Traitor to the Crown The Patriot Witch

by C. C. Finlay

  “No, ma'am. I mean, yes, ma'am.”

  “But your mother is no spring chicken anymore—”

  “Hush, Sarah,” his mother said.

  “It's true. You were past thirty when Proctor was born.” Turning to Proctor, she said as an aside, “And it was no easy birth, I don't have to remind you—thirty-six hours in labor, and the midwife and I both thought she was going to die.”

  “No one thought I was going to die,” his mother said.

  But Sarah was on a roll now. “You almost died to bring him into this world, and then you sacrificed your own ease and comfort to give him the best.” As an aside to Proctor she said, “Like that linen jacket she gave you two years ago, that was a fine jacket, with those silver buttons. And you hardly ever wear it, then rip it when you do.” Then, addressing her sister again, she said, “You sacrificed everything.”

  “I know how much she sacrificed for me,” Proctor said.

  “Do you?” his aunt snapped. “Then you shouldn't have acted such a prodigal, should you?”

  “I'm going to make it right,” he said.

  “Your mother has no one else to depend on now, no one to provide for her,” Sarah said. “She's an age where she should be a grandmother now, looking after her grandchildren, not running a whole farm by herself.”

  “I don't need grandchildren,” his mother said, swallowing the last of her tears. “But it's not just me. Sarah needs you too.”

  “Shush now, Prudence,” his aunt said.

  “But it's true,” his mother said, sitting straight again. “With the war going on, and the siege, there's no work left in the city.”

  “I'll get by somehow,” she protested.

  “There's no food left,” his mother said. “I tried to buy meat today, in the market, and there was nothing but dried fish available.”

  “You can still find a bit of lamb at the market every few days,” his aunt said. “Enough to make a pie or two.”

  His mother looked down at Proctor, who was still on his knees like a penitent. “She has to come live with us. The farm is yours now, like you always wanted. We can sell off some of the timber to buy those calves you wanted, and we can start raising cattle, like you always said you wanted to do.”

  “That's what I always wanted to do,” he said. But the words left a bad taste in his mouth, like a spoiled egg.

  “Good,” his aunt said.

  His mother said, “We'll have to make some excuse to get you past the gate. Three days ago, I finally scryed you here and came down to find you. The Redcoats let me in only because I begged them. But if we go tomorrow, they may—”

  “Wait, wait, wait a moment,” he said, rising to his feet. “I can't leave tomorrow.”

  His mother and his aunt stared at him with so much focused anger, he thought he might be struck.

  A gentle voice behind him said, “No, Proctor, it's all right. They need you, and you should go take care of them.”

  He spun around. Deborah stood there, her own cheeks wet where she'd wept quietly. She scrubbed at them with the back of an oversized sleeve, while her cap slouched down over her poorly cut hair.

  “Who's your friend?” his mother asked, as if truly noticing this odd young man for the first time. His aunt bustled away from his mother's seat, saying, “Forgive the lack of a proper introduction, but—”

  “No, no, Miss Sarah, forgive me for intruding on your family in such a difficult hour.”

  “Deborah,” Proctor whispered, and she gave him a tiny shake of her head to warn him not to speak. His aunt turned her head, having caught the name but unsure what she'd heard.

  “That looks like Arthur Simes,” Proctor's mother said. “Is that Arthur Simes?”

  “No, ma'am, I'm no one you've met before,” she said, speaking low, trying to hide the femininity of her voice. “Proctor—your son—graciously came to help me and my family, because of the war. The Reverend Emerson brought him to us.”

  “Deborah,” Proctor whispered again, more urgently, but this time she just talked over him.

  “We were in a desperate hour of need, and he risked his own life and well-being several times to protect us. I am”—she glanced at him—“I will always be grateful to him for that.”

  “Oh, you poor boy,” Proctor's mother said, and Proctor thought she was speaking to him, but he saw that she was addressing Deborah.

  His aunt pulled one of her chairs away from the wall and pushed it forward. “Please, have a seat. Tell us everything.”

  “I would love to,” Deborah said. “He was as brave as any man I've ever seen. He faced horrors no man should ever face—”

  “Oh, my,” Proctor's mother said, covering her mouth with her hand. His aunt hemmed skeptically.

  “—but I can't remain, and he obviously belongs here.” She walked to the door and put her hand on the latch. “Thank you, Proctor. For everything. I wish you all luck in escaping the city. But do it soon. Please do not delay.”

  Proctor rushed to the door before she could pull it open, and pressed his hand against it. He thought of all those skeletal faces he'd seen on the other side of the siege line, especially of Amos.

  “I'm going with you,” he said.

  “I can finish this by myself,” she said, her voice now genuinely low, viscerally harsh.

  “No, I mean to see it through.”

  “Don't be foolish, Proctor,” his aunt snapped. “You've already done good for their family, but now it's time to see to your own.”

  “They need you, Proctor,” Deborah said. “You got me into the city—I couldn't have done it without you.”

  “But—”

  “Now I need to see the rest of it through myself. Clearly, divine providence has a hand in this. You were meant to be here, your mother was meant to find you because she needs you. You got me in, you can get them safely out, before the fighting starts again in earnest.”

  “They can wait a day, a few days—”

  “The fighting will start again, and they need to be gone before it does. What if the British burn the city? What if the militia sets fire to it, to burn out the British? You can't leave them here to burn.”

  “Proctor?” his mother pleaded. “Proctor, you can't leave me alone again.”

  He kept his eyes on Deborah.

  Her eyes never wavered from his.

  “You can't leave me alone, Proctor,” his mother said again, rising to her feet, so weak she almost fell over. She braced herself against the table to stay upright. “I went to your father's funeral alone, with no family at all to stand beside me. I can't go on alone, Proctor. The farm is yours now, you can do what ever you want to with it, only come home, please come home.”

  “Honor your mother, boy,” his aunt said. “And honor the memory of your father. Ask yourself what he would want you to do. He'd want you to look after your family.”

  He continued to look into Deborah's eyes; she continued to look back.

  “Your father died of a broken heart,” his mother said. “You were the world to him, Proctor. After you left, whenever he had a lucid moment, he would sit up in his chair and call for you, he would call your name, and it broke his heart that you never came running.”

  Her voice cracked, and she started crying pitifully. Proctor felt a lump form in his own throat.

  Still, his eyes and Deborah's eyes had not wavered.

  “Go home,” Deborah said. Her face was dry now, her voice firm and strong.

  She had lost both her parents, to murder and to worse, and their killers were still free. Proctor could have saved them—he was right there at her father's side and had failed him. He swallowed the lump in his throat, wanting to speak, but it stuck there.

  “Go home, to the people who love you, who need you,” she said. “It's where you belong. You've earned it.”

  “It's the only right thing to do,” his aunt said. “Everyone will understand that you must take care of your family first, no matter what other wars and disturbances are going on.
There are plenty of other men who can do the awful fighting.”

  Other men to do the awful fighting? Proctor remembered the way Amos's skull appeared behind his flesh, the way the militiamen guarded their posts unaware that they were merely skeletons waiting to discover they were already dead. And he was the only one who could see that. Who could maybe do something about it.

  So much more than his family was at stake. And there were no other men.

  He reached down and took hold of the handle. Turning, he said to them, “It's not done yet, and there isn't anyone else to see it through.”

  “Don't be selfish, boy,” his aunt said.

  “Proctor—” His mother's voice quavered.

  “I'll come back for you when we're done,” he said, then added, “if I can.”

  “Proctor, if you walk out that door,” his mother said, “don't bother to come back. You'll be dead to me. I'll sell the farm—Lucas Bundam is interested in buying it, he came to see me after your father's funeral. I'll have to sell it, to take care of Sarah and myself.”

  “I understand,” Proctor said. “You best do what you need to do then.”

  “Don't be a fool,” his aunt said. “Here, you've had a hard night, clearly. You're not speaking from reason. Rest until morning, and then it will all look different.”

  “It won't look any different in the morning,” he said. “Unless it looks worse.”

  He thumbed the latch and cracked the door open.

  “I'm sorry, Mother, for letting you down, and for missing Father's funeral. If I don't see you again, I hope you will not think too poorly of me.”

  Her hands were balled in fists, hanging like knots on the ends of two thick ropes. “No loving son would ever walk out that door. If you do it—”

  Unable to listen to the rest of her threat, not wanting to remember her that way, he walked out the door.

  A wail came from the room behind him, followed by the mixed voice of his aunt, trying to calm his mother, and calling back after him.

  Deborah was right behind him in the street. He didn't know where he was going, so when he reached the corner he stopped.

  “It's not too late to go back,” she told him.

  “It was too late to go back the night they sent those men dressed as Indians to kill your father.”

  “But your father—”

  “My father lived a long life and died peacefully in his sleep. Others haven't been—won't be—so fortunate.”

  “But your mother needs you, and I know you've always looked to the day when you could claim the farm as your own. This doesn't have to be your responsibility.”

  He raised his fist, wanting to punch a sack of grain, even a wall—anything to expel the furious energy built up inside him—and saw the he still had his hat, crumpled in his hand. He'd forgotten to put it on when they left the house, just like Deborah, used to wearing a cap, had forgotten to take hers off inside.

  “Those people, whoever they are, who did that to your mother and father, they're evil, Deborah,” he said. “Somebody has to stop them.”

  “I will.”

  “And you think you can do it alone?”

  She paused. “I don't think your help will make any difference in the end.”

  “Maybe not,” he admitted, and the need to hit something drained out of him a bit. At least, the need to hit something random. “But all those men out there, Deborah, they don't know that.” He lowered his voice. “Something magic is killing them, but they have no idea, and wouldn't believe it if you told them.”

  “But—” she said.

  “No, let me finish—they wouldn't believe it, but I know, because of things I've seen. Yeah, I'd like to go back to the farm, and the life I had before. My mother, my aunt, they'll find some way to get by. But now I see there's something bigger, and I have to try to do something about it, even if I fail.”

  “Proctor,” Deborah said, “I understand. I just wanted to say—”

  Another voice across the street called, “Proctor?”

  Someone stepped from the shadows. The silhouette was familiar, but he couldn't put a name to it. He stepped protectively closer to Deborah.

  “Oh my God, Proctor, that is you.”

  Her voice trailed off as she came nearer. A young woman in clothes as girlish as Deborah's were boyish, her dark curls spilling from under her cap.

  “Emily,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Father received a letter from Captain Danvers. It said you had been smuggled into Boston. I knew your aunt lived here, so I came looking for you. I know it's after curfew, but—”

  “Oh,” Deborah said in a small voice, the pieces finally clicking together. “You're Emily Rucke.”

  Emily didn't hear her. Words were tumbling out of her mouth. “—I haven't been able to stop thinking about you, Proctor, not for a single day. I don't ever want to go that long without seeing you again.”

  Deborah stepped quietly away from him.

  “Deborah?” he said.

  Proctor never finished his explanation. Half a dozen men ran out of the darkness at them. The screams of the young women were cut off by rough hands. A stave glanced off the side of Proctor's head. He swung back, feeling one satisfying impact of his fist with someone's face before the other staves hit him, and then the fists, until he was compliant enough to let them gag him and bind his wrists and throw him into a carriage.

  Chapter 21

  Deborah's body slammed into his. He twisted, trying to pry himself upright, but they were wedged between the two seats. Someone grabbed their legs and folded them inside, them slammed the door.

  He was bent in half, with Deborah's elbows in his ribs. She tried to rise, crushing his chest and shoving the breath from his lungs. He groaned through his gag and she stopped. He sucked air through his nose and tried to think clearly, find some way out.

  Outside the carriage, a man spoke to Emily. “Miss, you were mistaken, this isn't your friend.”

  “But I saw—”

  “What you saw was a rebel spy, pretending to be someone your father knows. But he is nothing of the sort. He's a cold-blooded murderer who killed two of His Majesty's soldiers on a farm outside Salem.”

  The voice sounded familiar to Proctor, but he couldn't place it. Something about the tone or tenor of it had changed.

  “But the other boy, he called him Proctor—that's Proctor Brown, I know him.”

  “Shh, now, miss, you want to keep your voice down. It's dark out, isn't it?”

  “But—”

  “You don't know what or who you saw, not in the dark, not truly.”

  There were other ways to reshape memory, and not all of them were magic. Proctor began to shift and twist away from Deborah. If he could just free his legs—

  “He looked like the Proctor I know.”

  “Only because you wanted him to be your friend, Miss Rucke. In reality, he is an evil man, abusing your friend's good name to take advantage of your father's reputation.”

  Proctor tried to shout through the gag, “Emily, it's me,” but his words were unintelligible.

  “My father received a letter,” Emily said. “From Captain Danvers—that's how I knew to come looking for him.”

  “I'm afraid this murderer deceived Captain Danvers too.”

  “If I could just see him in person—”

  Yes, thought Proctor. He tried to shout again, and kicked his feet against the sides of the coach to draw her attention. Deborah grunted as he kneed her accidentally.

  “I'm sorry, miss, but he's too dangerous.”

  The door swung open, and a fist came at him like a blacksmith's hammer. He twisted his head from side to side to avoid it, but one blow clipped his jaw, sent his head cracking into the edge of the seat.

  “—see, if he was your friend, would he be fighting that way? No, he does that because he's a spy and he knows the penalty for spies is hanging.”

  A hand slapped a horse's rump, the wheels creaked, and the carriage l
urched into motion. Proctor struggled one last time to scream out around his gag.

  “—Duncan will escort you back to your father's house. A young lady such as yourself shouldn't be out after curfew—”

  The voices faded in the distance, hidden by the steady clop of hooves as the carriage rolled through Boston's streets. He stopped struggling and fell still, except to continue panting through his nose. The tight confines of the carriage pressed in on three sides. He was suddenly aware of the weight of Deborah's body on top of him, the way her legs were tangled in his, and the faint scent of rosewater on her throat.

  He shifted his shoulders, pushed his head back, and turned his neck so that he could see her face. The gag was drawn so tight it cut gouges in her cheeks. Her eyes were wide with apprehension.

  They bumped along, their faces inches apart, unable to speak. The pace of the carriage slowed—too soon! Proctor had no chance to think of escape, to conjure a way free. He chafed his cheek on the edge of the seat, trying to loosen his gag, but to no avail. He couldn't pull out of his bonds, so he felt around for Deborah's hands, trying to undo hers. She grasped the idea at once, and rolled to the side to try to do the same for him.

  The hooves clopped slower but with more determination. The carriage tilted uphill, and Deborah rolled back onto Proctor, dislodging his fingers almost as soon as they found purchase in her knots. She shifted from side to side, scooting down for a better position. Her hand slipped past his ropes and closed around his fingers.

  The door opened and a man reached in, grabbing her by the back of her collar and yanking her out. A moment later, hands grabbed Proctor by his ankles and dragged him half out of the vehicle before fists closed on his vest and jerked him to his feet.

  They were near the summit of the largest hill in Boston, Beacon Hill. A low stone wall stretched along the road. The wooden fence that lined the wall was smashed; only a few broken pickets remained, sharp and stark, atop the stone.

  Behind the fence rose the largest mansion Proctor had ever seen. Brown stone walls rose three stories, fortresslike. Shutters hung open, exposing shattered windows with a few shards of glass standing like the pickets on the wall. An empty balcony with an iron railing extended over the main entrance like an abandoned watchtower.