Traitor to the Crown The Patriot Witch (10 page)

“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.”

“Yes, sir,” Proctor said, but without heart. He was convinced he could forget about witchcraft, sure. All it did was reveal glimpses of a future to him that were no better than guesses. But Emerson was wrong about him and Emily.

“And Brown?”

“Sir?”

“Always be prepared to serve your country—”

Someone knocked at the door, and Proctor glanced over
expecting to see the maid. Instead it was an older man in drab clothes and a black felt hat with a broad brim. He had loose white hair and was stocky, with thick forearms poking out of his rolled-up sleeves. Proctor would've taken him for a Quaker, except he carried an old musket and Quakers were pacifists who refused to bear arms. But maybe it was just for hunting. Proctor could not ever recall seeing him at any meeting or muster around Concord before.

“Jedediah,” Emerson said, sounding relieved. He walked over to the old man, hands clasped behind his back. Jedediah leaned in close, spoke two words, and nodded his head toward the trees outside.

Proctor's heart pounded like a drum beating to arms.

The two words were, he swore, “the witch.”

Jedediah's whole attention was clearly on something outside, so there was no way he could have overheard Proctor's confession. When Emerson turned back to Proctor, it was clear his mind was elsewhere too.

He looked over Proctor thoughtfully before he spoke. “You made a good choice coming by, Mister Brown. Think on the advice I've given you. Now if you'll excuse me, I have important business to attend to. Do you mind showing yourself out and back to the road?”

“No, sir, not at all.”

“I'm very grateful. God bless you and God speed.”

Without waiting for Proctor to finish replying, Emerson hurried after the old man. Proctor stood in the rough-framed doorway of the workshop and watched them walk toward the woods. When he looked for the way back down to the main road, he realized the workshop was placed so it could be approached without ever coming in view of the mansion and its servants.

Which this Jedediah just seemed to have done.

Very odd.

As the two men walked away, the taller Emerson bent down to listen to the old man. They whispered to each other, even though no one was near enough to hear them.

Even odder.

The witch
.

Had Emerson, who had just lectured him on lying, been lying to him? And if the phrase wasn't his imagination,
what did it mean? The musket, and Emerson's enthusiasm for the patriot cause, seemed to indicate some business with the war against the British. Beyond that, Proctor wasn't sure what to think.

Since no one from the house could see him, no one would know if he followed after them. He set off, hanging back on the path and keeping low so they wouldn't notice. He proceeded anxiously, constantly ready to duck behind tree or bush or boulder, but their attention remained fixed on their destination and they never saw him dogging their steps.

Once they were in among the copse of trees that lined the river, he slowly closed the distance between them, if only not to lose them to some sudden turn.

But there were no sudden turns. As the two men proceeded into rougher country outside Concord, Proctor argued with himself that he'd made a mistake. It was his imagination, fixated on Emily's accusation and on the memory of Pitcairn's mysterious charm, which lingered like the taste of copper bit between his teeth. Probably the old man was a farmer who needed Emerson's help with someone dying, or a similar situation. Proctor was glancing back over his own shoulder, checking how far he'd come, when the sound of voices made him stagger to a stop.

He jumped behind the nearest bushes and almost swore when the brambles pricked his hands. He crouched there, sucking blood from his fingertips.

Three people clustered on the path ahead: Jedediah and Emerson joined by a young woman. Like the older man, she was dressed in drab gray and dun browns. Her hair was pulled back under the plainest cap he'd ever seen, excepting Quakers that his aunt had pointed out once in Boston. Not a curl of her hair showed at this distance.

They were too far away for Proctor to make out their whispered words, but the young woman gestured farther down the path. She and Emerson shared a brief conversation, reinforcing Proctor's impression that this was merely
some commonplace domestic tragedy calling for a minister's comforting assistance.

Ashamed of himself for sneaking after them like an ill-intentioned spy, he prepared to turn back toward Concord and start home. His plan was delayed when the two men continued down the rough trail, leaving the young woman where she could not miss seeing him if he returned.

He might have risked it regardless, but she folded her hands together and glanced several times in the direction of his hiding spot. Forgetting the other men for a moment, she approached cautiously, leaving the trail and entering the edge of the woods. Proctor was prepared to stand up and explain himself when she stopped some distance short of his hiding spot and bent down among the spring weeds. She stood up a second later with a purple three-petaled flower in her fingers. Sniffing it caused her to wrinkle her nose, an expression followed instantly by a brief flash of utter delight. A smile lingered as she threaded the stem through a buttonhole in her shawl.

Her reverie was broken by the snort of a horse and the creak of wheels. As soon as her head turned the other way, Proctor retreated into a ditch behind the brambles, knees digging into the mud as he hunkered deeper in the brush. He mounded last year's moldy leaves up around him, to hide his mustard-colored waistcoat.

A small, two-wheeled farm cart, pulled by a shaggy old draft horse, rattled through the woods and down a path never intended for wagons. The horse seemed good-naturedly oblivious to this fact, pulling with calm determination over every root and rock. Jedediah led the horse by the bridle, murmuring encouragement, musket in his free hand. The young woman retreated quickly from the approaching cart, staying well ahead of it. Emerson followed behind.

The cart was ordinary—boards on three sides, and a tailboard down in the back—but its cargo was not. As it came
closer, the head of a woman became visible over top of the boards. Proctor would've guessed her a widow, wrapped in black cloth, with a shawl pulled over her head, obscuring her face. Her hands were folded in her lap, as if she were pained by arthritis.

If this was the witch they had mentioned, then it could have easily been his mother. Some harmless old farm wife with a talent she barely understood, even if she had courage enough to use it. This was what his mother warned him about, the fate of those accused of witchcraft.

His mother. It had been days since he'd seen her. She had to be worried about him, worried that something had happened to him, either in battle or because someone had discovered his secret.

He lifted his eyes to see if the way was clear, but the young woman had nearly reached his hiding place, and he ducked quickly to avoid being spied by her. He needn't have worried. All her attention was focused on the woman in the wagon. Her lips moved in silent prayer as she led the way down the trail.

The cart was close enough that Proctor could hear Emerson's voice bringing up the rear. “… there is no point in persisting in your wickedness any longer. You have been caught. Reveal your purpose in the attack on the farm, and earnestly repent of it, I implore you.”

The widow sat silent and unmoving, head bowed, face hidden behind her shawl. And her hands weren't folded in her lap—they were bound with ropes, the hemp knots clearly visible now because they contrasted with the black cloth of her sleeves.

“Thou art wasting thy breath,” the old man murmured, just like a Quaker. “She hasn't spoke a word since we caught her.”

“We must do the right thing whether she chooses to or not,” Emerson replied. “And that includes giving her the opportunity to admit her sins and make amends.”

The cart bumped past Proctor's hiding place, and as it did, the widow showed her first signs of life. She lifted her head, sniffing, then tossed her head back, knocking the shawl from her face. Her age was difficult to determine; gray circles under her eyes and a wrinkled throat made her appear old, though her face was smooth and her hair dark like a younger woman's.

An electric tingle shot over the surface of Proctor's skin, and he swayed with vertigo. He thrust out his arm for balance to keep from tipping over.

The cart was directly beside him now, no more than fifteen feet away. From her perch, the widow turned her face to peer over the bushes directly at Proctor. He saw that his impression of her was wrong. It was just as he'd first suspected: the woman on the cart could have been his mother, with gray streaks through her hair and a face careworn before its time.

Only her eyes were different—they flashed, like lanterns in the night, as old as the beacons on the hills that warned sailors off difficult shores. Over the eerily distant tone of Emerson's ministerial voice, she spoke.

“It's in the blood.”

The words shaped a smile on her lips, not of joy but of relief. Emerson stopped in his tracks, staring at her as the wagon rolled away from him; the Quaker woman shouted something and hurried back, halting twenty-five or thirty feet short of the wagon; the old man at the bridle turned his head, patting the horse on the flank as he pulled it to rest, and said, “What did she say?”

The widow looked at Jedediah, the fire in her eyes sharp like lightning, bright as the medallion on Pitcairn's chest, and said something under her breath. The words tumbled out, like water over rocks, falling from streams to rapids, and rising into a roar without individual parts.

Proctor started forward, ready to help, though not knowing how, and then the widow glanced at him a second
time, still pouring forth the torrent of words in some language he had never heard before.

In an instant, her head flattened and grew a snout and whiskers; the black cloth of her dress and shawl rippled and became a furry pelt; and the roar of words deepened into the snarl of a panther, black and sleek and angry.

Proctor's jaw dropped open and his hand groped blindly for a weapon, a stick, anything, as it would if he had stumbled on a real panther unawares. But to that was added a second layer of panic—if this was true witchcraft, then what else could she do?

On the road, Emerson staggered back, eyes wide in fear, his voice imploring God for aid. Jedediah reached out to grab the panther by its bound wrists, or ankles, what ever they were. But the creature writhed and twisted atop the wagon, snarling and snapping at the rope, keeping its paws away from the old man's hands.

The horse glanced over its shoulder, took a step forward nervously, nostrils flaring. But when Proctor expected it to bolt in blind panic, it stopped again. The Quaker woman rushed forward, shouting, “What have you done? Tell me, what have you done?”

“Nothing,” Jedediah said, then shouted at the panther, commanding it to stop.

Emerson, his jaw set grim, came forward cautiously. “What manner of sorcery is this? What do we do?”

The Quaker woman shook her head. “Do nothing! I'm going to retreat, in case she's drawing on my fire. It's an illusion—don't believe what you see.”

The panther roared in an attempt to drown out her words. With a shudder through its shoulders, the panther grew in size and bulk, changing shape again into a black bear. Its lips rolled back from pink gums and huge teeth, froth flying from its open mouth as it snapped at Emerson and slashed at the old man with its long, curved claws, still bound together. Both men jumped back.

Proctor's heart clenched, the way it had when he'd gone into battle against the British. His pulse throbbed beneath the bandage on his neck.

“We must do something,” Emerson insisted.

“Help me grab her,” Jedediah said. “We'll wrap her in the blanket and lay her in the cart.”

As he tried to hold the bear's bound paws, it struggled harder. Emerson was hanging back, and he couldn't control the woman or beast or what ever it was alone. Proctor advanced another step, half out of the bushes and up the side of the ditch, ready to lend a hand. Neither man saw him, their attention fixed on the cart. But the bear, or panther, or witch, what ever she was, stared straight at him.

The bear's bare-toothed snarl turned into a laugh.

An invisible fire poured out of Proctor, flowing opposite the direction that it had when he'd grasped Pitcairn's protective charm.

As the fire flowed out, real, visible flames burst out on the bear's bound wrists, leaping from the ropes. The old man muttered under his breath and tried to throw a blanket over the flames. Emerson leapt the other way.

It was wise that he did—Jedediah's coat burst into flames around his shoulders, fire licking at his ears while he spun in a circle, madly trying to pat it out. He knocked his hat off as the flames singed his cheeks. Emerson rushed to help him, shoving him to the ground away from the wagon, and rolling him to put out the fire.

The Quaker woman shouted, “You must hold her.” But still she held back.

Proctor didn't understand what was happening, but he knew he was the only one who could help, so he ran to the edge of the road, ready to grab the witch, no matter her shape.

As he approached the cart, though, the bear shrank back into an old woman, who shook off her singed bonds, which fell, smoking, with a thump, onto the wagon.

At the same instant trees all around them erupted with the sound of crows cawing, a din so loud Proctor covered his ears. A black mass rose up from the woods like smoke from the British fires in Concord only a few days before; a murder of crows spiraled into one big cloud of birds, screeching and crying as it circled the sky.