At that moment, Michael’s wings unfurled. Patrick’s wings unfurled in response.
The stunned sentry dropped his pistol. He and the sentry, who was still standing, made eye contact then they turned and ran.
Michael raised his elbow. Patrick blocked it before Michael could pummel the unconscious sentry again.
“Michael, stop it!” Patrick yelled.
John clasped Michael’s wrists, hoping the pain would get his attention. “Michael, look at me! LOOK AT ME!”
Michael’s green eyes focused on John’s face.
“Let it go,” John said. “They have gone to get reinforcements. We cannot help our brothers if we are dead.”
Pain flooded Michael’s body and spirit. John’s blue eyes looked so much like Joseph’s eyes. Michael looked down at the bloodied and broken face of the sentry and spit on him.
Michael refused Patrick’s and John’s offer to help him stand. He furled his wings and struggled to his feet. Patrick’s wings furled in response.
The three little brothers left Charlestown Neck. The young men stopped at the crossroads.
John’s eyes misted over and betrayed his self-control. “I cannot tell my brothers and my mother that Joseph is dead unless I see his body.” John’s breath caught in his throat. “If he is dead, his children are orphans.”
The angels didn’t know what to say in response. Their wings rustled.
John heard the rustling just as Joseph had heard it when he first met Colm and Fergus in the basement of the Green Dragon Tavern. “Joseph loved all of you with an intensity I did not know existed,” John said. He blinked hard to stave off his tears. “What are you going to do now?”
“Go back to the farm and try to find Brandon and Fergus,” Patrick said.
John smiled at the beautiful angels. “What our brothers had together was a miracle. I will never forget you.” He turned and walked toward Cambridge before the weight of what had happened on Breed’s Hill collapsed in on him.
Michael stumbled and fell on the walk to Roxbury. Patrick did his best to support Michael so they could continue their journey, but both boys began to tire from hunger, anguish, and desperation. A mile from the farm, Michael fell for the last time.
He fell near the spot where the boys had passed out the night they had gotten drunk with William Dawes and Paul Revere at the Green Dragon, while Liam disobeyed his archangel and revealed his wings and aura to Abigail Adams. Like Liam had done that night in February, Patrick sat on the road and guarded Colm’s little brother.
On this long June day, the sun took its time arching across the sky toward the western horizon. There was still so much sadness and misery to illuminate before the Earth turned another rotation to plunge the people of New England into a disconsolate night.
“Go on to the farm, Patrick,” Michael said from where he lay on the dusty road. “Maybe, Brandon or Fergus is there.”
“I ain’t leavin’ you.”
Michael finally understood human suffering, and it was so much worse than he had ever imagined. “Do ya remember how to leave ya vessel?” he asked.
Patrick shook his head.
“Me either. I wish Henry had killed me.”
Patrick shut his eyes and wished that Henry had killed both of them.
A warm breeze fluttered the angels’ curly black hair. Patrick sensed Fergus and Brandon before they touched him. He opened his eyes. Fergus hooked his hands behind Patrick’s head, pulled him close, and rocked him like a mother who had discovered her abandoned infant naked and cold.
Brandon knelt beside Michael, stroked his filthy cheeks, and kissed his bloodied forehead.
Fergus urged Patrick to his feet.
“Michael’s vessel is in pain,” Patrick said. “Robert and Henry got to him.”
Michael bit his lips to keep from screaming when Fergus and Brandon lifted him into their arms. Mercifully, he blacked out.
Forty-five
Two days passed before Michael awakened in the bed where Colm used to sleep. His body was stiff, sore, filthy, and stripped of clothes. He felt exhausted and incapable of getting out of bed. The smell of urine didn’t deter the fact that, above all, he was starving.
“Colm, where are ya?” he whispered. His eyes swept the alcove that served as Colm’s bedroom above stairs in the farmhouse. The steps from the living room creaked and groaned. Michael turned his head toward the sound.
Patrick came into view. He sat on the bed with a jug of rum in his hands. “Drink as much as you cain,” he said to Michael. “We’re gonna tend to you. Before we do that, I wanna talk to you.”
Michael let Patrick tip the jug to his lips, and he drank. He laid his head back on the bed and waited for Patrick to speak.
Thanks to the rum, Fergus, Brandon, Patrick, and Gordon got Michael downstairs, bathed, and into clean clothing without hurting him too much. When he was settled on a couch in the living room, they gathered around and ate the supper Abe had prepared. Patrick fed Michael then he ate his own supper.
Fergus drank from the jug of rum and held it out to Patrick. Patrick didn’t acknowledge the offered jug.
“What is it?” Fergus asked.
Patrick’s downcast eyes regarded Michael before he looked at Fergus and said, “Me and Michael is goin’ back to Burkes Garden.”
“NO! THE FOUR OF US IS ALL THAT’S LEFT!” Brandon shouted. “And you can’t possibly take care of Michael on a journey that long!”
Fergus winced as if someone had slapped his face.
Abe and Gordon exchanged grievous looks.
Patrick sat beside Michael on the couch. “Do you think we wanna leave you?” Patrick cried. The pain in his spirit was almost debilitating.
Brandon did something angels had never done—he begged. “Don’t do this! I can’t go with you! I can’t go back to the place where we lived so happily for all those years. How can you do this?”
“Do you think this is what Colm would want?” Fergus asked.
“Colm’s dead,” Michael said. “I feel empty without him. Patrick and I can’t go on without our brothers. We need to be in the place where we felt safe.”
“Don’t go!” Brandon pleaded. He looked at Fergus for support, but he saw only sorrow in Fergus’ eyes. “You’re gonna let them go? Why?”
“They need to heal. I can’t soothe them the way Colm cou’d,” Fergus said. “Let them go, Brandon. It’s the only way we can help them.”
Brandon wiped a hand across his watering eyes, and asked Patrick, “How are you gonna take care of Michael? He can’t even ride a horse.”
Abe set his plate aside. “I will go with you. I have nothing keeping me here. My farm can go back to the land.”
“You’d do that for us?” Patrick asked, shocked.
Abe shrugged. “Why not? Jeremiah’s there. I assume you have a place to live, and if you do not, then we will build one.” The truth was he, too, needed to leave Massachusetts to find a place where he could live in peace. The idea of carving out a new life was comforting.
Fergus thought of the rundown three-room cabin the angels had lived in in Burkes Garden. It was a far cry from what he had become accustomed to living in Dillaway House. He would give anything to live in that cabin with his brotherhood again, but the brotherhood was gone. He had fulfilled his aspiration to become the general of a human army because Colm had allowed it. Somehow, he felt that Colm would be disappointed if he turned his back on his achievement to return to a place he no longer belonged.
“Brandon, the Committee of Safety made you a lieutenant last March,” Abe said. “Why not take advantage of it? You cou’d stay here under Fergus’ command.”
Brandon wrinkled his nose as if the suggestion stank.
“We ain’t dyin’,” Patrick reminded him. “We’re just goin’ to Burkes Garden. Maybe, when we feel stronger, we’ll come back to Roxbury.”
Brandon nodded, although he was uncertain of what he was in agreement with.
“Gordon, wou’d yo
u consider coming with us?” Abe asked.
Gordon hated himself for allowing Robert Percy to live long enough to kill Joseph. He hated that the family he had come to love was in shambles. He hated everything that happened on Breed’s Hill despite the Sigil of Lucifer. The only way he could make something good from all that hatred was to return to what he was doing before he met Colm Bohannon.
He said, “I have the business of revenge to get back to.”
“Killing demons from Hell?” Fergus asked.
“Yes.”
“Is there a chance that I can get you to join the provincial army and stay with me and Brandon?”
“Maybe, but not now. I have to be on my own for a while before I lay my heart and soul out for a cause or a—” Gordon’s laugh sounded like a man who was trying to stifle a sob. “—or a family.”
Paul Revere and William Dawes came to the farm to quietly mourn Joseph and the lost angels, and to say goodbye to those who were leaving.
Paul was surprised at the depth of the loss he felt for Colm, Seamus, and Ian. He did not realize what an integral part of the patriotic cause they had become. In their innocent manner, the angels had taught him that life held secrets unimagined and that men had choices beyond what society taught. Above all, he realized that they had become loyal friends he would dearly miss.
And there was an opportunity Paul seized upon with fatherly satisfaction. As a silversmith, he occasionally fashioned teething rings and pacifiers for children of the very wealthy. Thanks to a colleague in Dorchester, who had the materials available in his silversmith shop, Paul had crafted a pacifier from silver and adorned it with red coral. The smooth coral satisfied the baby’s urge to suck. The bells and whistles attached to the end of the pacifier satisfied the baby’s urge to scream.
Paul entrusted the delivery of the gift for Jeremiah’s son to Abe.
William Dawes was much more open and unsurprised about his melancholy mood. He thought of Joseph as he watched Gordon and Fergus lift Michael up until he was able to slide the toe of his left boot into the stirrup. From where he sat in the saddle, Abe slipped his hands under Michael’s arms. Michael pushed himself up while Abe pulled him into the saddle to sit in front of him.
Brandon tethered the horse, which he hoped Michael would eventually be able to ride, to Patrick’s saddle horn.
Fergus double checked the saddlebags on all three horses for food, rum, water, and ammunition. Patrick, Michael, and Abe had muskets strapped over their backs. Colm had told Brandon to let Jeremiah take all the ammunition left at the farm, but Jeremiah had refused to take something so precious from his angels.
Everything that could possibly be said, every tear that could possibly be shed, and every sentiment that could possibly be conveyed was exhausted. There was nothing to do now but let them go. Fergus, Brandon, Gordon, William, and Paul stood in the road and watched until they were out of sight. It was the last day they would spend on the farm.
The Gage’s stood on Long Wharf under a stunningly clear late June sky. The Charming Nancy tugged at her moorings. The ship swayed on the continuous swell of wakes and the outgoing tide.
“I am sorry, Margaret.”
“There is nothing to apologize for, Thomas. I know you are looking out for us by sending us away from the misery of smallpox and food shortages that the people of this besieged town are suffering. I suppose we have both grown weary of Boston.”
There were so many people dying in Boston that Thomas had ordered the city’s death bells silenced.
Three Gage children followed their nanny and boarded the ship. Constance McCaskey, lingered near the Gage’s for a moment, then she too boarded. Margaret had promised to keep Constance’s pregnancy a secret for as long as possible. Constance had confirmed what Margaret already suspected—General Henry Hereford was the father.
And General Hereford and his aide-de-camp were listed as missing after the Battle of Bunker Hill.
“I’m looking forward to seeing our daughters again,” Margaret said. “I received a letter from Maria only yesterday. She writes that they are doing well. She and several other girls from school traveled to London to see Romeo and Juliet.”
She forced a smile and offered the letter to Thomas.
Thomas took the folded letter from Margaret’s hands. Sweat bloomed on his forehead and under his arms. His courage to send his pregnant wife back to England without him seemed to be dwindling. He had not been able to gather an ounce of courage to tell Margaret that Joseph Warren had died at Bunker Hill because he feared her reaction to the news.
Margaret and the children were eating breakfast in the garden at Province House when she received the news of Joseph’s death. A brief note had been delivered to her by an unknown messenger.
From where he stood at his office window, Thomas had watched her unfold the small unsigned piece of paper. She gently laid a hand on her swelling belly and read the note. Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open. The note slipped from her hand and fluttered to the ground. Thomas heard her agonized lament. Tears coursed down her cheeks and trickled into her open mouth. She aspirated the salty tears and choked on them. The memory would never fade from his mind.
Thomas held his daughter’s letter in his sweating hands. I should care about Maria’s letter. But after everything that has happened, I cannot concentrate on nor validate anything that does not serve to soothe what Margaret and I have been through.
Margaret stroked Thomas’ long cheek. It was uncharacteristically rough with beard stubble. She looked into his droopy brown eyes. Those eyes were the reason she had admitted to him that the child she carried could be Joseph Warren’s child. She had to be able to look Thomas in the eye and know she had nothing to hide.
“I expect you to be a kind man.” She briefly touched her belly. “This child is without sin. She deserves your love just as our other children do.”
Margaret is right. The child is innocent, Thomas thought. “I will join you in England as soon as I can. And I promise I will be a good father—”
Margaret kissed him on the lips to silence his words. He returned her kiss. She turned and boarded The Charming Nancy.
Mercy Scollay disbelieved the initial news that Joseph and Colm were dead. The message, from Elbridge Gerry, read that neither Joseph nor Colm had attended the Committee of Safety meeting in Watertown on the afternoon of June 19.
“Joseph was probably not feeling well,” she told herself on the morning of June 20 as she held the message in her damp, shaking hand. “He is prone to headaches. Yes, that must be the reason he did not attend the meeting.”
When news arrived that they were indeed dead, Mercy took to her bed. Dorothy Dix was left to care for her two children and Joseph’s children.
A recurring nightmare haunted Mercy. She dreamed that she was with Joseph visiting the places they often went together. When she turned to speak to him, he was not by her side. Her eyes searched every face. She screamed his name. He was just gone.
The dream upset her to the point that she fought off sleep until she was so exhausted that sleep easily got its way. As the insufferable hours turned to days, she became more and more numb—incapable of drawing on a single emotion except grief.
A new dream intruded in on her sleep. The angels came to rescue her and the children from the Dix house and take them back to Boston and the house on Hanover Street. On the journey, the angel named Seamus collapsed and died. Joseph and Colm appeared to escort Seamus to Heaven. Mercy tried to speak to them but they did not acknowledge her. She reached to touch Joseph’s cheek. When her fingers brushed his skin, he burst into flames.
She began to fear for his afterlife. Has Joseph been granted entry into Heaven despite his loyalty to the banished angels whom he loved so much?
Five days after Mercy took to her bed, Dorothy Dix entered her bedroom uninvited. She sat on the edge of the bed and grasped Mercy’s thin hand. “You must tell the children that their father is dead,” Dorothy said gently. “It is no
t my place. They are asking questions: Elizabeth and Joseph, in particular. They are frightened because your behavior is out of the ordinary.”
Tears flooded Mercy’s eyes, and she wished she could drown in them.
Dorothy swept loose locks of hair away from Mercy’s wet cheeks, and said, “Elizabeth is also asking about the angels. Mercy, you must pull yourself together and take care of his children as he would expect you to do.”
Mercy threw her arms around Dorothy’s shoulders and sobbed into her neck. “How am I to live without him?”
Dorothy gathered her in her arms. The women cried in their miserable embrace.
Forty-six
Concord, Massachusetts July 1775
Dr. Samuel Prescott looked up from his account book. Tatoson was standing in the study doorway.
“Come in,” Samuel said. He closed the book and stood up.
Tatoson remained where he was. “My grandmother has died. I am leaving Massachusetts.”
Samuel folded his arms over his chest and frowned, “You are running away,” he stated.
“I am to be wed. I am following her people, the Nantucket.”
The truth was that the death of Joseph Warren and the angels was more than he could bear. He knew he was not hiding it well because Samuel was studying him with mournful eyes that reflected Tatoson’s inner feelings. They were both suffering from an inability to cope. It would ease with time, but in the meanwhile, time stretched out before them.
“I suppose I should propose to Lydia,” Samuel said. There were often stretches of months, sometimes years, when Tatoson and he did not see one another. Yet, Tatoson’s announcement saddened him. Samuel was losing a brother, just as Michael and Patrick had lost their brothers.
Tatoson said nothing.
“Where is the Nantucket migrating to?” Samuel asked.
“West of the English man’s war. We will not make the same mistake as our ancestors did during King Philip’s war.”
Angels & Patriots Page 51