A Spell for the Revolution (43 page)

Washington’s head came up into the wind. He squared his shoulders, found his balance, and rose to his feet, bracing one leg in front of him. But the ghosts could pull him no farther.

The wind shrieked and howled. The air spit water and ice like a fountain of misery. The other men’s ghosts began to climb their way back along the tethers to their human hosts.

Young Lieutenant Monroe, embracing the flag in his shaking arms, rose to stand beside Washington. The flag began to unfurl, its striped corners snapping in the wind. Proctor scooted forward, behind the two men, ready to catch them if the ghosts should try to drag them down. Deborah’s spell wasn’t strong enough. It wasn’t strong enough because she wasn’t in the middle of the army.

Fog closed in around them. Neither shore was visible, and the other boats disappeared into shadows as gray as the fog. The ghosts pulled themselves back together into a cluster behind Washington. The other men’s ghosts came out of the dark toward the boat, like fish swimming upstream against diminishing rapids. Proctor knew he had to help Deborah break the curse, but he had no idea how to do it.

“Put your backs into it now, my good fellows,” Washington said. He removed his telescope from his pocket, though he didn’t bring it to his eye. “I can see the far shore.”

Alexandra nearly wept as she rowed. The private at the front of the boat cried openly as he pulled on his oar.

The loose flag whipped against Proctor’s face, and he shoved it angrily aside. He had to do something to help Deborah’s spell. He needed a focus—

He needed the flag. Deborah had poured magic into it while Betsy sewed, creating a focus to sustain men’s spirits.
Thirteen stripes and thirteen stars, meant to represent all the states. Just as the men and woman in the boat came from every part of the country.

The flag snapped against his face again. This time, Proctor grabbed a fistful of the fabric and jammed it down into the spot where the spectral shackles wrapped around Washington’s ankles.

“Let my people go.”

He felt power surge through him as he had never felt before, as if he were drawing not just on his own source but also, through the flag, on Deborah and Magdalena and all the other witches of the circle. It ran through him like fire set to a trail of oil leading to a gunpowder keg, and it hit the shackle and the shackle shattered.

The first ghost turned and looked at Proctor, the eyes in his ruined face a mixture of relief and dismay. Still he held on to Washington’s shoulders, and the ghosts behind clung to him. They would not go so easily.

The wind swirled like mad, spinning the loosely rolled flag out of ice-numbed Monroe’s hands. It whipped out of the young lieutenant’s grasp, snapping between the ghosts and Washington. Only Proctor still held on, one end knotted in his fist.

He raised his fist to the face of Washington’s first ghost, the Virginia gentleman with his jaw shot away. He looked at the bully blacksmith’s ghost looming over his shoulder, at the Connecticut minuteman still trying to stuff his organs back into his torso. The flag whipped in the wind, beating against all of them. Proctor stared down the long line of ghosts and thought about the friends he’d lost in the war, the men he’d seen die, Amos Lathrop and Joseph Warren and David Livingston. He thought of all the men still fighting—from men like Cuff and Alex’s brothers to officers like Tench Tilghman and Paul Revere.

“Take my talent,” Alex whispered, in tears. “Do it.”

The flag threatened to rip out of his hand. This was his
only chance. He opened himself to Alex’s talent and let her power flow through him. But it wasn’t only her power. He was connected to Deborah and Magdalena, Esther and Sukey, Abby and Lydia and all their power. He was connected, through the flag, to Betsy Ross and every other man and woman who still believed in the cause of liberty. He was connected, by their presence, to the men in the boat, and to General Washington. And through Washington, he was connected to every man still in the Continental army, every man who kept the faith and kept on fighting despite the defeats, the deprivations, the terrible odds.

All that power flowed into Proctor Brown and through him. He held his fist up to the ghost at Washington’s back, the speechless Virginian mutilated by the war.

And he said,
“Let my people go.”

His words were snatched away by the howl of the wind, but it was a howl of despair. All around them, ghosts thrashed in the fog, ripped from their human hosts. Their screeches filled the night. But Washington’s ghosts still hung on. The flag flapped one way, then the other in Proctor’s fist, wrapping around the ghosts. Washington turned his head as if he felt something. The voiceless Virginian with the ruined face, pale as the moonlight, brittle as ice, stared down at Proctor as though he wanted to speak. Proctor clutched the flag with both hands, gritting his teeth as he struggled to hold tight.

The wind gusted, tearing the banner out of his fists. He grabbed for it and missed.

The flag flew away into the dark. But it had twisted around Washington’s ghosts and carried them away. The Virginian’s spirit reached out to Proctor with an open hand before he disappeared. The other ghosts in the boat let go and flew up into the icy fog, and then all the spirits abandoned the fog at once and followed Washington’s ghosts toward a bright light that hung like a haze-covered moon above the western shore.

Proctor caught his breath.

The Jersey farmer with the bandages lifted his head. He felt the difference instantly. Alex stared at Proctor, her eyes dry and full of wonder.

The wind swirled again but this time it lifted the fog, revealing the other boats. Men all across the river saw Washington standing, and they shouted and pointed at him. Henry Knox’s great voice boomed out instructions across the water, indistinct like the roll of thunder. Up and down the river, men bent to their oars with new vigor. The makeshift armada, frozen in place on the icy river, surged forward as one toward the far shore.

Proctor fell back to his seat, his hands in the ice water. He didn’t notice the cold. His heart was pounding, and he felt light-headed and exhausted and full of joy. He’d done it. With Deborah and the other witches and Alex, he’d broken the curse.

Victory or death
. They might have a chance at the former after all.

“Sir,” Monroe said apologetically to Washington, gazing toward the lost flag. “I—”

“Never you mind, Lieutenant,” Washington said. “We’ll requisition another from Missus Ross as soon as we have the opportunity. There’s our shore.”

Alex laughed aloud in relief. The Marblehead captain at the helm began calling out the stroke, and the rowers bent into their oars, shoving ice aside each time they pulled. The dark line resolved into a bank, where the men who had already landed had fires waiting.

“You did it,” Alex whispered to Proctor. “I saw you, you did it.”

“We did it,” Proctor said. It was all of them—Deborah, Magdalena, the others. It was Betsy Ross and Thomas Paine. It was all the men in the boat, all the men in all the boats who defied the despair of the curse and kept on fighting. It was Washington at their head. “We all did it.”

The boat landed and they disembarked. He and Alex ran up the shore to the nearest fire, which was fed with wood stolen from the fences that lined the roads in this part of the country instead of stone. The air was so bitter that the side facing the fire would get warm while the other side froze. Men turned around and around, like meat on a spit, trying to dry their wet clothes and keep from freezing. Proctor copied their motion.

The rest of the horses and artillery still had to be brought over before they could march. But despite the cold and the delays, Proctor felt a sense of joy for the men around them. It was as if the entire army had set down a heavy burden. Men were laughing while they stomped their soaked feet to stave off frostbite. Even if they didn’t understand why, they could feel that the curse had lifted.

“So we’ve won, right?” Alex said. “We broke the curse.”

“We broke the curse,” Proctor said, glancing around to make sure no one had overheard her. “But we haven’t won.”

“Deborah is fine,” Alex said. “We broke the curse.”

Proctor hoped Deborah was fine. He wanted to believe that she and the others were fine. But he was thinking about Zoe and the boy, William.

“Bootzamon and Nance are still out there somewhere,” he said. “Cecily escaped and who knows where she is. The German is in Trenton, surrounded by Hessians. If we don’t defeat them—if we don’t defeat
him
—he’ll just do it all over again.”

And he’d use the blood of the children to do it.

The wind picked up, raging like a drunk. It spit needles of ice at them. Alex’s teeth chattered. She turned to the fire and rubbed her hands together while Proctor stared into the dark toward Trenton, miles away.

Proctor and Alex and the other wet-footed soldiers fresh off the boats tried to warm themselves, while all around them the army moved with purpose. Adam Stephen’s Virginia brigade fanned out into the woods, setting up sentry points around the landing. Other units formed a line of march. The artillery was landed and moved into positions where it could be used to provide support to the infantry. It was hours past midnight already, but men moved with energy and purpose they had not shown in months.

Through the dark and the swirling snow, Proctor recognized the familiar silhouette of Washington’s slave, William Lee, as he led horses to the general. He recognized one of the horses as well.

“Excuse me,” he said to Alex. “I’ll be right back.”

“I’m coming with you,” she said, picking up her rifle and falling in behind. He was in no mood to argue. He pulled his hat down over his face and folded his arms tight to his chest against the cold.

“—they never left my sight,” Lee told Washington as Proctor approached. Lieutenant Monroe and the other junior officers from the boat still surrounded Washington. “I liked the look of this one and brought it along,” Lee added.

“A bit small, but I like the cut of him,” Washington said. More than any other man, he’d carried the burden of the curse without revealing it. Proctor could see the difference in him now, a difference that he suspected had as much to do with seizing the initiative of battle as it did with letting
go of the chain he’d carried. There was delight in Washington’s eyes as he considered the horse. “If he had another hand or two, I’d want to try him myself.”

“This one, I wager she’d carry you fine,” Lee said.

“That’s my horse,” Proctor interrupted as he pushed his way between the horses. He rubbed Singer on the withers and checked his gear. Singer snorted, blowing a cloud of frosted air out her nose, and shook the sleet off her back. “I didn’t realize she was going to be brought over.”

“I wasn’t leaving this fine an animal on the far shore,” Lee said. “Not with what’s at stake tonight.”

“Where’d you get her?” Washington asked Brown before anyone questioned Lee’s forwardness.

“From a music teacher in Massachusetts, name of Morgan,” Proctor said. “He’s got a wild-air dam that breeds well, and is trying different stallions with her. This one’s not quite the horse he’s looking for yet, but she does fine for me.”

“He’s got a better eye for horses than any music teacher I’ve known,” Washington said, meeting Proctor eye-to-eye. “We can find a use for this pony tonight.”

Proctor knew that Washington was asking to use the animal, and that most men in the army wouldn’t refuse their general. But he needed to reach the German, ahead of the fighting if he could, to rescue Zoe and the orphan and put a stop to the Covenant’s plan. And the fact was, the army still respected a man’s individual will and his individual rights. “I’m not willing to give her up.”

The junior officers behind Washington bristled. But the general adapted instantly, as he had a way of doing.

“Then we can find a use for you.”

“Anything you need of me, I’m willing to do,” Proctor said.
The closer to the front, the better
, he might have added, but he didn’t want to seem too pushy.

“You’re from the North, and I daresay you’ve seen a
blizzard or two before. Can you handle yourself in the snow and ice, and ride quickly if you need to?”

“I have, and I can, and she can too.”

Washington nodded toward the young Monroe for a moment. “I’m sending the Third Virginia out as scouts. Go with the lieutenant here. If you encounter the enemy, or any surprises at all not of our making, you carry the news back as fast as that pony can carry you.”

“Yes, sir,” Proctor said. Washington had given him a direct order, and he responded out of reflex, forgetting his Quaker guise.

Washington laughed. “You see,” he said. “We’ll get a musket in your hands before you know it.”

The junior officers laughed then too. They all felt the relief of the curse lifted off them. Proctor hoped it didn’t make them too foolhardy or blind to danger.

Lee handed him Singer’s bridle, giving the animal one last pat of appreciation, then turned his attention to preparing Washington’s horse, the large sorrel he liked to ride when he expected there to be shooting. Proctor led the horse away, following Monroe, who glanced once, twice, at Alex without saying a word. It was clear that Monroe didn’t think he needed Proctor assigned to their company, and that he was even more skeptical of the tagalong who appeared younger than himself.