Gulflae Pointe

I'm not entirely sure where this goes, because it's short, but it has two parts, so I'm dropping it here.
This was developed in the last two and a half hours from a paragraph I wrote in grade nine, after reading Celia Rees's Witch Child. this is NOT a fanfiction.
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Josiah Peake had been working in London for some time as the only pastor of a small church in Cheapside, in which, he reflected, no one had been overly pious. The poor-box was often empty, for his parishioners were not charitable, and frequently stole its contents for their own use. There had been an air of depravity about the place, and in an attempt to improve his situation; he had gone to a priest friend of his in one of the better districts. This friend had been extremely helpful. Josiah reflected upon his words a bit.

“My boy, there is no hope for those already damned by themselves. They don’t have the necessary respect for the church, and thus for God’s Will. I suggest you rid yourself of them, and seek out those in real need. We could use a man like yourself in the field, you know. London isn’t the only place one might save souls.” He had sounded so utterly certain that Josiah felt compelled to heed his words, but all knew that those in the field, who went after the demons that terrorized the innocent, were, well, somewhat not right in the head. They chose such a violent way of life. Josiah simply couldn’t himself as one of them.

“Er, um, the field, you say? I think I would be much more comfortable helping those of great moral danger, here in the city.” At this, his friend had struck the table with such force as to resemble a gavel, condemning his pusillanimity with one strike.

“And do you think there are none in great moral danger in the field, from outside sources not within themselves? Who fear for their immortal souls, who are preyed upon and tempted by the most foul insidious minions of the devil’s work? Think not of your own comfort, but of the innocent souls you could save from peril, think of the glory in doing God’s will, boy!”

After that, Josiah really felt he had prospects but to enter into the dangerous countryside, and assist townsfolk in ridding themselves of evil. It had, he supposed, a certain morbid charm in that he could do good for the God-fearing of this land.

  

Six Months Later

Scaling the stairs of the manor tower, Josiah wondered what he would find at the top. Holding the massive, complicated key in his hand, he supposed it must certainly be monstrous. A witch queen, perhaps like Hecate herself, hideous and old, of course, with bulbous warts and a familiar from the depths of hellfire. She would have to be so bestial, for there had been three others she had commanded. By the reckoning of the townsfolk of Gulflae Pointe, they were not so paramount as she, and were being burned in the square. He had already performed their last rites, and had been well prepared for their looks of intense hatred.

The stair fit this theory well. Being an ancient piece of architecture, primeval and dank, with rats bustling across his feet in some mad mimicry of a busy market street, very nearly making him trip. She must have magicked the plague-carriers to delay his arrival, he decided. Witches could do such things, making the crops go badly for those who displeased them.

Of a sudden, he grew fearful. If such a creature could do those things, surely she would have no troubles with him. He assured himself that she would not dare to assault a man of God, and that the villagers had been able to lock her away. In his mind’s eye, the powerful horror at the top of the stairs dwindled into an elderly being, ghastly and without any teeth, her foul assistant shrinking from the sign of the cross.

As he unlocked the door of the witch’s prison cell, Josiah fancied that he was fully prepared for any beast that flew at him from within. But no such beast emerged. His nerves thrown, he entered cautiously, and nearly gasped. This was no dungeon. It was a lady’s chamber, with a four-posted bed and elegant oak walls. There was a whitewashed vanity in the corner, with a selection of hair brushes and other things appropriate for an aristocrat. There was an overturned embroidery hoop, the needle trailing on the floor, seemingly abandoned in a hurry. And there was a window seat, decorated with fine white lace.

When Josiah’s eyes fell on this last, he was horrified. There was no crone, foul and offensive, as he had been led to believe.The great danger the townsfolk had locked away was a young woman, barely seventeen by the length of her dress. She did not seem to notice him, and stared as if blind out the glass, where a plume of smoke could be seen rising from town square. Her eyes were red from tears, and there were scratches on the panes of the window, as if they had been attacked with delicate nails.
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This is the original paragraph:

A girl-child. Barely into her fifteenth year, by my guess. This is the danger? a child?
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I'm starting to think my handwriting is ginormous, because this definitely looked like a paragraph on paper.
Soooo.......I changed the POV, and pulled a lot of dialogue from the original piece (most of which I haven't developed yet). Hope you all like it.