by C. C. Finlay
“Well, I never,” Sukey snapped.
“Perhaps it’s time you should,” Esther said. “If the army will be gathered tomorrow for Christmas, then we should go to them tomorrow.”
“If we leave before dawn,” Proctor said, “then we should reach them just after nightfall. It could be our last chance. On the day after Christmas, I think many of them will consider their enlistments up and depart.” They were going to do it—they had rescued Lydia and the boy, and they were going to break the curse. “Let us all get what rest we can tonight.”
Deborah frowned anxiously. “Should we wait?”
“We all need the rest,” Proctor said.
“But if that woman is in the city,” she answered, indicating the pantry where they had locked up Cecily, “can Bootzamon or the widow Nance be far behind? How can we be sure they won’t attack us here tonight? Especially once their master realizes we broke the spell of her earrings.”
“Ezra and I will sleep downstairs and guard the doors,” Proctor said. “It’s the best we can do.”
Ezra nodded confirmation. “I’ll sleep by the pantry and make sure there’s no mischief from that one.” He put a hand on the knife in his belt. “I won’t hesitate to take care of her if there is.”
“We’ll be more prepared tomorrow if we all rest well tonight,” Proctor said.
Deborah glanced at him and replied with a small nod. Then she looked away, reaching up to make sure her hair was tucked in.
He didn’t know how to read her expression. He couldn’t tell whether things were better between them, or damaged irreparably.
“We should all go to bed now then,” Magdalena said.
Ezra slept in the back room, and Proctor took the front. Hardly ideal sleeping conditions, but he’d faced worse.
He propped himself up against the front door with bolsters and rolls of cloth. Though he closed his eyes, he didn’t expect to get much sleep. The air out of doors was bitter cold, and the wind prowled around the house like a fox outside a chicken coop, looking for a way inside. Before long the fire died, as if it too wished to settle under its blanket of coals and go to sleep. Proctor’s breath frosted, and little claws of icy air scratched at him through the narrow cracks in the door. Ezra’s rumbly snore echoed from the other room, which only made Proctor want to be alert enough for them both.
He wrapped his coat and blanket more tightly around himself and settled in for a long, discomfited night. His head was spinning too much for sleep anyway.
The Covenant’s plan was to have a victory by the new year, when all the army’s enlistments were up and the men went home. If the army was broken then, its spirit would be broken for good. That gave them mere days, barely a week, to undo the curse. If their first attempt wasn’t successful, they wouldn’t have much time to try again.
Every noise outside, every trick of the wind, made him jump. He knelt at the window, looking for shadows in the street, when he heard footsteps in the house.
Bootzamon could easily leap to the top floor and make his way inside through a window or a chimney or a vent in the attic. Proctor tightened his hand on his knife.
And then nothing. He had settled back against the door, cursing his too-active imagination, when he heard the footsteps again. Stocking feet padded gently and slowly down the stairs.
He rose to a crouch, ready to strike. Then Deborah peered around the corner, wrapped in a heavy blanket.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said so quietly that not even Ezra could hear her, not over his own snoring.
“Neither can I,” Proctor said. He settled down again, back against the door, sliding the knife under a blanket so she wouldn’t be alarmed.
“It’s going to be a cold night,” she said.
“It is December,” he replied, a bit inanely, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say. She had a sleeping cap on, tied loosely, with her hair tumbling down from the back. She stood at the bottom of the stairs, framed by the doorway.
“Well, I just wanted to check, to be sure you were all right,” she said. “I’d better go back upstairs and try to sleep.”
She turned to go, but as she did, he held out his hand, saying, “Come here, Deborah. Please.”
She dropped her eyes to the floor, avoiding his gaze, but turned and came at once. He held his blanket open, and she settled on the floor beside him. A quiet sigh racked her body, and then she leaned in close and rested her head on his shoulder. He settled his face on her head, smelling her hair. He folded his arm around her and pulled her close. She laid her hand on his chest.
“See, that’s warmer,” he said.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she said. The words were spoken over his, her mouth pressed against his body. He felt them as much as he heard them, like a deep ache that had been growing for a long time, finally pushing to the surface.
“I’ve been right here, the whole time,” he said.
“That’s not what I mean.”
“What do you mean?”
She lifted her head, eyes closed, lips parted, and kissed him, wrapping her arms around his neck to pull him close. It was long and deep and satisfying, like nothing he’d ever done before. When they stopped to take a breath, they were both panting. They swallowed one gulp of air apiece, then kissed again. He didn’t want it to ever stop.
Her fingers crawled across his chest, deftly unbuttoning his shirt. She slipped her hand inside, sliding it over his bare skin.
He reached out and moved the bolsters, placing them behind her, and began to undo the stays of her nightshirt. He was eager to go forward, but too aware of the irrevocable change it would mean. His hand faltered.
“What will Magdalena think?” he whispered. “Or the others?”
She pushed his shirt half off and leaned up to kiss the scar across his neck, where the musket ball might have killed him. Her mouth traced it hungrily, hot against his skin. Then she rolled up his sleeves and, taking his arm in her hand, kissed the scars on his forearms, where the widow had tried to use him as a sacrifice for her spell.
“I’ve been a fool to care,” she said, pressing his scarred arm to her cheek. “I don’t believe they could think any less of me than they already do.”
“You’re still a fool,” he said. But he nudged her nightdress off her shoulder and kissed his way across her collarbone to her throat.
Her fingers combed through his hair, grabbed hold, pulled him tighter and lower.
He pushed her gently back onto the pillows and, for a little while, forgot that there was anyone or anything in the world but the two of them.
They woke, curled on the floor, Deborah inside Proctor’s arms. It was still dark outside.
A cough sounded. Proctor, groggy, realized it was the second cough: the first one had woken them both. He lifted his head. Magdalena stood at the bottom of the stairs, just at the corner, without entering the room.
“We need to leave soon,” she said, her voice cast low. Deborah tensed at the sound, pulling the blankets over her head.
“Yes, ma’am,” Proctor answered. He braced himself for her righteous anger, but a second later, without saying another word, she turned and slowly climbed the stairs.
Her footsteps had scarcely reached the top landing when Deborah threw off the blanket and frantically began to dress. Proctor watched her, a dumb grin on his face—he could tell by the way his cheeks hurt from it—and worry in his heart.
“Deborah, we have to—” He stopped, unsure what they had to do. What church would marry them? Who would stand in for their families to approve?
“Don’t just sit there.” She glared at him, the same old, familiar Deborah, and he grinned again.
The cold began to settle on him, though, so he pulled on his own layers of clothes, never taking his eyes off her. In the back room, Ezra’s snoring had stopped. There was a bump as he rolled over. Deborah tossed the blankets in a panic.
“What do you need?” Proctor said as he buttoned his shirt.
“My cap,” she said.
He found it tucked inside one of his pant legs and tossed it to her.
“Everything all right out there?” Ezra said, thumping to his feet.
“All’s well,” Proctor answered as Deborah slipped her cap on and turned to go up the stairs. He snatched at the hem of her skirt, and she turned back, the habitual short temper on her face melting when she saw him. She bent to give him another quick kiss, then darted up the steps.
Ezra stomped over to the doorway and saw the mess of blankets and pillows scattered about as Proctor pulled on his shoes.
“Christ, lad, you look like you tossed all night,” the old sailor said. “You must be exhausted.”
“On the contrary,” Proctor said. “I don’t think I’ve ever slept better.”
Betsy was up to see them off before dawn. “Are you sure you have to travel today?” she said. “Never mind that it’s Christmas Day—the wind outside makes it fit for neither man nor beast.”
“We must break this curse as soon as possible,” Deborah said. “It’s the only thing that matters now if we mean to defeat the Covenant and preserve our independence.”
When she saw that they could not be dissuaded, Betsy embraced her. “Thank you for your help in my shop.”
“Thank you for your advice,” Deborah said. “You were right. About a lot of things.”
“I’m so happy to hear that,” Betsy said, grinning. She handed a rolled bundle of striped fabric to Deborah. “Here is the flag we were working on. Will you deliver it to General Washington?”
“I will see that it’s delivered,” she promised. She turned and handed it to Proctor.
“The flag,” he asked.
“No Union Jack in this one,” she said. “Thirteen stripes for the thirteen states, just like before. But Betsy added stars on a field of blue. In a circle.”
Proctor’s thoughts went to a witch’s circle. But Betsy, who was eavesdropping, said, “A circle, because a circle is unbroken.”
Proctor smiled and tied the rolled bundle to his horse.
They made an odd parade on a bitter Christmas morning. Cecily’s carriage was a calash, pulled by one horse. It had four seats covered by a folding fabric roof. It would be the only cover any of them had in the cold, so Magdalena, Sukey, and Esther claimed three of the seats. Zoe and William were to squeeze between their legs on the floor. Ezra would take the driver’s bench.
The farm wagon, pulled by Singer, was open with only a driver’s seat. Proctor was happy to see the horse again. She immediately nuzzled his hand for treats.
Abby and Alex agreed to drive the wagon. They had discovered that, growing up on farms with several brothers, they had many stories to trade. Cecily was bound and wrapped in blankets in the back of the wagon.
“It’s better than she deserves,” Alex said. “And we can keep an eye on her there.”
Deborah approached Cecily. “It will look odd for such a fine lady to be seen in the back of a wagon,” she said. She wrapped a ragged scarf around Cecily’s head, and touched her finger at the corner of her eye to make it droop. She said a spell and created the illusion of an old hag. “But no one will look twice at a vagrant given a ride on Christmas Day.”
Cecily’s eyes burned with hate. Proctor thought they completed the bitter-old-hag illusion perfectly.
Deborah waved a ribbon around Cecily and repeated the verse about God as their shield. “And if your master does send anyone for you, that will keep them from seeing your spark.”
The hate in Cecily’s eyes turned to despair.
“You must take the fourth seat in the carriage,” Deborah told Lydia. “Given your injury, it will be best for you.”
“This is nothing,” Lydia said. “Not after the way you and Miss Magdalena did your medicine on me. But I’m not letting Cecily out of my sight. That woman is plain evil. She’s done evil to me, and done evil to those children, and I plan to keep an eye on her until she can’t do nobody no harm no more.”
So it was settled. Deborah took the last seat in the calash and Lydia sat in the front of the wagon, across from Cecily, just like a guard on a prisoner. Proctor rode the horse that he had borrowed from the army, and they all set out through the deserted streets of Philadelphia in the hour before dawn. They left the city and took the country road north for the long, tedious ride through the bitter, lip-cracking, finger-numbing cold.
By midday the children were bored and restless, and Magdalena chased them out of the carriage. At first they rode on the bench with Ezra, then they ran up and rode on the bench with Abby and Alex. And then Zoe insisted that Proctor let them take turns riding on the horse with him.
It was late in the day, and they were passing through woods. The trees shielded them from the wind, but the parade moved slowly. Cecily’s horse and Proctor’s mount were both played out. Cecily’s horse was worse, and the carriage had fallen a way behind. Only Singer had any bounce left in her step.
Zoe sat in front of Proctor, with his coat wrapped around her. “This has been about the best Christmas ever,” she said wistfully.
Proctor laughed, though the cold made his lips split to do it. “How can you say that?”
“Usually it’s a bunch of us sitting around, listening to boring sermons and singing boring songs.” She grinned. “This has been interesting.”
He grinned back at her.
William sat on the wagon, squeezed between Alex and Abigail. “Zoe, I’m freezing,” he said. His teeth were chattering.
“Here, I’ll take you both back to the carriage,” Proctor said, leading his horse over to the wagon. Cecily glared at him, but her disguise as an old hag made her almost pitiful. Proctor stretched out his arm and William clung to it, clambering onto the horse, which staggered under the extra weight, near spent. Singer tossed her head, showing off that she could pull all night.
Proctor walked the horse back to the calash. Inside, the women huddled in blankets, Sukey and Esther sitting opposite Magdalena and Deborah. They scooted aside to let the children squeeze in between their legs. Esther reached down to rub their shoulders.
Deborah unwrapped the scarf from her face. “How much farther is it?” she asked.
Proctor pointed to smoke rising, black just beyond the trees. “Over there, I’d say. Less than a mile. Do we have a plan?”
“We have a spell,” Deborah said.
“If we can hold enough power, it should work,” Sukey said. The tip of her long nose was turning blue from the cold, but she seemed too excited to notice. “We can hold that much power, don’t you think, Esther dear?”
“We can do it,” Esther said firmly.
Magdalena nodded in approval. “Deborah has formed a good spell. She learned much during these past few months.”
“Proctor always had good suggestions,” Deborah said. He felt a bit of pride that she would praise his talent. He’d had some good ideas when they were trying to break the curse.
Magdalena patted Deborah’s knee with a gnarled, liver-spotted hand. “Not in magic,” she said. “You have always had a gift for that. What you’ve learned these past few months is humility, how to trust the wisdom of others.”
Proctor held his breath, expecting Deborah to explode the way she would have six months before. Instead, she lowered her eyes and murmured, “I think that’s what I said.”
Magdalena snorted, either in disbelief or laughter. Proctor turned his horse away before anything else could be said—compliments from Deborah would never come much better than that, and he wanted to enjoy it for a moment.
“Hey,” Ezra said. He sat steady on the seat of the calash as it bounced over the frozen roads. “If we’re so close to the army’s camp, why aren’t we raising any sails on the horizon?”
“Because there’s no ocean and no ships?” He was still feeling light-headedly hopeful.
Ezra frowned in reply. “You know what I mean. There are no soldiers on the roads, no wagons, no horses.”
The old sailor had a poi
nt, but Proctor wasn’t convinced. “Maybe it’s because it’s Christmas?”
“Maybe it’s because their Christmas present was, they all went home? What if there’s no more army to save?” He licked his lips nervously and rubbed his chin. “Whatever it is, something don’t feel watertight to me.”
Proctor looked ahead at the smoke. There were maybe one or two fires going, but not a camp of two thousand men. Noticing that worried him too.
“Pick up the speed,” he said, kicking his horse to the lead.
Singer lurched forward, yanking the wagon along, and the calash rattled after. They covered the last mile in the darkness, finding nothing they expected—no sentries, no songs, nothing.
They entered the camp only to find it empty. The tent flaps hung open, the horses were gone, even the equipment and artillery were missing. The fires had burned down to coals.
“You’re too late,” crowed a harsh voice.
Proctor wheeled his horse. A veteran in a worn uniform sat in the doorway of a tent with a whiskey jug at his side, a pamphlet in his hand, and the bloody-bandaged stump of an amputated leg propped up on a stool. His face twitched at invisible twinges of pain—invisible unless you could see the sadistic ghost of a backcountry Loyalist, dead from some wasting disease, as he danced around the soldier and stabbed him repeatedly with his hunting knife. Every time the spirit blade pierced a joint or muscle, the ghost cackled in delight.
The sight was extraordinarily unsettling, but not as much as the empty camp. If the army had been dispersed, it would be impossible to break the curse on all of them. “Have they been sent home?” Proctor asked, dismounting from his horse.
“Home?” The man laughed, his unshaven face broken by another wince. “No, son—they’ve gone to take back Trenton from the Hessians.”
Trenton? So Washington was crossing the Delaware …
“Where is everyone?” Deborah asked, hopping from the calash before it came to a complete stop. Behind her, the children’s eyes were wide as they stared at the veteran and his ghost. William started to say something—it was possible he hadn’t been around cursed American soldiers until now—but Esther shushed him and held the children back with her big arms.