{"id":2217,"date":"2024-11-04T09:54:29","date_gmt":"2024-11-04T09:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2217"},"modified":"2024-11-05T08:58:53","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T08:58:53","slug":"olivia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/olivia\/2217\/","title":{"rendered":"Olivia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Her living room is modest; a faded hand-stitched rug, aging armchairs, and bare surfaces adorned by little other than books. Of the latter, there is an abundance. Stacks ten deep, crammed shelves, and an overflow surrounding the chairs like learned sentries guarding against ignorance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Witchfinder Smith rubs his chin. Not the home of a dark-artist, he thinks. It feels more professorial than satanic. Intellectuals are banned, but they aren\u2019t witches. Besides, intellectuals are not his concern, being in the purview of the Bureau of Acceptable Knowledge, not the Witchfinder General.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cBring her in,\u201d he commands the guard slouching against the door frame, an AK47 dangling from his obese, combat-fatigue-clad figure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGet inside, witch,\u201d the man snarls at Olivia Epstein, who stands in the rain, shackles binding her. Olivia shuffles past the glowering guard. Smith can see her resisting her instinct to retreat, as she straightens, fixes her gaze on him and moves confidently into the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow Olivia, I want you to tell me where everything is hidden,\u201d he says in a sotto voce appeal. He hopes she sees reason and confesses her guilt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith sees her as a small woman, barely five feet tall, with narrow shoulders; thin, time-drained breasts barely rippling her grey blouse; but her face is striking; a prominent nose beneath a wide brow, itself curtained by dark hair, which has a lustre defiant of her years, and deep brown eyes, reminiscent of a pair of cauldrons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNothing is hidden, Witchfinder,\u201d she says in her curiously European accent. \u201cI have nothing to hide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow, Olivia, I want to make this easy for you. Confess all and you will not go to eternity riding on the back of a lie,\u201d he says, raising a finger as if to make an important point. \u201cAnd we will have no need for unpleasant interventions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have no evidence,\u201d she says, eyeing him cooly. \u201cJust the word of that slut in the grocery store.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat slut, as you call her, is a member of the Church of Donald, and she says you are a witch,\u201d he pauses, and lowers his voice to a whisper. \u201cShe says you are a therianthrope.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe said that? I doubt that word has ever passed between her ears. Unless the Bishop said it when he was banging her.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cConfess!\u201d Smith snarls, advancing on her and drawing his blade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olivia steps back as far as her restraints allow. The manacles glow, and fall to her feet. Smith, with fear in his eyes, stays his murderous advance as she grows, her muzzle extending, sharp teeth protruding from a feline jaw, wiry muscles binding her arms and legs, claws extending. She leaps. His throat tastes good. In moments she is on the guard, ripping and tearing, until she is sated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a mewling howl, she bounds off into the night. She, and all her kind, she realises as she runs, have a new mission. They must step out of the shadows and deal with the men in charge. Permanently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Olivia hurdles across the rooftops, she smiles to herself. They would have their witch hunt, just not the one they expect. The witches are no longer the prey, they are now the hunters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Smith sees her as a small woman, barely five feet tall, with narrow shoulders; thin, time-drained breasts barely rippling her grey blouse; but her face is striking; a prominent nose beneath a wide brow, itself curtained by dark hair, which has a lustre defiant of her years, and deep brown eyes, reminiscent of a pair of cauldrons<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1129,1435],"tags":[1425,114,866,1441,8,7,20,1442,1438,87,1253,14,1440,853,1439],"class_list":["post-2217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1129","category-nov-2024-witch-hunt","tag-against","tag-but","tag-dark","tag-deep","tag-he","tag-her","tag-his","tag-intellectuals","tag-olivia","tag-room","tag-says","tag-she","tag-smith","tag-than","tag-witchfinder"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sbrNJE-olivia","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2217"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2221,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2217\/revisions\/2221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}