The Patriot Witch

by C. C. Finlay

  “What did Nance send thee to do?”

  To kill them witches, just like it says in the Bible. Nance said they must be killed, paid us to do it. Who are you? Where's my brother, Bill? Bill?

  “Dick,” Elizabeth said. “Thou must tell us who Nance is.”

  But the ghost twisted its head from side to side. The smoke had started to dissipate and the glow was fading.

  They hadn't learned anything yet. Proctor shouted, “Hey, Bill! Get your sorry ass in here!”

  Deborah twitched at his yell, but the second man appeared immediately. His face and body, suffused with light, formed out of the smoke. He was staring at his shredded arm. The first image solidified again. The pulse grew stronger through Proctor's hands.

  I don't know what happened, Dick. The dog bit me, and then we were running toward the house, and then it all went black. His chin lifted and he looked blankly around the room, then he looked down. Hey, there's my gear. Where are we?

  Hell if I know. It's all so black and cold.

  “Thy souls may still go into the Light if you make amends for your evil deeds,” Elizabeth said forcefully. “Where dost thou come from? Who is Nance and why does he want us dead?”

  Both faces turned toward Elizabeth. Finally, Dick said, again, Who are you?

  Why are you talking to her? Bill asked.

  “Do rightly here,” Elizabeth said. “Tell us who Nance is.”

  Proctor wanted to scream at her. These were rough men, backwoodsmen—he knew the type well. “So did you fellows take the road up from Boston?”

  Bill looked over his shoulder, shook his head. No. Nance arranged it. We boarded a smugglers' ship at Hancock's pier, and he sailed us up the coast to Salem. Didn't hear his name, didn't want to either.

  Shut up, Bill, I don't think we should be talking to him either.

  “Nance wanted me to check up on you,” Proctor said. “Find out where things went so wrong. You two mucked it up pretty bad, didn't you?”

  He felt a sharp pain flow into his right hand, like a needle red from the flame, and he winced.

  Wasn't me who mucked it up, Bill said.

  Nance promised it'd be easy. Said they were witches and Quakers, traitors to the Crown, spies for the rebels. Said they were already headed to hell so we weren't doing no wrong.

  Bill's ghost nodded. We just had to speed them on the way. We were supposed to spare—

  The pulsing through Proctor's hand stopped abruptly. The light drained from both figures, and they were only dusty shadows lit by the natural candlelight.

  Cecily had covered her mouth, and she was pale and shaking. “God forgive me,” she said. “They were going to spare no one.”

  Elizabeth whispered, “Take Lydia's hand. Now, please.”

  She did so reluctantly, only when the ghosts had almost faded away. Outside the house, darkness had fallen. Proctor immediately called to them, “Finish your report.”

  That's all there is to report, Bill said. What do we do next?

  Dick closed his hand on Bill's mangled arm. Come on, we're done for. There's nothing left for us here.

  They stared off into the distance beyond the dark horizon. “Thou art welcome to stay here awhile,” Elizabeth said. “Make amends for what thou did.”

  It's cold here, Dick. It's so cold it burns.

  That's all right, brother. If it gets cold enough, we'll just fall asleep and then we'll forget everything.

  They started to fade. The ropes of smoke unraveled. The candles sparked, flames flaring, and then guttered back to normal. The ghosts were gone.

  Around the table, it was as though everyone finally remembered to breathe.

  Elizabeth said, “Let us keep our hands linked, and our hearts and heads clear a moment longer. Proctor, call them back.”

  He nodded. He didn't think it would work, but he would try.

  “And do not cheat them vith the lies this time,” Magdalena said.

  He wanted to argue with her—this whole calling forth spirits was a lie, making dead men believe they were still alive. But he held his opinion for now. “Dick, Bill, come back here. You haven't been dismissed yet. Dick! Fall in to muster!”

  The candles flickered, but the smoke failed to coalesce, so he called out again. Again, nothing.

  “Call back the dead men now,” Elizabeth said, her voice sounding desperate.

  Proctor thought about the tone of voice his captain used in militia training. “Get your ass in here now.”

  The flames shot up, consuming the candle wax in a second, and then they all fell dark. He felt his pulse flowing both ways, out both arms. A ball of light appeared above the center of the table, unshaped by any smoke. It had a warm, honeyed glow that illuminated the faces around the table with a holy light.

  “Hold on to one another,” Elizabeth said, her voice shifting from desperation to fear.

  Proctor felt pulled both ways. He squeezed both hands tight.

  Across the table, Lydia's head flung forward and then snapped back. When she opened her mouth, the voice that came out was old and masculine, and spoke with a New En gland accent.

  “I am sorry for the way things happened, Elizabeth. I do not like to see thee hurt. Keep faith that this is as God intended it to be.”

  “Jed?” Her voice wavered. “Jed, is it thee?”

  “Tell Deborah I'm sorry that I won't be around for her.” Proctor couldn't take his eyes off Lydia's face, or the glow that floated above the table, but he heard Deborah swallow beside him. “Tell her that I'm sorry I won't see her marry, and won't have a chance to bounce her grandchildren on my knee. I had always looked forward to that.”

  A sob strangled itself in Elizabeth's throat. When she spoke, she sounded young and vulnerable. “Oh, Jed, what are we going to do without thee?”

  The room fell silent and the glow intensified, as if it were drawing all light into itself and emitting none. The faces around the table fell dark, invisible to Proctor's eye.

  “Don't worry, my dear Elizabeth, we will be reunited soon.”

  An icy wind swirled around the table, stirring their hair and goose-pimpling their skin.

  “What do you mean?” Deborah asked. “Lydia, what does he mean?”

  The spirit ignored her. “I loved thee so much, Lizzie, and never told thee often enough.”

  “I've always known,” she said.

  “That's why I'm sorry the end will be so painful for thee. Trust that the pain will end quickly and thou will go to a better place.”

  Proctor couldn't see her face. He was glad he couldn't.

  “Tell Deborah she will be safe for a little while if she sticks close to the Concord boy.”

  Elizabeth's voice faltered. “I … I will.”

  “May the Light shine upon thee.”

  With those words, the glow faded, leaving them all in the dark. The smell of singed wood and melted wax filled the room. Lydia's hand went from rigid to limp in Proctor's grip. Her body slumped unconscious across the table. Deborah jerked her hand away.

  “I'll get another light,” she said softly.

  Proctor nodded, feeling so dizzy he thought he would collapse just as Lydia had. He wiped the sweat off his forehead and took deep breaths to rein in his galloping heart. Everything had been so vivid and immediate when the ghosts were present. Now that they were gone, the room around him seemed pale and far away, a scene from a dream. Only the women in the circle were real, as present in this world as they were in the other.

  Elizabeth sobbed softly. His heart ached for her.

  Deborah's feet padded across the floor. Iron scraped on iron as she pulled the poker from its holder and stirred the last dull coals of the fire, adding tinder and wood to build the flame. Soon there was enough light to illuminate their faces once again. Cecily held Lydia's hand and stroked her hair; Lydia looked like an emptied cup, her eyes rimmed with fear, her limbs slack and unresponsive. Elizabeth sat with her hands folded in front of her on the table, her head bowed.

&n
bsp; “What do you think they meant,” Proctor said, “the ghosts, when they said they were supposed to spare someone?”

  No one answered at first. Cecily turned the emerald ring on one of her fingers, clearly shaken by the encounter as all of them had been. Finally, she said, “Likely enough they were supposed to spare no one, unless it was for questioning. Or something unspeakable and vile.”

  Proctor hadn't considered that. Women had to fear things that he did not.

  “How did you summon Mister Walcott?” Alexandra whispered. Her face looked young in the firelight, more child than woman.

  “I don't know,” Elizabeth said.

  “He may have summoned himself,” Deborah suggested. “This is his home, all his worldly possessions are here. If that”—she indicated the piles of items taken from the dead men—“is enough to summon them, then surely there is enough of him here to summon himself.”

  “Perhaps,” Elizabeth said.

  Magdalena rose from the table, trembling with fury. “You promised me there would be no totenbeschwörung.”

  “I did not cause that to happen,” Elizabeth said.

  The old woman squeezed a fist against her mouth, saying some prayer. Then she stomped off to the other room.

  “What's wrong?” Proctor asked Deborah. He meant, besides the obvious.

  “She didn't mean to, but she asked my father's spirit about the future,” Deborah said, watching her mother with sorrow written on her expression. “The dead tend to see death more clearly, so that's what they speak of when they speak the future. Sometimes the dead want death for the living, so they mislead us. To act with knowledge from the dead leads us away from the will of God.”

  Alexandra waved her hand at the two of them. “So what are you going to do?”

  “What do you mean?” Deborah asked.

  “Do you trust your father's spirit?” She nodded at Proctor. “Will you stay close to him or not?”

  Proctor shook his head, not wanting that obligation, afraid of what it meant. When he saw the miserable, forlorn look on Deborah's face, he regretted the gesture at once.

  “I'm not sure,” Deborah said.

  Chapter 16

  Proctor opened his mouth to apologize to Deborah. What ever their differences were, she didn't deserve that kind of rude rejection from him, not after losing her father, nor after hearing the warning from his spirit.

  But she had already turned away.

  “So what do we do now?” she asked her mother.

  “What ever thou wish,” Elizabeth said, wiping the tears from her face with a burn-scarred hand. “What difference does it make to me?” Her face was vacant, as if part of her went with the light when it faded. When she sighed, her shoulders seemed to collapse inward, like an empty sack.

  “I'm getting rid of these things,” Deborah announced, gesturing at the items on the table. “Alexandra?”

  “Yes?” the girl asked.

  “Will you help me carry them?”

  “I can help too,” Proctor said.

  Deborah jumped at the sound of his voice. She started to say no, but changed her mind. “Thank you.”

  Proctor gathered the weapons—the two pistols, the hatchet, a wickedly curved fascine knife, and other knives. It was clearer to him now that they meant to make the murder of these women a close and personal thing. Deborah and Alexandra gathered the clothes and boots.

  As they turned to leave, Lydia forced herself to stir from the table.

  “Shh, shh, darling,” Cecily said, stroking her hair. “Rest easy now, just rest easy.”

  But Lydia ignored her. She reached out and grabbed the hem of Proctor's jacket, her eyes wide and frightened, her mouth still slack. “When you go,” she gasped. “Just keep going.”

  “What?” Proctor asked. “Why?”

  But Lydia was too exhausted to speak again. Cecily clutched the black woman's head to her bosom and rocked her. “The poor, poor woman,” she said. “That must have been terrifying for her.”

  Proctor nodded. Alexandra and Deborah stood at the door waiting for him. They'd heard nothing.

  There was a fire pit for burning waste downhill from the barn. Deborah threw the clothes into the pit. “Alexandra, will you go fetch tinder, as much as you can find?”

  The girl brought twigs and dry grasses while Deborah piled wood to create a better flame. When she turned to go to the house, Proctor pulled a flint and steel from his pocket.

  “I want to destroy all of it, every piece,” she said as she struck sparks to the tinder. “Especially their weapons.”

  “They won't burn so easily,” he said.

  “Then I'll smash them.”

  She took the hatchet from him and hacked at the first pistol, destroying it. Behind her, the fire spread from the tinder. A burst of orange flame knocked the logs back, made them all jump. It flared high, shooting off sparks and hot ash.

  Proctor took both women by the shoulders and pulled them back. “I guess you didn't take the gunpowder from their bags, did you?”

  Deborah's hair had come unpinned. It tumbled wildly down her cheeks. She stopped to brush it out of the way, and laughed, then seemed surprised at the wildness of the sound.

  “I guess I didn't,” she said soberly.

  They took turns destroying the weapons. When the firing pins were broken, the barrel ends smashed, and the stocks splintered, they threw the pieces into the flame. They broke the knife blades and destroyed the hilts the same way. When all that remained was the hatchet, Proctor used two huge stones to break the hickory handle, and tossed it into the fire.

  “Do you feel better?” he asked Deborah.

  “No,” she said. “I don't.”

  “What are we going to do now?” he asked.

  Deborah didn't say anything for a minute, so Alexandra spoke. “I want to go home, where my brothers are.”

  “Yes,” Deborah said. “My first thought is to send everyone away. But then I wonder if that will be what causes my mother's death, and I don't want that hanging over my head forever. But then if I have everyone stay here, and that causes her death, it will be just as bad.”

  “Maybe your choice, your intentions, won't make any difference,” Proctor said.

  She shook her head angrily. “If I believe that, then I'm powerless, and that is unacceptable to me.”

  “Magdalena would call it the will of God.”

  Deborah snorted and wiped the hair away from her cheek again. The fire, which stank of clothing and gunpowder, was already burning low. She stooped to add another log to the flames.

  “So does this mean I'll be able to go home?” Alexandra asked. She fought back a yawn and rubbed her eyes.

  Deborah rested her hand gently on the young girl's back. “Yes, it does.”

  Proctor revised his first impression of Deborah. She was not as harsh or rough-edged as he originally thought. With the ordeals she had been through—a lifetime of secrecy, the attack on her mother, the murder of her father—she showed remarkable steadiness and courage. A lot of her strictness with Alexandra was only because she knew too well the dangers in the world abroad and worried about the girl's safety.

  He cleared his throat. “If you two want to go back up to the house, I'll clean up the fire and check the farm, make sure everything's safe.”

  Deborah's face turned toward him with an expression of relief and gratitude. “Do you mind?” she asked.

  “If I minded, I wouldn't have offered.”

  She reached out and squeezed his forearm. “Thank you. I wish I had something more to say—”

  “That's enough,” he said.

  She rose and led Alexandra inside. He watched them go, shaking his head. He could not figure Deborah out. Underneath that brusque manner, behind that sharp tongue, there was a smart, thoughtful, hardworking woman. But she seemed determined to prevent anyone from seeing it. The same way her Quakerish dress hid how pretty she could be too.

  He let go of those thoughts and made a circuit of the
farm. They were worried about Nance, whoever he was, but there were more ordinary threats. If a fox got into the chicken coop, they'd all go hungry. He went to the coop first, but there were no eggs in the nests, nothing to scrye with, so he continued his round. As he checked the last of the buildings, he called the dog out of reflex. When Nimrod didn't respond, Proctor remembered he was dead.

  “Damn it, Nimrod,” he said, trying hard not to choke up. “All those other dead fellows showed up. You could have come and barked at us once or twice.”

  There was one more thing to do before he went to sleep, but he wanted the shovel for it. He looked in the barn and realized that he'd left it up by the graves. He was getting sloppy, leaving tools outside. There was no excuse for it.

  As he walked to the orchard, he realized that he still needed to finish filling in the graves, which were tumbled, as if the mud had started to settle. As he picked up the shovel, a chill shivered through him, and he wondered if their ghosts remained nearby.

  He shook off the chill as he walked back to the fire pit. He meant to try a protection spell to night, fashioned out of what he had gleaned from Lydia and the others. They might not teach him, but that didn't mean he couldn't learn.

  First, he needed a material to focus his magic. Deborah used salt, and Elizabeth used sand from Cape Cod. He didn't have either, but ash would work just fine, especially ash taken from the items of men who had already attacked them once and failed.

  He shoveled the dim coals out of the way and scooped cold ash into an old bucket. When the bucket was full, he smothered the rest of the fire. Easy labor compared with the digging a couple of days before, but it took away some of the skin-crawling unease that had settled on him ever since they called up the dead.

  “All right now,” he said to himself. “Let's see if I remember how this was done.”

  He stood at the eastern corner of the barn and began with the prayer that his mother had taught him for scrying. Taking up a fistful of the ashes, he lifted his hand and said, “Merciful Lord, if it be Thy will, please keep all harm from men or magic outside this circle.” Then, because that didn't seem like quite enough, he remembered Deborah's use of Bible verses and added, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and all that, amen.”