Traitor to the Crown The Patriot Witch (33 page)

Deborah's ropes came off first, pulled loose enough to slip over her small hands. With shaking fingers, she undid Proctor's bonds. As soon as they came off, he helped her to her feet and they ran to the door.

His hand chilled to ice when he touched the latch to open it. He couldn't budge it, and the longer he tried, the more numb his hand became. But he couldn't stop trying either. His thoughts grew very fuzzy—he needed to open the door, but he couldn't remember why. He kept shaking the latch.

“What's wrong?” she whispered.

“I'm not sure,” he said.

“Let me try,” she said, pushing him aside. As soon as contact was broken, his head seemed clear again. She touched the latch then pulled back her hand as if scalded.

“It's spelled,” she said.

She shuffled over to the cabin's one small window. She touched the sill more tentatively than she had the latch, but the reaction was the same, and she jerked her hand away.

“What kind of spell is it?” he asked.

“Binding spells,” she said. “More than one, and more complex than any I've ever attempted or heard described. There's something insidious about them.”

“Once I tried to open the latch, I couldn't stop trying,” he said.

“I felt that too, like a pin drawn to a magnet—I think it would have held you in that same spot until Nance returned to release you.”

They searched the room carefully, every crack and corner, every board on the floor, every beam of the ceiling. Any attempt to find a way out would freeze or paralyze the person attempting it. Hours passed, with sunlight rising in the sky. The view out their window was of the orchard, where only birds came and went. Through a crack in the wall, they saw a boy driving Hancock's flock of a hundred turkeys out of the barn for the day. When they tried to call to him, their tongues froze to their mouths, like Proctor's hand had frozen to the latch.

Deborah grew panicked. She pried mud out of the wall and pounded it to dust, trying to use it as a focus. She spread it in a circle around the door latch. When she started to speak an opening spell, something knocked her down and left her groggy.

When she came to, he forbid her from trying to cast a spell again, and got a glare for his concern. He cast the next spell, with the same result. More attempts left them exhausted and hopeless, and they lay down on the floor, apart from each other, and tried to sleep.

By nightfall, hunger, thirst, and hopelessness were the only sensations left to them as they sat, propped against the walls, in the corners opposite the door.

“Maybe Nance means to leave us here until we die,” Proctor said.

“It's cruel,” Deborah said. “I was cleaning out the barn one spring and found an old butter churn with two dead
mice in it. They had climbed inside and then couldn't climb back out. We're nothing but mice to Nance. Maybe he's already forgotten us.”

“No, he'll come,” Proctor said. His throat was dry, and speaking made his lips crack. “Otherwise, he could have just cut our throats. When he comes, how can we defeat him? The severing spell you mentioned?”

“If he can cast binding spells like this, if he can cast the sickness spell on the militia, I—” She shook her head, then covered her eyes and crawled away from Proctor.

They sat silent for a while. The scab on her lip, where her nose had been bleeding, was dark and cracked. Finally, Proctor said, “Deborah, if …”

“If what?”

He didn't want to bring himself to say
if we die
. He didn't want to die yet. But he felt like there were things he had to explain to her, just in case, especially about Emily. He didn't know how to say them.

“Your mother,” she said.

“What?”

“Is she always like that?”

He had to think about it for a moment. The conversation with her seemed to have happened weeks or months before. “She was a bit distraught.”

Deborah choked back a laugh. “She really would have gotten on well with my mother. What a pair.” Tears welled up suddenly in her eyes, and her voiced dropped. “Light help me, I only pray it's quick, when it comes.”

He nodded in numb agreement.

They heard voices outside, in the distance, and, after a little while, the sound of drums. Boston Commons sat below the hill; the Redcoats were stationed there. Neither Proctor nor Deborah stirred to see what they were up to, not even when the noises continued.

The latch rattled, and the door opened. A man stepped inside, holding a lantern in one hand. The other aimed a
shotgun at the two of them. “Stay where you are,” he said. “Don't try to get up, or you won't be able to ever again.”

They both sat where they were, but Proctor started to make plans to take the gun from him. If there was some distraction—

A second man carried in an ornate chair and set it in the corner near the door. It had a stuffed cushion covered in dark green velvet, and gilding on the carved arms. A third man brought in wood and tinder and put it in the hearth, though he did not light it. Then all three stepped out again, the man with the shotgun leaving last. He set the lantern down as he left; it cast a feeble light across the planked floor.

The door remained cracked open. Proctor met Deborah's eyes, saw wonder and confusion in them, and then, without a word, pushed himself to his feet.

An elderly woman dressed all in black stepped through, a long-stemmed pipe in her hand. Proctor froze, his heart thumping.

It was the widow.

Proctor launched himself across the room at her.

She flicked the pipe stem at the pieces of rope and the gags they'd left abandoned on the floor. In midair, Proctor felt his hands drawn together against his will, his tongue pushed back in his mouth. He fell to the floor, bound as surely as he had been in the carriage. He rolled over to his side.

Deborah sat in the corner, trembling, knees drawn to her chest, her wrists crossed as though bound, her mouth pulled back by an invisible gag.

The widow walked languidly over to the chair and arranged herself in it. She flicked her pipe stem at the hearth, and flame leapt from the tinder and jumped to the logs.

“Jolly,” she called, and Proctor thought she meant her mood, but one of her men stuck his head in the door.

“Yes, ma'am,” the familiar voice said.

Now that he saw the man's face, Proctor recognized him at once: he was the escaped “Indian” from the attack on
Deborah's farm. His left shoulder was wrapped, his left arm bound up in a sling inside his jacket. He glared at Proctor as if he'd be more than happy to kill him then and there. Proctor started to laugh behind his gag, convulsing on the floor. The first part of their plan was working to perfection: they'd come into Boston and found their enemies, the people who wanted them dead.

“Fetch the other items now,” the widow demanded, giving Proctor a curious sidelong look. Jolly ducked his head and started to withdraw, but she called him back. “And take that lantern with you. I prefer an open flame.”

“Yes, Missus Nance.”

Proctor's eyes met Deborah's and they both understood.
Mrs. Nance
. The widow was not the servant of the person who'd been hunting them; she was the master.

When Jolly left, she rose from her seat, went to the door, and closed it. Then, reaching into the deep pockets of her simple dress, she pulled forth a string of dried meats, pork rinds or something similar. Proctor's mouth began to water, and his stomach clenched.

Holding the string aloft, the widow paced the circuit of the room, stepping carefully around Deborah, murmuring in a language that sounded like a wind in a desert. When she stepped around Proctor, he saw that she was holding a string of severed ears.

He choked on the gag, trying not to retch.

She slipped the gruesome strand back into her pocket and, with a brief glance at Proctor, turned toward Deborah. A smile struggled upward at one corner of her mouth.

“The advantage of dead languages,” she said, “is that it's harder for other witches to steal your spells. It will be a little while before Jolly returns. That will give us a bit of privacy, so that I may speak openly to you. Now, let's see what we have here.”

Reaching out with her left thumb, she flicked the scab off
Deborah's lip. Deborah winced as fresh blood flowed, but the widow closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

“It's in the blood,” she said.

Anger shot through Proctor as he saw the fear on Deborah's face. The widow just laughed.

“And they thought you were a boy. ‘We followed Emily Rucke just like you said, and she led us to that fellow from the Quaker farm,’” she said mockingly. “‘But he's got a boy with him.’” She drew out the vowel:
booooooy
. “‘What do you want us to do with the booooooy?’”

She tugged the cap off Deborah's head, and her hair tumbled out; either Proctor's haircut had been bad, or Deborah's spell was broken, but she didn't look at all boyish. Deborah tried to twist away. The widow wrapped one hand around the back of her neck and scrubbed her face clean with the rough fabric of the cap.

“Too proud to cry, are you? That's a good sign, my friend.” She chuckled at her little joke. Even when she smiled, the corners of her mouth strained down. “
My friend
, that's a good one.”

When she turned and walked back over to her chair, she looked like any other old woman. Taking the seat, she arranged her skirt as carefully as if she'd been sitting in the receiving room of the finest palace.

She put the pipe to her mouth. With one word it was filled, and with another word, a coal flared and it was lit. She puffed on it meditatively. The scent of the smoke was sweeter than regular tobacco, making Proctor's empty stomach churn in protest.

After a moment, she released a deep sigh that spun out in a wisp of smoke.

“We can call this a conversation, if you please, or even an interview, if you prefer,” she told Deborah. “But the simple fact is that I'm going to talk and you're going to listen. Then, depending on the course our conversation takes, I may permit
you to make a choice regarding your own fate. Or then again, I may not. Did you have any luck trying to escape?”

Proctor pushed himself upright and sat against the wall. He looked at Deborah, but her eyes were fixed on the widow, less afraid now and more angry.

“I would have been very impressed had you been able to escape. But as you may have guessed, these are Hancock's slave quarters, and slave quarters make a powerful focus for binding spells. Much better, for example, than ribbons and nails.”

She pronounced
ribbons and nails
contemptuously, though Proctor recalled they had bound her well enough.

“Of course, Hancock's
mansion
”—again, the word dripped contempt—“is a hovel compared with the palaces I've been in—it's barely fit to house the meanest servants at West Wycombe Park. But you pitiful bumpkins, stinking of horse shit and pig fat, have no idea where West Wycombe Park is, and you wouldn't recognize Baron le Despencer if he showed up in a golden chariot with angels trumpeting his arrival.”

Proctor used her speech to scoot along the wall toward the fireplace. If Jedediah had knocked her unconscious with a shovel, he might be able to do the same with a log—

She made a low clucking sound with her tongue. “Don't even think about it, boy.”

Shock must have registered in his face—was she truly reading his mind? Deborah's glance pleaded with him not to do anything foolish.

The widow chuckled and blew smoke rings at him.

“With but one word to Lord Percy,” she said—and Proctor wondered if she meant a word in the sense he had always known it, or a word of power, like the one that compelled her pipe to light—“we could be having this interview in the comfort of Hancock's parlor. But I prefer his slave quarters. There's a certain lingering stink sweated out of men and women who never have their freedom, a misery that soaks
into the wood and soil, even the very cloth, that touches their daily life.” She inhaled deeply. “It smells like power.”

The widow rocked back and forth in her chair, puffing on her pipe.

If he ran at her, knocked her down or knocked her out, or got on her chest and pressed his weight against her until she couldn't breathe, then he could find a way to free himself and Deborah. They would only have to get past Jolly and any other guards outside, then flee to some other part of the city.

She lifted her head and stared him straight in the eyes, daring him to try. His blood turned to slush. Speaking to Deborah, she said, “You could have that kind of power, if you want it.”

Deborah recoiled against the wall.

“Don't pretend to be so righteous and pure. Cecily told me about your wild youth, some of the things you did, nearly ruining your mother's precocious little industry.”

Proctor could look only at Deborah, but she carefully avoided returning his gaze.

“The thing is, you stupid, uneducated puritan farmers have deflected my blows three times. First, by undoing the protective medallion I made for Major Pitcairn. It was a minor charm, easy to repair, but it brought you to my attention. Cecily thought your mother incapable of that, but she knew of your association with the rebels and swore to me that it was you. I was very impressed. It's the only reason you're still alive. Otherwise, I'd be happy to be rid of your entire bunch of pathetic healers.”

Deborah's gaze avoided Proctor now for a different reason. He watched the widow to see if she noticed.

“Second, I know that it was your mother who drew my fire into her—nice trick, that. But it was you who saw her burning, and sent it down the well.”

His gaze whipped back to Deborah—she had done that?

Deborah gave her a weak shake of her head. The widow laughed.

“Yes, it was you.” She snapped her fingers. “I saw you do it just that quick, with no other focus than the power of your will. If I hadn't been distracted by that, the way you did it, that stinking pig farmer never would have cracked my skull. I would have defeated your binding spells in time, even without the help of your familiar.” She indicated Proctor with a lift of her chin. “But they were good work too, for someone essentially untrained.”