Traitor to the Crown The Patriot Witch (26 page)

“That makes sense,” Proctor said.

“Well, that's just it,” Deborah said. “It doesn't make sense. Cecily sought us out almost a year ago, telling us that her magic was blocked, trying to get Mother to teach her to release it.”

“All right,” he said.

“It's not all right.” She reached out and rested her hand on Alexandra's arm. “Most women who have come here over the years are like Alexandra here, who need to learn to control their talents—I'm sorry, dear, but it's true.”

“No, I see that now,” Alexandra said.

“Or they're like Magdalena over there. Magdalena was sent to my grandmother when she was a young girl, about Alexandra's age. She's come back a few times, usually to try to learn something new. There's never been anyone come here like Cecily before. My mother was so flattered.”

“But why did she come? To spy on Elizabeth?”

“Maybe, yes.”

“But that doesn't make any sense,” he said. He started rearranging cutlery on the table, thinking of tactics he learned in the militia. “If you already have Cecily here, why do you need to send the widow, or those Indians? Or was Cecily the mastermind?”

Alexandra sneered. “She's no mastermind.”

“I think she reported to the widow, whoever she is,” Deborah said. “That night the widow came, she only wanted to meet with Cecily.”

“Lydia was the one who sounded the alarm,” Alexandra said.

“Yes. She was trying to warn us even then.” She slammed her hand on the table, startling Magdalena. “How could I have been so stupid?”

“Run forward,” Proctor said. “The rest is obvious. Cecily was meeting with her superior. Lydia tried to warn us. Your mother surprised them, and the widow defended herself. But there was never any plan to kill you until that moment.”

“Maybe,” Deborah said.

“No, think about it—if Nance, or whoever is behind this, wanted you dead, or wanted Elizabeth dead, then Cecily could've killed you at any time. She could've poisoned your mother while she treated her burns.”

“She's too much of a coward,” Alexandra said. “Face-to-face with anyone, she tries to please them.”

“And there's no way anyone could slip an herb or poison past my mother,” Deborah said. “No one in the colonies knows—knew—as much as she did.”

“But that brings us back to—what did they want?” Proctor asked.

“I think I know the answer to that,” Deborah said. “My father was a strong supporter of the patriot cause, and I have lent my talents to the Reverend Emerson and Mister Revere and other patriots. If Nance is British—”

“I just bet Cecily's a secret Tory,” Alexandra interjected.

“And those three Indians,” Proctor said, “they were rangers or scouts who served with the British regulars during the French wars or I'm a monkey.”

“Right. So if they're supporters of the royal governor, and are using magic in their cause, then they would suspect us of doing the same. The widow came to see Cecily just days after the battles at Concord and Lexington. Something must have happened there to frighten them.”

The three of them fell silent. Deborah and Alexandra appeared to be thoughtful, examining all they knew about Cecily and the widow for a clue to the event.

Proctor cleared his throat. “I know what happened.”

He expected it to be hard to confess, that they would blame him for what had happened to them. In a rush of words, spilled too quickly for them to interrupt him, he told them about his chance encounter with Pitcairn in Boston, about the protective medallion, and about the way he broke the spell during the battle at Lexington. When he was done, he felt like a burden had been lifted from his shoulders, whether they blamed him or not.

“Now I know why you weren't afraid,” Alexandra said. “When those men attacked us, or when … when the other thing happened. I was so scared.”

“Believe me, I was plenty scared too,” Proctor said. “I just did what I had to do, is all.”

Deborah had dropped her head and was shaking it sadly. “So that's why,” she said.

“That's why what?”

“That's why you were so eager to follow the widow and
speak to her. You weren't trying to help her. You had just encountered magic—real sorcery—for the very first time, and you needed someone to help you understand it. And no one else was available.”

“That's about the size of it. I had no idea anything like The Farm existed. I never knew that witches met with one another and shared their knowledge. All I knew was the fear and shame my mother taught me.”

“I grew up around this, and it's so easy to forget that it's not that way for everyone.”

“Vater, please, some vater.”

Magdalena stirred on her cot. Alexandra rose to give her water while Deborah fetched her a cup of broth and induced her to sip it to regain her strength. Proctor stood behind them, feeling his body tense; the poor old woman's face was battered so black and blue she could barely speak or swallow liquid. Deborah sat at her side, saying a spell for healing, until Magdalena finally drifted back to sleep. The three of them returned to their seats at the table.

“She looks like she's improving,” Proctor said.

“If she is, it's because of her power, not mine,” Deborah said. “That's one mighty woman.”

“What exactly did she find that upset her so much she ran outside?”

Alexandra wrapped her arms across her chest and turned away. Deborah licked her lips. “Cecily killed two of the farm cats, probably for a focus to animate the corpses. She left their bodies in front of the hearth, on an altar made out of a table—”

“That one I saw outside?”

She nodded. “She wrote curses against all of us with their blood, calling for our deaths. The longest curse was written against my mother. We were just lucky the corpse didn't come to kill you first.”

“I created a protection spell that night,” Proctor said, and he explained how he had surrounded the barn with
ashes, and how the corpse had stopped when it reached the line. Deborah stopped him several times to ask him specifics about the spell, and nodded at his explanations.

“The thing I don't understand is, why didn't any of your mother's protection spells work?”

“That's easy,” Deborah said. “Cecily insinuated herself into all of Elizabeth's routines. She revealed the enchantment that hides The Farm from casual travelers, and she must have gone around undoing the protective spells.”

“Now that you mention it, I saw her trying to ruin the spell where we called the spirits of those dead men.”

“What?” Deborah asked.

“Your mother wanted each man's items separate. When Cecily thought no one was looking, she mixed them together. I thought she was just nervous—you know how she's always touching stuff—so I moved them all back.”

“It was deliberate,” Deborah said.

Alexandra leaned forward eagerly. “She must have been terrified that they were going to reveal her.”

“Yes,” Deborah said. “She didn't undo Proctor's spell before she left, because she didn't know about it. We should all have been taking steps like that to protect ourselves.”

He grabbed her hand and held it. “That's enough with the second-guessing. It's no good.”

After a moment, she nodded.

“What do we do now?” Alexandra asked. Her face and posture were those of a girl again, helpless, wanting someone else to solve her problems. Proctor tried not to be surprised: she was on the cusp of adulthood, one moment a child, the next a woman.

“I have written letters to the Reverend Emerson and others asking them for information about this Mister Nance,” Deborah said. “But there wasn't time to post them, and now it seems rather pointless to proceed in that direction.”

“Why do you say that?” Proctor said. “It seems like this Nance is still the hinge that swings all the doors.”

“He is, but I don't think we'd receive a reply quickly enough. The time for waiting has passed.”

“I could always go and see Emerson directly,” Proctor said. And that would let him check on his parents as well. “I'd be back in a couple of days.”

“No,” Alexandra blurted at the same moment that Deborah said, “I think not.”

“Why not?” Proctor asked.

“You need to stay here to protect Alexandra and Magdalena,” Deborah said. “It was only your quick action—and your spell—that saved all our lives two nights ago.”

It wasn't quite all their lives, but Proctor didn't want to draw her attention to that. “How can we take action and stay here at the same time?”

“We aren't all staying here,” she said. “I'm going to Boston—to find Cecily, or the widow, or Nance.”

“And what exactly do you think you'll do when you find them? Invite them to hold hands and pray with you, the way Elizabeth did, talking to those spirits?”

“That's uncalled for,” she snapped.

“No, he has a point,” Alexandra said. Deborah glared at her. The girl fidgeted uncomfortably and wouldn't meet Deborah's eyes, but she continued to speak. “Don't think I care for the idea none, but he has a point. We can't sit here and wait for them to make another attempt to kill us, especially when we don't even know why they're trying. But you can't go haring after them alone. They'll tear you to pieces.”

The criticism made Deborah bristle, so much that when Alexandra reached across the table to squeeze her hand, Deborah pulled hers away.

“I'm not trying to run you down, believe me,” Alexandra said. “Because I know how powerful you are. But this is a fight, and this fellow here is the only one of us who has experience fighting.”

Proctor swallowed hard. Sure, he did his duty, but he
didn't think of himself as a fighter. It's not who he had ever wanted to be.

“He doesn't have enough experience using magic,” Deborah said firmly.

“It was enough to protect us two nights ago,” Proctor snapped.

“That's why you both need to go,” Alexandra said. “You know the magic. You were born to it, and your mother, she taught you everything she knew.”

“I wish that were true,” Deborah said. She leaned back in her seat, resigned.

“And him”—Alexandra pointed to Proctor—“he's shown he has a trick or two in a fight. I figure he'll need all of them if you run into this Nance or whoever he is.”

Proctor rubbed his head, trying to think clearly. There didn't seem to be anyone else to turn to, or any better solution. “So you'll stay here and take care of Magdalena?”

“Hell, no,” Alexandra said, and when the two of them stared at her, she added, “Excuse my language, and let me explain before you say anything. The way I figure it, we've got a little window here.”

“What kind of window?” Deborah asked.

The word drew Proctor's attention to the window outside, where the summer light was already fading amid the buzz of insects and the occasional call of a bird.

“For all this Nance knows, we're all dead right now,” Alexandra said. “Miss Cecily, she's not the type to stick around to see what kind of mess she made.”

“She's probably halfway back to Charlestown and her fine house already,” Deborah said ruefully.

“Right. So it may be a few more days before they send anyone up here to find out different. We can use those days to our advantage. The two of you to go after him, whoever he is, and me, well, I plan to make Magdalena comfortable in that horse wagon and head toward home.”

“She's too sick to travel,” Deborah said.

“She's too weak to stay here if someone else comes after her again. I can go slow, keep her comfortable on the road. I can hitch a wagon and take care of myself just fine.”

Deborah leaned forward to argue, but Proctor spoke first. “If you go by way of Emerson's first, he'll set you back on the Quaker Highway. You can go from crossroads to crossroads until you get back home.”

“I'm not sure,” Deborah said.

“You'll find healers along the way, who can help Magdalena recover faster,” Proctor added. To Deborah, he said, “It's a good plan. She's right about taking advantage of the days while they think we're dead.”

After a long hesitation, she finally nodded her consent.

Proctor stood. “You two better get some sleep, so we can leave first thing in the morning. I'll go set a protection spell and take first watch.”

The walk to Boston took two days down the coastal road through Lynn. They stopped twice, the second time to spend the night with a family whom Proctor suspected was part of the Quaker Highway. The first time had been to sell the milk cow.

“We can't leave the cow behind,” Deborah had said. “The chickens can fend for themselves, but it'd be cruel to leave her unmilked.”

The reduced price they sold her for seemed crueler still to Proctor. But when they resumed their journey on the second morning, they used the coins to cross the penny ferry at Charlestown.

“You can tell we're close to Boston,” Deborah said when they disembarked on the Charlestown side of the river. “I see soldiers everywhere.”

“They're not soldiers,” Proctor corrected her. “They're militia, just ordinary men trying to do their duty.” He was short-tempered from lack of sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he had nightmares about corpses attacking him.

“What ever you call them, all I see are men with guns,” Deborah said disapprovingly.

Proctor carried Jedediah's musket. He would have snapped at her, but he knew that the loss of both her parents had taken a toll on her. When he thought about all she had gone through, about the horrors she had seen, he was amazed that she stayed as pleasant as she did. She was strong-willed, that was for sure, but in the good way that
carried a person through a bad harvest followed by a difficult winter. There was genuine kindness in her as well. If she ended up a spinster, it would likely be because she couldn't meet many young men in the isolated life of The Farm. He'd have to think about it, see if he didn't know a good fellow for her.

“If we can get past the men with guns and into Boston, we can rest at my aunt's lodgings,” he said. That was their plan: get into Boston, find his aunt, then start hunting for the person who'd done all the terrible things to Deborah's family.

“If you really need to rest that much, you should have let me spell you to sleep last night,” Deborah said.