetting her would be the only true sin. Sybil was…” Mother's voice faltered, the words catching in her throat. “She was remarkable—brave enough to dream in ways I had long forgotten possible. I admired her for that.”

“Then… why did not you say anything?” The words slipping out before I could stop them. “Why did not you speak for her when they asked it of you?”

“It was another cruelty of men. They only asked to trap me—Sybil knew this. It is way she did not fight, why she accepted her fate with a grace beyond her age. If I had spoken for her, it would have done nothing but condemn us both,” she said simply, her voice filled with quiet resignation. “I would not leave you in this world alone.”

Her words silenced me. How could I have gone my entire life without knowing the woman before me? She was not cold or indifferent—she was afraid. Afraid for me, for herself, for all the women trapped in this unyielding world. I looked down at the hand that still lay over mine, its loving warmth soothing the cold of sorrow from my skin.

We sat in silence for a long time, the crackling of the fire the only sound, Mother’s hand still gently cupping my cheek. The room felt smaller somehow, the walls pressing in around us.

“While we may not openly mourn her, we will think of her often,” she spoke again, her voice steady yet weighed by suppressed grief. “It is the only way to honor her now.”

“No.” I shook my head, pulling away from her touch. “I will mourn her. Because she was more than just a victim of their fear. Mourning is not just for the dead.” My gaze drifted to the flames, my mind swirling with untamable thoughts. “It is for lives never lived.”

“Perhaps… that is how we can honor them? They will think we are mourning the life lost to wickedness and not simply the life lost.” Mother offered, and I nodded slowly as I let her words sink in.

“I will mourn the wicked,” I declared, my voice steady despite the pain in my heart. “I will mourn all of them. All those condemned by hideous and cruel men, driven by fear and hate. All those deem unworthy and wicked—I will mourn them.” I looked at my mother, meeting her tear-filled gaze.

Her hand reached out again and gripped my hand tightly. “We will mourn the wicked.”

The words hung in the air between us, a solemn vow forged in grief and defiance. At that moment, the distance between us dissolved. The world’s cruelty felt a little less unbearable. Together, we would carry the weight of their memories, not as a burden but as a testament to the lives that deserved more.

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"I Will Mourn the Wicked" by AJ Eddy