by C. C. Finlay
As the mob cleared, Proctor spied two figures struggling arm in arm along the edge of the road, resuming their journey now that the panicked soldiers had passed. He came closer, confirming his first impression. It was Deborah, acting as a human crutch for a soldier. The soldier limped along, his ghost driving a spectral bayonet into his leg with each game step, drawing a grimace and beads of sweat along his forehead.
Deborah, slight compared with the soldier she supported, poured her magic into him, trying to heal him a little bit with each breath. But it was a fight between her and the spirit, and the spirit was slowly winning. If the soldier fell down, and the advancing jaegers bayoneted him when they passed, as they had so many other wounded, the spirit would be freed.
“Here, let me help,” Proctor said, coming up beside them.
“Proctor?” Deborah flinched at the sight of him. Her voice was strained from the physical effort she expended, and from the magical effort she drew on as well. He stepped in to take her place, but she turned her shoulder to block him. “I wouldn’t want to steal anything from you again, not even your labor.”
“That’s the point. You can’t steal it if it’s freely given.” He reached out again. “Here, I want to help.”
“Why must you always be so obstinate?” she murmured.
“Why do you always resort to flattery?”
She scowled at him but moved aside, permitting him to take her place.
With Proctor’s support, the wounded soldier didn’t have to put any weight on his bad leg and they began to make swifter progress. The hairs on the back of Proctor’s neck prickled as the soldier’s spirit tried to shove him away. It wasn’t as powerful as the one in the tent that had tried to yank out his own soul; in fact, he noticed little more than a chill against his skin. But the cursed souls had clearly grown more aggressive. For months, they had been content to torment their hosts. Now Proctor felt himself regularly assaulted by them. They could sense that the end was near, and grew stronger and bolder as they drove their hosts out of the conflict.
The three of them—Deborah, Proctor, and the soldier—continued down the road more easily, if not more swiftly. Deborah continued to try to heal the man, touching his arm as if to steady him, but really to murmur prayers to keep his spirit from causing greater pain. All three continued to look behind them. Though part of the enemy forces had broken off to take the fort, others continued after them.
The soldier stopped walking and shoved Proctor away. He leaned against a fencepost, his face red and lined with pain. Tears rolled down his cheeks, though he had not uttered a word of complaint.
“You two go on without me,” he said. “You know what they’ll do when they catch up to us.”
“We wouldn’t dream of abandoning you,” Deborah said. But she glanced over her shoulder as she said it. The rumors were that the Hessians killed stragglers when they found them, and the British soldiers did worse to the women they captured.
“You must abandon me, Miss Walcott, for your own sake. You done a good job nursing me, and if I was to keep the leg, it’d be because of your care. But there’s no more to done for it now, and you must go. It’s every man and woman for hisself.”
Proctor wrapped his arm around the man and practically lifted him off his feet. “We’re no nation if we act that way,” he said. “We’ll escape together or not at all.”
“It might be not at all,” the soldier said, his voice strained.
“Not if I have any say in it,” Proctor said, setting a quick pace down the road again.
Deborah’s eyes met his, and he saw the gratitude in them.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Let us talk less,” he replied. “And walk more.”
They hobbled along as the enemy forces advanced steadily behind them without gaining. Bearing the weight of the wounded soldier on his shoulder, feeling the man’s heavy breathing in his ear, and smelling his sickly sweat, the distance seemed to pass beneath Proctor’s feet like water moving through a mill wheel, constant motion without any progress.
But that was merely an illusion. Soon the thin gray curtains of drizzle parted, and the long low house of Washington’s headquarters emerged into view.
“Come on, we’re almost there,” Proctor said.
“Almost where?” Deborah asked.
“The bridge and the ferry are just ahead up here. Once we cross the river—”
“Once we cross the river,” interrupted the wounded soldier, “we still got nowhere to go.”
The cursed spirit hung arms over his shoulders. It tilted his face up to Proctor and cackled silently.
Proctor felt a light pressure on his arm and jumped, but it was only Deborah. Whether she was trying to reassure him or herself, he couldn’t say. Then he followed the line of her gaze and realized they were both past reassuring.
Hundreds of men were lined up, waiting their turn to cross the Hackensack River. With the cursed spirits attacking them in a frenzy, they would surely have broken and run if not for the calm example of General Washington watching over them.
Washington’s calm demeanor was the mystery.
Thirteen cursed spirits were shackled to him now. They attacked him like an angry mob eager for a lynching. They swarmed around the neck and flanks of his horse, leaping, tearing, and pulling at him. As hand after invisible hand sank into his living flesh, he must have been pierced by a thousand painful icicles. And then there was the mounting sense of fear and panic that came with the spirits attacking you. Even one of them drove Proctor mad. He could not imagine a dozen more.
Washington’s horse felt their presence too, shifting nervously from foot to foot, tossing her head, her skin twitching. Breath frosted from her nostrils each time she snorted, not because the temperature was dropping so fast, though it was dropping, but because the presence of so many spirits chilled the air that much.
Despite all this, Washington sat straight in the saddle. He looked irritated at the horse, frustrated with the retreat, and angry to be surprised again by the British. But somehow, through force of will, he mastered his feelings as he organized another orderly retreat. The men around him, seeing his example, tried to do the same as they waited their turn to cross.
William Lee, Washington’s stocky, round-faced slave, galloped up on his mount, hooves tossing mud as he pounded past the ranks of men. He leaned his red-turbaned head in close to Washington to report, and Washington’s gaze turned back down the road toward Fort Lee.
“They’ve stopped marching,” the wounded soldier said.
They had! A few green coats of Hessian scouts were visible in the distance, but the main body had stopped advancing. It made no sense to Proctor—they could overrun the Americans and destroy their forces in a short battle. The Americans were unprepared physically or spiritually for a protracted fight.
Maybe that was the point. Why fight when the Americans were already beaten?
“Maybe they’ve stopped, but we haven’t,” Proctor said. He heaved the wounded soldier over to the line waiting to cross the small bridge.
Deborah followed after, but her face was pale and her step uncertain.
“What’s wrong?” Proctor asked.
“It’s too much,” she whispered, casting glances at the men around them. She didn’t mention the curse, but she didn’t need to. It was visible in the men, even to those who were blind to the powers of magic. Their faces were drawn, their eyes full of fear. Every third man looked ready to bolt.
Proctor knew exactly how she felt. He’d felt the same way, hopeless and helpless, and he had seen someone who changed his mind. “There’s an officer in Greene’s command who’s protected.”
“One man …,” Deborah said.
“If we understand his secret, we’ll have the solution.”
Then they were pressed into the mob of soldiers crossing the bridge, pulled along with them to resist being crushed in their wake. The water churned beneath the bridge, sending up eddies of cold air, though that w
as not what made Deborah and Proctor shiver. The shivers came from the dozens of invisible hands that pinched, prodded, gripped, and groped them.
On the far shore, they would have broken free of the other soldiers and set their own pace, but it was easier to be pulled along by the current, pieces of flotsam in the river of refugees. Washington was one of the last to cross, just as he had been at Brooklyn. The sound of hoofbeats in the mud prompted Proctor to move to the side of the road in time to see Washington and his officers hurry past them to the head of the column.
With the thick clouds overhead and the lateness of the year, night fell early while they were still on the road. Proctor was practically carrying the wounded soldier along; the man’s leg wound had started seeping blood again. Deborah’s constant attempts to pour strength into the man’s spirit were having a diminishing effect. The cursed spirit draped across his shoulders whispered in his ear at all her efforts, draining his will as fast as she could lend to it.
“How much farther must we go on?” Deborah asked.
“Until we reach someplace safe where the army can re-supply and regroup,” Proctor said.
The wounded soldier groaned and held his arm across his belly. “I can’t wait that much longer. Do you two mind waiting here for me while I do my business?”
Deborah turned her head away. “Of course we will.”
“Do you need help?” Proctor asked.
The soldier shook his head, grimacing. “There are still some things a man has to do himself.”
“Well, sure,” Proctor admitted.
Deborah grabbed a fallen branch from the side of the road for the soldier to use as a crutch. He accepted it with a thank-you and hobbled off behind a thick mound of brush and trees. The darkness was so thick they couldn’t see him.
Proctor shifted his head to speak to Deborah and she turned her body away, not so far as to be rude, but enough to prevent him from speaking. He could get so angry at her for the way she made the simplest things difficult for him. But she had her arms wrapped tight to her chest, shivering, and looked so cold and comfortless that all he wanted to do was reach out to help her.
They stood there in awkward silence, watching the line of soldiers pass. It stretched out like an earthworm, growing thinner the longer it became. As the men marched—no, Proctor realized, he couldn’t call it marching. They plodded on. The mud clumped heavy on their shoes, those who had them, for some were barefoot. He imagined that they felt much as he did. The wet air seeped through all their clothes, and the natural cold settled into their skin like ice forming on a lake. Their bellies were empty, and though damp was everywhere, their throats were dry.
On top of that, every one of them carried a dark and unwilling passenger, a spirit meant to do nothing more than drive a wedge between them and the cause of independence. As the stragglers passed them, the spirits showed more energy than the men.
“How do they keep going?” Proctor asked.
Deborah shook her head. “I don’t know.” The catch in her voice as she spoke made him think that she might have been referring to herself.
He wanted to tell her that he could forgive her for turning him into a witch-slave, that all he wanted was to hear the apology from her directly. But it was hard to find the words. “Deborah—”
“Don’t.” Her voice sounded on the verge of a sob. “Just don’t. Proctor, I—”
Whatever she was going to say was drowned out by the approach of a horse. Proctor stepped in front of her and pulled her back to the side of the road. William Lee, Washington’s slave, rode past them and down the road just out of sight, then turned and came back, reining in his horse as he approached them.
“You’re end of the line,” he said, giving Proctor a nod of recognition. “We’re camping for the night in the village of Hackensack, about a mile ahead.”
“That’s it?” Proctor asked, looking back down the road. “But there were so many more.”
“I figure about one in three thinks they can do better on their own if they go home,” Lee said. “If that’s your plan, this’d be the time to go.”
Proctor had been thinking about just that. Neither he nor Deborah had enlisted. They could leave, use their connections along the Quaker Highway, making their way back to Salem and to The Farm. He wondered how Magdalena was doing with all the other witches, how their training was coming. With everything he and Deborah had learned, they might be able to work with them to find a way to break the curse.
Lee’s horse was restless. He circled it, pointing the way they had just come. “Back that way half a mile is a turnoff that will take you north back toward New England.”
“No, friend,” Deborah said. “We’ll join you at the camp.”
“The fight’s not over yet, is it?” Proctor asked.
Lee shrugged, as if maybe it was. “See you in camp then.” He spurred his horse, bending low over its neck as it leapt down the road.
“Why do you want to stay?” Proctor asked Deborah.
“If I can’t defeat the Covenant by myself, I can at least help those who are fighting against it. If all I can do is save one life, or help one man heal to fight again, that’s what I’ll do.”
“We can do more than that,” Proctor said. “You see how General Washington carries on, despite the burden he carries. You see the strength that some men have to keep fighting despite the curse. As long as a few men remain free, we’ve not lost completely.”
Deborah shook her head as if she disagreed, as if she’d already accepted defeat, but she said, “We’ll do what we can to give strength to those who still wish to carry on the fight.” She called out the wounded soldier’s name, leaving the road to follow him into the brush. “They’ve set up camp ahead,” she explained. “There will be fires for warmth, and maybe something to eat.”
Proctor eased around her and pushed farther off the road, calling the man’s name, but the dark returned no answer. He searched for a body, thinking the man might have passed out or fallen sick. But when he bent close to the ground, his fingertips found footprints in the mud leading away from the road. “I think he’s deserted.”
“But how?” Deborah asked. “He could barely stand, much less walk.”
“When he’s marching with the army, the curse holds him back and weakens him. The moment he decides to run, it gives him strength and purpose.”
“But escape doesn’t break the curse. We know that from the farmhand at Gravesend.”
“It’s meant to break the will of the Americans to fight, not just now, but forever.”
“We have to find a way to lift it.”
“I know.” They had climbed back onto the road and were hurrying toward the camp. He thought about the man he’d found at Fort Lee, and the strength of the spirit that had almost torn his soul from him. He had freed the man from the curse, but he was sure it had killed him.
When they entered the camp, Deborah was ready to stop at the first fire where she saw some of the other women, but Proctor told her no. “We have to find the man I was telling you about.”
They weaved through the campfires scattered around the village, with Proctor searching men’s faces. Everywhere he saw signs of despair, mixed with a sort of grim determination to fight on anyway. That was a rare trait, but not so rare among frontier farmers who planted their fields again every year despite the storms, frosts, and pests that attacked the previous year’s crop. The sounds were quiet for a camp this large: just the crackle of the fires, the occasional clink of metal on metal. There was no laughter, and only whispered conversations. This was the whole army, what was left of it, and it was smaller than the garrison at Fort Washington had been.
“Is that him over there?” Deborah asked.
She pointed toward a fire where men in full uniform gathered around artillery they had carried with them on retreat when other men dropped their muskets. A slight young man, head cocked to one side, stood beside a cannon, caressing it the way a man might stroke the neck of a favorite hors
e. He carried no cursed ghost, but a dark shadow flowed around him, independent of the firelight.
“No, that’s Captain Hamilton,” Proctor said. “The one who already carries a ghost. Whatever that is attached to him, it gives him strength, and lends courage to those around him. But it makes me uneasy.”
Deborah unconsciously and wearily slipped her hand around Proctor’s arm. He was afraid to say anything or draw her attention to it, but for a moment he felt closer to her. They walked through the camp, circling Hamilton. “It is not a good spirit. But he does not seem to be a bad man.”
“It’s your Quaker ways,” Proctor said. “You think no one is, at heart, a bad man. It’s so opposite of what I was brought up to believe, that we are all sinners.”
“We are all broken,” she said. “But that is something different. Even a broken lamp can still hold oil to give light.”
“Or spill it everywhere, setting the house ablaze and burning it to the ground.”
He covered her hand with his, and she pulled away startled, crossing her arms. He was confused, unsure whether she reacted to his gesture or his words, and angry—even Emily, when they had their differences, didn’t withdraw from him so completely. But when he opened his mouth to confront Deborah, she whispered.
“Oh, my.”
She was staring at a man who sat alone at a small fire. A group of three soldiers had approached him, and instantly an angel appeared as a numinous light in the dark, driving back their cursed spirits. The men fled.
“That’s him,” Proctor said, called away from his own dark thoughts and back to their greater task. “Let me introduce you.”
The fire had been built in the shelter of an old corncrib that offered some slight protection from the wind. Thomas Paine sat beside it on a log, with a drum for a writing table propped between his knees. He was wadding up the pages of his manuscript and tossing them into the fire, one by one.