A Spell for the Revolution (21 page)

“No,” she said at once. She rolled over, moving away from Proctor and turning her back to him. “But maybe I wonder if it’s worth it to do what we’re doing. Back at The Farm, teaching women how to heal the sick, that made a difference.”

He let her have the last word. Even if he had a reply, she would have said something else to get the last word anyway. Then they would have gone on all night, as they had times in the past, and he was weary now beyond hope.

Exhausted as he felt, he wasn’t sure that sleep ever came. He jerked alert at every sudden noise or movement around them, and then, just when he thought he might fall asleep, it was dawn, with the birds screaming at one another from the branches, and the drum cadence of British soldiers marching on the field.

The park was not large. At the other end of it, a black boy was on a ladder, tying a noose to the largest branch of a huge tree. A mansion with a greenhouse on one side sat on a hill overlooking the open space. Carriages gathered in front of the mansion, with the bright coats and full hats of
officers running in and out. A formal guard of soldiers in their red coats stood outside, but there were just as many Rangers in their green jackets milling about.

“What’s going on?” asked Deborah, sitting up and looking as if she’d slept no more than Proctor had. She woke up farther away from him than when she’d fallen asleep, as if she’d tried to escape him that night.

“I think they mean to hang someone,” Proctor said.

The word had spread. People packed the park around the tree, crowding up against Proctor and Deborah. The owner of the Dove Tavern set up barrels outside and sold drinks to the crowd. Unlicensed vendors offered sweet rolls and fried chicken. Proctor’s stomach rumbled, and his throat ached; Deborah licked her lips, feeling the same discomfort.

“It looks like there’s a stream over there,” Proctor said. “Let’s get something to drink at least.”

The edge of the park sloped downward into a line of trees along the bank of a brook. They scooped the sharp, cold water into their mouths to slake their thirst, but it only made Proctor’s belly feel more empty. He splashed water on his face, scrubbing it as best he could, and scraped off his beard with the edge of his knife. He even splashed water on his clothes, trying to clean them a bit, but it only seemed to soak the dirt into the fabric and make them uncomfortable. Deborah sat patiently until he was done.

“We should be going,” she said. “We can make our way back to Salem, stopping at Quaker homes along the way and begging their charity. We should be there in a couple of weeks, and we can talk to the others and decide what to do next.”

Proctor wasn’t sure that was the best plan, but to be honest, he didn’t have a better plan at the moment. They hadn’t rescued the orphan, hadn’t lifted the curse on the Continental soldiers, and hadn’t stopped the Covenant; even
Bootzamon and the scarecrow widow were only temporarily stopped by the destruction of their straw bodies. The German witch who held their spirits in chattel would bring them back to life and set them after him and Deborah once again. Maybe he already had.

“Do you have a problem with my plan?” Deborah asked.

“I didn’t say anything,” he protested.

“It’s when you don’t say anything that I start to worry,” she said. “I can never tell what’s going on in your head when you don’t say anything.”

“There’s nothing going on in my head,” Proctor said. He bent his hat back into shape and jammed it onto his head. Without saying anything else, he started walking back through the park, circling the crowd.

Deborah came after him. They were halfway across the park when he felt her tug at his sleeve and whisper his name.

He turned, and she pointed at the gallows tree.

He glanced at it once or twice, but he had no desire to see another man hang to death. He was earnestly sick of death today. Even though he looked where she pointed, he didn’t look closely enough until she spoke again.

“It’s him, the man we saw on Long Island.”

It was. The schoolteacher they had asked to take the carriage east for them. The poor liar. His flaxen hair gleamed like sunshine, and his skin was as pale as a ghost in the light. He stood on a box, in the shade of the tree, with the hangman’s rope coiled around his neck.

A heavy British officer was reading out the charges against the man.

“Nathan Hale,” the officer boomed. “You are accused of being a spy for the Continentals. You are, by your own confession, an officer in the rebel army, and were caught behind the lines of His Majesty’s army dressed in civilian
clothes for the purpose of spying with the intention of using such intelligence to bring them harm.”

The crowd growled at this. Spying was dishonorable. An officer caught in civilian clothes could expect nothing but his execution. Men sometimes begged for a stay of execution, but Hale stood unmoved by the charge, his head held high despite the noose around his neck.

“Furthermore,” the officer shouted, reading from a prepared statement, “you are accused of, last night, working with your fellow conspirators to set diverse fires throughout the refugee quarter of the city—”

The crowd roared for blood at this charge. The officer waited for this roar to subside.

“—you are accused of setting diverse fires throughout the refugee quarter of the city as part of your spying efforts, in order to destroy His Majesty’s army’s base of operations, and to bring suffering and hardship to your fellow countrymen who remain His Majesty’s loyal subjects.”

The crowd roared again, a pulse felt in the movement of a thousand fists shoved forward in anger. Deborah shrank close to Proctor and slipped her arm around his elbow.

He looked down, his eyes meeting hers. They were thinking the same thing—if this crowd thought that the two of them had caused the fire, no gallows would be needed. They would be torn apart or beaten to death.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” the officer shouted at Hale, and the crowd fell silent.

Hale stood calm and dignified, looking not out to the crowd but beyond it, with his head lifted as if he were addressing the heavens.

“It is the duty of every officer to obey the lawful orders of his commander in chief, even if it should bring great risk. We should all of us be prepared at all times to meet death, in whatever form it appears. As for me, I regret that I have only one life to lose in the service of my country.”

That silenced the crowd. The black boy, large for his age, climbed back up the ladder and tightened the noose around Hale’s neck, giving it a jerk to make sure it was snug. Then he clambered down the ladder and folded it, carrying it away.

The British officer declared the sentence against Hale.
Death
. A green-coated Ranger—another American, like Hale and Proctor—kicked the box from under Hale’s feet. Hale dropped suddenly, and the rope snapped taut.

Deborah’s hand closed tight on Proctor’s arm.

The fall didn’t kill Hale instantly. He dangled there, struggling to stay still and dignified, until reflex overcame composure. He kicked and twitched until his face grew dark, and his tongue popped out of his mouth. Finally, he hung limp, swaying back and forth.

Deborah turned her face away and buried it in Proctor’s arm. The suddenly somber crowd broke apart, drifting away in clumps of twos and threes and fours. Proctor took Deborah’s arm and guided her onto one of the roads out of the city.

“That could be us,” she whispered.

“That is what happens to honest men with no taste for lying,” Proctor said.

“That
should
be us,” she snapped. “We’re responsible for the fire—”

Proctor spun to face her, cutting off her sentence. “No, it should not. We did not start anything, not even to defend our own lives.”

“But—”

Despair was written across her face, but he felt a surge of anger toward it, rather than compassion. “Listen to me. Yes, we could be dead. We could be dead any day. People could kill us just for being witches.”

Her eyes flicked around them, looking for anyone who might overhear. But at this moment, Proctor didn’t care who overheard or not. His voice grew in intensity.

“They could kill us for being spies. They could kill us just for being patriots! But there’s nothing special about that, nothing different from our ordinary lives. On any ordinary day, we could fall under the wheels of a cart and be crushed, or kicked by a mule and broken, or caught in a fire and burned to death. We could catch a fever and burn to death in our heads. Every morning we wake up, any one of those is a possibility. Every day we draw a breath, that breath could be our last.”

He had her full attention now. “And what’s your point?”

“Life is always a fatal affliction. No one knows the hour of his going. It’s not how we die that matters—because death will come, and it can come anytime, any day, in an infinity of ways. No, it’s how we live that matters, and what we do with our lives.”

“We are doing something with our lives already,” she said.

“No, we aren’t! We’re running scared, without a plan, without a hope of winning. The British would rule us like tyrants, make us afraid to choose our own destiny. I’ll not settle for that. Their army is huge and their navy is the largest in the world, and they may win this war, but I’ll not just give it to them without a fight. And they aren’t even the worst of it. This Covenant, this secret cabal of sorcerers—the widow, this German, Cecily—they think themselves the equal of God Himself. They would rule all of us, and all of Britain, and every other country in the world, making slaves of all ordinary men so that they can live like the gods they claim to be. How can I oppose British rule, and fight against that, yet not oppose the Covenant, fighting it to my final breath?”

Something in his intensity made her take a step back. He reached out and took hold of her arm.

“I would give my life to stop this German and the Covenant he represents. To keep the British alive and free,
even if it means they rule over me but stay free men instead.”

She jerked her arm free and whispered, strongly, “Proctor.”

He followed her eyes past his shoulder and saw Emily standing there in the same dress she been wearing the night before, but with several shawls thrown hastily over her shoulders. Her face was without sleep. A small group of servants was arrayed behind her. They were hastily dressed in an odd sortment of clothes, and all had soot or ashes in their hair and on their faces. They were laden with bags and small trunks of various sorts.

Her unexpected presence startled Proctor and he tightened up, unsure what to say.

“Are you quite well, ma’am?” Emily asked Deborah.

“Yes,” Deborah said, dropping her gaze. “He was just making sure I understand how strongly he feels about something.”

Emily’s look at Proctor was cold enough to freeze a pond. She answered Deborah’s reply with a nod and took a step forward. When she held out her hand, one of the servants—very reluctantly—placed a small purse in it. She opened the purse and dipped her small hand inside. It emerged with several shillings. She took Proctor’s wrist with her free hand—her touch made him jump again. The coins slammed into his palm, and she folded his fingers around them.

“W-what’s this?” he stammered.

Emily let go of his hand and took a step back. “It seems petty to care about a few wins when my home and everything in it was destroyed in the fire.”

Deborah covered her mouth, and then said, “Oh. Oh, I am so sorry.”

“Have I had the pleasure of being introduced to you before?” Emily asked.

“Emily, this is Miss Deborah Walcott; Deborah, Miss Emily Rucke,” Proctor said quickly. “The two of you did meet briefly in Boston.”

“Ah,” Emily said, her eyes filling with recognition.

The three of them stood in awkward silence for a moment, until one of the servants shifted the weight of his bags and cleared his throat.

Proctor jumped forward and held out the handful of coins to Emily. “Here, you’ve lost everything. I can’t take this under these circumstances.”

She kept her hands folded in front of her, and her eyes on Deborah. “No, you manifestly need it more than we do. The British officials”—she nodded at the mansion on the hill—“will help me until my father arrives to take me away. But I doubt they would do the same for you, not if you’re still in a state of rebellion against them.” She turned her head back to Proctor, her eyes large in her heart-shaped face. “You’re not still—”

“Emily,” he said softly, cutting off her question.

Her head fell. “Yes. Well, then.”

“Here,” he insisted, thrusting the money toward her another time.

“No,” she said firmly, stepping back over to her servants. “I did not want to remember you as a beggar, desperate and in need. Now I have had the opportunity to do what I should have done when you visited last night. Chance alone did not bring me this way. God Himself meant me to find you. And perhaps you will not think so little of me now.”

“I have never thought little of you,” Proctor said.

“No, of course you haven’t,” she replied sharply, her small chin knotting. “That’s why you never replied to any of my letters asking after your health, not until you needed to borrow money.”

“That makes me sound so petty,” Proctor said.

“The facts speak for themselves. Now, I have people to
look after and find shelter for,” she said, waving her servants onward. They moved again with audible sighs of relief. “We will meet again someday, Mister Proctor Brown. I hope to find you more like the young man I thought I knew once.”

“Emily,” he whispered.

She had already turned away, dipping her head toward Deborah as she passed. “Miss Walcott,” she said. “May fortune find you in better circumstances also, should we ever meet again.”

“Thank you,” Deborah said. “God be with you.”

A small, sad smile crossed Emily’s lips, and then without looking back she took long strides to catch up with her servants and pass them, leading them on toward the British headquarters on the hill above the gallows ground.

While Proctor stood there, dumbly watching her go, feeling numb and foolish, Deborah came over and prized the coins from his hand. She took a few strides north on the road, then turned back toward him.