The Easter Witch Hunt

Vladislav Nestarova paced back and forth in the bowls of the boat. His wife was ill, and not just sea sick. He knew that they should’ve never left Wallachia, but he had had no choice. A month ago he would have said with certainty that if he hated the Turks more than anyone else in the world. But now... now he was cursed by the Roma. If his wife’s sickness was any indication, the curse was fast catching up to him. He hated them. If he had known how to place curses, he would have cursed those rats right back. He grunted. Perhaps that sort of scum’s existence was their curse. Unfortunately it had also become his.
His wife leaned over and vomited in a bucket. Her face was stained with the tears of a woman who knew that she would die soon.

“Land!” muttered Vladislav. “You just wait, tomorrow we get off this boat and you can see a doctor. His wife just vomited again. To be young and with child. Now that was a curse that he couldn’t blame on the Roma. He could only blame himself.

10 April, 1689
Ipswitch, Massachusetts
Maria Nestarova had grown to be a fine woman, and Vlad knew it. Every time he saw her he smiled because her face reminded him of the woman he loved all those years ago. She had died in childbirth, and Vlad had wanted to end it all. But he knew that as long as the baby lived, he had to too. She was his life, and he wanted to give her to someone special. He hadn’t met any good enough contenders, that is to say, Orthodox contenders, so she remained unmarried. There simply weren’t any other Eastern Europeans in Massachusetts so far as he had seen. All in all, though, life was okay. He had taken up a living as a fisherman and could provide for his daughter. Many of the English around him despised him, but he didn’t care, not really. He went to the local church and said the prayers like everyone else in this town, insofar as his accent would allow. It was Easter Sunday, in both his own faith and the West. Unfortunately, this concurrece of theology wasn’t about to stop things from going very, very wrong.
“Aaaaaack!” A little girl fell to the ground, writhing and screaming. “Stop hurting me! Stop!”. The girl screamed nonsensically, and soon other little girls were doing the same. One of them started hissing and jerking back and forth. Another began rocking on the floor, sobbing. The preacher yelled at them to stop, but it did no good. The adults were now in a panic, not understanding who was so grievously afflicting their daughters. Vlad looked to Maria, who was fine, if terrified of the commotion.
All the children stopped at once and pointed at Maria. Vlad’s heart froze. “Burn the witch!”. There was a roar from the congregation, and in a moment all the xenophobia of a hundred WASPs was released onto an unsuspecting woman. The Easter Trials had begun.

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Well, this is just the POD. I know where I'm taking this for the most part, but if anyone can offer corrections on ASB materials, I'd be much obliged. I'll try to keep this one in action; apologies for Hitler falling into disrepair.
 
Thanks for the reactions, let's get rolling with this. I'd like to emphasize that the title really isn't a very good one as I'm taking this in a radically different direction. Let's get rolling!

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Present day, England:

"Mr. Shoemann? Are All Americans going to Hell?"

"Not necessarily, James. God can forgive any sin after all." The teacher, who was also a priest, answered. Another student began to interject, and was hushed. "But, of course, disbelief leaves no room in the heart for forgiveness to take root. God could forgive them, but they will refuse his love in death as they have in life."

"And if they don't?" James asked. "What if they acknowledge their error?"

"Well, I can't tell you that, James. We don't know the heart of God until we meet him." Mr. Shoemann replied. The bell rang, and students, who had already packed their bags in anticipation, began to swarm out of the room. James approached Shoemann's desk with a queer look and, after a beat, asked a final question.

"Why do we have to learn American history? My mummy says we shouldn't be hearing about this, and I agree. It makes my tummy twist and hurt."

"Well, James, there's a very good reason. You have to know your enemy, son. You've got to know him. And when you see him, you've got to know why he is how he is. And if you kill him..." the boy shied away. "Now, son, listen. The Americans want to destroy us. They hate us for our Freedoms. And if we go to war, Saints preserve us, you need to be able to fight them and forgive them. But we cannot, cannot lose."

The boy nodded, and walked to the door. "But... why do they hate us? We've been at peace for a long time!"

"That's why we learn, son. We wait, and we learn." Mr. Shoemann watched the boy leave, and rubbed his temples.
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Still setting up ideas, so there's a glimpse of how things will turn out. Be back in probably a week, I'm off to DC.
 
An Extract from
America: An History of Violence
By James Edward Taylor

Between the years of 1689 and 1730, the British hold on her North American colonies began to falter. The First Great Hunt of ’89 has been pointed to time and again as when the seeds of continental destruction were sown, and this remains, as far as we can tell, correct. The problems already present in Puritan society were exacerbated by the arrival of the Slav in the region. What may have blossomed into a wholly marvelous British bastion of freedom in the world instead was corrupted by the Orthodox, who at the time still feigned to be of the True Faith.

Two years prior to the Hunt in Ipswitch, as the town of Ipswich later became known, residents led by a local Reverend protested a tax, calling it “taxation without representation”. Their anger was appeased, temporarily. The Puritans settlers were still a very moralistic group with a “City on a Hill” mentality that placed a great psychological strain on them. The term Puritanical is spoken today, to refer to codes which are designed for those both dogmatic and cruel. Only one of these traits would survive the series of Hunts that followed.

The First Great Hunt began in Ipswitch, when it had a population of somewhere near 3,000 people. By records, we know that a Slavic woman, a rare occurrence at the time, was blamed by local children for various strange actions they took, such as screaming and writhing in pain. She was lynched almost immediately. But within a year, the children’s curse seemed to come back. They started cursing like sailors and speaking gibberish. They blamed more people, not just foreigners. A court was set up to try witches, and burn those that were found guilty. This did not stop the “curses”, however. The children began violently attacking people on the street, cutting and stabbing with stolen knives, or even biting. The town was in full fledged panic, and it was spreading. Boston was in uproar. Ipswitch began the trial with over 3,000 townsfolk, as I have already pointed out. By then end of the Hunt, which was in reality more of a massacre, the town had about half of that. In only a month, 1,234 people were killed or fled from mass rioting. The children of the town were, unsurprisingly, all dead. Those that started the panic were, it is now believed, murdered by the aggrieved. Some were hung as servants of witches. Some merely had their throats cut in the night. Nevertheless Ipswitch as a town died when the entire youth of the village was annihilated. There was no new generation to replace the old, and no one wanted to move to the location of such a disaster. Of course, colonists didn’t realize that on that cursed continent there was nowhere to hide.

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Vladislav, was, for about 15 minutes that day, a happy man. He could see the red glow at night of a town on fire. More than that, he heard the shouts and the gunfire. He heard the screams of women and babes. Some perished inside houses. He wished he were there, to see them dying like the animals they were. Oh, how he hated them. He hated them so he smiled. He hated them so much he laughed until tears rolled down his face. He had planned it. He had worked so hard the past year. He had befriended the children while they were at play. He was the stranger that taught them strange games and told amazing stories from his homeland. He told them terrible, frightening histories. He spoke of vampires and witches and demons and Turks and Gypsies and the Moon and the Black Sea at night. He told them about Vlad Tepes and Dracula, and he knew how in the end everyone could be so ghastly. He told the children how fun it would be, just to mess with their parents some more. To put that old stinky preacher on trial for once. He taught them to move like animals. They could do the rest.

And now he watched his work burning. How he hated them. How he hated the children. He looked at the moon and muttered. He knew he could not go to the town, though he would’ve loved to see it happen. But instead he pulled up his cloak. He entered his humble wooden shack and pushed over his lamp onto some paper. The burning wax dripped down, and licking at the pulp, and moving closer to a stack of very dry kindling.

He exited his home, now worthless. He pulled up his cowl, mounted his horse, and set off into the black.

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Any comments/criticism would be appreciated. Sorry for taking so long to get to this, but it's summer now, and I'm unemployed. So... spare time aplenty. These should be getting longer as I get into a groove.
 
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