“Anna! Olga!” the shoemaker called. “Come here at once!”
The young girls entered the shop from the residence behind. They were dressed modestly, in gray linen frocks, and they folded their hands before them, bending their gaze humbly toward the floor.
“Yes, father?” they said together.
“The Lord Mayor swears he saw one of you cavorting in the nearby wood in a state of nature.”
“’Twas not I,” said Anna.
“’Twas not I,” said Olga.
“It must have been Olga,” said Anna.
“It must have been Anna,” said Olga.
“There you have it,” the shoemaker said.
“So you will do nothing?” the Lord Mayor fumed.
“What would you have me do?”
And the Lord Mayor departed in a huff, the medallion of his office swinging impotently about his neck.
“I shall overlook this one transgression,” the shoemaker told the girls. “But please, promise me you’ll bring no more shame on our little house.”
“I promise,” said Anna.
“I promise,” said Olga.
One of them fibbed, for in the days that followed, word spread of more sightings of a naked girl — here by the brook, there in the meadow — who touched herself in shameful ways while blaspheming mightily, declaring to her Lord and Savior that apparently she was about to arrive somewhere.
Superstitious women believed she was a spirit, perhaps the ghost of the shoemaker’s wife, come to lure the young into sin. The men knew better. They organized a patrol, scouring the countryside with nets and ropes, determined to string her up and prove she was flesh and blood.
Post some of Gwen c content
Yes
Nice story. A little bit hard to read for me as non-native english speaker, but I enjoyed it.
Were they underage ?