A Spell for the Revolution (8 page)

He was moved to say something about that, and why it was a reason to act, but Deborah cleared her throat.

“It’s important that we be united in this,” she said. “Yes, this orphan boy is in danger. But so are many others, and we can’t go running off after all of them. The fact is, we’re in danger. We need to study and get stronger, then we can be prepared to help others.”

It was considered polite to wait after someone spoke at meeting, to give everyone time to digest one set of thoughts before hearing another.

Abby started to talk the second Deborah finished. “If we’re going to help people eventually, let’s start with this boy right now.” She looked around the table. “When the talent first started to show for me, it came in my dreams. I would dream that I was flying and then wake up floating above my bed.”

“And today she can’t lift a single stone,” Sukey murmured to Esther.

Abby scowled across the table. “It’s not funny. I feel like
my power’s been drained since I came here. It’s so frustrating.”

“You shouldn’t worry about that,” Deborah said. “It happens to everyone when they start to study and think about their talent. It’s only temporary. We can talk about it another time, if you like. But right now we need to come to unity about the boy.”

“But it’s the boy I’m talking about,” Abby said passionately. “Look how hard it is for me to take the reins of my talent, and I’m surrounded by people who understand. He has to do it alone. It’s not right.”

She fell silent. Proctor agreed with everything she said, but he had a more compelling reason to act: if Cecily and the Covenant wanted this boy, they shouldn’t be allowed to get him. He was opening his mouth to speak when Sukey waved her hand in a circle encompassing the table.

“No offense to the younger members here,” Sukey said, with a nod to Abby and Zoe, “but I think we should listen to the wisdom of the elders present. Yes, it’s frightening for the boy, and yes, he’s in danger, but many others are too, and we should protect ourselves here first. Esther was telling me the exact same thing. Weren’t you, Esther?”

Esther sat silently until Sukey jabbed an elbow in her side. “Yes, I was,” Esther said. “I’m frightening. I mean,
it’s
frightening, very, but we … we … What do
you
think, Mister Dillingham?”

Ezra shifted uncomfortably at the mention of his proper name. His sunburned face wrinkled in deep thought. “I say the ship has sailed. Thems what’s in port get left behind in port.”

“See,” Sukey said. “We are in complete agreement with one another.”

“No, we’re not,” Zoe said. She reached across the table and punched Ezra, knocking over a candle. Esther caught the candle and set it upright as Abby dragged Zoe back into her lap.

“You can’t mean that,” Zoe said. “You wouldn’t leave me behind, would you?”

“That’s not my meaning,” Ezra said.

“Don’t worry, Zoe,” Proctor said. “We’ll never leave you behind. In port. Or … wherever.”

“So would you leave this other boy behind, just because we don’t know him?”

“No,” Proctor said. “I won’t.”

“We haven’t come to that unity yet,” Deborah said, firmly.

“And we won’t,” Proctor said. “For eighty years, the Quaker Highway has been taking witches out of Massachusetts. For the past year, we’ve been trying to gather them again, but the guides are dead, and the witches are missing.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “If the only talent we have is for healing, that’s reason enough to gather people. There’s a war on, and there’s more healing needed than all of us here can do, even if that’s all we did. I know because I’ve been there, firsthand, in the front lines, and it’s bloody work.”

He knew his voice was shaking, that he was upset, but he had to finish what he wanted to say.

“What the Covenant has done, that’s even bloodier. We don’t know what their plan is, but we know the kinds of magic they use—murdering children as part of their spells, breathing life into corpses to make killers of them, trapping the ghosts of witches inside the bodies of scarecrows. It’s all death and ghosts, and every breed of evil.” He pointed at the door. “The Covenant is out there right now, working on their plan. If Cecily wants this orphan, then it’s for the Covenant. And if the Covenant wants him, then I say that’s reason enough for us to get to him first.”

“Proctor,” Deborah said softly.

He knew his voice had been rising, that he sounded angry. He calmed himself. “That’s all I have to say.”

That was the longest speech Proctor had ever given at
one of their meetings, probably the longest speech of his life. The group sat silently for a moment.

“Well, Mister Brown is certainly very eloquent,” Sukey said. “But I fear that he lets his heart’s passions run away with his head. Martial ardor is not unexpected in a young man, though I hesitate to call it a virtue. But we are not the witchcraft militia, ready to muster off to battle. We are healers, no matter what Mister Brown may think. Isn’t that right, Esther dear?”

“Absolutely,” Esther said. “I know I’m always ready to heal.”

“That’s a dear woman,” Sukey said, patting Esther’s hand. “We didn’t come here to play parlor tricks with flames and pebbles. The only proper use of our talents is to heal people, to make them well when they are ill, to ward off evil influences. I must believe that. Young Mister Brown may stay if he pleases, or go after this boy if that pleases him more. Whichever he does, I say we turn our attention to basics here and learn things that can truly help people.”

“We can’t let him go alone,” Deborah said. “With no one to watch his back or stand guard while he sleeps.” She turned to Proctor. “The Covenant will kill you the first opportunity they get.”

The fearful look in their eyes said the rest:
Bootzamon is already waiting out there, just beyond our barriers
.

“Well, then,” Proctor said. “I promise not to give them any opportunity.”

“I’ll go with you,” Abby said.

Everybody at the table turned their heads to the farm girl. She had picked the river stone up off the floor and turned it over in her hands.

“To be honest, I’m no good at the lessons you’re setting for us, Miss Deborah,” she said, smacking the stone down on the table. “And I’m tired of being cooped up here, with no neighbors to visit, no town to go shopping in, and no meeting on Sunday mornings. If it’s dangerous, it can’t be
any more dangerous than living out on the edge of Indian country.”

Deborah shook her head firmly no. “Your mother wouldn’t approve if I sent you on a journey with a young man and no chaperone. In fact, she’d have my hide.”

“Oh, no, she’d understand if
you
explained it,” Abby said. “She said you were the only young woman she ever met who she trusted completely around my brothers.”

Proctor glanced at Deborah in time to see her blush.

“You just tell her that Proctor is like your brother,” Abby said. “She’ll be fine with it if you tell her that he’s like a brother to all of us.”

Proctor stared at his feet and felt something like a ball of ice form in his stomach. Was it true? Had he and Deborah worked so hard at staying proper around each other, they’d become like brother and sister? Maybe Deborah had even said as much to Abby.

“You’re too young,” Deborah said firmly. “I made a promise to your mother to keep my eye on you, and I can’t do that if you’re not here. Besides, it’s far more dangerous than the frontier. Your mother would not approve, even if Proctor were one of your brothers.”

Abby’s shoulders sagged.

“Ezra will go,” Zoe said. “Won’t you, Ezra?”

“Aye, I will,” he said. He pushed his chair back from the table. “If those are the captain’s orders. What time’s the tide?”

“We have no captain here,” Deborah said.

“It’s a foolish suggestion,” Sukey said. “I will not have both men gone at once, and not just in case this Bootzamon creature returns. There is too much to be done. Furthermore, I hope you don’t mean to suggest that Esther or I should undertake so arduous a journey after this elusive orphan. Esther could do it, I’m certain. She has the strength and endurance of an ox, an absolute ox. But my own delicate constitution …”

“I, no, I,” Esther sputtered, her eyes wide with dismay.

“Of course not,” Deborah said. “That’s exactly the problem. Proctor can’t go alone, but there is no one here whom we can spare to go with him.”

Another silence followed this statement.

Magdalena, who had not spoken since the opening prayer, sighed. Everyone looked at her. She shrugged and opened her hands palms-up.

“It is exactly as Deborah my friend describes,” the old woman said.

Deborah stiffened in reflex as soon as Magdalena spoke; she had an instinct to argue with everything the old woman said just to show that she was in charge.

“He cannot go by himself because it is too dangerous,” Magdalena said. “But there is no one to go with him. I cannot walk at all. Zoe and Abby are too young, and Sukey and Esther, they are too old. Neither Ezra nor you, Deborah, can be spared. We cannot go one day without you. So, sadly, we must forget about this orphan boy.”

“You can go without me for a day,” Deborah said, even if it was mostly politeness that required her to say it.

“Of course we could,” Magdalena said. “Sukey could teach your lessons for a day. She knows more about healing wounds and fevers than I do.”

Deborah spoke without thinking—Proctor could see it in the way she leaned across the table. “My mother always said that no one knew more about healing wounds and fevers than you do. And she said you were the best midwife she ever knew.”

Magdalena shrugged indifferently. “It is true she thought that once. She used to have me teach the new students for her. But that was a long time ago.”

“Deborah could go with Proctor,” Abby suggested.

“I’m not sure,” Magdalena said. “They don’t have a chaperone.”

“They don’t need one,” Abby said. Looking at Deborah,
she added, “My apologies, Miss Deborah. But who is there to worry about your reputation? Neither of you has parents or family around, you don’t belong to any church or meeting, you don’t even have neighbors. There’s nobody but us, and we know the two of you are just like brother and sister.”

“I think it’s a marvelous idea,” Sukey said. “We could get a different perspective on the healing arts.”

“I would like that a great deal,” Esther agreed, completely unprompted.

Ezra looked at Zoe. “Seems like somebody should go fetch this boy. And we could use an extra hand in the rigging.”

“Do you even realize we’re not on a ship anymore?” Zoe asked.

“I don’t want to be the only one holding back,” Magdalena said. “Not when the rest of you have made your opinion clear. I can never be the teacher that Deborah is, but I will do my part to do her work while she is gone. Are we in unity?”

Sukey and Esther, Abby and Zoe and Ezra affirmed their unity at once. Seven faces turned toward Proctor. He suppressed a smile. He admired the way Magdalena had planted the field and then waited to harvest it. All she wanted was a chance to teach the students. He suspected that they would all do better with a brief change.

“I am in unity with the rest of you,” Proctor said. “I believe we have to stop the Covenant’s plans, whatever they are. But I’ll feel better with someone to help me.”

“Deborah?” Magdalena said.

She sat for a long time, trying to think of a way out. Finally, she smiled and ducked her head toward Magdalena. “I don’t want to be the only one holding back. Not when the rest of you have made your opinion clear.”

Magdalena nodded. To her credit, she didn’t smile or
gloat. “That is what we shall do then. You will reinforce our borders before you leave.”

Proctor and Deborah went outside without the others. They walked past the well and the pile of stones toward the barn. He carried his musket and looked across the horizon to the high blue skies aswim with shreds of cloud.

“Is it true?” he said. “Are we just like brother and sister now?”

The whole mound of stones rose into the air at once, from pieces the size of marbles to chunks bigger than his fist. Deborah flung her arm, and they flew at the barn like grapeshot from the barrel of a cannon. The smaller stones clattered against the clapboards like hail, and the bigger stones tore holes in the wood. The pigs squealed, disturbed from their afternoon slumbers into a brief melee in the mud as they dodged for cover.

Proctor stopped in his tracks. A bit angrily, he said, “That’s a lot of extra work for me, just to fix that.”

Deborah turned her head away to hide how upset she was. “She led me by the bridle, right where she wanted me to go.”

“Is that so bad? She studied with your mother—”

It was the wrong thing to say. The scattered stones rose from the mud and hovered in the air.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

The stones thudded to the ground. The big sow walked over to one and rooted through the mud, turning it over with her nose to see if it was worth eating.

“You’ve grown powerful this year,” he said. He knew that she practiced every day, always pushing herself. But it was a different thing to see her use that power.

Her head sagged. “I’m afraid it’s not enough.”

“You can only do so much.”

“I have to do more.” Her head came up. “The widow—she cast a spell that stretched all the way around Boston,
making all the militiamen ill. She was going to place a curse on an entire army. And she said that her master was more powerful than that. How do I fight that? Come on.”

She led him to the cornfield, where she started pulling husks from the ears and tying them in knots.

“You don’t have to fight it alone, for one thing,” he said. “I’m glad you’re coming with me. What are you doing?”

She held up a little doll, made from the corn leaves. “This Bootzamon creature is out there, looking for us. When you and I leave, I’m going to make him think we’ve all left. If he thinks The Farm is abandoned, he’ll follow us.”

Proctor whistled appreciatively. “That’s better than what I had planned.”

“What did you have planned?” she said.

“I was going to bang some pots and pans in hopes of scaring him.”