They came at night. Even the moon had hidden behind the clouds.
There were four of them, just in case she put up a fight.
She did not.
She knew they were coming for her.
They bound her arms with coarse rope and filled her mouth with a
foul cloth. They covered her eyes before she could take one last look at the
place of her birth.
Without any precaution, they tied her onto the back of a horse. Her
body ached as the animal beneath her galloped across the plains.
They knew what she had done, and they would make certain she would
pay.
*
The sun had risen by the time the horse finally stopped.
Blood soaked the skin where the ropes had cut into her.
They untied her, letting her fall to the earth.
Some have said the first day is the worst.
They cut her hair short with blunt knives before burning a single
line into the back of her neck.
She tried not to scream, but it didn’t matter.
After they’d branded her, she started her rotation. They learned that they grew less fond of the ones they tortured if there was a different body
in front of them every day.
Hers was young. Far too young. But there was no light left in his
brown eyes. His steps were silent and swift.
He was young, but he was good. He knew what her mark meant, and he
treated her like it.
The first time it was only seven lashes. He doubted she could
handle more, and he was right. The seeping wounds left her gasping on the
ground.
“Do you know what you’ve done?” he whispered in her ear, carefully
keeping as much distance as he could.
“Yes,” she replied, managing to prop herself up on her hands and
knees.
“Beg for forgiveness,” he demanded, towering over her hunched frame.
“I do not deserve it.” She bowed her head and waited until he
picked up his weapon again.
*
He wasn’t the heaviest or lightest punisher. They moved soundlessly
around her unless they wanted to be heard. It was never good when they did.
She rarely saw anyone besides her punishers. She knew of two women
who probably looked similar even before the matching burns marred their faces.
Each one had a single line on their left wrists.
She knew what the mark on the back of her neck meant but not what
these women had done to earn theirs.
She didn’t know how much time had passed. Her tears had dropped
quietly into lakes filled with moonlight, and she’d coughed dust out into the
blazing sun.
In the moments she fell asleep, night terrors robbed her of any
rest.
Her days and nights passed like this.
One day she saw only one of the matching women.
And one night she realized she didn’t see them at all anymore.
“Is that what happens?” she asked one day, her voice croaking from
disuse. “They are dead now.”
His brown eyes flickered with the annoyance of the girl speaking
out of turn. “They were penitent. Their punishments were complete.”
“When will mine be?” Her head ached more than the rest of her body,
which had settled into a steady thrum of pain.
“Your crime was greater. Do you know what you did?”
“I killed my best friend.” Her voice did not waver.
“And you will suffer for it.”
Author's Note: This is not at all how I thought this story would turn out. I expected something much more normal. The idea came from just a simple line in The Wolf Man where his two wives who tried to murder him are turned over to "the punishing society" and never heard from again. I wanted to imagine what the punishing society would look like. "She" ends up seeing the two wives there because I wanted to reference back to the original myth.
Bibliography: "The Wolf Man" by George Bird Grinnel
Image Information: Personal photo of the moon taken by my sister
