Dead Man's Reach

by D. B. Jackson

  He and the others hadn’t been abroad in the city for long before he realized how wrong he had been.

  Though the streets remained covered with a thick layer of snow that made them only barely passable, Ethan soon found himself in a broad stream of men, women, and children filing through the lanes toward Boston’s Neck. The farther he, Kannice, and Kelf walked from the Dowser, the more people he saw. They came from the North End and Cornhill, the waterfront and the South End, all converging on Marlborough Street. There, they continued in silence, with grim purpose, bathed in the golden light of late afternoon. By the time they reached the corner of Orange Street and Essex, where stood the famed Liberty Tree, they numbered at least a thousand.

  A large sign had been erected near the tree. On it were several biblical quotations that someone—Adams perhaps—had deemed appropriate for the occasion.

  “Though Hand join in Hand, the Wicked shall not pass unpunish’d,” read one.

  And another said, “Thou shalt take no satisfaction for the life of a MURDERER—he shall surely be put to death.”

  As it turned out, the men and women who had walked with Ethan, Kannice, and Kelf to the Liberty Tree represented but a fraction of those who had come to honor Christopher Seider. A far greater number of people awaited them along Orange Street south of the tree. Adams and his allies had already begun to arrange the procession that would march through the city streets. Hundreds of schoolboys had been lined up in twin columns, their cheeks red with the cold. Behind them, flanked by six more boys—pallbearers, it seemed—lay on the snow a small, wooden coffin with Latin inscriptions painted in silver lettering along its sides and at its head. A cluster of perhaps three dozen men, women, and children stood next in line. Many of them wept openly, and when Ethan walked past, he heard snatches of conversation in German. He gathered that these were Seider’s parents, relatives, and friends.

  Behind these unfortunate souls, the rest of the mourners, already numbering in the hundreds, had taken their places. Ethan thought that with all those he had seen on his way to the Liberty Tree, the number of marchers would exceed two thousand.

  In the distance, at the very rear of the procession, more than two dozen carriages and chaises waited for the parade to begin, their horses snorting clouds of vapor in the twilight air.

  As Ethan, Kannice, and Kelf made their way toward the back of the procession, they passed one luminary after another. Joseph Warren and James Otis had joined the throng, as had Paul Revere and Benjamin Church, Benjamin Edes and John Hancock. Samuel Adams walked the length of the column, calling encouragement and instructions to those he passed, while his cousin, the lawyer John Adams, stood with a woman Ethan assumed was his wife, appearing somewhat awed by what Samuel had wrought.

  Near the back of the line, they found Diver and Deborah, who greeted them with solemn expressions and made room for them. If Diver took any satisfaction in being right about the size of the assembly, he gave no indication of it. He shook Ethan’s hand and Kelf’s, gave Kannice a quick kiss on the cheek, and then stood facing forward, his chin raised, his hands clasped in front of him.

  Ethan continued to look around, amazed at what he was witnessing. It was a sight as humbling as it was spectacular. Adams had outdone himself. Ethan could only imagine what Thomas Hutchinson would think of this display. No doubt he would think it a spectacle and nothing more, a cynical attempt to turn tragedy to political gain. Ethan had resolved to be here because of what he had seen four days before on Middle Street, but he had expected that he would feel much the same. As the procession began, however, as he strained to see those six boys lift Christopher Seider’s coffin onto their shoulders and plod through the snow, he understood how wrong he had been about this as well.

  It took some time before Ethan and the rest of those near the back of the column could begin walking. Even as he started to tread through the snowy lane, he guessed that by the time the carriages rolled forward, the first of the lads leading the parade would be near the center of Cornhill.

  Kannice walked beside him, tears coursing down her cheeks, no doubt as moved as he by the city’s outpouring of grief and resolve. He took her hand.

  Still more people had gathered along the side of the street to watch the procession as it followed Orange, Newbury, Marlborough, and Cornhill Streets up to the Town House. It then snaked through the North and South Ends before turning back toward the Neck, and the burying ground where Christopher Seider’s body was to be interred. As the sky darkened and night fell, those lining the lanes handed torches to the marchers so that the procession became a river of light flowing through the city.

  But as the coffin passed once more within sight of Murray’s Barracks, where so many British soldiers were billeted, Ethan felt a conjuring pulse in the street. He halted, forcing his friends to do the same. The men walking behind stumbled into them.

  “What is it?” Kannice asked.

  Ethan opened his mouth to answer, but then shut it again, his heart hammering in his chest. He hadn’t noticed at first because several of the people around him carried torches. But Uncle Reg had appeared by his side, and was eyeing him, his eyes as brilliant as the brightest flames.

  “I didn’t summon you,” Ethan whispered. “Why are you here?”

  Before Reg could offer any sort of answer, Ethan heard shouts from up ahead.

  “What are the lobsters doing now?” one of the men behind him said.

  Diver looked back. “Let’s go find out.”

  Several of the men started forward, Diver among them.

  Ethan made to follow, but Kannice still held his hand.

  “Ethan—”

  “I need to go with them,” he said.

  Kelf still stood on Kannice’s other side, although he was watching Diver and the others, and appeared to be on the verge of following. “Kelf, can you get Kannice back to the Dowser?”

  “What? Well, I suppose, but Ethan—”

  “Please,” Ethan said.

  “I don’t understand what’s happening,” Kannice said, staring after the men who had gone forward.

  “I don’t either. But I don’t think it’s safe in the street right now. I think you should go back.”

  “But the funeral.”

  He stepped closer to her, and whispered, “I’ve just felt another conjuring, and my ghost is here; I don’t know why. Please do as I ask, Kannice.”

  “I’ll not be scared off the streets by whoever’s doing this,” she said, keeping her voice low despite the fierce expression on her face.

  “You’re right. You shouldn’t have to be. And you know I’d never let anything happen to you. But in protecting you from a spell, I might let others come to harm. Neither of us wants that. Please,” he said again.

  She hesitated, doubt creeping into her eyes. At last she nodded. “Yes, all right.”

  “Maybe you should take her back, Ethan. Diver and them others might need help, and I think we both know who would be more valuable in a fight.”

  At another time, Ethan might have found this amusing. Kelf was as large as a Dutch merchant ship and as strong as any man he knew. But he had no idea that Ethan could conjure.

  “I’m hoping to prevent a fight,” Ethan said, “not tip the balance of one.”

  The barman glanced once more in the direction of the raised voices. Ethan wanted to scream at him to make up his mind, but he kept silent, and at length Kelf said, “Aye, all right. I’ll take her. You watch yourself, though.”

  “I will. Thank you, Kelf.”

  With one last quick look at Kannice, and what he hoped was a reassuring smile, Ethan started after Diver. All of those mourning Christopher Seider had done at last what shovels had failed to do: much of the snow was packed down, making the lanes passable.

  Diver and his companions had a head start, and Ethan’s leg slowed him. By the time he reached the commotion, it was already threatening to turn into yet another tragedy. A group of perhaps a dozen British soldiers stood in the street
, their uniforms bearing evidence of a pelting of snowballs; two of them had lost their hats, which lay in the snow at their feet. All of them held their muskets at waist level, their bayonets gleaming with the inconstant light of dozens of torches.

  At least fifty mourners, most of them young men and boys, were shouting taunts at them, calling them “lobsters” and “bloody-backed scoundrels.”

  “What are you goin’ to do, ya thievin’ dogs?” one man shouted. “Shoot all of us like you did Chris Seider?”

  More snowballs flew at the men.

  “Murder’rs!” a boy called out.

  “Murderers!” came the reply. It didn’t take long for the epithet to became a chant. “Murderers! Murderers! Murderers!”

  The soldiers, none of whom was much older than those harassing them, looked frightened, and who could blame them? They might have been armed, but they were facing a mob that outnumbered them, and at any moment they could find themselves surrounded by literally hundreds more.

  To their credit, Diver and the men who had walked forward with him had not joined the fools who were shouting insults and throwing snowballs. But neither had they attempted to make the pups break off their attack.

  “Diver!” Ethan called. “Help me stop this.”

  Without waiting for his friend to answer, Ethan stepped between the young men and the soldiers, his back to the uniformed regulars.

  “Stop this now!” he shouted at the mourners. “We’re here to honor Chris Seider! Not to cause another tragedy!”

  “Maybe we want to pay ’em back for what they done to Chris!”

  Ethan shook his head. “These soldiers had nothing to do with that! It was Richardson, and he’s in the gaol.”

  “He’s right!”

  Ethan glanced to his left. Diver had joined him in the street, as had another of the men who had been in the procession with them. It was this third man who had spoken.

  Several of the pups held snowballs in their hands and were staring past Ethan and Diver at the soldiers.

  “We don’t want anyone else getting shot,” the other man said. “Be smart lads.”

  One of the men tossed his snowball aside and regarded Ethan and his companions with disgust. The others did the same.

  “Lobster lovers,” one of them said. But already they were turning away.

  Ethan turned to Diver and the other man, intending to thank them for their help. He opened his mouth to speak the words, but then faltered at the touch of another spell thrumming in the street. Reg’s gaze snapped to Ethan’s face. Before Ethan could ask the ghost what had happened, one of the soldiers rushed them, his bayonet leveled at Diver’s gut.

  Ethan didn’t have time to strip off his greatcoat and cut his arm, nor did he wish to make a conjuring spectacle of himself in front of so many. Instead, he bit down hard on the inside of his cheek and tasted blood.

  “Pugnus ex cruore evocatus,” he whispered. Fist, conjured from blood.

  The advancing soldier staggered, as if punched in the jaw. But then he righted himself and closed on Diver.

  Ethan bit himself again and repeated the spell, aiming this blow at the man’s midsection.

  The soldier doubled over, retched. A second later, though, he straightened.

  Ethan bit down on his cheek a third time—he was going to curse these spells later—and whispered, “Dormite ex cruore evocatum.” Slumber, conjured from blood.

  It was a more dangerous spell to use, simply because its effects were more obvious to those around him. But short of lighting the soldier on fire, Ethan didn’t think that anything else would stop the man. The regular staggered again; he halted and swayed. At last he collapsed in a red heap on the snow.

  “Did you see that?” one of the lads called. “He was gonna kill that cove there. He was gonna to stick him like a pig.”

  He and his comrades stalked back toward the soldiers.

  “Diver,” Ethan said, his voice low. “Say something. Tell them to yield.”

  “Why should I?” Diver said, rounding on him. “The lad’s right! He was coming right at me with his bayonet ready. I don’t know what happened, but he might have killed me.”

  “I stopped him,” Ethan whispered. “And it was another spell that set him on you. Now tell them to leave it be.”

  “What do you mean?” Diver asked, his voice too loud for Ethan’s taste. “You stopped—” His eyes widened. “Oh,” he said, breathless, whispering at last. “And someone else … someone made him do that?”

  “That’s right.”

  “It’s all right, lads,” Diver called to the young men, raising his hands to placate them.

  “He’s asleep!” the third man said, bending over the soldier. He looked up, clearly amazed. “The bloody fool fell asleep!”

  “You see that?” Diver said. “He must have been drinking. No harm done.”

  “He wasn’t drunk!” said one of the soldiers, as if enraged at the mere suggestion.

  Ethan glared at him. “You’d rather they thought he was sober and willing to kill a man? Don’t be an idiot. Take your friend, and go, before someone gets hurt.”

  The regular eyed the mob of young men, who appeared to be spoiling for a fight once more. Perhaps taking Ethan’s words to heart, he gave a quick nod and signaled to one of his fellow soldiers. They hurried forward, lifted the sleeping regular, and bore him away, his arms draped around their shoulders.

  The lads whistled and shouted more insults at them, but they didn’t pursue the soldiers, apparently preferring to declare victory in the face of the regulars’ retreat.

  “That may have been the oddest thing I’ve ever seen,” said the man with Diver. “He … he fell into a slumber, without any warning.”

  “Aye,” Ethan said, his gaze flicking in Diver’s direction. “It was quite odd. My thanks to you, sir, for standing with me.”

  The man shrugged. “It was like you said. We’re here for Chris. There was no sense in getting someone else shot.” He patted Diver’s shoulder and started away after the rest of the mourners, who were now far ahead of them. “I’ll see you around, Diver.”

  “Good night, Peter.”

  Ethan and Diver watched the man go. The lads had moved on as well, leaving them alone in the snowy street.

  “What was that about, Ethan? Why would someone cast a spell to make a soldier attack me?”

  “I don’t know. If it makes you feel any better, I’m not convinced that any of it was directed at you specifically. That regular could as easily have gone for your friend.”

  “I don’t take much comfort in that.”

  Ethan shook his head. “To be honest, neither do I.”

  “The day Chris was shot, you tried to tell me … You said that you felt something on Middle Street. Was it the same as this?”

  “I don’t know—”

  “But you suspect.”

  Ethan hesitated before saying, “Aye. I wish it had occurred to me at the time to put Richardson to sleep. I could saved the boy’s life. But I didn’t know what would happen.”

  “Of course you didn’t. Thank you for saving me tonight.”

  “If I’d been thinking, I wouldn’t have. I’m afraid I owe you an ale.”

  Diver grinned. “That’s right. I’d forgotten.”

  “I’m heading to the Dowser. Care to collect your winnings now?”

  “I can’t,” his friend said, sobering. “I have to find Deborah. She’ll be wondering where I’ve gone.”

  “Of course. Good night, Diver. My thanks for your help with those pups.”

  “Good night, Ethan.”

  Diver headed back toward the Liberty Tree, which was near the spot where the Seider boy was to be buried. Ethan continued along Cornhill Street past Dock Square up to Hanover Street, which he followed to Sudbury, where stood the Dowsing Rod. It wasn’t the most direct route, but on this night especially he wished to avoid any more encounters with soldiers and so went out of his way to avoid Murray’s Barracks.

&nb
sp; Uncle Reg still walked beside him, and as Ethan neared the tavern he slowed. He needed to have this conversation while alone save for the ghost.

  “What did you feel?” he asked, halting to face the specter. “There was a spell, isn’t that right?”

  Reg held up two fingers.

  “Aye, two spells. Were both of them directed at the soldier?”

  Reg didn’t seem to know how to answer that. He offered a tentative nod, but Ethan had the distinct impression that he had asked the wrong question.

  He regretted not having the opportunity to use a revealing spell on the soldier, though he assumed that like the spells cast on Gordon and Richardson, it would have shown little.

  “Was this the same sort of spell you felt the day the boy was killed?”

  Reg responded the alacrity this time. Yes.

  “And was the other ghost there again? The one you saw that day?”

  Again the ghost nodded, though with less certainty.

  “You believe so, but you’re not sure.”

  Yes.

  “Were their other conjurers in the procession, aside from me?”

  Reg shook his head.

  Ethan frowned. He had expected a different answer. “Not even Jonathan Grant, the man we met in the Green Dragon?”

  No.

  Of course. The man was a clerk for the Customs Board. It was one thing to go to the Dragon, where he could be confident that only fellow patriots would see him. But to march in the funeral procession, on display for the entire city, could well have cost Grant his job.

  It occurred to Ethan to ask another question of his spectral guide, but at the thought of it, his pulse quickened, and his thoughts returned once more to the night Gordon attacked Will Pryor.

  “I didn’t summon you tonight,” Ethan said. “I didn’t have to. Why is that?”

  Reg stared back at him; it seemed that his eyes blazed brighter than usual.

  “The spells you felt tonight—where did they come from?”

  Reg lifted his hand and pointed at Ethan.

  Chapter

  TEN

  Ethan had known that the ghost would tell him this, and yet he didn’t understand how it was possible.