Freedom's Ring

by Heidi Chiavaroli

  “Light the tar barrels on Beacon Hill!”

  “Yes—our town needs aid. Others should know!”

  The comments swirled around me. From out of the chaos I heard my name.

  “Miss Liberty!”

  The lieutenant didn’t appear to be in line with the other soldiers. The captain stood beside him. I dipped my head, bracing myself for his censure. The lieutenant spoke first. “Thank the Lord you are here,” he said. “There are injured. Perhaps—”

  The captain grasped my arm roughly. “There is naught to be done. We are all going home.” He started away from the crowd, my skin burning where he held it.

  “Captain, the governor has ordered us to the guardhouse. Miss Caldwell has supplies and knowledge these men can use.”

  Behind my employers, I felt the mob brewing, nudging one another over our display.

  “I don’t answer to Hutchinson,” the captain sneered. “I take my orders from Colonel Dalrymple. We will go home now.” He pulled my arm.

  The lieutenant stepped close to the captain, his posture firm and steady. I hadn’t realized he was taller than the captain until that moment. He spoke down to his superior, his nose nearly touching the captain’s. “Use wisdom, sir. You will certainly hang this very night if you do not remove your hand from the girl this minute.”

  His words rang true. Behind him even now a burly gentleman struck a catstick against his open palm. “You bloodybacks shoot us, then dare manhandle a girl before us? You best run and leave the lass alone if you know what’s best for ya.”

  The captain snorted and shoved my arm away so that I stumbled a step. “You best be home within the hour, Miss Caldwell, or you will find yourself out of employment.”

  “Yes, sir,” I mumbled after him as he began, not toward our residence as he claimed was his intent but toward the guardhouse with the rest of the soldiers.

  The lieutenant looked after him. “Do be careful, Miss Liberty. What has begun this night cannot be undone.” He followed after the captain, his chin high against the jeering of the crowd, his musket firm at his side.

  I broke away from the lingering stares to a spot where a dark form lay. He was massive, a mulatto from the looks of it. “I have supplies,” I called to a man who knelt near the body, “and some knowledge of their use. Might he be moved to some semblance of a dressing station?”

  “This one already be taken to eternity, miss. That lad yonder may benefit.”

  I looked in the direction he pointed, about ten yards away. A man lay on his side, his back toward me, the wounds exposed to the night air. The snow bled red beneath him. I cringed at the muddied scraps of shirts with which the man attending him attempted to stanch the flow of blood.

  “Please,” I called. “I have fresh bandages. And medicine. Allow me.”

  I fell to my knees in the mud, grabbed the linens in my basket. The man took away his scraps, the blood having soaked them through. Nausea gripped me at the sight of bone and flesh and muscle. I pressed a linen to the wound, knowing my skill was not enough to help the gentleman. “He needs a doctor. Where can the nearest be found?”

  The injured man groaned, and I patted his shoulder, making shushing sounds as I did when James was a boy, crying over the death of our parents.

  “Doctor Warren and Doctor Church have been sent for. We best not move him or he will lose more blood.”

  “I agree, and yet his temperature is dropping. He needs to be out of the cold.”

  The wounded man drew in a rattling breath. Something about it made me pause. He croaked out a sound.

  And I knew. This man was not a stranger.

  Heavenly Father, no . . . please let it not be so.

  My hands took up a furious trembling, so much so that the man beside me took the linen from me. My breathing came rapid, and I tripped on my skirts in an effort to see the face of the suffering man.

  I vomited in the snow beside me, barely had time to swipe at my mouth ere black spots danced before my eyes.

  I reached for my brother’s face, his eyelids fluttering. “James—James, I am here. A doctor is coming.”

  Flashes of my brother’s youth assaulted me. James, running toward me in a field, his breeches stained with grass, his mouth all smiles, blue from berry juice. James, climbing into my bed, cuddling warm at my side, asking me to read Robinson Crusoe. James, speaking passionately as a near adult about freedom and the Cause he served.

  “Put more pressure on those wounds,” I ordered through tears. “James—James. . . .” My frantic tone rose at the fierce convulsing of my brother’s body. A line of crimson blood bubbled up from a mouth that tried to form words. It ran down the side of his face. I leaned closer, knowing he did not have much longer.

  “I am here, James. I am here.”

  His pale mouth whispered unintelligible sounds. I leaned farther down. My cheek touched the snowy, footprint-packed ground, the scent of sour bile emanating from my brother’s mouth.

  “I . . . am proud . . . to . . . die for . . . freedom. Love you . . . Liberty.”

  “I love you, James.” Tears froze on my cheeks, and I clutched my brother tight, willing my warmth, my life, into him. A moment later his convulsing stopped, and my sobs came harder, my chest shuddering against his cloak.

  “Miss.” The man who had tried to help me put a hand at my elbow, my brother’s blood on his fingers.

  I shook my head against James’s shoulder, denying the words that would come from the man’s mouth.

  “He is gone, miss.”

  I breathed a last quaking sob, looked at James’s vacant death stare. I clasped a hand to my mouth to suppress the gag that rose within me. The gentleman closed my brother’s eyes. “I am deeply sorry, miss. Were you courting?”

  My lips cracked when I opened my mouth. “No. He—he’s my little brother.”

  I stared at James’s body. My little brother. We should have been together. He never should have sought life at sea. I never should have let him go. I should have searched harder, hunted the streets of Boston for my brother instead of relying on a customs official. Then we would have been together. James wouldn’t have taken up with the Gazette or the Sons or any such ridiculous call for independence.

  “I can see to his body, miss. ’Tis not suitable for a lady to be exposed to all this. Tell me your address, and I will call on you tomorrow and give you news of where he is.”

  “Where he is . . . ,” I said dumbly.

  “Miss, might you tell me your name? Your place of residence? I give you my word to call on you tomorrow.”

  I gazed at my brother’s body again, suddenly aware that a soldier of the Crown had done this. I blew my nose in my apron. The Regulars were responsible for murdering my brother. How could I admit to being in their employ? How could I not be ashamed to serve them, to sleep in a bed they supplied, to fall in love with one of them?

  Bile rose again in my belly, and I quelled it with a press of a hand to my middle. I was the most traitorous kind of sister to allow myself to fall in love with a redcoat. I’d live on the streets if I had to. I’d die on the streets rather than crawl back to the officers’ house, accept their food and fire.

  I straightened, feeling a tangible target for my grief and anger. Over my brother’s blood, still reddening the snow, I addressed the man who wished to give me aid.

  “My name is Liberty Caldwell. And you may give any news to those in the office of the Gazette.”

  Never again would I dance over the line drawn between Patriot and Regular. Never again would I betray my brother.

  Or his Cause.

  WHEN THE DOORBELL let out its single cheery chime, I grabbed my purse and opened the door to see Brad in khakis and a polo shirt.

  I glanced down at my jeans. “Hey. Am I underdressed?”

  He smiled, revealing a row of straight teeth. “No—you’re perfect. I just wanted to make a good impression after phoning it in at our last dinner.”

  I locked the door and we walked to the ca
r. “You know, I kind of miss the pencil.”

  “Pencil?”

  “In your hat.” I gestured to the side of my head.

  He laughed. “Next time I’ll be sure to take you to a fast-food place instead of Boston’s finest. I’ll wear my hat and pencil. I’ll even clear off the passenger’s seat of my work van and take you in that. My sister exaggerates—it’s not really as bad as an episode of Hoarders.”

  I swallowed down the nerves climbing my throat. My mind skidded over the fact that he wanted to take me out again and landed on where we were going. “B-Boston?”

  “Yeah—that okay? We were just there last week, so I didn’t think you were against it.” He opened the door for me, but I didn’t get in.

  “Sure, that’s fine. Where are we going?”

  “There’s something I want you—us—to see at the Museum of Fine Arts.”

  Back Bay. I dragged in a deep breath, braced my hand against the top of the open car door.

  “Annie?”

  I exhaled, slow and steady. “My full name’s Anaya.” Why he should care, why I chose that moment to divulge such information, I didn’t know. But I wanted him to understand. And if anyone could, it was him, wasn’t it? The man who had shared the terror of that day with me? “It means ‘completely free.’” I laughed at the irony. “I haven’t been back to that part of Boston since the bombing.”

  “Ah, gotcha.”

  I flung my hand in the air, sat in the passenger’s seat of his Accord. “Go, please. I didn’t mean to make a big deal out of nothing.”

  He didn’t close my door. “We don’t have to go to Boston tonight.”

  I breathed deep. “I’m tired of being a baby about the past. Yes. I want to go.” At least I wanted to want to go. Same thing, right?

  He shut my door and walked around to the driver’s side. The inside of the car smelled like pine and woodsy cologne. The scent triggered something about that long-ago day. Something more hopeful than horrible, more wondrous than wearing. I clung to it.

  Traffic ran light, and we entered the city a short time later. As the buildings pressed in around us, I reminded myself I had nothing to fear. Couldn’t this even be an important step in my healing? Returning to Back Bay with Red Sox Sweatshirt?

  “Are you afraid of another attack?” He pressed the brakes as we met a red light off the highway.

  A news van pulled alongside us, reminding me that the trial I avoided rained upon the city. I wanted to know what went on in that courtroom, and I didn’t. I would stay up to watch the ten o’clock news, and then shut it off when highlights of the trial popped up on the screen.

  “No. It’s the memories. The suffering. The thought of my niece, Grace . . . the thought of a boy the same age as my nephew . . .” I couldn’t finish the thought. The word killed didn’t seem to do justice to what really had been done.

  “They’ll find him guilty.”

  I scrunched up my face. “I’m not convinced that will fix everything.” I shrugged. “People think it will—hey, maybe I’m wrong and it will make me feel better.”

  But it wouldn’t change things. The bombing had still happened. That boy’s parents still needed to live with the fact that they’d never see their son graduate high school, grow up, maybe get married. They’d never see what type of man he’d become. It had all been taken away. Stolen.

  Just like my life had been.

  My thighs tensed as we made our way through Boston’s Back Bay and pulled into a parking garage.

  “The museum doesn’t close until ten on Wednesdays. Figured we’d get dinner after.”

  I forgot about the past, about my grief, and clutched the ring at my neck until the metal grew warm in my palm. “There’s something about this ring in the museum?”

  “I think so. But I wanted to see what you thought before I got you all excited.”

  I turned toward him. “Okay, spill it. What’s this all about?”

  Brad put the car in park and shut off the engine. His grin shone in the dim lighting of the garage. “Last December, some construction workers at the State House uncovered a time capsule from 1795. It was buried by Sam Adams and Paul Revere.”

  Goose bumps broke out on my skin. “I remember hearing about that on the news. It was a bunch of coins and newspapers and stuff, right?”

  “And something else. A poem.”

  I blinked. “Okay.”

  “I remembered them opening the capsule at the museum back in January. But I forgot about it until I browsed my newsfeed last night.” He reached for his phone in a cup holder of the center console, opened an app, and handed it to me.

  An article from the news section of a Boston website. It stated that beginning today, March 11, the Museum of Fine Arts would display the artifacts found in the time capsule.

  I lowered the phone. “Neat.”

  Brad took it back, scrolled farther down the page. “The poem’s by a woman named Liberty Gregory. There were a few words that caught my eye.” He enlarged the picture of the poem, crinkled and yellowed with age.

  I scanned the stanzas, incomplete in the picture. But my gaze immediately latched on to one phrase. “No way.” My head swam with excitement. This shouldn’t mean so much to me. It was Brad’s family, after all. His ring. His ancestors, his inheritance. But I couldn’t deny how it called to me, this story untold. I had waded through the last two years with this ring by my side. I’d clung to it, slept with it, imbued it with powers it couldn’t possibly possess. Of course I’d be enthusiastic about the words before me.

  Victory belongs to the one who is strong.

  Beside me, Brad grinned. “Keep reading.”

  I skimmed the words in a rush. It spoke of a stolen ring. “You’re kidding me. Do you think . . . ?”

  “That’s why I wanted us to come and see it. To read the whole poem. I’d been searching for information on the ring for days. When I saw this I thought it was wishful thinking.”

  I handed him his phone. “That would be a mighty big coincidence.”

  Brad nodded. “Unless someone made a lot of rings with that saying back then.”

  “Possible. But we’re here now. Let’s go see what we find.”

  We exited the car, and as we walked toward the entrance of the museum, Brad reached out and squeezed my hand. Then, just as quickly, he released it.

  Before tonight, I thought I’d never set foot in this section of Boston again. I thought I’d never come so close to my living nightmares. But here, with Brad, anticipating Liberty Gregory’s poem inside the museum, I felt . . . alive.

  My hand tingled where Brad had squeezed it, and I thought maybe, just maybe, Brad Kilroy was still my hero.

  MARCH 6, 1770

  I did not return to the officers’ house that night. Neither did the townspeople manage a signal fire on Beacon Hill before Governor Hutchinson stopped them. I left my brother’s body to the man—whose name I learned was Mr. Gregory—to take care of, James’s blood still fresh in the snow. I took to walking the bitterly cold streets, my fear-filled mind numbing my senses to the near-freezing temperatures, the sound of baying dogs, rattling carts, and drunken, angry men. A herd of pigs had broken loose from their pens, and they ran by me, poking their snouts into the dirty gutters.

  I replayed the events of the night over and over again in my head. The stench of musket fire, James’s blood in the snow, his final bold proclamation of being proud to die for freedom. His proclamation of love for me. He had loved me. Even though he knew I was disloyal to the Cause for which he lived. For three days I had known he was in Boston, willing to help me find another employ, and for three days I did nothing to change my situation.

  Whether it was the consequence of my overtired mind or pure hatred that gripped me like a hard, angry vise, a potent need for revenge curled its talons around my heart, possessing me whilst I stalked the town streets into daybreak. As the ugly thing festered inside me, news from Faneuil Hall swept through the town—news that the troops, along with
the customs commissioners, would remove to Castle Island, beginning the very next day, for their own safety.

  Victory played a bittersweet tune across my vengeful heart. This was James’s triumph, not my own. Not even Hancock’s or Adams’s. It all belonged to my brother. He said he was proud to die for freedom. Perhaps he had died believing truth.

  The captain and the lieutenant would leave. Good riddance to both of them. These red-coated beasts had stolen all too much from me. My honor, my heart, and now my brother.

  A need for justice swelled within my chest. ’Twas so great it demanded to be served. That was when the idea came to me. A horrible idea that I could not fathom as my own, and yet it was. As I walked in the direction of the officers’ house, I clung to this, my only consolation.

  While the plan was not a thing so honorable as my brother’s death, I felt it was also perfect in its own way. I would prove my loyalty to James and his Cause, even if I had to do it with his soul beyond the grave.

  I slid the key I’d taken with me the night before into the lock of the officers’ house and heard it click softly. They did not lock the door except at night or if they were out and about, but I suspected in the aftermath of yesterday’s events they would do so even if they were awake and in the home.

  To my relief, the officers didn’t occupy the keeping room. I heard no voices upstairs. I bolted the door and crept up the stairs like a thief, the task before me calling.

  Once in my chambers, I made haste in obtaining my valise from beneath the bed. I opened the drawer of my dressing table and retrieved my underclothes and brush, shoving them in the depths of the case. Then my mobcaps, my stockings, my spare petticoat, and two dresses. I picked up the book of poetry the lieutenant had given me and tried not to waver as I left it on top of the cherrywood surface of my set of drawers. He would be hurt to see that I had left it, but I could not in good conscience carry around a gift from the enemy.