Traitor to the Crown The Patriot Witch (11 page)

Beneath that ominous black mass, Emerson was still putting out the flames on Jedediah's clothes, Jedediah was shouting that he was fine, and the Quaker woman stalked down the trail, head lowered, chanting.

And Proctor stood there, motionless, uncertain.

The widow rose free and unencumbered in the back of the cart. She spread her arms, and the sleeves of her dress flared out like wings; tilting her head back, she cawed to the sky, echoing the crows in their dark blot overhead.

Then she stared at Proctor for a third time, and the grin vanished from her face. A cold air settled over Proctor, more than the chill of the shadow from the crows. A thin, gray mist rose from the floor of the forest, as if called by the cold.

Her eyes dulled to the color of coals in the hearth. She spoke softly but clearly. “Come and fetch me, darlings.”

Proctor thought she spoke to him, but at the call of her voice, the crows ceased their circling and swooped out of the sky, crowded together, hundreds of them, talons snatching at the old woman's outstretched sleeves. As if she weighed no more than a threadbare shift, they lifted her from the wagon, new crows constantly dropping through the flock to clutch at her when she slipped from the grasp of others.

Stunned by the sight, Proctor walked onto the trail and stood there in the open, watching her form rise over the trees.

The Quaker woman reacted first. “Who in God's name are you?”

Emerson rose to his feet, his gaze flicking for a second
from Proctor back to the sight of the old woman dipping over the tops of the trees. “Brown? What have you seen?”

Jedediah ignored him. Bareheaded, his bald skin blister-red from the fire, he tumbled across the path, snatching up his musket. He rose and aimed it at his diminishing prisoner. The pan flashed, and fire and smoke jetted from the barrel.

At the crack of the musket, the crows dropped the woman in black. She fell toward the trees and then vanished. The crows suddenly evaporated, like a wisp of smoke in a strong wind.

The air was quiet, empty, and utterly still.

Far away, in a pasture in the hills across a river, a cow lowed. The horse lowered its head and began to nibble at grasses that lined the path.

“Don't stand there,” the old man said, reloading his musket and gesturing for Emerson to follow him. “We have to recapture her.”

He set off running toward the spot where the crows had dropped her. Emerson followed, but at a slower pace. Proctor would have sprinted too, eager to help, desperate to learn more, but the Quaker woman stepped in his way.

“Wait, something's wrong,” she said.

“I don't think any of that was right,” Proctor answered. But then, without looking for it, he saw what she meant: a light breeze, coming across the nearby river, had pulled the smoke from the musket one direction. A cloud of mist, low to the ground and no bigger than a person, drifted against the wind and into the forest.

“There,” Proctor said, pointing at the mist. As he pointed, he became aware of a slight tingle, like ants crawling across bare skin, that made him certain he was right. “There she is!”

Emerson said, “Where?” and the old man stopped, twisting back around to see. Proctor was the closest to the mist, and without regard to danger, he ran toward it.

The Quaker woman intercepted him, shoving him aside. The contact shocked him. “Stay back,” she warned.

“But—”

He sputtered, trying to regain his balance. She came toward him, making him stumble backward, preventing him from resuming his attempt to help. Up close, she was much younger than he expected, perhaps no more than three or four years older than he was. Her face was as plain as her clothes.

“This is your fault,” she said. “I don't know how, and I don't know if you're aiding her—”

“I'm not aiding her, but—”

“—or if you're also a British spy, but if any additional ill comes of this, and I find out it is your fault—”

“But—”

“—I will see to it that you itch in places too uncomfortable to scratch for the rest of your miserable life.”

“But she's escaping!”

The mist had vanished completely now, and she was only a small, frail woman, a black wraith dodging through the rough brown trunks. The old man sprinted after her. Emerson followed, pausing as he reached Proctor and the young woman.

“Deborah?” he said.

“I'm fine,” the Quaker woman replied, more calm now than she had been moments ago. “But she must be stopped until we know what she intended.”

Emerson nodded. “This is Mister Brown, one of the local minutemen …”

Deborah said, “You know him?”

“I do. He's no British spy, but served well at the battle—his wound there came from a British gun.”

“It did,” Proctor said, and then Jedediah called for Emerson. The Reverend ran off after the older man while Deborah placed herself squarely in Proctor's path.

The anger had faded from her face, erasing the line in her brow and at the corners of her mouth, giving her face, with
its strong cheekbones and narrow nose, a more pleasant appearance.

“Are you a witch?” she asked.

The air disappeared from Proctor's throat. After a second, he said, “No, of course not.”

“No, of course not,” she mimicked, and anger wrote new lines across her face in an instant. She reached out to touch the back of his hand with the tips of her fingers. A shiver rippled up his spine, but there seemed to be nothing left in him, like a pitcher that had been poured until it was empty.

She withdrew her hand and turned away. “Stay back, and keep out of the way,” she said as she walked, not even pausing to look at him. “And forget you saw anything you think you saw today.”

“What? But that woman—”

She spun on him, scowling. “But that woman what? She's an old lady, suffering from infirmities, who we are helping on her way to visit relatives.”

“What about—?”

“What about what? Go ahead and tell people that you saw an old woman transformed into a catamount, or a bear, tell them that she was carried away by crows.” She paused, her eyes moving from side to side, as if she were reading his expression like a page. “Tell people what ever you wish. But it was entirely an illusion, just a fanciful daydream, a waking vision. No one but you will ever admit to having seen it.”

He stood there with his mouth agape. This was the second time he had witnessed a stranger's witchcraft. In Boston, Pitcairn, an enemy, had commanded him to spread what he had seen; here, among those he considered allies, he was commanded to stay silent. When he found his tongue, he said, “But you saw it too.”

“Go home,” she said. “Go off to your militia. Or just … just go off to China.”

In the distance, the tiny figure of the widow tripped, allowing Jedediah to close on her, with Emerson near behind. Jedediah called out, “Deborah.”

“If you'll excuse me,” she said. “I have work to do.” She hurried over to the cart. Off in the woods, the two men pinned the arms of the widow.

Proctor sniffed the air and caught the lingering scent of burned hemp and seared flesh. He looked over Deborah's shoulder into the back of the cart and saw a rope with charred ends.

“Not entirely an illusion,” he said.

Deborah withdrew a small bag from her pocket and circled the cart, leaning over the sideboards to sprinkle something around the perimeter of the floorboards. Her lips moved, as though she prayed beneath her breath.

Proctor watched her, puzzled. He pressed his finger against the grainy trail that trickled from her fist and touched it to his tongue. Salt.

She saw him and her face went red with anger. “What do you think you're doing?”

He hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his breeches. “Why are you sprinkling salt?”

“You really don't know?”

“No.”

“Then stay back and don't interfere again,” she said, spreading a fresh line of salt over the spot he'd touched.

The quiet anger suffusing her voice convinced him to step back. He glanced over his shoulder to see what Jedediah or Emerson thought. Jedediah was leading the widow back toward the road, bound at her wrists and this time also gagged. His arm was hooked through her elbow, and her body bent against his hip, so that he was practically carrying her. Emerson walked at her side, silent and thoughtful, making no entreaties to her to repent her sins. Both wore the same grim expression as Deborah.

She circled the cart two more times, spilling her thin trail of salt. When she finished her third circuit, there was so little left that she was forced to brush it from the palm of her
hand. She murmured intently the entire time; Proctor could not tell what she was saying, only that every third word or so seemed to be “light.”

“Art thou ready?” Jedediah called, his voice strained.

“Not yet,” she said, bending over a corner of the cart.

Four large iron nails protruded from the corners of the cart's frame. Proctor hadn't noticed them before. He approached one opposite Deborah and saw that it had been tied with a piece of white ribbon. The knot in the ribbon was burned through as surely as the ropes had been.

“Do you have any ribbon?” Deborah asked over the edge of the cart.

Proctor held a hand to his chest. “Me?”

“No, the more helpful fellow standing next to you.”

He reached in his pocket for the yellow ribbon that Emily had given him; he was thinking that he would keep it rather than give it to this surly young woman when he realized it was no longer there, but had been tattered to threads by the same shot that had ripped apart his father's canteen. “I'm sorry, but I don't,” he said, more puzzled than ever.

“I'm not surprised.” She tugged up the hem of her skirt and ripped it, tearing off thread after thread.

“What are you doing?” Proctor asked.

“You need to step away, much farther away, before they bring her close,” Deborah said. She put a string in her teeth and tore it in two, then began knotting it around the first nail.

“Sure,” Proctor said to mollify her, but he leaned in close for a better look at what she was doing. The knots seemed perfectly ordinary, even a little rushed.

“Deborah?” Jedediah's voice sounded strained. The skin on the side of his face was red and blistered from the burn.

“I'm hurrying as fast as I can,” she said.

Emerson took a few hesitant steps forward, his face pale and his eyes still wide. “Can I help in any way?”

Deborah's glance fell on Proctor. “Your little toy soldier
won't get out of my way. If all your patriots are like him, it's a marvel they did any harm to the British.”

“Mister Brown,” Emerson said firmly, drawing himself up into formal posture. “Be so good as to obey this young woman.”

“Sir,” Proctor answered and looked to Deborah for instructions.

“Over there.” She indicated with a jerk of her head as she hurried to the second corner and began tying another set of knots around the next iron nail.

With his hands still hooked in his waistband, he took a few casual steps away. She continued to pray as she tied the strings. She seemed to be repeating the same phrases she had used when sprinkling the salt.
Hold in the light, by the light, and with the light
. What ever that meant.

“You can bring her now,” she called out as she finished the fourth set of knots, lifted her tattered hem, and hurried away from the cart. Proctor stepped closer to see again.

The old woman, who had been limp in Jedediah's grip, suddenly lifted her head and stared at Proctor. Her eyes were distant, almost milky like cataracts, with the same absence he saw in his father's gaze, as if they were looking at something far away, over the horizon of the spirit. He felt himself picked up and carried with the gaze, like a bird in the wind, thrown over the landscape to his home, and in through the window: his father sat in his chair, staring back, his eyes clear and focused. His mother lifted her head from the table where she worked, and his vision closed on her face, eyes full of fear and worry. Her face became the widow's face, the two blurred together.

His knees buckled. He staggered back and leaned against a tree for support, never taking his eyes off the widow until he felt a sharp pinch on the back of his hand. His blood raced with anger as he jerked his hand away, but relief followed a second later. Deborah stood beside him, her fingers poised where his hand had been a second before.

“That hurt,” he said.

“No, not a witch,” she murmured sarcastically.

The widow started to laugh through her gag. Deborah grabbed Proctor's arm and pulled him along the path ahead of the cart. “Come with me,” she said.

“Why should I?” he said, bracing his legs and stopping.

Deborah yanked Proctor's arm hard enough to pull him off-balance. “Because I don't want you to get us killed.”

“Go with her, Brown,” Emerson snapped.

She put her body between Proctor and the cart, and pushed him down the trail. He allowed her to only because of the fear in Emerson's voice.

Jedediah and Emerson lifted the widow into the tip cart. As she crossed the tailboard, she lashed out with her feet at the line of salt.

“Don't let her break the circle,” Deborah shouted over her shoulder.

“I know,” Jedediah grunted.

The widow kicked and struggled like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum, but both men were strong, and Emerson quite tall as well. As soon as they lifted her clear of the edge, she fell limp, whimpering, into the bottom of the cart, where she lay suddenly still atop the bits of old straw and manure.

A shiver iced through Proctor. “What did I just see?”

“If you're smarter than I take you to be, then you didn't see anything,” Deborah said. She continued to push him down the trail away from the cart.

“What kind of witchcraft is this?” he asked.

“There's no—” Deborah started, and then a grunt from Jedediah interrupted them.

The old man stood in the path beside the cart, hands on his knees, breathing deliberately while his body shook. Emerson leaned over him. Proctor started back down the trail toward them.

Deborah grabbed two handfuls of his jacket. “Stop!”