We misunderstood. We thought the terror would be something obvious: captured, fire, burning, flood. Because, as the stories tell us, it’s easy to save a princess who’s clearly in distress. Just a handsome man and true love’s kiss and happily ever after. 

But how do you rescue a woman from a low level impending sense of doom that’s more like morning sickness than full on all out vomiting? The latter is easier to clean. 

Gradually, the king took away privileges, imposed more rules. 

A woman couldn’t walk outside alone without a man. It was for her safety, he said. The girls felt uneasy, but they demurred. After all, it was for their own good. And it came down from the king. 

They couldn’t know how bad his mind was twisted. And for a reason as simple and as old as time. His wife looked at the farmer in the market with desire. He would show her what’s what. He would keep her from going to the market alone. 

But she got around his restrictive measures. She had a knight or a courtier accompany her. He grew hot with rage. 

So then he added more restrictions to make up for the fact that he was feeling his power less and less. She had to be covered from head to toe. She was spotted out in see-through silk. Enraged, he added the edict about hats. She obliged by taking an acorn from the forest and putting it on her head. 

It wasn’t her he had to worry about.

No, it was the rest of us, who took to wearing full on black. And, as for hats, we chose pointy. 

Regarding the man, how did we get around that when we met up in the forest with our sisters? We said we were with The Devil. That sent them running. At least at first. Was it true? It depends on who and when you asked. 

So we’ve heard what they’re saying now about how they’ll burn us? Oh please. To live like that makes us half dead already. But when we’re dressed in black garbed up like mistresses of hell, dancing around the fire without any men, that’s when we’re finally really alive. So, if they want to burn us, they can burn us. But it won’t be our souls that they’re losing if they do.