The Patriot Witch Read online

  She looked puzzled. Major Pitcairn said, “We were trading opinions. We both learned a few things.”

  “As long as all the gentlemen are satisfied and none of the other customers are disturbed,” she said, and then she tossed a plate of bones and garbage over the side of a small fence, where a pig roused itself from muddy slumber and starting rooting through it.

  The door closed behind her. Pitcairn studied Proctor judiciously. “It's essential for you colonials to realize that you can't hurt us.”

  “I had no desire to hurt you,” Proctor snapped. He would have added before, but he was still shaky.

  “You're full of spirit, but that spirit ought to be aimed against the French and Spaniards and other godless papists, not against your fellow Englishmen.”

  “My father fought against the French in the last war,” Proctor said. “We're not afraid of a fight.”

  “Don't be so eager for one either,” Pitcairn replied. “You are fools to think that you're better off without the empire. Spread that word among your fellows.”

  The big marine shoved Proctor aside, and the four of them peeled away to exit through the gate. Proctor turned away to go inside when a hand gripped his arm. It was William, the young officer, and he held his other hand open in a gesture of peace.

  “The knife was just tinfoil,” he whispered.

  Proctor snorted in disbelief. “Tinfoil?”

  “Yes, that's all,” he said. “A joke, no harm done.”

  Proctor shrugged his arm free from William's grip. “No, no harm done.”

  “We're all one people, Englishmen, no matter which side of the ocean saw our birth. There's no need for us to start fights with one another.”

  For people who didn't want a fight, they did an awful lot of provocation. “I don't recall starting anything,” Proctor said. “Now, if you'll excuse me.”

  His blood was still racing as he returned to the coffee-house, squeezing up against the wall to let another man pass on his way to the privy. He threaded his way through the crowd and returned to the table where Emily sat alone.

  “Where were you so long?” she asked. “And what's the matter? You look upset.”

  He slid into his seat. “I'm fine.”

  She reached under the table, her fingers finding his hand. He was looking over his shoulder at the back door when he felt her give his hand a little squeeze. “I think Daddy likes you,” she said.

  “Of course he likes me.”

  He had answered more than half distracted, still trying to understand what he had just witnessed. He realized he'd made a mistake the instant Emily's hand yanked free of his. She pushed her chair back and sat up straight.

  “It's nice to see that you're not too full of yourself,” she said. “Humility is such a rare trait in young men.”

  “I'm sorry, Emily, it's just … just …”

  “Just what, Mister Brown? Spit it out.”

  “It's just that it wasn't a tinfoil knife.” There. He'd spit it out.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The knife that British marine had, it wasn't tinfoil.” It had nothing to do with the knife, Proctor realized. Major Pitcairn had been wearing a protective charm about his throat. That's what Proctor had seen. It shone actively anytime the major was threatened, even by so little as a bump in the street. “It was magic.”

  “Magic?” Emily's face was puzzled, as though she were trying to figure out if he was joking.

  Proctor opened his mouth, but no explanation formed on his lips. He'd said too much.

  “Hannah said she saw you talking to Major Pitcairn,” Rucke interrupted, returning to the table with a plate of roasted chicken, which he thumped down on the table. “Dig in. She thought there might have been a problem, but I see that you're fine.”

  “I bumped into the major again,” Proctor said. “We talked about London and steel.”

  “Good.” Rucke squeezed his large body into his seat. “That's a smart lad. Always make use of all your connections. If you can sell beef to the beefeaters, you're well on your way to making your fortune.” He cleared his throat. “Emily tells me you serve in the colonial militia.”

  “Not just the militia, Daddy, but the minutemen,” Emily said. Though her voice was cooler than it had been before.

  “I don't understand the difference,” Rucke said.

  “The minutemen are required to do additional training,” Proctor explained. “We have to be able to scout trails, run longer distances, reload and fire faster. And we have to be ready to fight at a moment's alarm.”

  “It sounds like the sort of foolishness that takes time away from honest work,” Rucke said. “And it's the kind of thing that the rabble-rousers in this colony—Otis, Adams, Hancock, their sort—are using to raise up the folks against the royal governor. I'm concerned that you would be part of that, Brown.”

  Though she sat perfectly primly, Emily pressed her toe against Proctor's foot to let him know this was an important question to her father.

  Proctor pulled a drumstick off the chicken, tearing off a piece of the meat. “My father served in the militia, during the last war with the French and their Indian allies. They didn't have the minutemen then, but he was a ranger, which is similar. If I'm going to do anything, I want to do it to the best of my abilities, just like he did. And he'd be disappointed in me if I didn't do my duty to the colony as he had done. So that's one reason.”

  “And the other?” Rucke asked, following Proctor's example and tearing off the other drumstick.

  Proctor put the meat in his mouth and chewed it a moment to give himself time to think. He swallowed, saying, “All the men in my community belong to the militia. Not just in Lincoln, but in Concord and Lexington, and all the towns around. So it's a great means to reinforce connections. That's how I came to find out that old man Leary was interested in selling his farm.”

  Rucke chewed on his own food before he finally nodded, if not in approval then at least in understanding. Emily relaxed, taking her foot off Proctor's.

  “When you get ready to move your cattle toward Boston market,” Rucke said, “you might want to begin by contacting a man named Elihu Danvers. Danvers has a house near the mouth of the river, across from Cambridge. Though he's no great sailor anymore, he moves goods around the bay—”

  As he continued with his advice, Proctor grinned at Emily around his mouthful of chicken. Of course her father liked him.

  She smiled back, but with tighter lips; beneath that smile lingered worry over his unexplained comment about magic.

  Eventually, Proctor would have to figure out a way to explain the magic. He wouldn't be able to keep it secret from her, not if they were going to be together. He reached under the table, wiped his fingers on his breeches, and then stretched his arm to try to touch her hand. A huge ripping sound stopped Rucke in the middle of his description of the harbor shipping lanes.

  “What was that?” he said.

  Proctor looked over his shoulder at the torn seam in his linen jacket and sighed. “That is what happens when you grow more than you expected.”

  Chapter 2

  Proctor dreamed he heard a gunshot and it woke him, or else a gunshot stirred him from his dreams.

  Either way, he lay half awake in bed. The full moon was past its apex, shining down through the gap in his curtains, so it was a few hours before the break of dawn. He thought of Emily and the next chance he might have to see her. As he tugged up the wool blankets and rolled over to go back to sleep, a horse galloped down the Concord Road. The hoofbeats grew closer, and a voice shouted across the spring fields.

  “The regulars are coming! The regulars are coming!”

  The Redcoats were marching.

  Sleep sloughed off him. When Proctor had returned from Boston a few days ago, his militia captain had passed the word to be ready. The Redcoats were planning on taking the supplies from the armory in Concord. Proctor jumped from bed and dressed in an instant, tugging suspenders over his shoul
ders as the door creaked open below. He ducked his head when he came to the narrow steps and ran downstairs. Outside, the chickens cackled in their coop.

  A candle flickered in the kitchen. His father sat shut-eyed in the corner, propped in a high-backed chair, wrapped in blankets. Light snagged on the pale scar across his forehead from when he'd been scalped and left for dead during the French and Indian wars.

  There'd be no chance of anything like that to night. The regular army and the colonial militia, they were all Englishmen at root. A show of force would remind the royal governor of that, just as it had in February at Salem.

  Proctor retrieved his father's old doglock musket and tin canteen from the cupboard. Powder horn and hunting bag went over his left shoulder, hatchet in his belt, hat in hand. He reached for the door, but it swung open in his face.

  His mother barged in with a lantern in her hand. She unloaded two eggs from her dress pocket into a bowl on the table. “Where're you off to in such a hurry?” she asked.

  “To muster—the Redcoats are marching on the armory.”

  “Not without a scrying first you aren't.”

  “Mother, there isn't time.”

  “I've been awake all night with worry, because I knew something was coming. Now that I know what it is, I'll not risk you dying from the guns of the Redcoats without a glimpse of the future first.” She blew on her hands and rubbed them together for warmth.

  Prudence Brown was ten years younger than her husband, but years of labor had aged her like a tree on a cliff. She was deeply rooted and could withstand any storm, even if she was too weather-worn to bear much fruit. Nothing could dissuade her once she had a notion to do something.

  Truth was, Proctor wanted to see what was coming too. He propped his musket against the door and put down his hat. “Let's be quick about it.”

  She fetched another bowl, a pitcher of water, and moved the candle to the center of the table. Proctor held the chair for her. Wooden legs scuffed across the floor as he pulled his own seat catty-corner to hers.

  She nudged the broad shallow bowl to the middle of the table and poured water in it. Drops splashed cold and sharp onto the back of Proctor's hand.

  One by one, she retrieved five small candle stubs from her pocket and handed them to Proctor, who arranged them in a circle around the bowl. She frowned, made minor adjustments in their position, then lit them with the candle. A honeyed scent spread across the table.

  Proctor tapped his shoe impatiently, then forced his foot to still. The other minutemen would be marching without him, and scrying didn't always require any candles or rituals.

  His own talent had appeared by accident, no rituals required. He'd been carrying in the eggs and dropped one—it'd practically leapt out of his hands, an egg near to hatching that left the tiny chick inside sprawled dead, wet in the dirt. Without knowing why he said it, Proctor announced that his friend Samuel was dead. The next day they heard that Samuel had been shot by Redcoats during a riot in Boston. That's when Prudence Brown finally told her son about the family talent for witchcraft, passed down generation to generation from their roots in Salem. His mother's maiden name was Proctor; one of her ancestors, John Proctor, had been hung as a witch during the trials.

  He'd have to tell Emily about the magic too. He was determined to do it sooner rather than later, in case someday their children, if they should be blessed that way, showed the talent.

  Prudence Brown turned the two brown eggs over in her hands, squinting at the specks.

  “I'm surprised you could find any eggs this time of night,” he said.

  “The hens lay more at the full moon.” She pursed her lips, selecting one, and had it poised to crack on the edge of the bowl.

  Over in the corner, Proctor's father moaned and rocked so hard his chair banged against the wall. Proctor winced—his father hadn't been the same since his apoplexy.

  His mother switched eggs. She tapped the second one on the edge of the bowl, letting the white drain from the cracked shell into the water.

  Her free hand sought Proctor's, gave it a squeeze. “Holy Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name,” she prayed.

  Proctor leaned forward to study the picture formed by the egg white.

  “If I have found grace in Thy sight, then show me a sign that Thou speakest with me. Be Thou a light in the darkness of days, showing us the way forward, that we might know the path Thou wishest us to take.”

  A shudder ran through her arm. The eggshell crunched in her palm, and the yolk splashed out into the middle of the bowl.

  They both flinched. Proctor didn't know if it meant anything or was just an accidental spasm. She didn't say.

  The yolk floated in the center like the sun reflected in a pond. Candlelight slicked off its thick bulge as egg white filmed over the surface, forming ghosts in the water. A streak of red blood trailed off the yolk into the white.

  Hairs went up on Proctor's neck. He could feel a vision gathering, like bees to a hive, in the back of his head, but he wasn't ready for it yet.

  His mother flicked the eggshell pieces onto the table and wiped her hand on her apron. She licked her right forefinger and traced the name of the angel Gabriel across the circle of water. Gabriel, the messenger, revealer of the future.

  The yolk swirled around, off-center, as reflections from the candles danced with one another. A sharp intake of breath and his mother pulled her hand back to the edge of the bowl.

  She swallowed, then tugged Proctor's finger up to the bowl. “Take a moment to sweep your mind clean,” she said.

  He nodded acquiescence, but the broom in his head chased futilely after the stray thoughts. The other minutemen would already be on their way, and he didn't want to look like a Johnny-come-lately. Then a tightness formed in his chest, the way it always did when the sight was coming on.

  “Heavenly Father,” he said. “If it pleases Thee, give me a sign, so that I may better know Thy will.”

  His eyes drifted shut.

  He saw a militiaman, an officer, on the green in the pale before dawn. A horse stamped through the grass—its flanks, the rider's boots, blocking his view of the militiaman's face. This vision was clearer, more vivid than any Proctor had ever scryed. He saw the mounted Redcoat officer's face flush with anger. A golden coin of fire burned at the Redcoat's throat.

  Pitcairn.

  Pitcairn leaned over and aimed a pistol at the militiaman's back. He was going to shoot—

  A sudden bang made Proctor's eyes blink open, but it was only his father's chair cracking into the wall. The old man moaned as if he'd been wounded.

  Proctor breathed deeply and fell back into the vision. At first everything was white, like fog, only dry and sharp—the smoke from musket fire. The bitter taste of black powder ran across his lips. A single line of red bled through the white haze. Then more lines of red, slashing across the back of his lids until they resolved into shapes of men, marching—no, running—away. The backs of the Redcoats. A sense of their fear, of his own elation, flushed through him.

  His eyes opened.

  “And what did you see?” his mother asked quietly.

  Pulling his hands away from the bowl, he said, “I saw the Redcoats, Mother. Marching back to Boston, in a fine hurry.”

  “Is that all?”

  He nodded firmly.

  Her mouth tightened and she jabbed a finger into the yolk, breaking it. She whipped the egg into the water, mixing it all together.

  “I heard gunfire,” she said. “And I think I saw men shot and dying.”

  “That last part is your fear talking. I didn't see anything like that, only the Redcoats marching off.”

  “It would gratify me deeply if you were not to muster,” she said. “Let other mothers with children to spare send theirs, and not ask me to risk my only child.”

  Proctor couldn't blame her, not with his father all but gone. But he had to do his duty. “I'm on the roster, Mother, so I have to muster. Don't worry, we just need t
o show the governor our resolve to stand up for our rights. It won't come to shooting.”

  Maybe a single round of warning fire, just for show, like in his vision, and the Redcoats would march back to Boston. If only he knew what the golden coin at the Redcoat officer's throat meant. If only he could be sure it was Pitcairn.

  He rose to go. His mother leaned over and blew out the five candles in one breath. “Be cautious,” she said. “The future is a blank road to me like it has never been before.”

  “I won't do anything to put myself in harm's way,” he said, picking up his hat and musket. “Besides, you know what Miss Emily would do to me if I got myself hurt.”

  His mother smiled, just as he'd hoped. She was almost as fond of Emily Rucke as Proctor was. The two of them were a bit young to be getting married yet, at only twenty and nineteen. But in truth, he expected to rightfully take over the farm soon if his father's health continued to fade, and he and Emily could live there with his mother.

  “You best hurry on then,” his mother said. She wrapped an end of bread and a slice of cheese in cloth, and tucked it in his pocket. “You wouldn't want them to muster without you.”

  “No, ma'am,” he answered. He paused at the door and looked back to see his mother fussing with the blankets around his father's shoulders. He tipped his hat to her and ran out into the night.

  The wind gusted, the air chillier than he expected. He stopped at the well to fill his canteen. When he was done, he pulled Emily's yellow ribbon from his pocket and tied it to the canteen buckle. Smoothing the silk through his fingers made him eager to see her again.

  He crossed the pasture toward the road, his path broken by boulders. Lights flickered like stars in distant windows, forming a constellation of his neighbors. Shadows moved through the moonlight on the road ahead.

  “Hold up,” he shouted.

  Someone called back, and the shadows paused. Proctor ran across the pasture, his horn, bag, and canteen banging against his sides. He climbed the stone wall that lined the road. The moon was bright enough to illuminate the faces of the men. There was old Robert Munroe, carrying the same heavy Queen's Arm musket that he carried during the last war when he fought beside Proctor's father. Square-jawed Everett Simes and his nephew Arthur were also there. Arthur had turned fifteen back in January, but he was small enough to pass for twelve. Although he was too young to be enrolled on the official militia rosters, he showed up to every muster.