Traitor to the Crown (6 page)

“Don’t be,” she said. “What happened was meant to be. I believe this to be true, now more than before. Listen to me closely, Proctor.”

He tried to take a step toward her, but his limbs were heavy and sluggish.

“Look at your hand,” she said.

She didn’t say which one, but he knew what she meant. He raised his arm slowly from his waist, fighting the weight of it, and turned the palm over. His hand was whole again, the finger there as it had been before.

“Why do they want Deborah and the rest of us dead?” he said, his words as thick as water.

Magdalena turned around. Her face was young again, her skin as smooth as a baby’s and her features free of any pain. Proctor would not have recognized her had he not already known her voice, her clothes, her stance. She held up her cane, bouncing it lightly in her hand.

“Not they, but he,” she said. “He wants you dead because you have the power to stop him. He has stretched his life for centuries, building toward the fulfillment of his plan. He must bring it to fruition soon or he will wither like a tree that failed to bear harvest in its appointed time.
He will do anything he must to bring his plan to fruit. He will use you against your loved ones, use your loved ones against you.”

“Who? The necromancer—the prince-bishop?”

“Beware this one,” Magdalena said. She took her cane and scratched a figure in the floor.

D

“Who is ‘D’?” Proctor asked. Did she mean Deborah? “Who’s ‘D’?”

Magdalena had her back to him again. He tried to call out to her, but the pressure of the air weighed on him. The words rose into his mouth, but went no farther.

Behind him, he heard Deborah calling him. He turned to answer her and tripped. He fell, unable to raise his arms to catch himself. He closed his eyes and flinched, but when he hit the floor, it was soft, and yielded under him like a pile of wet straw. A black pit opened beside him. His arm and leg dangled in the air over a hole that dropped all the way to hell.

“Proctor?” Deborah whispered again.

He opened his eyes. He was in bed at the edge of the mattress, with an arm and leg dangling over the side. His chin was slick with drool. “Whuh?”

“You’re mumbling in your sleep and thrashing about. Are you all right?”

He wiped the drool off his chin and the sleep from his eyes. He rolled over and saw Maggie suckling at Deborah’s breast. She looked so small. The idea of anything happening to her—especially because of him—was too much to bear.

“I was dreaming,” he said.

Her posture tightened, rigid enough to interrupt Maggie for a second while she suckled. “What were you dreaming about?”

He hesitated before answering. He wasn’t sure he wanted to share all his fears with her. She had enough to take care of already. But he was terrible at hiding things from her when she stared at him that way. “I dreamed about Magdalena.”

“What did she look like?” Deborah asked.

“She looked young again. She was wearing a silver dress and a white cap, and she could stand without leaning on her cane.” He sat up and nodded at their daughter. “Maybe it was because I was thinking about Maggie.”

Deborah lifted Maggie away from her breast. The
baby’s mouth puckered on open air, and her tiny hands waved frantically while Deborah shifted her to the other side and helped her latch on.

“Maybe it wasn’t a dream,” Deborah said.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I also dreamed of Magdalena.”

Her nightcap had fallen off, and her hair was loose, spilling down over her cheeks and covering her face enough that he couldn’t see her expression. But he could tell that something was wrong, that she was worried or upset. He reached out and touched her arm. “Deborah?”

She brushed the hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. “I didn’t think I’d ever fall in love,” she said out of nowhere. “I knew for certain that I was going to end my days an old maid.”

“You mean you weren’t one already when I met you?” he said, meaning to tease her. The tone was wrong, but she understood what he was trying to do. She reached over and pinched the back of his hand, and he jerked it away. “Ow.”

“Let me have my say,” she said.

“All right. You were going to end your days an old maid.”

“Yes,” she said, stroking Maggie’s hair. “And then my parents would die and I wouldn’t have any family or relatives. I would hide in their old house while it slowly fell down around me, invisible to the world. The years would pass, and I would turn into the very caricature of a witch, an old hag, begging from house to house in Salem village, bitter and angry, muttering petty curses under my breath at the townspeople who kicked me off their doorstep or sent their dogs to growl at me.”

“You didn’t dwell on it much, did you?” he said, sitting up beside her.

“A passing thought, once or twice,” Deborah said.
Maggie tugged her little head off Deborah’s breast and emitted a tiny, wet burp. Deborah held the baby to her shoulder and patted her back.

Proctor leaned forward and pressed his lips against the back of Maggie’s delicate head. She smelled sweet, like milk. She sighed and fell instantly asleep against her mother’s shoulder. “This is a fair approximation of what I always wanted out of life,” he said.

Deborah looked at him, surprised. “Is it?”

“I wanted to serve my country, and I’ve done that, more than I ever expected. I wanted a build a prosperous farm, and we’re on the way to that. I wanted to build a new house, and even though Ezra did most of the work, we’ve got a pretty good start on that.” He met her eyes, which were the brightest thing in the room, as if they were only a shade covering the light inside her. “I wanted a beautiful wife and a family.”

Deborah smiled. “And now you’ve got that too.”

“No, I’m still hoping that will come around someday—” Her hand jumped up to pinch him again and he flinched, grinning. “Yes, yes, now I’ve got that too.” He leaned over to kiss her. She turned her head to the side, and he kissed her cheek. “That’s been the best part,” he said.

“You better say that’s the best part,” she said.

“That’s the best part.”

She leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. They leaned together carefully, protecting Maggie between them. Deborah reached up and held her hand against his cheek. Finally, she sighed and pulled away.

“That wasn’t a dream,” she said finally.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall, trying to brace himself as the world rushed away from him. “No, it wasn’t. Her spirit came to visit us.”

“To warn us.”

“I know.”

“The demon they sent, that’s unlike any magic, good or evil, that I’ve ever witnessed or heard account of,” Deborah said. “And I barely glimpsed it. We’ll have to be more careful than ever. Set up stronger protections, take fewer risks beyond the bounds of The Farm.”

“That won’t be enough.” He swung his legs off the bed and rested his bare feet on the wide planks of the floor. He leaned, elbows on his knees, and rubbed his face. “It’s no good waiting for them to come find us. I’ve got to go find them.”

“And kill them?” Deborah asked.

“If I need to,” Proctor answered.

“You can’t solve all our problems by killing people.”

“Maybe—but sometimes it’s a good start.”

He tried to respect Deborah’s Quaker background and her rejection of violence, so he regretted the words as soon as he said them. He stood and walked over to the closed door. He braced his hands on the jambs and pressed his head against the rough wood.

“I don’t like what it does to you,” she said. “Every time you hurt someone it takes a little part of you away.”

“Like a finger?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He spun around. “But it’s the truth. I’m a danger to you and to Maggie. That necromancer can use it to turn me against you. As long as he has my finger, he has a trigger on a gun that’s aimed at both of you. We have no idea when it will fire.”

“It doesn’t have to fire,” Deborah said. “Just because a man owns a gun doesn’t mean he has to use it.”

“But that decision isn’t up to us,” he said. “And if we sit here and wait and do nothing—”

“Who said anything about nothing?” Deborah said. “We’ll strengthen our defenses. We’ll find a way to be prepared.”

“We can’t solve everything with magic, not if all we do
is react to them. They create protective charms, so we break the charms. They curse the army, so we break the curse. They send demons for us, so we find a way to defeat the demon. They
attacked us in our home
, despite all our protections.” He felt like his heart would dam his throat and block his words, so he talked faster, pouring the words out. “Sooner or later, they’ll try some magic that gets past us. If we stay here, while they’re out there making their plans, we’re just like fish in a barrel. We’re trapped here on The Farm, and that’s precisely where they want us. It leaves them free to pursue whatever they want while we don’t do anything.”

“We don’t have to leave The Farm to learn things,” she said. “I … I can learn to spirit-walk. I’ll find a way to reach Magdalena again. I’ll ask her to explain her warnings to us.”

She could learn to spirit-walk, but what did that leave him to do to protect his family? Wait until they were in danger again and react? “What exactly was Magdalena’s warning to you?”

Deborah dropped her eyes and sighed. She pulled the blankets up around her and caressed Maggie’s head. “I didn’t mean to argue with you.”

“I tell you what her warning was—she told you we were a danger to each other. She told you that our enemy would use you against your loved ones, use your loved ones against you.”

He saw the tears rolling down her cheeks and the shudder in her shoulders and hated himself for saying anything. But it was the truth, and they had to face the truth if they were going to survive. He squeezed his eyes shut. Dear God, they had been attacked inside their own home. And the fire that the demon used to attack them had been stoked with his own hands.

“Love is never a danger in itself,” Deborah choked
out. “It is the fear of losing love that drives us to do evil. The only solution is for us not to be afraid.”

He went to the bed and sat beside her, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her close. She pressed her wet cheek against his shoulder. “I’m not afraid of love,” he whispered. “I’m afraid of seeing the people I love get hurt. I’m afraid of doing nothing while evil men seek ways to hurt us. I want to find a way to stop them. I have to stop them or we’ll never be safe again.”

“I understand that,” she said, wrapping her arm around him and squeezing. “I understand that you must follow your own light and do what you are led to believe is right. Just give me a moment to grow accustomed to it.”

She shifted Maggie so that she rested half across her lap and half across Proctor’s. They sat there quietly, and Proctor listened to the quiet sounds of their breathing. He wondered how the world could feel so perfectly right and so terribly wrong at the exact same time.

If he was going to take the fight to the Covenant, he would have to follow them to Europe—to Hesse or England or wherever they might be. It would take him away from his family, but it would also take them out of danger. He couldn’t be used to hurt them.

A soft tap sounded at the door.

Deborah scrubbed her cheeks dry with a sleeve and gathered up Maggie. “What is it?” she asked.

“Proctor? Deborah?” Abigail’s voice. She sounded frightened.

“Coming,” Proctor said. He jumped to the door and pulled it open.

Abigail stood in the hall in her nightdress. Her hands were shaking. Lydia stood behind her.

“It’s Magdalena,” Abigail said. “She came to visit me.” She indicated Lydia. “Came to visit us.”

“I told her it could wait until morning,” Lydia said.

“Can it wait until morning?” Proctor asked. He didn’t know how many nights he had left to spend with Deborah and Maggie, and, with the prospect of leaving looming over him, he suddenly found that every moment with them was precious to him.

But Deborah appeared at his shoulder, her cap firming on her head, a sweater over her nightgown, and the baby in her arms. “Let’s talk now,” she said. “We’re all awake, it’ll be dawn in just a few hours, and Maggie needs a diaper change.”

She pushed past them and headed downstairs to the kitchen. She must have left all the diapers drying on the rack beside the hearth. Abigail followed her instantly. Lydia shrugged and went after them both.

Proctor sighed. Once Deborah made up her mind to do something, she set about doing it. It was one of her better traits, when it didn’t drive him mad.

He dressed and followed them all downstairs.

They were gathered around the table. A lively fire snapped in the hearth, throwing a confusion of light and shadow around the room. One of the clean diapers was missing from its spot, and a dirty one sat in a pail by the back door. He wondered if he would have time to get used to the smell.

“I was scared,” Abigail was telling Deborah. “But only when I woke up.”

“Were you frightened?” Deborah asked Lydia. Maggie was fussing, her eyes open, trying to focus on the things around her.

“No, I was happy,” Lydia said. She stared at her hands, resting on the table. “I was sitting on the porch, a night just like the other night, perfect as could be, thinking how happy I was. All the work done for the day, a nice bed to sleep in, and no one to answer to but my own self. Magdalena came and sat beside me. We didn’t say anything for a while, but then we saw a shooting star
burn across the sky. And Magdalena said that she was sorry, that I would pass through blood and fire. I asked her what she meant, if I would come through it. But then I looked and she was gone.”

“That was all?”

“Ain’t that enough?”

Who wanted to hear that they were going to pass through blood and fire? Still, Proctor would have taken that as a comfort compared with hearing that he was a danger to his wife and daughter. Deborah rubbed her nose against Maggie, playing with her while she thought. It made Proctor happy to see them together, acting normal even when things were anything but.