He had a reputation, you see, for being a sorcerer.
As a schoolmaster though, he was alright. He never did hex us, and he taught well enough. Even managed to keep my rat of a brother on the bench ‘til noon reading Script.
Then that cow started following him. We thought it was funny at first; maybe he’d stuck some hay to his trousers or put straw in his shoes so the cow could follow him, or maybe he had a lead tied to his wrist that he’d turned invisible so we couldn’t see it. And getting lessons canceled because that cow kept trying to follow him into the school made it all the more funnier.
Then my brother noticed him going into the woods every night. Didn’t think it was too weird; he was a sorcerer after all. Maybe he went in there to dance with his cow, or something.
When the king came back after a storm though, we started thinking something was going wrong in there. We started following him in, or at least tried to. He knew the woods better than us, and we always lost him after a minute or so. The closest we got was the big root halfway down the hunter’s trail; he took a turn after that, went around that huge tree, and disappeared into thin air.
Clearly that wasn’t going to work then. We did some other research, asked around (but not the adults. Mum would have skinned us alive if she knew we were trying to catch a witch), and landed on one of the boys who only came twice a week. He didn’t want to talk at first but when I told him we’d get him pudding he agreed. Sat us down in the field and told us the sorcerer wanted to sleep with his sister, and told him to get some hairs from “Down there”. His words, not mine. That was where the cow came in; got hairs from the cow's udder instead. Had a good laugh about it.
We weren’t the ones who turned him in. Mum would have had us dropped in the lake for sneaking around a witch anyways. Some other girl found him out and got the lot of them hanged. I think the worst part was that his real name was Fian, really. Cunningham sounded better.
[@solointhesand]
(Doctor John Fian gets investigated by his students except I wrote the aftermath first in the shape of an interview because… because)