A kindly looking old lady steps to the front of the crowd. She then reaches into one of the wooden crates and pulls out a mushy, rotten tomato. I lock eyes with her in an intense silent stare down. She takes a step forward and cocks her arm back ready to throw the tomato. I’m not worried about this wrinkly old hag having enough arm strength to hit me, but I am very upset that she would want to throw a tomato at me or Sidney in the first place. I would have never expected such a kind looking old lady to do such a mean thing. But alas, she does. She throws it and to my surprise her arm is a cannon. I barely manage to avoid a direct hit to my chest by blocking with my staff. Yet it makes little difference. The moment that my staff connects with the rotten tomato, its sour juice bursts all over me.

The crowd behind the old woman cheers. Right away, more of the noble denizens of Magali join in the fun. I diligently swipe away with my staff deflecting a couple of overripe apples. The apples burst into little bits and pieces, but they’re not too bad as far as the juices go. Likewise, I knock away the carrots, cabbages, onions, and potatoes with no problem. But when some depraved individual throws a peeled perfectly good orange at me, its juices squirt past my staff and right into my eyes rendering me momentarily blind.

The crowd capitalizes on my handicap and unleashes its heavy artillery. I can’t quite tell what they’re throwing through my watery eyes, but some grayish objects pummel me in the chest. Due to my bad vision, I fail to block or identify any of them. A moment after the sixth one collides with my chest, the smell of the objects reaches my nose. Their stench is so strong that it overpowers the rotten fruit smell. It would seem that I was just hit by six rotten eggs. Their repugnant aroma causes me to dry heave until I take a piece of moldy bread to the face. As terrible as all of this is, if it were only me then I could handle it, but the fact that this rotten food is meant for Sidney breaks my heart. What’s worse is that I’m not doing a good job of defending her. The stupendous people of Magali have now come up with the strategy to have one person throw an object at me while the others target her. Despite my sincerest efforts to protect her, Sidney is being continuously pelted by the rotten food almost as badly as me.

Luckily there’s some reprieve. One of the crates is empty. A couple of people in the crowd fight over the remaining objects. The ones who do manage to scrape up the remaining bits throw the normal things: tomatoes, apples, plums, pieces of half eaten chicken, and various meat remnants. Then mercifully the other two crates run out of stuff to throw. Save for one thing. I raise my left eyebrow at the quirky refusal of the crowd to pick up the last object. Nobody wants to throw it until a bearded muscular man finally declares, “I’ll do it.”

I tighten my grip on my staff. Whatever it is, I cannot let it hit Sidney. The man reaches his hand into the crate and winces. When he lifts it up, I see a container of spoiled milk oozing its contents on his hand. As he comes forward at me, I seriously contemplate blasting a Comet straight into the crowd. But for the sake of my own integrity, I restrain myself.

The man lets the spoiled milk fly. I focus my eyes on the container so acutely that it travels at me in slow motion. As if my life depended on it, I swat the container out of the air with pinpoint precision. Regrettably, the container was made out of glass, so I get sprayed with little shards of glass in addition to spoiled milk.

I fall to my knees, but not because I’m injured from the glass. I’m just exhausted and dismayed. The gentle people of Magali, now finished with their joyous festivities, disperse laughing and slapping each other high five. I’m glad that it’s over because I honestly couldn’t take anymore. I give myself a quick status check. My clothes are completely soaked through with the foulest liquids imaginable. I will have no choice but to burn these clothes. As for Sidney, her head and hands are caked in chunks of various food debris. I move over to her and clean her off as best as I can. Unfortunately, there is absolutely nothing that I can do for the smell. Both she and I smell like rotting, festering sewage.

To take a breather, so to speak, I crash down on the cobblestone pavement next to Sidney’s gallows. I don’t know how long the Chief Inquisitor intends to leave her out here, but in my heart I’ve already committed to staying with her until the end. Strangely, Sidney is asleep at the moment. I don’t know whether she fell asleep from physical exhaustion or if she fainted from the stress of being the scorn of an entire city. Either way, when she wakes up, she’ll find me here next to her. I’ll guard her vigilantly and make sure that nobody tries to do anything worse than throw spoiled food at her.

I sit with Sidney for over an hour. Around 2 p.m. Katherine comes to us carrying a few sandwiches and a pitcher of water. She hands me the items, careful not to soak her shoes in the vile liquids and food bits surrounding me. I can tell from the silent look in her eyes that she wants to stay with me, but she’s clearly offended by my awful stench. “Master I brought you lunch.”

“Thank you Katherine. What are you up to today?”

“I thought that I would come and sit with you for a while.”

“You don’t have to force yourself Katherine. I know that I smell bad.”

“Master, do you remember how you reacted when I warned you that Hilda’s house smelled? You selflessly ignored it for her sake. Let me do the same for you.”

Katherine’s eyes trace the pavement carefully for a dry spot. Knowing full well that there’s no safe place to sit near me, I take my jacket off and place it on the ground with the insides facing up. “You can sit on my jacket Katherine. The inside part is mostly clean.”

With concern Katherine asks, “Are you sure Master? Your jacket will get dirty.”

“Actually, my jacket is ruined. Go ahead and sit on it. I don’t want you to get dirty too.”

Katherine sits down and gazes over at Sidney. “This is terrible Master. I can’t believe that they cut her hair off.”

I half-sigh, half-exhale in frustration. “This whole affair has been an exercise in cruelty. Poor Sidney will never be the same again after all of this.”

“Master, do you think that she will become a death mage again and seek revenge?”

I take another look at Sidney. She’s baldheaded, dressed in sackcloth, covered in ashes, garnished with food particles, and perfumed with an unspeakable odor. “I honestly don’t know Katherine. But I don’t think so. She told me that she wasn’t a killer. I can’t imagine that she would take a single life much less destroy an entire city out of anger or spite.”

Changing to a more positive subject, Katherine and I chat about Belle-Forest and foreign countries. Once we finish talking about that, we discuss monsters and magical treasures. After that we talk about pets, fashion styles, and even blue hair dye. About two and a half hours into our conversation, we receive a sudden visitor – Master Simon Bruhar.

He stands off at a distance to our left-hand side. Master Simon isn’t the type that would willingly approach an unpleasant smell or situation. Instead, he suffers himself the woeful inconvenience of having to raise his voice. “My, my, you actually succeeded. It seems you’re not entirely useless after all.”

I ignore his slight against me as always. “Master, look at what they’ve done to her! You told me that the Rite of Penance would help her.”

“And so it has. Her life is spared. Besides, I did mention that it was an ‘unseemly ordeal.’”

That’s a pretty vague understatement considering all that Sidney has gone through. But in the end Master Simon is right. This is the best thing for Sidney. I just have to keep telling myself that.

“Souladonis,” he continues. “I want you to come by my private chateau later. I have more to tell you about magic, the petrification curse, and your little friend Sidney Butterfly. It’s not too far from here. Just a mile further north from where you went west towards Sidney’s house. You’ll see the signs. You can’t miss it.”

How nice. A personal invitation to Master Simon’s house. The perfect opportunity to get verbally bashed some more. It had better be worth my time. “Unless you have something important to tell me about the petrification curse, then I don’t see why I should bother.”

Master Simon throws his hand over his heart. “I would think that seeing your dear old master would be reason enough. But even if not, I assure you that the information is worth your while. It will change your life forever.”

“Then why don’t you just tell me now?”

“That would ruin the fun.”

Master Simon turns his back and starts to walk away. But then he stops and speaks over his shoulder. “I’ll be expecting you. And by the way, you can bring your servant as well.”

Finally, he walks away bellowing his bizarre cackle.

“Master, I think that your master is evil,” Katherine suggests.

Her offbeat comment catches me by surprise. I laugh heartily at her joke because I can seriously imagine Master Simon as some sort of comic villain. “Master Simon is certainly a pompous jerk, but he’s not evil Katherine.”

“Are you sure?”

“No.”

Katherine and I share another laugh at Master Simon’s expense, and then we continue our prior conversation about unnatural hair colors. Around 6 p.m. I order Katherine to go buy dinner for Sidney and me. Half an hour later, she returns with a bottle of white wine and two plastic containers filled with the same shrimp pasta that she and I had enjoyed previously at the small café. I gratefully accept the food and wine. “Thank you for this Katherine, but now it’s time for you to go back to the inn.”

“What why? I want to stay here with you.”

“I know you do Katherine, but it’s going to be dark soon. For all we know, the Chief Inquisitor is going to leave her out here all night. I don’t want you to stay out here freezing in the cold night air.”

“But I’ll be okay Master!”

“I know Katherine, but please, for my sake, go back to the inn before it gets dark. I need to know that you’re safe and warm. I also don’t want you walking around at night. There are dangerous people in this town, so go back now while there’s still some sunlight.”

Katherine inhales deeply and exhales slowly in a sigh of submission. “Fine Master. I’ll go.”

I stare blinking my eyes at Katherine as she walks away. That’s weird. Something seems backwards. Anyhow, now it’s just Sidney and me. I take a quick glance at Sidney’s face. She’s still asleep. The poor thing must not have slept at all last night. I know that I wouldn’t be able to sleep the night before my public trial. All the same, that leaves me with nothing to do and no one to talk to.

I lie down on top of my coat jacket and watch the sky as it fades to black. It seems that I was right. The Chief Inquisitor is going to leave Sidney out here all night.

An hour into the night, the temperature drops. I take my jacket over to Sidney and wrap it around her as best as I can. “Sidney,” I say, but she doesn’t respond.

I guess it’s going to be a long quiet night. I sit down right in front of Sidney and rest my head on the wood of her gallows next to her right hand. Without Katherine I’m lonely. When I’m lonely I start thinking. Even if I try to avoid the topic, I inadvertently end up thinking about my past. For some reason I feel like venting my fears and sorrows tonight. Maybe it’s selfish of me, but seeing as Sidney can’t go anywhere, I use her as my unwitting sounding board. I tell her about my childhood, about Nadine, about studying magic, about my friendship with her sister, and about how I screwed up and lost it all by getting Nadine turned into stone. After I’m done, I somehow end up feeling even worse than before. I guess venting to someone who’s not even conscious doesn’t quite have the same therapeutic effect. So to make myself feel better, I do what I often do when I’m sad and alone: I sing my song Winter Soul.