"You are accused of performing the evil practice of witchcraft and
idolatry, Lady Alder." The witch-hunter scowled as he looked in disgust
at her manacled body. His cold, narrow stare burned through her, and a
crooked smile pierced her soul. His black hair framed his contorted face,
forming a living portrait of hatred and persecution.
"Hand me those irons," he ordered the jailer who, after being
reprimanded for hesitating, reached into the fire and pulled out a branding
iron.
"I'll ask you one last time, where is the hiding place where you keep
those heathen relics?," he shouted, in her ear.
"You may brand me or what ever, but I shunt tell you," she spat.
Mortimer, the Magistrate of London, applied the glowing amber
brand to her back. The granite masonry throughout the Tower of London
resounded with the blood-curdling screams of Lady Geraldine Alder as Mortimer
Doster smiled with relish at her excruciating cries of suffering, while
listening to the audible hiss of flesh being seared by hot, glowing iron.
Her flesh soon took on a pink-white color in the shape of a cross, a burnt
red outline, began to show as well.
"I have ways of obtaining what I want from you, despite your social
standing Lady Alder," he snarled in her right ear, before leaving her with
the jailer who then approached her.
"I am sorry you must endure this, I wish I could help you."
"What is your name young man?," she asked between sobs, "perhaps when
my husband returns from his expedition to The New World, I will see to
it that you are well rewarded."
"Name's Jonathan, Jonathan Wainwright, I come from a family of
wagon menders just outside of York. Not wanting to follow in the family
trade, I left to find work, perhaps learn about the law. I ended up here.
I care not for riches but only to end the senseless tyranny from the likes
of Mortimer, he hides behind a bastion of righteousness, but 'tis only
a mask hiding his true lust, which is greed ... he returns...quiet." Mortimer
returned and to the horror of Geraldine, he was carrying a large pair of
shears. Accompanying him was none other than Laura Stephensen, the Duchess
of Salisbury. She had heard of accused witches being shorn, and now all
those horrible tales she had heard about were to become a reality. Again
he nuzzled her right ear and caressed her auburn hair with his fingers.
"Again, where are those pagan relics, those glass jars shaped like jackals,
birds and baboons?" he queried, pulling her thick hair. "Stop!!" Jonathan
shouted, "I will not let you harm her or cut off her hair!!" He attempted
to pull the shears from Mortimer who stuck him in the head with a resonant
blow. "You might want to watch yourself, boy, or perhaps I will convince
the Chief of Justice that you were giving solace to this witch, they'll
certainly believe me and you too will burn with her." He sneered, looking
down in disdain at the fallen body of Jonathan. "Now, will you tell me?,"
he asked again. "I shall tell you nothing!" she spat. He hesitated, for
a moment, holding the shears loosley in his hand. "Shear her crowning glory
from her!," The Duchess commanded, but he stood there hesitant to begin.
"Very well then, Leave the task to me, I'll find the devil's mark on her."
Taking the shears, she cut by her ear, watching a three foot clump of hair
fall to the floor. Smiling, she clipped and clipped, her sobs becoming
louder and louder as her hair, her crowning glory was being taken from
her. She cut slowly, enjoying the fact that she was feeling the loss of
her hair. What normally took seconds in most cases, as the suspect's hair
was gathered and cut off, in this case took several minutes. Still chained,
she looked at the mound of hair piling around her bare feet, it was then
she felt as if her body was ascending, floating upward into darkness, Mortimer,
Jonathan, and The Duchess had faded behind her.
Suddenly she opened her eyes, and instead of the flickering torches,
the ominous cast iron cages, and the snipping of shears, she was enveloped
by a soft pink fluorescent light and the distinct smell of gardenias, compliments
of the aerosol can conveniently located on the back of the toilet in Lisa's
Hair Salon. Relief. She was Lisa Morey, owner of her own salon, well respected
and admired throughout the town. Living in Putney, Vermont, she was content
with her life, her business and the fact that she was single. Regaining
composure, she sub-consciously checked her hair. To her relief, it was
still quite long, black and French braided, she exited the bathroom and
back to her regular client, Barbara Carlson, a paralegal who came in frequently
for a haircut. Wearing her black hair very short, cut above the ears, and
shaved in the back, the top was a little longer and able to be styled,
being in her mid thirties, she was a radiant lady. "Are you OK Hon?" she
asked Lisa, with a concerned look. "I'm sorry to keep you waiting, I must
be coming down with something," she answered. "No problem, it's you I'm
worried about, maybe you should take a few days off, and recuperate." "Can't.
Someone's gotta make the town look good" she laughed, followed by a laugh
from Barbara. Lisa and Barbara were good friends even outside the salon.
On the weekends, sometimes Lisa would keep the shop closed when Barbara
was off, and they would go everywhere together, including a spur of the
moment trip to the Canadian border. It was safe to say that spontaneity
was the nutrient fertilizing this friendship. "Usual cut today?," Lisa
inquired. "Yes, but could we go a little shorter in the back, to beat the
heat?" "Sure thing, what's going on this weekend?," "Got a heavy date,"
she answered, with enthusiasm, "he's really a fascinating guy, you'll have
to meet him, he is immersed with the subject of history like you are. He
adores the way I wear my hair, that's probably the real reason why I want
to go shorter, good for a few extra kisses on the nape," she said, smiling.
Lisa rolled her eyes and laughed, picked up her red Oster clippers and
began to shave her neck. Using the half inch guard, she proceeded to clip
her nape, going from bottom of the ear to well above the ears. The clippers,
in harmony with the drone of cicada bugs heard nearby, was quite an interesting
musical combination. The small amount of hair that was being cut, only
contributed to a little accumulation in the floor, along with a dusting
of half- inch hairs on her red cape. Turning off the clippers, she pulled
out a straight razor and cleaned Barbara's neck removing both any access
hair and stubble, leaving her nape smooth. "There, that ought to satisfy
your man, what is his name by the way?," "Mike, he works for a pharmaceutical
company in Boston, he's a chemist. He loves to come to Vermont on the weekends
to get away. I met him a few weeks ago down at the coffee shop by the town
green." she explained, reaching up from under the cape to feel her smooth
neck. "Well, have a great night, if I don't see you." Lisa said encouragingly,
removing the cape and giving it a shake to allow the small hairs to fall
to the floor. "Thanks, and I hope you're feeling better." "With a day's
rest, I should be fine." After Barbara had left, Lisa glanced at her appointment
book. "No more appointments today, I think I will take the rest of the
day off," she thought to herself. "I don't feel it will be that busy, the
kids won't be getting their back to school haircuts for another month or
so, and most of my other regulars have been here already, it's four now,
I'll close a few hours early." Cleaning the remnants of Barbara's hair,
her station and her cutting utensils, Lisa quickly mopped the floor, set
the store alarm, started her car, and drove home. Once inside her house,
an extravagant Itallianette style home built in 1878, she poured herself
a glass of wine. Staring around the parlor, she admired the paintings and
lithographs she had hanging on her wall. She looked with pride and approval
over the many artifacts he had placed on an assortment of shelves and tables
throughout the house. One portrait, that was hanging directly across from
the settee where she sat, was of great interest to her. The portrait was
of a woman dressed in extravagant 16th Century clothing, her frilly dress,
purple as the color of morning glories was still vibrant as the day it
was painted. The gold earrings and rings on her fingers looked as if one
could reach up and remove them. The oils, spices and extracts from available
berries in order to provide the colors to the canvas were indeed well preserved,
as was the gold plaque embedded in the frame just under the portrait carved
in intricate Old English it read, Lady Geraldine Alder Born 1518 Died 1543
Hopefully the injustice done to her on Earth, will be appealed in a higher
court. Yes. This painting held her interest, a priority over everything
else. Her almond shaped eyes still looked as if she hadn't felt any torment
at all, her sensuous lips which one day would scream from persecution and
torture were smiling a sensuous crimson grin. Sipping the wine, Lisa remarked,
"No my dear you haven't aged a bit, still the attractive twenty five you
always were." Lisa was confident that she would be feeling better quite
soon after finishing the rather curative wine, as she always did for the
past four and a half centuries, for Lisa was in fact Lady Geraldine Alder,
circa 1998. As the centuries piled up behind her, she agreed that although
there was still a lot of discrimination and religious fervor, especially
in the Middle East between the Shiites and the Muslims, life was not half
as bad in this century as it was when she lived before she received an
immortal reprieve, compliments of a wine recipe her husband, William Alder
had obtained from an Egyptian priest when visiting that country on both
an expedition and dealing with slave trade. William Alder was first a trader
then became an explorer when the age of exploration had made itself known
during her lifetime. Being quite well off, she was betrothed to him at
fifteen, and he provided her with not only a wealthy environment, he supplied
her with fascinating knowledge about the ancient civilizations he encountered.
Her portrait was painted by a fine artist he had commissioned in France,
even the oils which provided the base for the paints as well as the extracts
and spices to provide the colors that survived for so long were imported
from the East Indies as the islands and countries of Indonesia, India,
Java and others were know as then. Geraldine was fascinated with the stories
and legends William shared with her, she also felt privileged, for most
women during the mid- 1500s were not well versed in such knowledge as educated
women were not common at that time. Her happiness began to fade as the
Protestant reformation began to take a foothold on England under the reign
of King Henry VIII. Just a year before she was apprehended was when Pope
Paul III had initiated the inquisition, and the persecutions began. It
was the wine that saved her even then, as she was executed upon the sacrificial
pyre in the center of London. It seems that the Babylonian goddess of wine,
Siduri revealed the secret ingredient of immortality to a Babylonian high
priest. This is contrary to the legendary Gilgamesh, in the epic poem who
sought the same secret but found nothing. In return, the priest had to
take a sacred vow to use the fermented elixir to better his intelligence
and educate the world in the future millenniums to come, and to make sure
only a chosen few received this divine gift. "As longevity lengthens, the
smaller the world will become," Siduri warned as she entrusted him with
the recipe which was first written in cuneiform and later transcribed into
hieroglyphics by Egyptian scribes when they uncovered the tablet by the
great Ziggurat during Egypt's invasion of Babylon. Throughout many dynasties,
the elixir was passed down to only a few scribes, even surviving monotheistic
rule during the reign of the Pharaoh Akhenaten where many priests who still
believed in polytheism were forced underground. It stayed a complete secret
until the arrival of European explorers. The source to brew this wine,
as legend has it, came from the legendary reeds found in the Elysian fields
or as it was called during the days of Babylon and ancient Egypt, the Field
of Reeds. Once she finished the goblet, she knew the recurrences of that
fateful day would soon disappear. She knew also that if the wine became
unavailable, she would be faced with being transported back to that time
to face her execution at the stake. She needn't worry, she knew her elixir
would always be there, and she could go on being Lisa Morey, until the
time came to move on and take another alias. Finally dozing off, she was
now relaxed, and ready to face another day. Saturday. Hot, humid, and sticky
and the salon... very busy. There was never a moment when Lisa could sit
down. Throughout the course of the day, the falling hair was a Niagara
Falls of different pigments. A variety of shorn hair tones lay in small
piles behind the three chairs perched on her white linoleum floor during
the late afternoon, giving the distinct look of rocks peeking out from
a covering of snow. Finally, after business slowed down and all the other
stylists had left, she began sweeping up the hair and was getting ready
to tie up the garbage bag when she noticed a customer had walked in. He
was rather tall and lanky but it was his smile that made her feel uneasy,
it was the sinister curl he had in his lips. "Are you still open?," he
asked, not sounding at all hostile. "Sure," she answered, with a touch
of uneasiness in her voice, " what did you have in mind?," "A haircut that
will cool things off," he answered with that slightly crooked smile that
made her feel uncontrollably nervous. She studied his head and noticed
his hair was pretty short now, cut high above the ears. "How short, crewcut?,"
she asked. "If you're not closed," he answered calmly. "No I'm not, I'll
be right with you." While taking out the tied garbage bag, and replacing
it with a new one, she couldn't help but feel that she knew this person,
and also that she did not like him. Why, she didn't know, but she just
wanted to cut his hair and get rid of him. "OK, I'm all set if you'll just
have a seat here," she told him. He sat down and she wrapped a small tissue
around his neck before draping the cape around him and snapping it tightly
around his neck. It was when she picked up her clippers that this feeling
came to her, this feeling of hatred, and this desire for retribution. Putting
on the number two guard, the clippers hummed, sounding like a small fleet
of warplanes. With a wide smile, she ran the clippers over his right ear,
and like a red tornado it left a swath of stubble in it's wake. It was
just a matter of minutes before she started clipping his left side, relishing
every moment as she watched his brown hair avalanche in clumps down the
red cape and to the floor. She clipped his left side, and within minutes
a crescent of shorn hair lay strewn around the chair. Once she finished,
she ran her clippers over his head once more to see that his hair had been
clipped even, and undid the cape. As she shook the cape, chunks of hair
fell everywhere. "Well, this should cool things off shouldn't it," he observed,
looking in the mirror and appearing to sound calm and satisfied as he ran
his hand over his now stubbly head. For just a flash second, she had felt
relaxed in his presence. He got up from the chair, and asked what she charged.
"Ten dollars." "Here you go, have a wonderful evening," he said kindly,
handing her a twenty dollar bill before rushing out the door, giving Lisa
a burst of humidity as the door was opened After another customer had walked
in, a lady with short blonde hair wanting her nape shaved a little higher,
five 'o clock rolled around and she began to close. While cleaning, she
could not shake that feeling of uneasiness concerning the man that came
in earlier. "Hope he enjoys his new haircut, he'll have it for a while,"
she laughed to herself before setting the alarm and locking the door. Due
to weekend summer traffic, it took a little longer to get home but once
inside, a tall glass of iced tea amidst the frigid sorcery of her air conditioner
and she felt great, laying like a grand monarch surrounded by her guard
of ancient treasures. "Well well, Lady Alder, your hair looks nice black,
and if I remember correctly it didn't take long for it to grow out, after
it had been cut off, before condemning you to burn," a voice said, as Lisa
grabbed her purse where she kept an assortment of defenses including a
pistol and pepper spray. "Who are you!?," she demanded. It was then that
the intruder made his appearance. It was the man that was in her salon.
"Yes, I'm Mortimer, but now I go by the name of Dan. How nice it is to
see you after four and a half centuries," he grinned, with that same crooked
grin he had in the Tower of London. "You had better leave this house now!,"
she shouted pointing the gun at him," What you called The Lord's work back
then is a number of charges now, including rape, assault and battery, breaking
and entering, I can keep going if you like." "Relax, I'm not going to harm
you. Come on, this is the twentieth century, if I tried to drag you into
court on witchcraft charges they would lock me up, instead of you," he
said assuringly. "John Wainright was correct about one thing, money was
all that I was after. I was propelled by greed not this righteous witchcraft
claptrap they were pushing around in England until what was it?1650, I
believe. I still desire money though, that's why I'm a lawyer these days,"
he remarked. "Oh really, and do you see your friend, Laura, 'The Duchess'?"
"No, I thought I saw some one who looked like her working at the Boston
Branch of the I.R.S though." "Evolution playing a sick joke, no doubt,"
she retorted. "Aren't you at all interested in what happened to your husband,
or Wainwright? I mean once we found out you didn't die you had already
disappeared for parts unknown, I searched for you but you were no where
to be found, any way it is with deep regret that I must tell you that your
husband died. Not by my hands or England's either, he fell victim to a
plague that swept the Aztec and Inca tribes." "I'm sure your heart bleeds
for me," she said flatly. "Aren't you curious as to how I managed to stay
so youthful? You have to admit for being almost five hundred years old,
I don't look a day over forty-two. Well it's like this Wainwright, reluctant
as he was, and I went through your house shortly after we had thought you
were burned. We inspected your belongings carefully and had set them aside
to bring with us, it was then that we found your cask, of course Jonathan
was hesitant but I convinced him to drink with me. Being intoxicated I
had decided to pick up your relics the next day, so as not to break anything.
Needless to say when I came back apparently you had been there, claimed
your belongings and moved on to another part of the world." "I suggest
you leave this house now before I call the police!!" she shouted. "Aren't
you the least bit curious about Jonathan?," he asked, smirking. "What about
him, did you kill him too?," "No, he is very much alive-" "Jonathan...
alive?," she asked, totally shocked. "Alive and single I might add," He
continued chuckling, "works with a guy, Mike, whom I believe has an uncontrollable
desire to kiss women's shaved necks, a friend of yours, Barbara I believe
is currently dating him. He is known these days as Mark, Mark Peterson."
She couldn't believe it. Jonathan Wainwright, alive. She first thought
that Dan or Mortimer rather was playing a sick joke. And how did he know
so much about her, and about Barbara? As much as she hated him for what
he had done to her she had to have some answers. "Mark and I have learned
to put what happened in the past, where it belongs. After all due to obvious
circumstances we must stick together. Meet us on the town green in a half
hour, I promise you Mark will be there, you can see for yourself. If you
think I'm going to harm you can bring your pepper spray or your gun, I'll
prove to you I'm not lying." She stood waiting, though she didn't feel
the need to bring her pistol, she did bring her mace. The police, who frequent
this area of town so as to discourage teenage drinking, are seen quite
a bit so she had nothing to worry about. Minutes passed and then she saw
two men walking towards her. The moon was shining bright amongst the shimmering
stars. She kept reminiscing about her husband and how he had told her that
Thoth was the Egyptian god of the moon as well as writing, the arts and
sciences and he also stood for truth. "Although you know each other, I
still should re-introduce you, Lisa or rather Geraldine Alder, this is
Mark Peterson, alias Jonathan Wainwright." They immediately embraced, holding
each other tightly. Soon they engaged in a passionate kiss before speaking
through tears of joy over this long overdue reunion. "After what I had
put you through in the past, I wanted to give some of your life back to
you. I just hope someday you too can put aside what happened and leave
it where it belongs, in the fading pages of history. I shant stay, I must
be moving on after all a lifetime to us is eternity." As Dan walked down
the street, the moonlight shining the way like a silken path, both Lisa
and Peter caressed each other vowing to take care of each other in the
centuries to come.
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