M Sellars: Never Burn A Witch

“What the hell are you talkin’ about, Rowan?” Ben pressed, “Did you know her? Was she a friend? Like Ariel Tanner?”

“No. No, I didn’t know her. That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“You’re not makin’ sense, white man.”

“It’s the Burning Times, Ben,” I told him carefully. “All over again. There’s a Witch hunter out there.”

“A Witch hunter? What the…” He stood and proceeded to massage his neck. “Listen, Row, I think maybe you’d better start at the beginnin’…”

We were sitting in a small, comfortable office. Mauve walls were decorated with picturesque watercolor landscapes in unobtrusive chrome frames. Institutional grade but nicely piled carpet covered the floor. It was the office of Doctor Christine Sanders, chief medical examiner for the city of Saint Louis. She was also the M.E. who had handled the posts on the victims from the previous investigation.

“Doctor Sanders said to take all the time you need,” Doctor Friedman, the other M.E., told us, “She’s going to be tied up for a while.”

“That’s great, Doc, thanks.” Ben answered him and then added, “Could you let her know that I’d like to get her involved in this if at all possible?”

Doctor Friedman’s mouth formed a series of puckered fish-like O’s as he began to object but suddenly thought better of it. He left us with a curt nod and carefully closed the door behind him.

Ben had just finished stuffing the cellophane wrapper from a cigar into his pocket and now clenched the Cameroon leaf-encased stogie between his teeth.

“Want one?” he offered.

“Not right now, thanks,” I answered. “And I doubt if Doctor Sanders would appreciate you smoking that in here. Besides, this is a government building, isn’t it?”

“I’m not smokin’ it, I’m just chewin’ on it.” He hooked the cigar in his finger then thumbed forward to a fresh page in his notebook. “So you wanna fill me in on what got under your skin back there? And start at the beginning.”

“You want the beginning?” I asked rhetorically. “Here it is. At least the official one, anyway. Around the year 1484, two inquisitors named Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, masquerading as theologians, produced a document. It was known as the Malleus Maleficarum, and it was endorsed by the Catholic Church… It’s possible you may have at some time in your life heard of it by the name Hammer of the Witches. At that time in history, the church set the law of the land. Not just moral law but political and social as well. The Pope at that time, Innocent VIII, issued what is called a Papal Bull. An official decree of sorts. In it he stated, and I quote, ‘…by the tenor of these presents in virtue of Our Apostolic authority, We decree and enjoin that the aforesaid Inquisitors be empowered to proceed to the just correction, imprisonment, and punishment of any persons, without let or hindrance, in every way as if the provinces, townships, dioceses, districts, territories, yea, even the persons and their crimes in this kind were named and particularly designated in Our letters…’”

I paused for a moment to let the quote sink in and drew a deep breath. I had amazed even myself that I could remember the diatribe in such vivid detail; it had been quite some time since I had last read it. Unfortunately, that which we fear and loathe the most is what seems to remain with us the longest, and with the greatest clarity.

“Yeah, and that means?”

“In effect,” I explained, “he legalized the Inquisition; essentially giving the church’s blessing to those who tortured and executed anyone accused of heresy and consorting with ‘Satan.’

“The Malleus Maleficarum became the handbook of the inquisitors for nearly three centuries. It contained instructions regarding how to determine if someone was a Witch, wizard or sorceress, right down to the questions you should ask of them. It went even further in that it prescribed the use of torture in order to extract confessions and especially to force those already accused to implicate others. Finally, it blueprinted the methods by which they should then be tried, convicted, and executed.

“Using this book, the various interpretations of the Holy Bible, and the permission of the church, literally thousands of innocent people were hunted down and imprisoned. Once in custody they were brutally tortured, maimed, and murdered by the delegated inquisitors for what were then called ‘heretical depravities.’”

“So you’re tellin’ me you’re all weirded out because of some old book?” my friend posed incredulously.

“Not just because of the book, Ben,” I appealed as I shook my head. “Because of what it stands for, and because I was just looking at the corpse of a young woman who has been subjected to those horrors it prescribes.

“This is the twenty-first century. While I’m not naive enough to believe prejudice no longer exists, I find it hard to deal with someone reviving the Witch trials of the Middle Ages.”

Ben stared back at me silently for a substantial portion of what seemed an eternity. I had just spilled an enormous amount of information into the room, and to him, I probably appeared to be rambling. His stoic face told me he was still completely unsure of what the brief lesson in European history had to do with the investigation at hand.

“Okay… So I’m not quite sure that’s the beginnin’ I was talkin’ about,” he eventually stated then proceeded to gnaw on the end of the cigar thoughtfully. “So why are ya’ so sure this Witch Hammer has something to do with this dead call-girl?”

“Hammer of the Witches,” I corrected and motioned to his notebook. “Let me borrow that for a second.”

He handed over the worn notepad and a promotional giveaway ballpoint with a D.A.R. E logo screen-printed along the plastic barrel. I carefully scribed a circle on the page that I then decorated with small hash marks around its perimeter. In the center I placed a large X and vertically intersected it with a large letter P.

“That is the symbol carved into Brianna Walker’s inner thigh,” I told him as I handed the pen and pad back. “Are you absolutely positive you’ve never seen it before?”

“Well…” He scrutinized the blue ink rendition of the marking. “It looks kinda familiar, but I can’t place it for sure.”

“If you walked into a Catholic church you would. They’re Greek letters. The X is Chi, and the P is Ro. The first two letters of the Greek word Christos, or Christ. What you are looking at is called the Monogram of Christ.”

“You mean like Jesus Christ?”

“One and the same.”

“So you’re sayin’ it’s a Christian symbol then?”

“Absolutely. It represents Jesus Christ and all that he means to Christianity as a whole.”

My forearm had begun tingling with a mild itch that now burst into the crawling sensation of having a handful of ants marching across my skin. Absently, I pawed at the annoyance while waiting for Ben to digest the first course of information.

“Guess that would fit…” he muttered.

“Fit what?”

“Well, there was a Gideon’s Bible on the bed in her room.” He quickly referenced his notes. “The passage Leviticus twenty twenty-seven was highlighted. A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones; their blood shall be upon them. ”

“Really,” I finally muttered. “I would have expected Isaiah fifty-seven three. But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore.”

“Shit, Rowan! You quote Bible verses too?”

“I’ve told you before, Ben, I may be a Witch, but I’m a student of religions in general. It’s how I stay on top of what I’m being accused of, and, whom I’m being accused by.”