Traitor to the Crown The Patriot Witch (40 page)

So this was Virginia, the home of General Washington and half the leaders of the Revolution. Last night about this time, Proctor had arrived in McAllister's Town, Pennsylvania, where the innkeeper at The Sign of the Horse bragged about Thomas Jefferson's visit last April. Jefferson had praised the inn's sausages, which were made by the innkeeper's cousin. The sausages were good, but Proctor doubted that he'd slept in the very same room as Jefferson, no matter what the innkeeper claimed. Still, it had been worth the extra half a shilling to get that close to the author of the Declaration of Independence.

Proctor pushed back his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead as he scanned the landscape. He was a bit twitchy, wary even. This was the farthest he had ever been from home. The crickets chuckled at him from the safety of the tall grass that lined the trail.

Something rustled through that grass, startling him from his thoughts. Proctor reached for his musket, but by the time he sighted down the barrel, whatever had been there was gone.

He tried to convince himself that it was only a stray dog, or maybe a pig loose from some nearby farm. He'd been jumpy ever since the battles with the Covenant last year. Being this far from home only made him jumpier.

Not that he needed more reasons to be jumpy. As a young man in Massachusetts, he'd been forced to conceal his talent for magic lest his neighbors turn on him. But ever since the battle at Lexington, he'd needed that magic to spoil the plots of the Covenant, a mysterious group of European witches who wanted to crush the American rebellion. The Covenant's ultimate purpose remained hidden, but the stakes were so high that they'd murdered other American witches and had tried several times to kill
Proctor. Not just kill him, but turn the magic in his blood into a curse against American soldiers.

He rolled down his sleeves to cover the pink scars on his forearms, a memento from that particular encounter. Thanks to Deborah, he'd survived and they'd reversed the Covenant's spell before the battle at Bunker Hill.

Deborah Walcott. Prior to the war, he'd been engaged to Emily Rucke, the beautiful daughter of a West Indies merchant, the kind of young woman everyone noticed. These days only Deborah filled his thoughts, though she kept herself plain as a Quaker and tried, like every witch he knew, to go unobserved.

What Deborah couldn't hide was the spark inside her. When the Congress signed the Declaration of Independence, she perceived the new danger.

“The Covenant will strike back hard,” she told Proctor. “Only a third of Americans support the rebellion. If the Covenant can make a mockery of independence and break our will to fight, people will go running back to Mother England like chastened children.”

Which was why they needed every witch who could detect or break a spell, including Alexandra Walker, who, when they saw her last, wanted nothing to do with magic ever again.

One of the farms ahead, rooftops silhouetted against the sky, must be hers. The sudden return of his thoughts to the present caused him to tense. Something was wrong.

The crickets had fallen silent.

A figure loomed suddenly beside the road, and Proctor raised his musket. Then he realized it was only a scarecrow, made real by the twilight.

As he relaxed, a small flash of light revealed the creature's distorted face, with intense, malevolent eyes and a sneering mouth.

Proctor started in the saddle, jerking on the bridle, and
Singer flared her nostrils and came to a stop. The figure that he'd taken for a scarecrow emerged from the shadows as a man, his face lit red by the hot coal of his pipe.

“Good day,” the stranger said, lifting his pipe stem. He wore a pair of calfskin gloves, even in this miserable heat.

“Good night is more like it,” Proctor said. It was no wonder he had mistaken the man for a scarecrow. The stranger's jacket was of foreign cut, plum-colored with relics of silver embroidery on the cuffs and pocket-flaps. A golden velvet waistcoat was mismatched to a red silk scarf tied about his throat. His tattered wig was topped by a ragged bicorn hat sporting a cock's feather. The feather was surely the freshest piece of the motley ensemble.

“It's good to see a young man heading away from the war, instead of rushing off to join the rebels,” the stranger said. His voice was hollow, his accent as odd as his clothes.

Proctor bristled. He'd risked his life in the war, and he had been cut off by his mother for using magic to fight it. He believed it was the right thing for the country and was glad the Declaration of Independence had been issued, even if it meant renewed fighting.

“I've served as a minuteman and would rather be thought a patriot than a rebel,” Proctor said. “Do you have something against independence?”

“No, just against”—he puffed out a cloud of tobacco smoke, pausing as he searched for the right word—“
pointless
bloodshed. No offense intended, young man.”

“None taken,” Proctor said, though the
young man
felt irritated. Singer stamped her hooves aggressively, the way she did when strange dogs came too close. It would be best to move on. “I'm looking for the Walker farm. You wouldn't happen to know where it is?”

“The Walker farm?” A smile spread slowly across the stranger's face. “That's a coincidence. I've just come from the Walker farm. Follow the trail up to the big oak with the
blaze on it. Then turn to the left and climb over the hill. That's where you'll find it.”

“Is it far?” Proctor asked. He wondered how the stranger knew the Walkers. The way Alexandra talked, her parents and brothers were all ardent patriots.

“It's a mile, maybe a bit more,” the stranger said. “Be careful or you'll miss it in the dark.”

“May I have your name?” Proctor asked. “So that I may remember your kindness to me to the Walkers.”

The stranger puffed on his pipe again and blew out another small cloud of smoke. “Bootzamon,” he said finally. He chuckled, as if at some private joke. “Folks around here call me Bootzamon.”

“Thank you, Mister Bootzamon,” Proctor said. With a tip of his hat, and more than a bit of relief, he kicked Singer's sides and headed up the trail.

A hundred feet on, he stole a glance over his shoulder. For a second, Bootzamon once again appeared to be a scarecrow standing at the edge of the road. Then the coal flared in his pipe, destroying the fancy, and Proctor turned away from the strange man.

He followed the ruts of the road to the blazed oak standing on the little knoll just where Bootzamon said it would be. Proctor tried to stand in the saddle to look through the trees for some sign of a house, but soreness constrained him to craning his neck. The wind shifted and brought to his nose the scent of cheap tobacco. It smelled like Bootzamon's pipe; the stranger had probably refilled his tobacco pouch at the Walkers'.

He rode down the trail until the dark shape of a primitive house emerged from the trees. Rough-hewn logs, chinked with mud and stones, supported a roof with a single chimney. The plank door stood wide open, but no light shone within.

The hairs tingled on the back of Proctor's neck. He
reached into his pocket for a handful of salt, in case he needed to cast a quick protective spell.

“Hello,” Proctor shouted. “Alexandra. Mister Walker, Missus Walker.” His voice carried past the house, bringing back no reply but the chirping of the crickets.

Nothing appeared wrong. The garden looked well tended, as much as he could see of it in the twilight beyond the split-rail fence. So did the field of corn just past the house.

He dismounted slowly, grunting as he hit the ground. After tying Singer to a narrow stump that seemed meant for that purpose—it was next to a trough made from a dugout log—he limped over to the house.

“Hello,” he cried again, leaning into the open door.

Something smelled wrong, sharp and metallic, but the smoke-stench from the hearth overwhelmed it. It was too dark to see anything without a light. He suddenly wished that he'd done a scrying before continuing his journey today, but he hadn't seen a need and he hated to risk doing magic where he might be caught.

He stepped cautiously inside.

“Hello! Is anyone home?”

Nothing.

His nose wrinkled again at the smell. The shadows inside marked out two rooms. He stepped into the one on his left and slipped in something on the floor. His shoulder banged the wall, but he caught himself before falling.

He rubbed his sore shoulder. A few coals glowed red in the hearth, enough to start a fire for some light. He still had that wary itch at the back of his neck, but he dismissed it. That odd Bootzamon fellow had just been here, and he'd mentioned nothing wrong.

Proctor shuffled forward, moving his feet carefully to keep from slipping again or tripping over some stray piece of furniture. When he reached the hearth, he groped in the dark until he found the iron poker. He repeated the effort until he located the basket of tinder and wood. Using the
poker to stir the coals, he blew on them and fed them dried twigs and branches until they leapt into flames.

Outside, Singer whinnied. Proctor knew he needed to go out and remove the mare's saddle and rub her down. Or maybe it was the Walkers returning.

“Hello in here!” Proctor called. He added wood to the fire and prodded the coals until the room glowed orange and red.

Singer whinnied again. Proctor turned his head toward the door, conscious that the crickets had fallen silent.

His gaze shifted from the door to the room.

Not all the red was cast by fire.

He jumped back. The iron clattered off the stone hearth as he dropped it. Blood was smeared everywhere. He checked the bottom of his shoe—he'd slipped in a pool of wet blood on his way in. It was fresh. A woman's body lay under the table. The top of her head was missing. A man's broken body, cut to bloody ribbons, was folded against the wall.

“Jesus,” Proctor whispered.

“Funny, that's who they called on too,” said a voice that made Proctor jump again.

Bootzamon stood framed in the doorway. For just a second he looked like a scarecrow. Then his pipe flared, and he blew out a stream of smoke.

“Mister Bootzamon,” Proctor said, trying hard to keep his voice steady. “What happened here?”

Bootzamon shook his head sadly. “It appears to be an Indian attack. Exactly how old are you, young man?”

“Turned twenty-two this past month,” Proctor answered in reflex. He looked for a way past Bootzamon, remembering that the Covenant's assassins had come to The Farm dressed as Indians last year. “What makes you say it's Indians?”

“See, that's too bad,” Bootzamon said. “My master wants young witches only. ‘Catch the young ones, kill the old.’ I
couldn't find the Walker girl, but I got to thinking you might be young enough to take her place.”

His cockfeather brushed the lintel as he stepped through the door. One arm hung at his side, the gloved hand casually dangling a bloody tomahawk.

Proctor saw the tomahawk, but he felt
magic
tickle the back of his neck. Worse than murder had been done here already. He reached into his pocket for his bag of salt while his thoughts raced for the right protective spell. Keeping his eye on Bootzamon, he sprinkled salt in a quick circle around himself. “The Lord is my rock and my fortress, my deliverer. Deliver me from my strong enemy—”

“Bosh,” Bootzamon said around the pipe stem in his lips. He removed the pipe and blew smoke toward Proctor. A wind slammed through the house, banging open the window shutters and scattering Proctor's circle of salt.

The wind died, and Bootzamon stood there, tapping the tomahawk against his palm.

“You're a witch,” Proctor whispered, and then felt foolish for saying it. His own use of magic was too slow, too useless for this kind of fight. He bent down quickly and snatched up the iron.

“Not precisely a witch,” Bootzamon said. “But I may be a ghost—boo!”

Proctor twitched.

Bootzamon chuckled and danced closer to Proctor. “Or I may be an Indian.” The last word came out with a sneer as he swung the tomahawk at Proctor's head.

Proctor banged the tomahawk aside with the iron, then reversed his swing and slammed the metal bar into his attacker. It was like hitting a bag of sticks and straw. The tomahawk flew one way and Bootzamon the other. He hit the far wall, crumpled to the floor, and then popped up again, pipe in mouth. He reached up and recocked his hat, then licked his gloved finger and ran it along the edge of the feather.

“What are you?” Proctor asked.

“What are
you
?” Bootzamon retorted. “I'll tell you what you are—you're nothing but a miserable bag of snot and bones, piss and
Scheiße
. And, sadly, too old to be of use to me.”

Bootzamon stretched his hand toward the tomahawk. The weapon slid toward him across the floor, the blade scratching a line through the blood, and flew up into his hand. The flickering light from the fire cast a sinister glare over his features, distending and exaggerating them.

He blocked the only path to the door …