“Allow me to demonstrate,” she said steadily. “I have no magical abilities, I am just incredibly perceptive.”

“Witch! She’s a witch!” One of the members of the crowd gathered around the beautiful young woman yelled out.

The others cheered the man and gripped their pitchforks and torches a little tighter. They were ready for blood.

“I can assure you I am no witch.” She said in a calm manner. “I can prove it.”

“Prove that your no witch?” One of the men pondered. “Why that sounds exactly like… WITCHCRAFT!” Followed by another roar from the crowd.

The woman smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand in frustration. “No, listen to me. This has nothing to do with magic. I overheard a conversation going on in the garden between Mayor Charles Smith and the priest Father Abraham. They were talking about ways to cripple our crop so that they could seize more property during the winter!”

“Liar! Only a witch would say such lies!” A man, presumably the mayor himself, spoke up.

“Yeah, yeah! She’s a witch!” The crowd continued fo echo. “We have to burn her!”

The young woman rolled her eyes. She was truly starting to understand an important lesson about people. An individual can be educated, but large groups tend to be the most foolish of all. She decided to feed into their paranoia.

“Lets say I AM a witch.” The woman said. “And I came to the conclusion about your mayor and the priest trying to steal away your land by looking into a crystal ball.”

“She admitted it! She’s a witch!” And the crowd roared on cue once more.

“Listen.” She continued. “Do you really think a few rusty pitchforks and a couple torches are going to be enough to stop me? I could turn you all into ravens with a snap of my fingers.”

She held up her hand in a ‘pre-snap’ position. The entire crowd took one large step backwards hesitantly. They started looking around at one another, sizing up their farming equipment weapons.

“You are going to have to do a lot better than that boys.” And then she snapped her fingers.

“Run! Run for your lives!” Someone shouted and the entire crowd scattered away into the darkness. The young woman shrugged and closed the door, turning back to her husband.

“What was that all about?” The husband asked.

“Oh nothing dear, just a few townsfolk accusing me of being a witch again.”

The husband sat up in his chair. “A witch? Really? Does this mean we must move again?”

“Unfortionatly I think so. They probably wont let it go.” She said. “Where can we move to next?”

“Well I heard theres a nice little town called Salem right down the road. We haven’t tried that town yet.”