A Spell for the Revolution (39 page)

“Not a plan, but a thought,” Magdalena said. “It’s the opposite of a baby at childbirth. That soul is trying to enter this world so it can enter the body, and sometimes a gate has to be opened to coax that soul inside. But these spirits, with the soldiers, they’re trapped in this world against their own nature. If we open up a gate for them, they’ll be able to continue on their way.”

“It would take all of us in a circle to open that wide a gate,” Deborah said.

“Then it’s good that all of us are here, yah?” Magdalena replied.

For the first time in almost two months, since their attempt on All Hallows’ Eve, Proctor felt truly hopeful. They might really be able to break the curse. “Can we do it tonight?” he asked. “The sooner it’s done, the better.”

Magdalena shook her head. “No, we will have to be much closer to the spirits. Not to all of them, but to most.”

“So we’ll return to the army’s camp on the Delaware River,” Deborah said.

“Yes,” Proctor said, feeling a little of the hope drain out of him. “But that doesn’t give us much time. Tomorrow is Christmas. It may be the last time all the men are gathered together. Their enlistments are up in another week and most of them are likely to resign, especially with the weight of the curse on them. It’ll take us all day to ride back to the camp.”

“We can’t travel on Christmas Day,” Sukey protested, holding a thin hand over her shocked and incredulous heart. “It’s disrespectful to our Lord. One more day of waiting won’t make a difference. We simply can’t—no, we won’t—travel on a holy day, will we, Esther dear?”

Esther opened her trembling mouth to agree, just as she always did, and then her chin stopped trembling and her face took on a serious expression Proctor had never seen before.

“Yes, we will,” she said.

“See!” Sukey crowed triumphantly. “It’s just like I …
What?”

“If a lamb falls into a pit on the Sabbath, you pull it out,” Esther said. “Our good Lord said that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath, and if our army needs saving on Christmas Day, then we must save them.”

“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.