A Spell for the Revolution (15 page)

“The best thing we can do is find him within the hour and be on our way,” Proctor said.

“I’ll call on the Lakes,” Deborah said, referring to the Quaker family that had connections with her father. “Maybe I can arrange passage home for us using the highway.”

Hours later, they met again in the main street outside the church. Deborah sat by the side of the road, looking tired and worried. Proctor was worried for her. She lifted her head as he approached. “Did you have any luck?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Proctor said. “Were you able to find your friends the Lakes?”

“No, they’ve left town because of the fighting.” Her face was drawn and desperate. “There’s no one here we can turn to for help.”

“I’m sorry,” Proctor said. He wanted to say something reassuring, but he couldn’t think of anything.

She pushed herself wearily to her feet. “I did find something interesting. Walk down this street with me.”

He followed her down the street to an empty lot. “What am I looking for?”

She reached up and held his head straight. Suddenly a
squat two-story house with a porch across the front and three dormer windows up above appeared in front of him. He could have sworn it wasn’t there a moment before.

“That’s Van Sicklyn’s house,” she said. “It’s being used by a German lord who’s here as an adviser to the Hessians.” She pointed to another house across the street, a mansion with red and blue regimental colors hanging out front. “Those are the headquarters of Colonel Johann Rall, commander of the Hessian grenadiers.”

“You think the German lord is our man? The source of the curse?”

“What do you think?”

He looked again and the house was gone. “Um.”

“People become very vague when I ask about it—as soon as they begin to speak about the Van Sicklyns, or their house, or this German lord, they forget what they’re saying.”

Proctor nodded. “How did you get them to point out the house? Is there a spell that returns memory? Or—”

“I convinced an old midwife to walk down the street with me,” Deborah said. “I asked her to tell me about the babies delivered in each house, and I settled on the spot that seemed invisible to her.”

“Ah.” Deborah was very clever. “How do we get inside to check?”

The door slammed open and a ratty-haired boy of about ten ran out. Proctor grabbed Deborah’s arm and pulled her back behind a tree. This could be their orphan, but it would be a mistake to act too quickly until they knew for sure.

The boy stumbled to a stop at the edge of the yard, just like a dog on an invisible leash. His pants were too short, riding well up his shins, and his feet were bare. His shirt was too big, with the sleeves rolled up to free his hands.

The door opened a second time, and a rail-thin black woman in a simple check dress walked calmly after the
boy. She stopped at his side and rested a hand on his shoulder.

“Lydia,” Proctor whispered.

Deborah nodded.

Lydia had studied magic with them on The Farm. She was the slave of Cecily Sumpter Pinckney, and a source of magic for the other woman. She appeared drained, exhausted even worse than Deborah.

A small blond woman followed Lydia out the door. She wore an elaborate yellow velvet dress more suited to some governor’s mansion than a farmhouse in a small town. Cecily.
That southern woman
. Someone they had trusted as a fellow witch, and a necromancer who’d tried to kill them. Her face was beautiful in its composition and terrifying in its wrath. Proctor winced as a halo of spiked fire seemed to form around her head.

He was not the only one to notice. Lydia flinched and dropped her head between her shoulders. The little boy covered his ears and screamed. Pebbles trembled on the ground near the boy’s feet, then rose in the air.

Proctor braced to see them fly at Cecily.

Cecily held up her hand, delicate lace trailing from her wrist. She made a gesture with her fingers, and the pebbles fell to the ground. Then she closed her hand in a fist.

The boy fell silent instantly. He began clawing at his throat, trying to breathe. Proctor pressed through the bushes, ready to bolt forward, but Deborah pulled him back.

“Not yet,” she whispered.

Cecily opened her hand and the boy gasped for air. The second he started to cry, she shut it again, cutting off his breath and his voice.

Lydia, her face a mask of sad acceptance, stroked the boy’s hair while he choked and started to turn blue. She bent and whispered to him. Proctor couldn’t tell what she said, but he thought she was telling him not to struggle.

“We’re not ready,” Deborah whispered, her eyes locked on Cecily. “I’m not ready.”

Cecily opened her fist, and the boy dropped to his knees, gasping for air. Lydia knelt beside him, slipping her hands under his arms and helping him to his feet. Together they walked back toward the house, the boy hiding behind Lydia as they passed Cecily.

When they had gone inside, Cecily turned and looked up and down the road. Her gaze lingered for a moment on the spot where Proctor and Deborah were hiding. It felt like a thousand ants were crawling across Proctor’s skin, and he and Deborah both ducked their heads, hoping to remain hidden. Cecily called into the house.

A soldier in a green jacket came out. A pistol was tucked in his waist along with a large fascine knife.

Proctor recognized him as well. It was the man called Jolly, who had attacked them on The Farm and then worked for the widow Nance before Deborah killed her.

Deborah’s grip on Proctor’s arm, which had not lessened, now bit deeper still. He took her hand in his and pulled her away, creeping along the shadow of the hedge until they could turn the corner and conceal themselves behind another farmhouse.

“Did you recognize—?” she whispered.

“Yes,” he answered. “Cecily, Lydia, the orphan, Jolly—it’s all our enemies and everyone we ought to rescue, all in one spot. Cecily must have replaced the widow.”

Deborah shook her head. “Cecily doesn’t have enough power to put that kind of curse on Washington and the whole Continental army.”

Proctor opened his mouth, then snapped it shut again.

“See,” Deborah said. “You know I’m right.”

“You’re right,” he admitted. “Even drawing on Lydia’s magic, and the boy’s too, she didn’t have that kind of power. The widow did, and you could feel it.”

“Exactly,” Deborah said, glancing back over her shoulder
to see if they’d been followed. She stopped. “I’m guessing it’s that German lord that people meet then get vague about. He’s the key to the curse.”

“Can’t we just free Lydia and the orphan? Won’t that break the curse?”

“It’s a curse—he only had to draw on their power to create it. Now it has a life of its own. But unless we free them too, our work will be wasted. Even if we break the curse, he’ll just perform the ritual and set it again.”

Proctor shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away. “What are we going to do then?”

“First we have to find this German,” Deborah said. She slumped down in the grass and buried her face in her hands.

Proctor knelt beside her. Softly he said, “First, we have to help you regain your strength.”

Deborah looked up at him. “What?”

“It makes strategic sense,” he said. “Nobody can discover anything in a small town until they have a place in it. Our place will be servants, refugees from the war. And it’ll mean food and a place to stay.”

Her shoulders lifted hopefully. “Food and a place to stay will be good.”

“If you want food, we’ll have to take it out of your wages, and it won’t be cheap, not with all the British soldiers who need feeding,” the farmer said.

His name was Stymiest. He had a narrow face with a high forehead and ears that looked like they’d been grabbed and twisted often in his childhood. He looked at Proctor, who was standing at his doorstep with Deborah.

“And the only place I could offer you to stay is quarters in the barn,” he added.

Proctor had almost grown accustomed to barns. “That’ll do just fine,” he said. “What about my sister?”

“She would have to sleep on the floor in the loft with the children,” Stymiest said, scowling.

“That will be fine,” Deborah said wearily.

Stymiest turned to his wife. “No,” he said. “No, I just don’t think we can do it. It just won’t work.”

“But they’ve agreed to
everything,”
she said. Her hair and clothes were indecently unkempt, as if it was simply too much work to keep up with everything. “I need help with the children. You need help with the harvest.”

“The British haven’t come this far out of town yet, but they will,” he said. “They’re quartering troops in everyone’s homes. There’s no way we can provide room and board for troops, and room and board for servants too.”

That was the crux of the problem. Proctor and Deborah had been turned away from every house and farm they called on because people felt the strain of quartering the British troops and their Hessian allies.

“So if we have to quarter troops, we’ll release the servants,” Mrs. Stymiest said reasonably.

“We’ll offer no complaint if that happens,” Proctor interjected. In truth, he hoped they would be gone long before then.

“No,” Mr. Stymiest said firmly.

“Then you can cook your own meals and make
your
bed out in the barn,” Mrs. Stymiest yelled. She stepped back inside the house and slammed the door on him.

“Darling,” he yelled through the door. He tried to open it, but it was latched shut from within. “Pumpkin!”

“Don’t you pumpkin me,” yelled his wife.

“All right, all right,” he capitulated. “We’ll hire them, but only under the conditions I gave.” He looked at Proctor and Deborah. “And you’re dismissed the moment the British want to be quartered.”

“Believe me,” Proctor said. “We’ll be out of here.”

The door opened. Mrs. Stymiest offered her cheek for a very chaste kiss, which Mr. Stymiest provided. A little barefoot
girl ran out the door and began tugging on Deborah’s hem for attention.

“Let go that dress, Sissy,” Mrs. Stymiest said. She took Deborah by the hand and dragged her inside, saying, “We’re going to be such good friends.”

The farmer looked over Proctor. “An older sister, huh?”

“What? Oh. Yes.”

The farmer sighed and rubbed a hand behind his left ear. “I could tell. They always get their way. Well, best show you where you’ll be staying.”

The barn was in worse shape than Deborah’s father’s barn had been. It would have to do for the next few days.

Deborah took weeks to recover.

She fell ill the day after they arrived. Mr. Stymiest would have dismissed them both on the spot, only Proctor did enough work for two people. He had practice turning rundown farms into neat and productive properties. By the end of that first day, he had taken on enough extra chores to make himself indispensable.

Fortunately, Mrs. Stymiest took to Deborah like a child to a sick bird. She put her in a bed, made the children stay out of doors, and nursed her back to health. Proctor was allowed to see her once or twice a day.

“When will you be able to help me?” he asked whenever he saw her. Meaning help him rescue Lydia and the orphan, help him break the curse.

Every time he asked, she said, “Tomorrow.”

He did what he could without her, stealing into town on Sundays and watching the house. But no one emerged again, not while he was there. And without Deborah’s guidance, he was wary of breaking the barrier for a closer look. The same way he hoped that Bootzamon was wary of breaking the barrier at The Farm.

If there had been any way to send a letter to Magdalena, he would have. She and the others must have been worried
sick. The only way he could think to reach them was by sending a note to Paul Revere. But the mail was entirely in the hands of the British and their Loyalist sympathizers. No letter he sent would reach Revere.

By the third week, Deborah was up and moving about again. She came and found him repairing the siding in the barn. He was so relieved to see her up and walking, he dropped the hammer and jumped off the ladder. Face-to-face, he thrust his hands in his pockets just to keep from embracing her.

“It’s good to see you up,” he said. “What happened?”

“I suffered a spell,” she said, and shrugged as if that was all the explanation she’d offer or effort she’d expend.

It was the cost of the magic she had done to end the battle at Brooklyn. She wasn’t going to talk about it, and maybe it didn’t matter. Not as long as she recovered. “Are you sure you should be up already?”

“Yes,” she said. “We have to break the curse.”

That was so like her. She still appeared too pale and thin to him to do anything strenuous, but she was eager to get started. It was one of the things he admired about her.

“How have you been?” she asked.

“Stymiest doesn’t want a servant, he wants a slave. He doesn’t seek my opinion or my permission, he just uses me.” He forced his fist to unclench. He didn’t want to think about that now that Deborah was well. “I’ve not minded so much, because they’ve been taking care of you.”

Deborah shuffled her feet uncomfortably. “I have to do something, Proctor,” she said. “All the time I’ve been in bed, I’ve been thinking about … the unjust burden carried by our friends.”

The curse. “Can you get away from the house for an hour or so?”

“Why?” Deborah asked.

“A fellow named Increase lives half a mile down the road. You have to meet him. He carries a ghost. He must
have been at the battle of Brooklyn, only no one here knows. After the battle, he came home again and simply went back to work. I’ve talked to him in the fields. He’s sick, maybe unto death.”

“If we can cure him,” Deborah said, “then we’ll figure out a way to break the curse.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Proctor said. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “Thank God you’re all right, Deborah. I don’t know what I would do if—”

She glanced back at the house as if she hadn’t heard him. “Let’s go now,” she said. “Before they notice I’m gone.”

He led her away at once. They found Increase sitting in a chair outside his own dilapidated farm. His skin was sallow and unhealthy. He blinked up at the sunlight, like a turtle on a log trying to get warm.