Chapter 4

The public condemnation was swift and brutal. The local news painted me as a scorned woman, a "witch" who had cast a spell on a good man. Nicole' s parents, their faces etched with grief, went on television and called for my arrest.

"She did this," Nicole' s mother wept, clutching a framed photo of her daughter. "That woman, Maria Fuller. She came to the wedding to destroy it, and she did. She took our little girl. Why isn' t she in jail?"

I saw the broadcast on the small television in my apartment. I watched their pain, their raw, unfiltered anger. I felt a deep, hollow ache for them, for their daughter. Nicole was innocent. She was just another casualty of the Hugheses' suffocating love.

Reporters camped outside my apartment building. They shouted questions every time I left for my job at the historical society.

"Maria, did you tell him to do it?"

"Were you in love with Caleb Hughes?"

"Do you feel any remorse for what happened to Nicole Lawrence?"

I never answered. I kept my head down, my face a blank mask, and walked through the gauntlet of cameras and microphones. My silence fueled their stories. They called me cold, enigmatic, heartless. I let them. Defending myself was pointless. The truth was something they would never understand.

My boss at the historical society, a kind, elderly man named Mr. Abernathy, called me into his office.

"Maria, the board is under a lot of pressure," he said, avoiding my eyes. "People are canceling their memberships. They don' t feel comfortable... with the situation."

"You' re firing me," I stated. It wasn' t a question.

"A leave of absence," he corrected gently. "Until this all blows over."

We both knew it would never blow over. I packed the few personal items from my desk into a small box and left. I was completely isolated, the villain in a story everyone thought they knew. But their condemnation didn' t touch me. It was just noise. My focus was singular, a patient, quiet waiting. The first act was over. The second was yet to come.