The Burial

Six feet below where I stand, my mother sobs and claws wildly at the walls of
her coffin. Presently, she should be trying to remove an iron rod from within her
chest, her screams of anguish silenced by a bundle of blackthorn branches carefully inserted into her throat. She is, presumably, attempting to escape her little juniper-wood box, punching frantically, knuckles bleeding.

I douse her grave in holy water. I use the rest to wash the blood from my
hands.

The townspeople are right to believe that I am a murderer.

But I only did what I had to.