Traitor to the Crown The Patriot Witch (25 page)

“This way,” Deborah said, carrying a pitcher of water to the basin in the other room. She sat him on a chair and washed his face and hair. It felt glorious, and he meant to thank her, but then she called to Alexandra for a fresh pitcher of water. When the girl brought it, Deborah pulled off his undershirt, pressing her finger to his lips to silence his protest. It was the same gesture Emily had made, when he was lying injured in her house. He shuddered. That felt so far away, as if it had happened to a different person and he had only heard about it. How would he ever explain this, what had happened to night, to Emily? He couldn't. He would have to hold it secret, and never let her know.

While these thoughts raced through his head, Deborah scrubbed his neck and shoulders and arms, lingering over his hands, laving his palms, cleaning under each nail. Another pitcher and clean washcloths were brought for his legs and feet. When she cleaned between his toes, rubbing his soles, he began to cry. He sat there, sobbing, with his face in his hands, feeling so ashamed but unable to stop.

She pushed him into the bed. He looked around and realized that it was her room. An old rocking horse sat in the corner, with tassels of real hair for its mane and tail. A rag doll sat in a tiny chair.

“I can't—” he protested.

She pressed his lips shut again. “We won't feel safe unless you're in the house.”

He nodded that he understood.

She started to leave the room.

“Deborah?”

She paused in the doorway. “Yes?”

“If I knew this is what it took to get me a bed around here, then—” She smiled at him, but it was so sad and forced, he couldn't finish the joke. “Then I'd be happy to still be sleeping in the barn.”

The corners of her mouth twitched toward a genuine smile.

“I'm sorry about your mother,” he said.

“It was God's will,” she said, but the words stuck in her mouth as if she didn't really believe them. “You get some sleep now.”

“All right. But leave the door open.”

“Don't worry, we'll keep watch.” She propped the door open with an iron and went to help Alexandra.

He couldn't shut his eyes without seeing the image of the corpse rush at him, so he lay there awake for a long time, watching Deborah and Alexandra tend quietly to Magdalena. The smell of mint and clove from their lotions soothed him.

When he did fall asleep, he had nightmares of the corpses coming for him over and over again, no matter how many times he hacked apart their limbs. But he was too exhausted to wake up and escape.

On the morning of Elizabeth's funeral, the sky was a high pale blue, unbroken by even a hint of clouds.

Proctor sat at the table with his head in his hands. Deborah put a plate of hot oats and molasses in front of him. “Are you sure you're up for this?”

“The sooner the better,” he said. Alexandra brought in the pail of milk from the cow and set it down. He ladled warm milk over the oats. Between bites, he said, “Where do you want me to dig?”

“Next to my father,” Deborah answered.

Proctor thought about the two empty holes nearby, where the assassins had been raised. He glanced across the table at Alexandra, her face drawn and tired. She had been tending constantly to Magdalena, who lay on the bed against the wall. He saw the same discomfort in Alexandra's expression that he felt in his heart.

“I don't mean to argue,” he said. “But that ground, it don't seem fit for good folk anymore.”

“It's where she'd want to be,” Deborah said. “Next to my father.”

“We could move him,” Alexandra offered softly.

Proctor took another bite to cover up his frown, figuring that he'd be the one doing any moving. And he didn't think he could dig up a grave again without adding to his nightmares.

“We'll reconsecrate the ground when we bury her,” Deborah said. Pushing her plate of uneaten food aside, she rose
and went to stand on the porch, leaving Proctor and Alexandra alone.

Spoons clinked against crockery. After a few moments, Alexandra said, “Do you know how to consecrate anything?”

Proctor didn't look up from his plate. “Do I much resemble a minister to you?”

“Not much, no,” she admitted. “But then I wouldn't have taken you for a sorcerer either, and you defeated a powerful magic the other night.”

“That wasn't sorcery,” he said, rising, plate in hand. Some of the leftover milk splashed on the table, and he smeared it up with his other palm. “That was butchery.”

He wiped his plate clean with a rag and stepped outside to look for Deborah, but she was nowhere to be seen. He walked by the charred pile of the bonfire and picked up the shovel where he'd dropped it the other night. Deborah wasn't in the barn either, but he grabbed the pick and spade, and headed toward the orchard.

The ax rested on the ground by the second grave, wet mud already eating at its smooth finish. He shuddered at the memory of using it, then cursed himself for being lazy. He'd have to sand the blade down later to keep it from rusting, but the task at hand was refilling both graves. He jabbed the shovel into the ground and started. Sometimes simple work was an act of consecration.

He was done sooner than he expected. That left one new hole to dig. He chose a spot on the hillside near Jedediah's grave under the shade of an apple tree. He kicked the spade in the ground. The work had its own logic, demanding a level of attention that kept his thoughts from spinning too far or too fast. By the time he finished, muddy and sweaty, the sun burned down on him with the promise of summer. As he climbed out of the hole, Alexandra and Deborah arrived, carrying Elizabeth's body wrapped in its shroud.

Proctor tried to brush the mud from his hands, so he
could help them without dirtying the white sheet. But Deborah marched right past him, and on the count of three, they swung the body over the grave. Deborah tried to lower it, but the sheet slipped from Alexandra's hand and the body thumped into the mud.

“Friends,” Deborah said, and she met each of their eyes as if the word were more than just a figure of speech, “we are gathered here to remember Elizabeth Walcott.”

Proctor looked at Alexandra; she gave him only a grim shake of her head that told him not to argue with Deborah this morning.

“Elizabeth Walcott was a friend to all who knew her,” Deborah said. “And those who knew her stretched from one end of the colonies to the other—”

“I'm sorry,” Proctor interrupted. “But—”

“Yes?” Her mouth was a thin, tight line.

“I'd like to clean up,” he said. When she stared at him as if he needed to offer further explanation, he added, “Out of respect to your mother and all that she did for folks.”

“My mother had great respect for the honest work that men and women do with their hands,” Deborah said. “And there is no more honest labor than the work you just did for her. I am sure she would be satisfied with you in your present condition, even pleased.”

Alexandra lifted her eyebrows, as if to say to Proctor,
I told you so
.

It didn't feel right to Proctor, so he had to try one last time. “It won't take me long to wash up, just my face and hands.”

Deborah's mouth grew even tighter, if that were possible. “We face a terrible enemy. They may be satisfied with the damage already done, and, indeed, they may think us all dead, not expecting that anyone should escape the terrible creatures they loosed upon us, but I don't think we should rely on that.”

“You think we should do something about this enemy immediately?” Proctor said.

“I do, and I also believe it is what my mother would want. She would not be content to let such an evil magic go unopposed. I would like to finish here and start that work.”

She was right. Proctor released his reluctance and nodded.

Deborah held out her hands. Alexandra took hold of one, and Proctor gripped the other in his own muddy fist. The sun pressed down on them while birds jumped from branch to branch in the nearby trees, calling out to one another. After a moment of silence, Deborah lifted her head.

“I'll miss her,” she said, choked. Looking at her father's grave, she said, “I'll miss them both.”

“I didn't get the chance to know either one of them as well as I'd've liked, but they were good to me,” Alexandra said. “Your mother taught me more about my talent, and about helping people, than I ever dreamed of knowing.”

Deborah responded to that with a firm nod.

“I liked your mother too,” Proctor said. “She didn't make me work as hard as your father did, and she fed me better.”

Deborah hiccupped a laugh in spite of herself. When the tears flowed after that, they were happier tears than they might have been. She squeezed his hand hard. She must have done the same to Alexandra, who also smiled.

“May the light of God always shine on this ground as bright as the sun shines today,” Deborah said. Letting go of their hands, she picked up the shovel. She tossed the first shovelful in. The dirt pattered across the shroud.

“Here, let me finish that,” Proctor said, taking the shovel from her hand. The two women stood there quietly, holding hands, while he filled the grave. When he finished, he looked at Deborah. “So is that all then?”

“No,” she said, letting go of Alexandra's hand. “Now it's time to wash up and get to work. Meet me back at the house.”

Alexandra met Proctor's gaze with another
See, I told you so
, then followed Deborah.

“Well, that's good,” Proctor said aloud to himself, looking up at the afternoon sun. “Because I haven't done enough work to satisfy myself yet today.”

He gathered up the tools and carried them back to the barn, taking time to clean them thoroughly before putting them away. When the tools were clean, he washed himself.

Inside, bowls of vegetables and berries were spread on the table. Alexandra slouched sleepily in a chair, picking at a plate of greens. Deborah moved like a hummingbird in a flower garden, flitting from one corner of the room to the other and back again, cleaning, scrubbing, and putting away.

Proctor spooned himself a bowl of strawberries and poured the rest of the warm milk on it. Alexandra looked up from her plate, so he nodded toward Deborah and said, “I'm tired just watching her.”

Deborah heard his voice and finally noticed him. “Oh, good, you're here.” She put down her rag and wash bucket and came to join them.

“You're allowed to slow down,” he said. “It's all right if you need to grieve.”

She made a plate of greens and then methodically cut them into smaller and smaller pieces. “There will be time enough for grief later,” she said.

“If I could get my hands on Miss Cecily Hoity-toity, I'd give her grief enough for all of us,” Alexandra said.

“I should never have been fooled by her,” Deborah said.

Alexandra nodded. “I knew there was something wrong with her from the very beginning.”

“How?” Proctor asked. He would have liked to have said he felt the same way, but he hadn't noticed anything evil about her, not beyond her use of the slave woman.

“She always held her light under a bushel,” Deborah said. “Never letting her real power shine through, no matter how often my mother tried to help her unblock it. But it was all an act.”

“I noticed just the opposite,” Alexandra said. “I felt her draw on my power the very first day I was here.”

“Really?” Deborah asked.

“Yeah, it made me feel weak and sickly. I got so I avoided her as much as I could.”

“I thought that was because of her sharp tongue,” Deborah said.

Alexandra shrugged. “Well, yeah, that too.”

“If you felt that way, why didn't you say anything about it?”

“I was too scared to say anything.”

“You? Scared?” Deborah asked.

“Yes.” Alexandra leaned forward on the table. “I didn't know how things were supposed to work here. One week, I'm accused of witchcraft, the minister saying I cursed the wife of another man and made her die, with people working themselves up for my own blood. The next week I'm here, must be a thousand miles from the only home I ever knew. And every woman here is a witch fit to turn my blood to ice if I make so much as a misstep.”

Deborah reached across the table and took her hand. “I should have thought of that. I forget how intimidating my mother can be.” After a pause, she amended herself, “Could be.”

Alexandra lightly squeezed her fingers. Proctor smiled, because he was sure it wasn't Elizabeth who was most intimidating to Alexandra. “I think you're both walking backward when you ought to be running forward,” he said.

The women let go of each other's hands. Deborah picked up her knife and fork again. “What do you mean?”

“The last couple of things I heard you say were
could have, should have
s. It's like my father told me when I miscut a piece of wood, there's no going back to do it over. You have to set the bad piece aside and do it better.”

“My daddy always told me, measure twice, cut once, so I wouldn't have that problem,” Alexandra said.

The corner of Deborah's mouth twitched up. Given the past few days, it made Proctor glad to see any kind of cheerfulness.

“Well, your daddy's a smart man,” he said. “It seems like it's time to take a second measure of Miss Cecily, and then decide how we're going to cut her down to size. For one thing, I'd like to know what the real connection between her and Lydia was. Lydia tried to warn me twice, once that Miss Cecily couldn't be trusted, and once that we were all in danger. But I didn't know enough to hear what she was saying.”

Alexandra nodded. “She took me aside a couple of times and told me to think about going home to my folks. I didn't listen to her because she didn't have any real authority here.”

“I've been thinking about this a lot,” Deborah said. “I think Cecily was using Lydia as a kind of familiar, channeling much of the magic through her in order to stay undetected. We all could feel powerful magic in Lydia, but we thought it was her experience as a slave holding her back. Now I think it was Cecily, using her as a channel.”

“Poor Lydia,” Alexandra said.

“Normally, when witches form a circle, even a circle of two, the magic is open to flowing both directions. When the widow drew on you, Proctor, you could've drawn back, if you were powerful enough. I never dreamed that Lydia would let Cecily draw on her without drawing back, but maybe she couldn't.”