Traitor to the Crown The Patriot Witch Page 7

  Emily was there, placing her fingers across his lips, her curls tied back under a plain cap. “You must be quiet, Proctor.” Her voice was hushed and trembling. “We don't want anyone to know we're here.”

  He tried to explain everything to her, wanted to assure her that everything would be fine, that she had nothing to worry about, but then Bess was there, squeezing his nose shut and making him swallow a huge dose of medicinal rum. It burned his throat, and he coughed some of it up, and then it burned his neck. But Bess mopped it up, and then made him swallow more. After a while, he fell asleep.

  He woke again when it was dark. Emily and Bess were arguing nearby.

  “We must leave in the morning, Miss Emily. We don't dare wait another day.”

  “But Proctor's not well enough to leave alone yet.”

  “He'll live, which is more than is likely for me, if any harm comes to you and Mister Rucke lays hold of me after.”

  “We could send word to his mother at the least.”

  “And let that murdering rabble know we're here? No, ma'am, not a chance. When that wagon comes around, we're going to get on it, and we'll be on our way out of Lexington before dawn comes and anyone realizes we're still here.”

  They were afraid because of her father's ties to the governor. He pushed himself up on his elbow. “I'll be fine,” he rasped. The words sounded like a file scraped over rough wood, so he wasn't sure they understood him.

  “He's awake,” Emily whispered. “Light a candle.”

  “I don't think we ought to be doing that, Miss Emily. And you can see for yourself, he's well enough to leave alone.”

  Emily came to his side, a shade in the darkness. She smelled like soap. He reached out toward her shadow, but she pulled away and his hand fell back to his side. “I'll be fine,” he said.

  “It was madness out there, Proctor.”

  “I saw some of it,” he mumbled. The words filled his mouth like rocks. “You'll be safe in Boston with your father.”

  “They meant to kill all of them,” she said, her voice choked with shock and fear. “If Lord Percy hadn't marched out from Boston with the rest of the regular army, every one of them would have been killed.”

  “The Redcoats started it,” Proctor said, and then caught his tongue. He'd started it too. If he hadn't shot at Pitcairn, would they have avoided the carnage that followed?

  Bess whispered from across the room, and Emily rose to go speak to her. His throat hurt, inside and out. He reached up and felt a bandage under his fingertips. When she came back, she sniffled before she spoke, as if she had failed in holding back her tears.

  “I begged you not to go, I begged you, and you marched out with that mob anyway,” she said.

  She had begged him. But he had to go. It was his duty. And if he hadn't acted, Pitcairn would have shot Captain Parker, and that wasn't right.

  “Emily—”

  “I don't know how I could ever rely on you if you don't listen when I beg you, for both our sakes, to do the right thing and avoid those rebels.”

  “I thought it would end peacefully—”

  “Because you have magic?”

  “I have magic.” He'd meant to say it as a question, but the last word fell out of his mouth as flat as the truth. What exactly had he said to her? He remembered his driving need to explain things to her, but he couldn't recall his exact words.

  “A witch. I don't want to believe the things you told me,” she said. “You said that you performed some kind of satanic spell to see the future, something with an egg and a bowl, only what you saw isn't what happened. How could you mess with sorcery and expect anything different, Proctor? I don't understand why you're so surprised that the king of lies misled you.”

  “It's my talent,” he said feebly.

  “You used that word, talent. You raved about us, and our children, and how they'll be poisoned by this magic talent.” Her voice was thick with disgust. “Our children? You're lucky I sent Bess away, or she might have thought we'd done things I'd never do. I … I don't know what to think.”

  Wheels creaked on the road outside the house, and a door opened, letting in the cool April breeze.

  “It's time, Miss Emily,” came Bess's voice.

  “Emily, please let me explain,” Proctor said, trying to rise.

  “No,” she said. “You have no right to ask anything of me, not now. Bess says you'll be safe here. There's food and water by your bed. When you feel better, you can go out to your mob and ask them for help. Just don't tell them you believe in the rightful king or they'll turn against you.”

  “Miss Emily, it's time.”

  “I'm coming.”

  “Emily, please,” Proctor begged.

  “Good-bye to you, Mister Brown,” she said, rising. With her voice choked, she added, “This isn't what I expected from you, not after our understanding in Boston.”

  Then her shadow slipped into the other shadows and the door clicked shut and a moment later the wheels creaked. When the sound of the cart faded, the room was perfectly dark and still again, and Proctor was alone.

  Proctor had never been alone in a house before, not that he could recall. His mother was there, or, in the past few years, his father. When they left to go to church, or to go visiting, he went with them.

  Lying there alone in Emily's house, he felt like an intruder, like a stranger to himself. Emily left him. She was afraid of him and the men whom he'd risked his life with. She was afraid of who he was, afraid of the talent he was born with, a talent he barely understood himself.

  He was still awake when dawn lit the room well enough for him to see it. All the food in the house had been left on the floor at the head of the couch where he rested. A pitcher of water sat next to a pot of cold tea and a jug of small beer. Covered plates of salted meat and cold beans were surrounded by loaves of bread and bowls of butter and jam. At the foot of the couch, they'd left every chamber pot in the house. His shoes and stockings rested at the foot of a sheet-covered chair. His jacket had been scrubbed and patched, and was hung over the back of the chair to dry. All his gear—musket, hunting bag, the shattered canteen with the shredded yellow ribbon—were set in a jumbled pile nearby. All of it was placed so it couldn't be seen from the windows. Emily had been very afraid.

  And now she was gone. He thought he might as well dress and head home, but sitting up made him dizzy and weak, and he knew that it wouldn't be possible. He sipped some of the tea and lay back down to stop his head from pounding. Then, turning his back to the food, he closed his eyes.

  What good did it do him to become the richest farmer in Lincoln if Emily hated him? He had shared with her the one deep secret that he had, and she had looked at him with disgust then locked the door behind her. His whole plan to raise cattle and sell the beef in Boston seemed stupid to him now.

  He must have fallen asleep because pounding on the door woke him. People called for the Tory's daughter to come outside, saying she wasn't welcome. Feet thumped across the porch, and the shutters rattled as people peered in the window just as he had done.

  “They're gone,” a voice said. “Covered everything up and left. Good riddance to 'em.”

  These were Proctor's friends, the men he'd fought beside. If he spoke up and showed them his wounds, they'd make him welcome and help him get home. But he felt that, for Emily's sake, he couldn't speak.

  When they left, he took advantage of the things that Emily had left him. He craved meat, so he filled up on the salt pork first, then chased it down with the small beer. For the next few days, he slept and ate and thought about how he could fix what he had done and then ate and slept some more. Every time he heard a noise outside, he looked up and expected Emily to come back through the door again, saying it had all been a mistake.

  The door never opened.

  Emily didn't return, wasn't going to return.

  He finally admitted that he was only delaying. His mother would be looking for him, and there would be work enough waiting for h
im. So he shaved and dressed and gathered up his gear and, late in the morning, left Emily's house. He slammed the door shut behind him.

  A few other farms along the Concord Road were shut up as Emily's had been, and there were fewer men in the fields than he expected on an April morning. An old farmer at his well saw Proctor passing and pointed in the other direction.

  “You're heading the wrong way,” he shouted through cupped hands. “The siege is in Boston.”

  Proctor crossed over to the stone wall along the road. “What's the news?”

  The farmer looked at Proctor's bandages and the stains on his clothes, and limped over to his side of the wall.

  “The Redcoats are smarting from the bloody nose we gave them,” he said. “Now they're blocked up in Boston, waiting for reinforcements, but it won't do 'em no good. All of New En gland is sending men to the siege. Israel Putnam himself rode in from Connecticut two days ago.”

  “Putnam's here already?” His father liked to talk about Israel Putnam. They'd both been born in Salem and had served in the rangers.

  “Aye, Putnam's here. He knocked the French about in the last war, showed Pontiac the business at Detroit, and helped take Havanna from the Spaniards. He'll see to it that we pick up all those Lobsters and toss them back in the ocean where they came from, you can count on it.” He turned his head to spit tobacco, then squinted at Proctor. “You look like you seen some fighting already.”

  “A few days back,” Proctor said.

  “You one of the fellows Doctor Warren patched up? They said he came out to Lexington and saved lives after Lord Percy showed up with the cannon.”

  “No, sir, I wasn't hurt that bad,” he said, and he held himself straight to prove it. “But I've got to get home. My folks'll be worried after me and I need to let them know I'm fine.”

  “Well, turn back around when you're done. We're not finished here yet.”

  “No, sir, I don't reckon we are,” Proctor said. He tipped his hat and walked away, counting the days on his fingers. He thought it was Monday. He'd slept right through the Sabbath, so he bowed his head and said a quick prayer for forgiveness.

  As he approached the turn-off to his own home, he had too many things going through his head. Was Emily right? Had he been fooled by Satan? If that were the case, did that make Pitcairn and his magic Satan's work? Because if it did, someone had to stop him.

  Or was it even magic? In the light of day, after all he'd seen in the fight against the British, magic seemed like such a fragile, ineffective thing. Maybe Pitcairn was simply brave and lucky. Maybe it had been a tinfoil knife at the coffeehouse in Boston. Maybe if he told Emily he'd been dreaming, that everything he said was a dream. He'd never bring up magic again, never have anything to do with witchcraft.

  He walked past the turn-off, continuing on in to Concord. He could ask the Reverend Emerson what to do. He wouldn't mention the witchcraft, but Emerson would know how to patch things up with him and Emily.

  In Concord, signs of the battle were all around. The liberty pole stood over the town, the burned cannon carriages sat outside the meeting house, and at the bottom of the road, the North Bridge was stained and scarred, with bright new wood replacing the planks that had been ripped up in such a hurry by the British.

  The Reverend Emerson's mansion rose on the slope beside the bridge. It stood three stories tall, with a handsome brick chimney and a shingled roof. His farm spread out across acres and acres of prime land. Proctor suppressed a pang of envy. His land wasn't watered by a river and would never be as rich, but he might someday build a house as impressive as this one.

  Now that he had arrived, he felt tired and weak, unsure what exactly he meant to ask the Reverend. But he had no one else to turn to. Since he'd come this far, he thought he best see it through.

  He knocked at the front door and asked for the Reverend. The maid took him to a workshop in the orchard back of the main house. Emerson was seated on a stool, sorting pieces of wood trim, the sort of make-work a man did when he was waiting for someone or feeding a powerful need to think. When she knocked on the door, Emerson looked up and said, “Jedediah?”

  His voice was both hopeful and worried.

  “No, sir,” she answered with a curtsy. “It's Proctor Brown.”

  Emerson rose and came forward. “Ah, Brown. That will be all, Sarah, thank you. The son of Lemuel and Prudence. We spoke on the hill, before the battle at the bridge.”

  “That's right, sir.”

  “How's your father? Come in, come in.”

  Proctor ducked his head to step through the doorway. “Not well, sir. He had the apoplexy. Mostly we just try to keep him comfortable.”

  “That must be very hard on your mother,” Emerson said. He was a hard man with sharp, intelligent features, the kind who looked more at home with tools than books. “And on you, as well. But it's all part of the good Lord's plan; we must hold on to that. What brings you here?”

  “It's Miss Emily.” He felt light-headed again. “May I sit down please?”

  Emerson fetched him the stool. Lowering his voice, he said, “Is Miss Emily in a family way?”

  Proctor's tongue froze in his mouth.

  “There's no shame in it. Or not much—these things happen. But we'll have to announce the engagement first,” he said, counting off weeks on his fingers. “That means the soonest we could have the wedding would be—”

  “No,” Proctor gulped, finding his voice. “I mean, no, sir. It's not—it's not that.”

  Emerson seemed puzzled. “Then what is it?”

  “Miss Emily has run off to Boston with her father, behind the British lines. I said some things. I think … I think I drove her away.”

  “Ah.” Emerson nodded once and closed his eyes. “That would be Emily Rucke, the daughter of Thomas Rucke, infamous Tory and friend of the royal governor.”

  “It was the witchcraft,” he mumbled in explanation, meaning to say that it was all a mistake, a dream.

  But Emerson was already talking past him, glancing at the door and making hurry-along gestures with his hand. “Of course, you didn't mean to drive her away, nor should you trouble yourself with those thoughts again. The war itself is enough to drive people apart, even those with deep and time-honored bonds as friends and allies. Are you quite sure of her intentions? Without intending any offense, Mister Brown, I must say, it seems an unlikely match. Excuse me, did you say witchcraft?”

  Proctor's mouth opened again, but he couldn't speak.

  “If Emily Rucke is a witch, it could be even more difficult—”

  “Oh, no, sir, not her, me.”

  Emerson stopped, covered his mouth with his hand, and studied Proctor. He stepped to the door, checked outside, looking through the orchard, not toward the house. When he turned back to Proctor, you could almost see the thoughts whirling in his head, like blossoms whipped off a tree in a spring storm.

  “Your mother was Prudence Proctor, from Salem, if I recall correctly.”

  “That's where my father was born too.”

  “And are you one? A witch, that is.”

  Proctor tried to answer, but he was scared of lying to the Reverend.

  “It would be a very dangerous thing to be a witch,” Emerson said grimly. “Do you have the witch's mark on you?”

  Proctor tried to move back, nearly toppling the stool. He caught it and said, “What's that?”

  “A witch's mark is an unnatural teat, a place for the suckling of your demon familiar.” Emerson's face was quite grim. He pressed close, nose-to-nose, so that Proctor could smell the cider on his breath. “You do have a demon familiar, do you not?”

  “No,” Proctor said, his voice quavering. “No, sir, I do not.”

  Emerson clasped his hands behind his back, just like Captain Smith did when he was drilling them for the minutemen. He began to pace around Proctor as if he were inspecting for some flaw. Proctor caught himself standing at attention, shoulders squared, eyes straight ahead.

 
“Of course,” Emerson said, slowly, menacingly, “if you did have a witch's mark, or a demon familiar, you'd be compelled to lie about them.”

  “I … I wouldn't lie, sir.”

  “Is that a lie, Mister Brown?”

  “No, sir!”

  Emerson stopped in his circuit, right behind Proctor. “You see,” he said quietly. “That is the danger with hunting for witches. Once someone is accused, no denial will suffice, and every statement in the positive or the negative is further proof of guilt.”

  Proctor started to blurt out that he wasn't a witch, then clamped his mouth shut, afraid to be caught in the lie. What if Emerson knew about his mother? Some of the neighbors did. Old man Leary came to her to have his sick cattle healed once, and another time to help find a lamb that had wandered off. His gratitude was part of the reason he was going to sell his fields to Proctor someday, though he couldn't tell Emily or her father that.

  Emerson's feet shuffled as he slowly stepped around to the front again. Proctor was sweating, almost as if he had a fever. He was ready to forswear foresight forever, even if it meant never touching another egg as long as he lived. Emerson leaned in close to him.

  “Once men start dabbling in witchcraft, the innocent are caught along with the guilty. My advice to you, Mister Brown, is to forget everything you ever heard about witches and turn your thoughts toward the Good Book and God's will.”

  “I will,” he said, nodding.

  Emerson sighed and rubbed his chin again, looking away from Proctor. “I know your heart is set on Miss Rucke, but a line divides her from you now that is stronger than any siege line. This war is God's war, and He intends us to emerge victorious. By putting himself on the side of the empire, Thomas Rucke has put himself against God, and dragged his daughter with him.”

  “She's not like that,” he said.

  “Perhaps not,” he admitted. “But sometimes we are all caught up in forces that are larger than ourselves. Concord is filled with godly young women, and you're still yet very young. My advice to you is this: Go, help your mother care for her farm, and spend what ever time remains in this world with your father. God may have different plans for you. You should be prepared to see them when they're revealed.”