The characters:
A young girl of about twenty.
A pastor of about fifty.
SETTING:
We are in colonial Massachusetts circa 1690.
AT RISE:
The young girl bounds on to the stage running in horrified grief. She wails and cries, howls and trembles, screams into the air and then slowly composes herself looking straight out into the audience in a wordless plea to God.
Enter the Pastor behind her. He is wearing a black veil over his face but soon removes it as he begins to speak. The two never make eye contact. Instead he remains a few steps behind her at all times.
Pastor
My child, what you just witnessed was the purging of sin!
Girl
No, what I just witnessed was the murder of a child and the murder of my friend.
Pastor
You accuse your elders of murder?
Girl
I do. My friend was not a witch.
Pastor
Oh but all the evidence says she was.
Girl
Evidence? Or superstition, Reverend?
Pastor
There was a trial.
Girl
Trial? I could burst out laughing. There was a hunt for a witch and a determination to find one. A trial based on false testimony, hearsay, nonsense and gossip.
Pastor
My dear child, every adult in the village testified under oath, including most of the women, including yourself.
Girl
My testimony was cut short. I was not allowed to say everything I intended to say.
Pastor
Say it now, child.
Why? It is too late. My friend has been burned at the stake as a heretic.
Pastor
Your friend is in heaven now. Purged on her sin.
Girl
Heaven? How can you be assured of such a thing among such wickedness?
Pastor
What are you saying, child?
Girl
I am saying that burning human beings, children at the stake does not seem to me to be an act condoned by heaven or God or anything holy.
There is a strikingly long pause.
Pastor
Young lady, there are forces of evil in the world that your young and naïve mind cannot comprehend. There are forces of evil so insidious and subtle and difficult to discern that even the most able minds can not understand. The devil is vicious and cunning. He was once the most beautiful angel, remember. And he took a third of the host of heaven with him into hell. Despite God’s love and mercy, there are those who rebel and spit in the face of goodness. Your young friend was a HERETIC. She paid the price for her heresy in fire but she is free now.
Girl
You will condemn my skepticism, Pastor. But I cannot accept or abide these words.
Pastor
You are risking your immortal soul, child. I am warning you.
Girl
My friend was not a witch. She had…she had…she had I believe a mental malady of some kind. That is what we do not understand. The weakness in her mind that was diseased. We do not know what to call it but I believe one day we will.
Pastor
We know exactly what to call it. BLASPHEMY.
Girl
I have known her since early childhood. I have seen her on a daily basis. She was a good soul. Good to others, good to animals and good to all living things.
Pastor
I am sure you are correct but then she was invaded by terrible evil forces. The devil himself took possession of her. She used profane and foul language, she disgraced the cross, she bled on church relics, she was found with the tools of WITCHCRAFT in the very forest that surrounds our village. This cannot be denied.
Girl
Yes they can because there are other angles of thought here. She was curious about these symbols, of witchcraft, she was not practicing it. She was simply learning about it—
Pastor
My child, THIS IS PRECISELY MY POINT. There are reasons that one does not prowl into these mysteries or go anywhere near them out of curiosity or not. They are the devil’s tricks to lure us into sin. There are legitimate reasons why some things are FORBIDDEN and must remain hidden from normal lives. Do you now see that, child?
Girl
No. I see this: I see I have a brain and the power of reason and I must follow my path to the truth and I believe God, or whatever this vast Mystery is, that permits me this freedom. This free will I possess.
Pastor
My dear one, you are on the precipice of losing your soul to the devil. You are a moment or two away from landing yourself in hell for eternity.
Girl
Pastor, why not leave me alone with my grief. I have witnessed the death of a friend. I grieve for her because I believe she was unjustly and grossly convicted of a crime or a sin that she could not commit because she did not have the intention or the will or the mental capacity to do such a thing.
A pause.
Pastor
I followed you here, child, because I saw your grief and your understandable horror. I do see it. I came to comfort you but you will not allow it.
Girl
I cannot be comforted by ignorance and superstition, Pastor. I cannot. I will risk my soul if need be. I am willing to die too.
Another brief pause.
Pastor
I implore you.
Girl
Please!
Pastor
I implore you to hold your tongue.
Girl
Since I was a girl I knew of three other women who were hanged and burned in our village and nearby. When I was very young I thought they must be witches and evil and deserved to die. But Pastor…I no longer…I no longer believe such foolishness. I DO NOT.
Pastor
My heart is full of pity for you. I shall pray and pray for you and I will keep to myself for one full week while you search your conscience and come back to us.
Girl
You need not take a week or a day or an hour or a minute. I shall never return to the church. I demand to be excommunicated.
Pastor
You know not what you are doing. You are being an obstinate CHILD.
Pause.
Girl
(She sits and remains calm and speaks in a warm tone) No, Pastor, it is you who are being obstinate and ignorant. I see it clearly now whether you turned me into your gang of murderers or not. I am at peace with my thoughts and with my soul…if I have a soul…I often wonder.
Pastor
Your words are like daggers to me.
Girl
Your words are like poison daggers to me.
Pastor
This dreadful standoff will not end well, child.
Girl
No. I am sure it won’t.
Pastor
And yet in your rebellious foolishness you will not retreat, even for a day?
Girl
No.
Pastor
My child, they will hang you or burn you.
Girl
I know.
Pastor
Then may God have mercy on you. I have failed. I have failed.
Girl
You HAVE failed, Pastor.
He puts the veil back on and begins to withdraw.
Girl
Once my friend nursed a wounded pigeon back to health and she brought it to the forest to let it go. When the pigeon left her hand it flew to freedom in the sky. It turned into a dove. A white dove. I saw it. I saw it soar to the clouds, white like an angel with lovely delicate wings.
The Pastor walks away shaking his head. He is gone. She sits there for a few beats before the lights descend into darkness.
5/10/19
Lake Carmel