The cold, rough ground scoured her bare feet as she ran. The night air ripped through the thin, white smock she was wearing, when they dragged her from her bed. Their cries of “Witch” echoed behind her as she scrambled, terrified and wild-eyed, up the wooded hill to escape their hatred and their torches.
She ran with a wild passion; driven by the murderous intent of her pursuers; those who hated her. Hated her for what they thought she was. Their angry chants and howls filled the midnight air.
Her chances of escaping the mob were thin and the girl knew it. She had seen this happen to so many others before her; and needless to say, none of them had made it. But she ran on anyway, panting her way up the steep slope; wild thorns from the thick underbrush slicing the bare skin of her young arms and legs. The maniacal crowd drew closer.
A jutting tree root snagged her foot and sent her sprawling to the ground. With flailing arms and legs she tumbled and rolled back down the thorn-infested slope. She tried to get up, but a burning sensation coursed down from hip to foot, leaving her in excruciating pain. Biting back pain and tears, she tried to clamber back up the slope on all fours, dragging her injured leg.
She looked back down over her shoulder and saw their torches, close now, and the shouting filled her head. A mass of flickering torches were inexorably racing towards her. Her hands and arms had lost their feeling, battered by thorns and rocks. Her breath was like fire in her chest. Tears streaked down what might otherwise have been a lovely, young face. The hunt was drawing to an end.
She collapsed and drew a bloody hand across her face; she was exhausted. The acrid stench of her own blood filled her nostrils, blocking out the natural scent of the forest around her. She lay panting; unable to push herself further. She had seen it all happen before, never imagining it would happen to her.
As they circled her frail body, the girl seemed momentarily unaware of their scowling faces, flickering down at her. Instead she stared up at the starlit sky and the full moon, and in some way seemed to draw strength from the beauty of the night. She slowly raised her arm and pointed to the heavens.
The mob hushed as she brought her blooded limb down, and with a strange movement of her hand she whispered her curse; the curse of the forest, the trees, the rocks; a curse powered by nature itself. She laid her head down… and slept.
When morning broke, soft rays of sun slowly lit a strange woodland scene.
A young girl slept peacefully on the grassy bank, surrounded by spent torches… and toads!