The Lonely Witness — New Fiction Writing by R. L. Saunders
She told the magistrate she had been abused, taken advantage of, her reputation ruined.
She told the magistrate she had been abused, taken advantage of, her reputation ruined.
Or had she?
The village law said that the benefit of the doubt lay with the most vulnerable. And so women were believed when they said some male had fondled or groped or acted in a threatening manner.
For Lyla, it had happened many times. All to her shame.
The men she accused were penalized and their own reputations marked.
Simply denying it was no defense. For in every accusation Lyla presented, there was no witness to say what had happened.
Most of these men stayed far away from Lyla after that. Many left the village.
All to Lyla’s benefit. Or was it?
The village started shrinking, people moving away. And few other villagers — male or female — would talk to her. Unless several other people were present.
She was being shunned for nothing she had done wrong. Or had she?
The Lonely Witness — New Fiction Writing by R. L. Saunders
(This is available almost everywhere as an ebook — with Bonus short story “Beltway Gremlin”. Visit https://calm.li/LonelyWitness for details and immediate access.)
I
“But your honor, that’s not the way it happened!”
“So what did happen?”
“Nothing!”
“That’s not what she says. Her accusation is detailed. You have acted inappropriately and if she had not escaped, it would be much worse.”
The young man bowed his head, defeated.
“You know the village law. In these cases, the law sides with the most vulnerable. You are fined a week’s pay to be split between the plaintiff and the village coffers. And this judgment is now ordered recorded for all the village to see. Court adjourned.”
The gavel banged.
The young man just stood there.
Lyla glared at him as she spun to stalk out of the court. Vindicated.
The sunshine shone on her white bonnet and long ruby linen dress. The design was simple. The colors she chose were for a reason. Her name had been bloodied by this young man’s actions. And she knew there would be no attempt at retribution from him. He would never again attempt to force her to do anything against her will.
While she had her say, so did he. And he had a sterling reputation that he offered, as well as character references by many townspeople, even his fiancée.
Yet the law was the law. The most vulnerable must be protected.
That the young man had strong shoulders and heavy, well-muscled arms did not help his defense. A slim maiden would be no defense against a man who decided to “have his way” with any woman he wanted.
And there was no one present when they walked alone into the woods, where he had taken her to “show her his timber-cutting.” That statement was heard by several in the tavern. And he had quenched his day’s thirst with several local brews before they had left.
Justice was done.
For now.
II
Regardless of the magistrate’s decision, she felt — just perhaps — that something else was going on. Holding her head high, she walked the village street toward her small cabin on the village limits. She hadn’t wanted to shop, but even if she did, all the stores had their “closed” signs turned. Some just as she passed them. The day was young, so why were so many taking the afternoon off?
Lyla hoped she hadn’t missed hearing about a party or gathering. There had been a few of them recently that she had only accidentally found out about. And didn’t feel like walking in uninvited.
She had her weaving and her garden to occupy her time these days. And running her booth on Saturdays at the Market. These kept her more than busy.
In recent weeks, she had fewer visitors to her home to place special orders or to see what crops of hers were ready. She’d even quit hatching chickens as her eggs weren’t selling enough to pay for the rations they needed to lay high-quality eggs. Frankly, it would soon be cheaper to only keep what she needed for her own needs, and feed them off table scraps and old bread crusts.
Market day was becoming more sparse, even this fall. There were fewer booths, and many people were trading in other villages than locally. She now had two empty spaces on each side of her booth, where only a few years ago, it was hard to even fit her booth into a space. Market day meant having the entire main street lined from one end of the village to the other. And the livestock auction was held beyond that.
But hard times had come. Many of the storefronts were now empty. Families had moved out. Single men had begun looking for jobs in other villages, not returning to their native-born origin once they had built up a nest-egg investment.
And the village didn’t seem as pleasant a place as it had been. She would often not talk to anyone for days.
But she was beginning to think something else was happening. She had noticed that conversations ceased just as she walked up. When she visited a store, the shopkeeper would be terse and speak in short answers. There were always someone else present, but just within earshot, not carrying on conversation.
One advantage was that she was able to get in and get her purchases quickly, but haggling for a better price became impossible. The storekeepers would simply point to the price on the display or marked on the package, without a further word. And without smiling.
She had her work to do, even though she had bolts of hand woven material stacked in her home, ready for sale.
People weren’t buying her woven goods as much, or even the leftover produce from her garden.
And she had begun taking time to forage in the woods for wild fruit and nuts, as well as wild greens in order to make her own meals. As without money to buy seeds, she needed to save back her vegetables and let a larger fraction dry out so she would have a crop next year.
At nights, she had her books to read. Her mind was occupied all the time. Some might call it lonely, but she called it solitude.
III
The day finally came when the last family moved out of the village. The last store had closed up weeks earlier. The weekend market had left hers as the only stall present, which she put up right outside her home. And after a few months, she only put up a sign — one that said simply: “Come in.”
But no one ever did.
This day, she walked the empty street and counted the empty houses behind the stores. She checked some of the store fronts and all were locked. Shelves empty, furniture gone.
She lived in a ghost town. Decay had set in over the years, as the tax revenue had dried up slowly. Bad years had turned worse.
Her garden now only kept her alive. Her loom was empty.
And she gave up the pretense of “solitude.”
She was alone.
There was nowhere to go. She had traveled to nearby villages, but wasn’t able to find any market for her goods, or anyone hiring an accomplished weaver.
Times seemed bad farther out than just her village.
That didn’t make sense, though. These villages were filled with people. Their stores were open. And they had big markets.
Yet the people in these other villages were almost as unfriendly and unsocial as her own. She seldom had a conversation with anyone much longer than when they asked her name and where she was from.
At that, there would be some subtle change. And they’d smile, nod, and move along — looking at all the faces around them. Grasping the hand of their spouse more firmly, as well as those of their children.
She was alone, even in a crowd.
The long walks back to her village were safe, but she felt isolated somehow.
How could this have happened?
When she was young, it was always her choice to tease the young men. And if they said something insulting, then they could be hauled before the magistrate and made to pay her by simply a “slight” exaggeration of what actually happened — alone, away from other people.
If she had a witness, is was someone who had only seen her slap the offending man, just before she clutched the front of her blouse or pulled her shawl around her. Sometimes she had feigned crying — a good rubbing of the eyes would produce that same, good red-eye effect.
And it was a simple way to get those boys to pay for not doing what she wanted.
Until there were no young single men interested in her anymore. And then no single men. And then no men at all.
Just her, in her cottage on the edge of the village.
Alone.
IV
Years passed. Every now and then, a group of church-going people would come by and leave her a basket of goods, or a box of necessities. Remarkably, they’d never talk to her beyond a simple greeting.
She learned to leave a note in the empty basket, thanking them with one of her fine-woven towels or napkins. The basket would disappear overnight, within days. And she seldom saw any glimpse of who took it. Only foot prints on a dry, dusty day. Those stayed until the next rain, usually.
Lyla had her garden, and her walks into the woods to forage. She used the other buildings for materials where her cottage fell in disrepair.
And when her books wore out, she’d patch them back together.
At least she had no trouble getting a new Bible dropped off every now and then.
That finally gave her a clue.
Not that she was religious, but the pamphlets left for her would often have Proverbs 6:16–19 printed on them:
“There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.”
Could it be that this is why people didn’t talk to her anymore? Is this why she had fallen on rough times?
Surely not. No. It couldn’t be.
The real clue was on the bottom of that last pamphlet.
The address of the publishing company.
V
When the two couples made their monthly visit to the old village to check in on how the old woman was doing, they were surprised to see her “Come In” sign had been replaced.
It now gave a forwarding address — Hollywood, California.
And a note that she was now writing fiction and her books were selling well.
When they returned to their church, one of them looked up Lyla’s name on Amazon and found it was true. Most of her bestsellers were romances about bad-boy lovers.
That next service, those couples and the rest of their congregation prayed that she was no longer lonely and had found her peace.
Given her new location, that’s all they could do for her.
(This is available almost everywhere as an ebook — with Bonus short story “Beltway Gremlin”. Visit https://calm.li/LonelyWitness for details and immediate access.)
Originally published at Living Sensical.