The Demon Redcoat

by C. C. Finlay

  He wiped the drool off his chin and the sleep from his eyes. He rolled over and saw Maggie suckling at Deborah’s breast. She looked so small. The idea of anything happening to her—especially because of him—was too much to bear.

  “I was dreaming,” he said.

  Her posture tightened, rigid enough to interrupt Maggie for a second while she suckled. “What were you dreaming about?”

  He hesitated before answering. He wasn’t sure he wanted to share all his fears with her. She had enough to take care of already. But he was terrible at hiding things from her when she stared at him that way. “I dreamed about Magdalena.”

  “What did she look like?” Deborah asked.

  “She looked young again. She was wearing a silver dress and a white cap, and she could stand without leaning on her cane.” He sat up and nodded at their daughter. “Maybe it was because I was thinking about Maggie.”

  Deborah lifted Maggie away from her breast. The baby’s mouth puckered on open air, and her tiny hands waved frantically while Deborah shifted her to the other side and helped her latch on.

  “Maybe it wasn’t a dream,” Deborah said.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I also dreamed of Magdalena.”

  Her nightcap had fallen off, and her hair was loose, spilling down over her cheeks and covering her face enough that he couldn’t see her expression. But he could tell that something was wrong, that she was worried or upset. He reached out and touched her arm. “Deborah?”

  She brushed the hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. “I didn’t think I’d ever fall in love,” she said out of nowhere. “I knew for certain that I was going to end my days an old maid.”

  “You mean you weren’t one already when I met you?” he said, meaning to tease her. The tone was wrong, but she understood what he was trying to do. She reached over and pinched the back of his hand, and he jerked it away. “Ow.”

  “Let me have my say,” she said.

  “All right. You were going to end your days an old maid.”

  “Yes,” she said, stroking Maggie’s hair. “And then my parents would die and I wouldn’t have any family or relatives. I would hide in their old house while it slowly fell down around me, invisible to the world. The years would pass, and I would turn into the very caricature of a witch, an old hag, begging from house to house in Salem village, bitter and angry, muttering petty curses under my breath at the townspeople who kicked me off their doorstep or sent their dogs to growl at me.”

  “You didn’t dwell on it much, did you?” he said, sitting up beside her.

  “A passing thought, once or twice,” Deborah said. Maggie tugged her little head off Deborah’s breast and emitted a tiny, wet burp. Deborah held the baby to her shoulder and patted her back.

  Proctor leaned forward and pressed his lips against the back of Maggie’s delicate head. She smelled sweet, like milk. She sighed and fell instantly asleep against her mother’s shoulder. “This is a fair approximation of what I always wanted out of life,” he said.

  Deborah looked at him, surprised. “Is it?”

  “I wanted to serve my country, and I’ve done that, more than I ever expected. I wanted a build a prosperous farm, and we’re on the way to that. I wanted to build a new house, and even though Ezra did most of the work, we’ve got a pretty good start on that.” He met her eyes, which were the brightest thing in the room, as if they were only a shade covering the light inside her. “I wanted a beautiful wife and a family.”

  Deborah smiled. “And now you’ve got that too.”

  “No, I’m still hoping that will come around someday—” Her hand jumped up to pinch him again and he flinched, grinning. “Yes, yes, now I’ve got that too.” He leaned over to kiss her. She turned her head to the side, and he kissed her cheek. “That’s been the best part,” he said.

  “You better say that’s the best part,” she said.

  “That’s the best part.”

  She leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. They leaned together carefully, protecting Maggie between them. Deborah reached up and held her hand against his cheek. Finally, she sighed and pulled away.

  “That wasn’t a dream,” she said finally.

  He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall, trying to brace himself as the world rushed away from him. “No, it wasn’t. Her spirit came to visit us.”

  “To warn us.”

  “I know.”

  “The demon they sent, that’s unlike any magic, good or evil, that I’ve ever witnessed or heard account of,” Deborah said. “And I barely glimpsed it. We’ll have to be more careful than ever. Set up stronger protections, take fewer risks beyond the bounds of The Farm.”

  “That won’t be enough.” He swung his legs off the bed and rested his bare feet on the wide planks of the floor. He leaned, elbows on his knees, and rubbed his face. “It’s no good waiting for them to come find us. I’ve got to go find them.”

  “And kill them?” Deborah asked.

  “If I need to,” Proctor answered.

  “You can’t solve all our problems by killing people.”

  “Maybe—but sometimes it’s a good start.”

  He tried to respect Deborah’s Quaker background and her rejection of violence, so he regretted the words as soon as he said them. He stood and walked over to the closed door. He braced his hands on the jambs and pressed his head against the rough wood.

  “I don’t like what it does to you,” she said. “Every time you hurt someone it takes a little part of you away.”

  “Like a finger?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  He spun around. “But it’s the truth. I’m a danger to you and to Maggie. That necromancer can use it to turn me against you. As long as he has my finger, he has a trigger on a gun that’s aimed at both of you. We have no idea when it will fire.”

  “It doesn’t have to fire,” Deborah said. “Just because a man owns a gun doesn’t mean he has to use it.”

  “But that decision isn’t up to us,” he said. “And if we sit here and wait and do nothing—”

  “Who said anything about nothing?” Deborah said. “We’ll strengthen our defenses. We’ll find a way to be prepared.”

  “We can’t solve everything with magic, not if all we do is react to them. They create protective charms, so we break the charms. They curse the army, so we break the curse. They send demons for us, so we find a way to defeat the demon. They attacked us in our home, despite all our protections.” He felt like his heart would dam his throat and block his words, so he talked faster, pouring the words out. “Sooner or later, they’ll try some magic that gets past us. If we stay here, while they’re out there making their plans, we’re just like fish in a barrel. We’re trapped here on The Farm, and that’s precisely where they want us. It leaves them free to pursue whatever they want while we don’t do anything.”

  “We don’t have to leave The Farm to learn things,” she said. “I … I can learn to spirit-walk. I’ll find a way to reach Magdalena again. I’ll ask her to explain her warnings to us.”

  She could learn to spirit-walk, but what did that leave him to do to protect his family? Wait until they were in danger again and react? “What exactly was Magdalena’s warning to you?”

  Deborah dropped her eyes and sighed. She pulled the blankets up around her and caressed Maggie’s head. “I didn’t mean to argue with you.”

  “I tell you what her warning was—she told you we were a danger to each other. She told you that our enemy would use you against your loved ones, use your loved ones against you.”

  He saw the tears rolling down her cheeks and the shudder in her shoulders and hated himself for saying anything. But it was the truth, and they had to face the truth if they were going to survive. He squeezed his eyes shut. Dear God, they had been attacked inside their own home. And the fire that the demon used to attack them had been stoked with his own hands.

  “Love is never a
danger in itself,” Deborah choked out. “It is the fear of losing love that drives us to do evil. The only solution is for us not to be afraid.”

  He went to the bed and sat beside her, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her close. She pressed her wet cheek against his shoulder. “I’m not afraid of love,” he whispered. “I’m afraid of seeing the people I love get hurt. I’m afraid of doing nothing while evil men seek ways to hurt us. I want to find a way to stop them. I have to stop them or we’ll never be safe again.”

  “I understand that,” she said, wrapping her arm around him and squeezing. “I understand that you must follow your own light and do what you are led to believe is right. Just give me a moment to grow accustomed to it.”

  She shifted Maggie so that she rested half across her lap and half across Proctor’s. They sat there quietly, and Proctor listened to the quiet sounds of their breathing. He wondered how the world could feel so perfectly right and so terribly wrong at the exact same time.

  If he was going to take the fight to the Covenant, he would have to follow them to Europe—to Hesse or England or wherever they might be. It would take him away from his family, but it would also take them out of danger. He couldn’t be used to hurt them.

  A soft tap sounded at the door.

  Deborah scrubbed her cheeks dry with a sleeve and gathered up Maggie. “What is it?” she asked.

  “Proctor? Deborah?” Abigail’s voice. She sounded frightened.

  “Coming,” Proctor said. He jumped to the door and pulled it open.

  Abigail stood in the hall in her nightdress. Her hands were shaking. Lydia stood behind her.

  “It’s Magdalena,” Abigail said. “She came to visit me.” She indicated Lydia. “Came to visit us.”

  “I told her it could wait until morning,” Lydia said.

  “Can it wait until morning?” Proctor asked. He didn’t know how many nights he had left to spend with Deborah and Maggie, and, with the prospect of leaving looming over him, he suddenly found that every moment with them was precious to him.

  But Deborah appeared at his shoulder, her cap firming on her head, a sweater over her nightgown, and the baby in her arms. “Let’s talk now,” she said. “We’re all awake, it’ll be dawn in just a few hours, and Maggie needs a diaper change.”

  She pushed past them and headed downstairs to the kitchen. She must have left all the diapers drying on the rack beside the hearth. Abigail followed her instantly. Lydia shrugged and went after them both.

  Proctor sighed. Once Deborah made up her mind to do something, she set about doing it. It was one of her better traits, when it didn’t drive him mad.

  He dressed and followed them all downstairs.

  They were gathered around the table. A lively fire snapped in the hearth, throwing a confusion of light and shadow around the room. One of the clean diapers was missing from its spot, and a dirty one sat in a pail by the back door. He wondered if he would have time to get used to the smell.

  “I was scared,” Abigail was telling Deborah. “But only when I woke up.”

  “Were you frightened?” Deborah asked Lydia. Maggie was fussing, her eyes open, trying to focus on the things around her.

  “No, I was happy,” Lydia said. She stared at her hands, resting on the table. “I was sitting on the porch, a night just like the other night, perfect as could be, thinking how happy I was. All the work done for the day, a nice bed to sleep in, and no one to answer to but my own self. Magdalena came and sat beside me. We didn’t say anything for a while, but then we saw a shooting star burn across the sky. And Magdalena said that she was sorry, that I would pass through blood and fire. I asked her what she meant, if I would come through it. But then I looked and she was gone.”

  “That was all?”

  “Ain’t that enough?”

  Who wanted to hear that they were going to pass through blood and fire? Still, Proctor would have taken that as a comfort compared with hearing that he was a danger to his wife and daughter. Deborah rubbed her nose against Maggie, playing with her while she thought. It made Proctor happy to see them together, acting normal even when things were anything but.

  “I was walking through the orchard,” Abigail said, and then she hesitated.

  “Go on,” Deborah told her.

  “There were strangers, men—well, young men, boys really—walking through the rows on either side of me. I kept trying to spy them through the trees, but I couldn’t see their faces. I starting calling out their names, and I remember I was laughing, like we were playing a game.” She grinned, remembering the dream, then noticed everyone else looking at her and her expression grew serious again. “I chased one of the boys. I couldn’t see him clearly, just glimpses of him as he rounded the trees, always ahead of me. I was holding up my skirts in my hands, and they were feeling very heavy, and I ran around one of the apple trees, and suddenly it was night. Magdalena was standing there, only she was dressed in white and silver. She looked young and she was laughing with me.”

  “I don’t know that I ever saw Magdalena laugh much,” Proctor said.

  “She suffered constant pain from her injuries after the Covenant’s first attack on The Farm,” Deborah said. “She and my mother laughed together often, but that was years ago. I was a little girl.”

  Abigail leaned forward earnestly. “It seemed perfectly normal in the dream.”

  “Did she say anything to you?” Deborah asked.

  “I think she was going to, but I was so excited to see her that I turned around to call you. That’s when I woke up. And that’s when I became scared. Realizing that it was a dream, but not a dream. Well, that and Lydia, sitting awake, staring out the window as if she’d seen a ghost.”

  “And didn’t I?” Lydia asked.

  “What did you dream, Deborah?” Proctor asked.

  Deborah stared at Maggie and started to rock back and forth. “Magdalena was at the foot of the bed, and I was still in labor with Maggie. I pushed and pushed.” She kissed Maggie’s forehead and the baby grabbed at her face. “But Maggie refused to be born. Magdalena looked over my swollen belly and said, ‘You and the boy will be a grave danger to each other.’”

  “Boy?” asked Abigail. “Like the one I saw in the orchard?”

  Lydia snorted. “I think any man too young to have gray hair was a boy to that old woman. I heard her call Ezra young man once when she was mad at him.”

  But Proctor’s heart had already sunk in his chest. “She meant me,” he answered. He held up his scarred hand, turning it from side to side to show the missing finger. “The necromancer still has a part of me. As long as he does, I’m a danger to Deborah and Maggie, I’m a danger to all of you. That’s what Magdalena’s spirit told me.”

  No one said anything for a moment. No one looked at one another. The only sounds in the room was the crack of a log in the fire followed by Maggie’s coo.

  “What are you going to do?” Abigail asked. Her hands had bunched into fists, as if she was ready to protect herself and Deborah that very instant if needed.

  Proctor had no doubts about her fierceness. Just as he had no doubts about his own. “I’m going to go after the Covenant,” he said. “I’m going to find the man who maimed me—the prince-bishop, this German necromancer who serves the Covenant. I’m going to find him, I’m going to destroy his gruesome little collection and him, and I’m going to claim what’s mine so that nobody can ever use me or my spirit to harm those I love.”

  “But didn’t he sail for England?”

  Proctor went over to their writing desk and opened the lid. He hooked the chain to hold it up, then sorted through the small stack of letters. He found the one he wanted and held it out to the group.

  “General Washington asked me to follow—here, let me read it.” The paper crackled as he unfolded the letter. General Washington’s precise but hurried script, telling him that his special services were needed yet again. With it was another page in Tallmadge’s handwriting, laying out the details. T
allmadge had an agent who left the letters in a hollow tree outside the gate where Proctor could retrieve them later. “They want me to accompany John Adams on a diplomatic mission to France and the Netherlands. Adams has been given authority to negotiate with England directly, so they hope he may even be welcomed onto their shores. Washington’s worried about a secret effort to wreck Adams’s diplomacy. They are certain there is a spy following Adams and they hope my talents can uncover him.” He looked at the date of Adams’s approximate departure and his heart fell. There was a small bundle of letters with the original, introductions he could use if he chose to go.

  “It’s even possible that the spy is a member of the Covenant,” Lydia said. “Looking for one may lead you to the other.”

  “That sounds like a good plan,” Abigail said, her fists still at the ready.

  “Yes, it’s possible that the Covenant will be behind the effort to wreck Adams’s diplomacy. Yes, accompanying Adams is a good plan.” It was their only plan. He folded the letter and slapped it on the table. “You’ll all be safer when I’m gone.”

  Deborah had noticed his gesture with the letter. “How soon must you go?” she asked. Her voice was flat, deliberately emotionless.

  “Today,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow. They’re expected to sail by week’s end.”

  Another uncomfortable silence with averted eyes followed this announcement. It was one thing to know a departure was imminent, and another to find out that it had to be immediate.

  “But you don’t even know what you’ll do when you get there,” Deborah said. “You have no idea how you’ll find the Covenant.”

  “I’ll think of something. I always do. I just … I have to start someplace.” He rubbed his face and tried to think. “Most of the harvest is in already. It’s more than enough to carry you through the winter. Abigail and Lydia can help out with anything else that needs to be done. I don’t expect you’ll run low on firewood, but if you do there’s plenty of deadfall in the trees behind the field corn.”

  “I’m going with you,” Lydia announced.

  Abigail grabbed the other woman’s arm. “No, I don’t want you to go.”