A Spell for the Revolution

by C. C. Finlay

  “The name’s John Riker,” he said. “Doctor John Riker. I’ll come along, if you allow. Maybe I can help some poor fellow.”

  “You could help a poor fellow now with a bite of warm food,” Monroe said.

  Riker nodded and went inside to order his servant to prepare something. Outside, Washington ordered the men to set up barricades across the roads. While the men went to work in the tapering rain, dragging fallen trees and borrowed wagons into place to block passage, Proctor took Alex and drifted away from the others. If he was going to sneak into town, he’d have to do it soon before it got too light or the shooting started.

  “If anyone asks,” he told Alex. “I rode back to Washington to report.”

  “You can’t just leave me here!”

  “I have to,” he said. “If we both go, it’d be too suspicious. Once you enter the town, come find me.”

  “How will I find you?”

  He didn’t have time to fashion a finding charm, and he wasn’t sure she would use magic in any case, despite what she’d allowed him to do in the boat at the crossing. “Look for the loudest commotion,” he told her.

  He took Singer aside, into the trees, and mounted her back. The horse seemed to welcome either the warmth or presence of a rider again. With Proctor bent low to her neck, she took off through the woods, finding a trail easily with sure steps.

  The smell of cheap tobacco braced him for an attack.

  “You are indeed persistent, aren’t you?” said the hollow, oddly accented voice from the trees behind him.

  Proctor twisted in the saddle, bringing Singer around. The red coal appeared first, bright as a small sun against the dark background of the woods. The figure of the scarecrow Bootzamon stepped out of the woods. In the dawn light, Proctor could see that the raggedy clothes were different than in Virginia or New York, less elegant and more decayed perhaps, but once again he had a cockfeather in his cap.

  “I assumed you’ve raised the alarm among the Hessians,” Proctor said. Could he escape Bootzamon and get back to the advance party to warn them? Would General Washington change his plan now even if the Hessians had been warned?

  Bootzamon did a jaunty side-step to flank Proctor. “Why would you assume I’ve raised any kind of alarm for anyone?” He plucked at his sodden waistcoat with a gloved hand. Damp straw spilled from his jacket cuff. “You’ll find it hard to set anything on fire tonight.”

  “When did I ever set anything on fire—?” Proctor asked.

  From the corner of his eye, he spied a ball of flame missile toward him. He tumbled off Singer to dodge it, got tangled in the reins, and was dragged through the snow. Another missile burst in front of the horse, showering her face with sparks. Proctor untangled himself and rolled free as Singer reared, whinnying in terror. The scarecrow form of the widow Nance jumped out of the trees in front of the horse. As Proctor staggered to his feet, Singer dashed off into the woods in fear.

  “I wasn’t actually speaking to you,” Bootzamon said.

  “I should have killed you the first time I saw you,” Nance sneered at Proctor, words pouring like maggots out of her feedsack mouth. The pipe stuck in her inhuman face, shifting from side to side. “I should have slit your throat in Boston and bled you instead of that little blond boy.”

  She summoned pinecones to her hand from the forest floor and flung them at him, one after another. Each one sparked in the air and then drowned in wet smoke before it reached Proctor. He batted them aside, until Nance stopped where she stood and screamed, a disembodied sound like the wind between rocks.

  “I could make some snowballs for you to throw, if you think they’d work better,” Proctor said. He stepped sideways to prevent Bootzamon from sneaking up behind him.

  Nance reacted with rage and flung herself at Proctor. Her scarecrow body slammed into him like a wet straw mattress, smelling of dust and mold and smoke. Her soft fists battered at him, while the ends of his hairs began to sizzle and curl with heat. She was trying to set him on fire!

  He grabbed one of her arms and spun in a circle, tossing her at a tree. She slammed into the trunk and crumpled to the ground. Snow fell off the branches and covered her. Her head popped up out of the snow, pipe clamped in her teeth, and shook it off.

  “Why aren’t you attacking him?” she yelled at Bootzamon.

  “But you’re doing so well,” he said.

  Proctor had two choices: he could either run or attack. If he ran, they would be behind him, and they could chase faster and kill quicker than he wanted to think about. So when Nance spoke to Bootzamon, he charged her. He slipped as he ran over the snowy ground, but he stretched out his arm as he fell and snatched the pipe from her mouth.

  “Damn you,” she cried. She stretched out her hand, like a falconer calling to her bird.

  The pipe tried to leap from Proctor’s grasp but he squeezed his fist around it and ran away from her. The pipe yanked at his arm, like a big dog trying to break its leash, but he held on tight.

  “Give that to me,” she demanded, rising from the snow like an angel of wrath.

  “Give it to you or what, you’ll threaten to kill me? You’ve already played that card.” He circled as he spoke, keeping both Nance and Bootzamon in his sight. He tried to break the pipe in his hand, but it was unnaturally strong, bound together perhaps by the same magic that animated Nance’s scarecrow form.

  “Give it to me or I’ll strip the skin from your meat a few inches at a time, you stupid boy.”

  She advanced on him, but she was wary of coming within his grasp now, so she spoke words in a language he couldn’t understand, summoning the pipe back to her. It leapt about as if alive, twisting and yanking his hand to escape. He closed both hands about it to hold it tighter, one fist around the bowl and one around the stem, but still it pulled his arms straight out in front of him in its desire to return to her. Unable to take another step back, he dug in his heels and held on to it like a man trying to control a wild horse.

  “I’ll take that now,” she said, snapping her hand in the air as if yanking it from his grasp.

  Proctor gritted his teeth, refusing to let go, even if it yanked his arms out of joint. He felt a great pull and then a tiny snap as the force of her own magic broke the bowl and stem in two.

  “That’s not good,” Nance said, and then she collapsed in a pile of rags and cast-offs.

  Proctor fell back, sprawling in the snow. He dropped the broken pipe and scrambled to his feet at once, braced for the attack from Bootzamon.

  “She’s not dead, you realize,” Bootzamon said, walking toward Proctor. His feet left no mark in the snow. “Her soul is still shackled to our master. He’ll make another body, sacrifice another foal, breathe her into life again.”

  “I’ve noticed how hard you are to get rid of,” Proctor said.

  “Rotenhahn,” Bootzamon said.

  The word meant nothing to Proctor. He looked about for a weapon, anything to strike Bootzamon with. He might not be able to kill him, but he could slow him down again.

  Bootzamon lunged at Proctor, laughed when he jumped, and stopped short, stalking him slowly, keeping pace step by step with Proctor as he tried to get away.

  “Rotenhahn was my name,” Bootzamon said. “I’ve been so long outside my own flesh that I had stopped using it.”

  “It’s a good name,” Proctor said uncertainly. He spied Singer in the woods and wondered if he could trick Bootzamon to within kicking distance of her again.

  “I was a canon at the cathedral in Bonn,” Bootzamon said. “I was a witch, but only because the talent came upon me, breaking in on my will like a thief entering a house at night. I didn’t know what was happening to me, didn’t know how to control it. The good people of the city, my own friends, even my family, beheaded me and burned my body.”

  “You need better friends,” Proctor said. He had a large branch in his hand now.

  “But my master, the prince-bishop, was there, and trapped my soul. I discovered later that he
had arranged for the witch hunt so that he might trap many of our souls to do his bidding. He was new at necromancy then, and it took him numerous attempts to master the skill. It turned out that he had to visit me in jail beforehand and mark me as his own in order to harvest me. Put down that cudgel.”

  “I don’t think so,” Proctor said, lifting it to strike.

  Bootzamon gave one flick of his finger, and the staff flew out of Proctor’s hand and into the scarecrow’s glove. He patted it on the palm of his open hand.

  “You freed the souls, the cursed souls shackled to the soldiers in your army,” Bootzamon said. He had stopped advancing. He blew out a cloud of smoke, and the coal in his pipe flared bright.

  “A group of us did that, but yes,” Proctor said.

  Bootzamon took the pipe from his mouth and tossed it to Proctor. “Free me.”

  The pipe scorched his hand, twice as hot as the widow’s had been. “What?”

  “I thought it only natural to serve; that was our lot in death as well as life. But this strange country of yours is full of men who would rather be dead than serve another. I have no pleasure in anything I do, owning only others’ pain, collected in debt to my master. I would rather be dead than serve him or anyone else again.”

  Proctor was waiting for the trick, for the subterfuge. “I can’t guarantee where you’ll go, to heaven or to hell.”

  “You think this is not hell enough? I serve a devil and depend on the demon Dickon to stoke a flame that keeps my soul on constant fire.”

  “It’s not the same kind of curse.”

  “I have faith in you, boy. You’ve bested me twice, and I have no one else to have faith in. You’ll find my master in town, in the small house on King Street across from Colonel Rall’s headquarters. The children may still be alive.”

  “How do I defeat him?”

  “You can’t. You can only escape him.” He flung the stick aside, and his voice took on an edge of anger. “Now be quick about it, before he realizes what I am about and summons me back to his bottle collection.”

  Proctor snapped the pipe in half, breaking the focus of the spell. “Let my people go.”

  Nothing happened.

  Bootzamon stared at him. “Let my people go? Dimitte populum meum, that’s your spell?”

  “It worked the first time,” Proctor said.

  “But you’re not any kind of Moses,” Bootzamon said.

  “I don’t want to reach the land you’re promised,” Proctor answered. Bootzamon’s anger was making him tense.

  “Try this verse instead,” Bootzamon said. He fell to his knees and lowered his head. “Quoniam peccavi super numerum harenae maris, multiplicatae sunt iniquitates meae, Domine, multiplicatae sunt iniquitates meae. My transgressions, O Lord, are multiplied. My transgressions are multiplied, and I am not worthy to behold and see the height of heaven for the multitude of mine iniquities. I am bowed down with many iron bands, that I cannot lift up mine head, neither can I have any release. For I have provoked Thy wrath, and done evil before Thee. I did not do Thy will, neither kept I Thy commandments. I have performed abominations, and have multiplied offenses. Now therefore I bow the knee of mine heart, beseeching Thee of grace. Et nunc flecto genua cordis mei, precans ad te bonitatem Domine.”

  “What is that?” Proctor asked.

  “Don’t they make you learn the Prayer of Manasseh anymore?” Bootzamon said.

  “I don’t know it.”

  Bootzamon shook his head in disappointment and sighed. “I’ll say it, and you can repeat it after me.”

  “All right.” Proctor clutched the broken ends of the still-warm pipe in his fists and stumbled badly through the prayer in Bootzamon’s wake. “My transgressions, O Lord, are multiplied …”

  They finished and sat there silently as the icy rain continued to fall.

  After a moment, the scarecrow’s shoulders sagged, his head drooped forward, and water poured off the brim of his hat. Then he stood and dusted the snow off his knees. “Oh, well,” he said. “It was worth the attempt. I’ll have to kill you now, but I promise I’ll make it quick.”

  He took two steps toward Proctor with his tomahawk raised.

  But Proctor finally realized the verse he needed to use. He opened his palm and saw that the pipe bowl still glowed faintly. He dropped to his knees and bowed his neck. Plunging the pipe bowl into the snow, he said, “Father, into Thy hands I commend this spirit.”

  There was a sound in the air, like glass breaking. Bootzamon stopped, startled, and stared at the sky where a light appeared in the clouds. The tomahawk tumbled out of his gloved hand and landed upside down in the snow.

  Behind the illusion of Bootzamon’s human face, always faint to Proctor’s eyes, behind the pumpkin head and stick-bones of the scarecrow, a spirit appeared. It was long-chinned and gaunt, with hollows for his watery eyes and a mouth opened in shock.

  “You can feel hell,” Bootzamon whispered. “It scorches the bottoms of your feet like hot coals. Domine, remitte mihi, remitte mihi.”

  His spectral head toppled off his body, and the whole form of his spirit rose out of the scarecrow like a blue flame, fading in the air like steam from a cup. The light in the sky faded away.

  When it was dark again, the gourd rolled off the scarecrow’s shoulders. A second later, the body collapsed into pieces, a pile of harmless rags at Proctor’s feet.

  Proctor was shaking, not shivering, but shaking. Sweat poured from his forehead, and his hands were wet and clammy.

  He staggered over to a tree and propped himself up, trying to catch his breath. There was no time to spare. The German might not know he was coming yet. What was it that Bootzamon had called him?

  No, not Bootzamon. Rotenhahn. He had earned back his own name.

  Rotenhahn had called him the prince-bishop. He was in Trenton, in the small house on King Street across from Colonel Rall’s headquarters. Proctor might still surprise him if he moved quickly enough. He might still be able to rescue both the children.

  He called for Singer, but she was long gone, spooked by Nance and Bootzamon. Did he waste valuable time searching for her or simply make his way into town? It was best to go straight for the goal. He stuck a sprig of evergreen in his hat and spoke a spell of concealment, meant to turn away any eyes who chanced upon him. Not a perfect spell, but snow flurries filled the air again, and in this weather it would have to do.

  He staggered out of the woods and found the road. A cooper’s shop sat at the edge of town, with the shadows of the other rooftops spread behind it. He was headed the right direction.

  Proctor had almost passed the shop when the door opened and a Hessian in his tall, stiff cap popped out. Proctor froze—the concealment spell was more effective when he didn’t move. The Hessian stared through him, then dropped his gaze to the snow. Proctor had left a trail of footprints behind him, leading right to where he stood.

  The Hessian started forward with his gun raised. At the same moment, the wind intensified, sweeping snow before it and wiping clean Proctor’s footprints like waves over sand. The Hessian shielded his face against the blast, and looked again, but the prints were gone. He peered through Proctor as he scanned the roads one more time, then turned and went inside.

  As soon as the door slammed shut, Proctor hurried into town, hunched over against the wind. He followed the sign to his right down King Street. Here and there, he saw early smoke rising from chimneys, but on the day after Christmas, in the cold with the storm holding back the dawn, the residents were late to stir.

  In the middle of town, he saw a large mansion that filled half a block. The Hessian commander Rall’s regimental colors snapped in the wind outside. Directly across the street, lights burned in the lower windows of a small house.

  Proctor climbed over the little picket fence around the yard and went to the back. He checked his supplies—some salt, some sand, a knife. He couldn’t do anything with a direct attack. His plan, if you could dignify it by calling it such, was to sn
eak in, grab Zoe and the orphan boy, then escape through the American lines before the shooting started.

  He eased the door open silently and stepped into the kitchen.

  A voice from the front parlor chilled Proctor to the bone.

  “You’ve been a thorn in my side, boy. You’ve deprived me of a servant who’s been my obedient dog for almost two hundred years. For that, I think you owe me.”

  Proctor still had his hand on the latch. He pushed against it, intending to leave, but the door slammed shut. The latch turned under his fingers and against his will, sealing it as tight as a cork in a bottle.

  “You won’t be leaving that way,” the voice said. “Come out here.”

  Maybe it was time for a new plan. He fumbled in his pocket as he walked slowly to the doorway. He stopped there, leaning against the jamb.

  The parlor had been turned into a stage mockery of a palace. A thick, imported rug woven with elaborate vines covered the simple wooden floor from wall to wall. Two tapestries of archers on horseback hung from hooks in the ceiling, one against each wall; because the walls were too short for their length, fabric bunched up on the floor. Two ornately carved tables set with gleaming candelabra sat on either side of the doorway. The glow from the candles was almost as bright as the flame from the fire in the hearth, and the greasy smell of them filled the air. Next to the hearth sat a cumbersome upholstered chair, and in that chair sat the large, heavy figure of the German. The prince-bishop.

  A simple box sat against the wall behind the chair. Black silk was draped over it, and half a dozen glass bottles were arranged across the top. The bottles were filled with a liquid, and in the liquid floated bits like locks of hair and fingers. One of the bottles lay shattered, broken glass spilled across the floor.

  Zoe and the orphan boy sat on the floor at the German’s feet. Silver chains about their throats connected to leashes that draped loose over one of the prince-bishop’s meaty hands. His other hand drummed restlessly on the arm of the chair. Proctor tried hard not to look at the children directly.