Zachariah Graves blew through the tiny town center on the cusp of a storm, tilting his shoulders inward to protect against the blustering wind. Tighter, he gripped a carefully wrapped package to his chest, meticulous to avoid ruining the soft contents within. 

A man waved a hand to Zachariah, tipping his hat despite the fat raindrops that landed on the older man's bald head as he made his own way home on older, slower legs. Zachariah was a well-known face in town. Of course, it was hard to go unnoticed, or rather, unneeded, when he was the only master carpenter within a day's horse ride in any direction. He was sure he was known by his face alone to every occupant in his town, and by his name and occupation in most hearths and homes in the rest of the county, and perhaps as far as the borders of the entire state.

“Mr. Graves! Oh, Mr. Graves!” called the elder man, slapping his wet hat back on his head, clearly trying to pull Zachariah in to steal a moment of his time. Zachariah nodded at him, going so far as to lift a hand in a jovial greeting, but he did not slow his pace. If Zachariah Graves stopped for every passerby who begged him for a favor, or only a moment of his time—for there was always work for a carpenter—he’d never see the inside of his own house or his lovely wife and daughter at all. 

Zachariah had spent seven years apprenticing under the astute teachings of a carpenter back in Virginia. When he’d brought his industrious trade back north, he’d searched for the perfect town to settle down with his then pregnant wife. It needed to be small enough that he’d find no competition for his skill set, but large enough that his family could prosper without interference from others. 

And they had. Settling in nicely, he’d fashioned a proper house for his wife and then newborn daughter in due haste. He never wanted for work and his wife and daughter never wanted for time with him—he made sure of that.

The rain pounded harder, beating so hard that he felt its wet drops sneak beneath his overcoat. As his muddy boots pounded the way home, he rounded the last outskirt of the town proper, his breath coming harder as he hurried his pace. 

Even in the heaviness of the rain, his eyes found the familiar tall shape that loomed ahead, just near the path that would divert to lead him home. Far enough from the town to not carry worries of spreading flames, but not so far that it would carry curious townsfolk closer to his own home, the pyre from last night's burning still glowed orange in places at the bottom of the solid structure.

The torrential downpour did not deter him from pausing, dipping his head to pay his respects. He’d come by the pyre earlier this morning on his way into  town for work, before the rain had fully set in to a downpour. He’d lingered longer then, sure of his solitude with the deceased, or what remained of her, strapped to the pyre. He stood with the ghost of the girl in duplication of his visit this early morning before dawn—but only for a fraction of a minute, both to tuck his package into the inner pocket of his coat and to study the charred marks of his handiwork. The body strapped to his pyre was charred beyond recognition. The leather of the late Ms. Harrison’s shoes melted right into a puddle on the ashes below where her legs had been strapped and flesh had once covered her bones.

Witchcraft and practitioners of dark arts would not be abided in his tiny town, and Ms. Harrison had been found guilty of such deeds by a jury of her peers. Zachariah refused to sit on such juries, even when called numerous times.

“I shall build your pyres,” he’d told the town magistrate back on the first such calling to duty. “But I will not swing the pendulum of justice.” Zachariah had no interest in pointing fingers at accused witches, in fact, he was plenty interested in staying away from such matters altogether.

And so he had. Every second month or so, when called, he’d supply the town with a fine wooden pyre, carved with his own expert hands. Whenever he could, he built them of fresh cedar, knowing how the wood would spark and sizzle when aflame and thus supply all the theatrics the onlookers loved so much. Each pyre was hewn with a masterful attention to detail and stood artful and resolute in their final form. The magnitude of the finely crafted pyres had earned him a hearty clap on the back from the magistrate and thus the master carpenter had never been asked to sit on a jury again. That had been several years ago, and still Zachariah Graves carried out his pyre building duties and was, as a result, left largely alone when it came to the burning of witches. The town didn’t pay him, of course. But Zachariah was not wanting for work and truly, being left alone was compensation enough. 

The hysteria of the burning of the town’s women left his stomach sour, though it was more so those who lit the fire that turned his disposition. He never stayed to hear them scream, only returned days later to check the state of his pyre and drag the remains home for his own hearth and to begin crafting the next pyre.

“Zachariah!” The lilt of the familiar voice pulled at his heartstrings, shocking him back to the present moment. He’d traveled the entire distance to his own home, losing himself in the memories and the rain. The pounding of his boots against the welcome threshold resounded in his entire body, lighting him up with rapturous joy to be back in the presence of his loved ones.

Pulling his wife into a one-sided hug, he planted a kiss on her black head. She pinked under the affection but did not delay in shirking her husband from his soaking overcoat. A quick snap of her fingers and a younger girl, the mirrored picture of her mother, pulled closer, taking her father’s proffered jacket and crossing back across the room to lay it out to dry near the fire. It left a fine trail of drizzled raindrops, zigzagging as the child carried the sodden garment away.

Bending, Zachariah’s wife set to unlacing her husband’s boots, tutting at him over the mud caked on them.

“'Twas a sudden downpour, Euphemia. What’s a poor man to do but make a run for home in such an onslaught of rain? That man might hope to run into the warm caress of his wife’s bosom.” Squeezing his wife’s hand, he stepped around her and toward the fire to pinch his daughter's pink cheek. “Or the joyous giggles of a lovely daughter awaiting the return of her gallant father.”

The young girl threw her arms around his neck such that he was duty bound as a father to stand to his full height and swing the child around and around before burying her into his chest to pepper her black head with kisses. All the while, the girl screamed and giggled with a madness of all children lost in the euphoria of childhood—a magic all its own.

“Ms. Harrison?” Euphemia asked, her voice a delicate, knowing tone. It drew Zachariah from his reverie, pondering his wife over the shrieking laughter of their daughter.

Zachariah turned fully to his wife, his smile melting from his face much as Ms. Harrison’s shoes had done from her feet, until nothing but charred bone had remained. “Still hanging,” he confirmed. “I suppose they’ll wait until the rain has ceased before collecting the bones.”

“What a shame.” Euphemia clucked her tongue, crossing her arms severely over her chest. She hated the burnings, utterly loathed the fanfare and crowds they brought each few weeks. 

“Yes, she was a lovely girl. I gather that the men in the town were most sore when she was accused. Apparently, several fancied making her a wife.” Zachariah trailed himself and his daughter nearer to the fire, turning so he could warm his backside as the fire nipped at him. “Though, I gather the womenfolk were none too sorrowful to learn of the girl’s nefarious dealings. They’d sooner call her ‘witch’ than call her ‘friend’ when it came to the girl catching the eye of their menfolk.”

Euphemia rolled her own eyes unseemly, frowning at her husband. “I meant—” the woman clarified, “—what a shame to let good bones go to such waste.”

Zachariah waggled a finger at his wife. “None of that,” he chastised. “None of that,” he repeated for good measure. His wife’s eccentricities would not be welcomed in the town. If he hadn’t built up such esteem as a master carpenter with clients from all over the whole county wide, he might have already had such rumors landing on his own threshold. But none dared such talk, not so long as he kept producing their pyres and furnishing their home and otherwise solving their problems. What other man could do so in his absence?

Euphemia let out a huff of breath, her hands finding their way to her trim hips. Her fingers were tinged red—she’d obviously been busy working today. She stared at her husband, eyes starry and clear like the gossamer wings of a dragonfly in flight. He knew his wife to be a steadfast worker and proficient, too. She often toiled long into the night at her work. As he watched her pace around the front room, the charade of her bravado broke. She was anxious.

His eyebrows knit together, the plodding of her feet leaving a nearly eerie pitter patter against the wooden floorboards he’d lain himself.

“Do you suppose we ought to worry?” He watched as his wife froze in her steps, gathering up the fabric of her skirt in her hands as the tiny question slipped from her lips. She pulled the fabric tighter in her fists, so hard her knuckles whitened.

“No, wife. You need not worry.” With their daughter in one arm, he pulled his wife into his side.

“And if they should come for me one day? Or perhaps our daughter? Abigail Harrison was a girl of only sixteen years.” Euphemia’s voice cracked on the mention of their child, sending images of a tiny burning body and death screams into his own mind. His teeth gritted tight, grounding against one another hard enough to crack.

He bent to let his daughter go, waiting for her to scuttle across the room, back to fiddle with the toys he’d crafted for her by his own hand. A palm on each of her cheeks, Zachariah turned Euphemia’s face up to look at him. How many nights had he laid awake to count each freckle that dotted across her nose and over her plump cheeks? He could trace each wrinkle at the corner of her eyes with the memory of a blind man. He would know this woman in total darkness, her very presence would call to him in whatever form they existed in—so long as they persisted together. Zachariah Graves was sure of a scant many things, but of his love for his wife he knew nothing but the promise that they could spend eternity together and still it would not be enough of loving her to sate his desire.

“My sweetheart.” Zachariah stooped, planting a feather soft kiss to each of her eyelids, trailing down to taste her lips for a lingering moment. “They will not come for you. They will not come for our girl.”

He felt her tremble, relished in the way her hands wound their way into the fabric of his clothes, pulling him closer to her. Their bodies called to one another, a melody known in both their hearts that strummed whenever they were apart, begging for the crescendo of their togetherness once again.

Her voice breathy and light, through closed eyes she asked him, “How do you know?”

He replied with a sureness he knew in his soul. “What good is a witch hunt without a pyre?”

Euphemia’s eyes popped open and the reverence with which she looked to her husband steeled him as much then as it had the day he’d first met her. 

She opened her mouth to speak, but he silenced her with another press of his lips, the taste of the rain still fresh on his flesh. He pulled back, pressing her head into the space of his shoulder, the place he was sure God himself had carved for the presence of this very woman. 

“I’ve brought you a gift.” He broke free from her, trailing a finger over the shell of her ear, lingering on the feel of her skin before he left her embrace entirely. 

The coat his daughter had lovingly draped near the fire was halfway dry now. He felt around it, digging into the inner coat pockets until his finger closed around the package he’d shielded from the precipitation all the long walk home.

“I could not bring you her bones,” he told his wife, who stared at him with waiting eyes. “But I suppose a heart will do?”

He held out the package, his wife’s squeals of delight filling the room and his heart. 

Abigail Harrison’s heart. The heart of a virgin was a rare thing indeed.

The fingers of his wife, already coated in blood, gripped the heart, tearing it from his hand. Her tiny feet tapped excited staccatos across the floor as she carried it to her workstation across the room—entirely unlike her nervous pacing minutes earlier.  On the other side of the room, their daughter sang in a childlike soprano that wafted sweetly to his ears.

The organ was badly charred in places, not whole as he knew Euphemia would prefer. But it pleased her nonetheless. The lucky event of last night’s rain that had persisted all day had created the perfect conditions—both to preserve the heart in the cavity of the dead girl’s chest and to allow him ample opportunity with which to retrieve it unmolested. Sure, he’d been forced to carry it about with him the rest of the day while he called on his customers, but what of it? He scarcely had room enough for the love of his family in one heart—another in his pocket could only be fortuitous.

Yes, it was not the burning of witches that concerned Zachariah Graves. 

It was the people who lit the fires that struck fear in his heart.

But, so long as he produced their pyres, those gentle folk would not fall upon his doorstep with accusations. Euphemia and their daughter would remain forever safeguarded against the ugly stain of false witches, so long as Zachariah Graves continued his diligent hard work.

Smiling as the firelight danced across the shoulder blades of Euphemia’s stooped frame, bent hard at work over her workstation, his affection for her grew even higher. He slipped into the armchair his hard work had paid for, humming along with the melody his daughter still sang.

He wondered if the rain would stop tomorrow so that he could begin another day's work for the next pyre. 

For there would always be a next one.

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