A Spell for the Revolution (28 page)

“Livingston,” Deborah said.

“Yes, he was killed on the hill, fighting alongside Captain Hamilton,” Bryan said. He got all choked up. “I didn’t know him that well, but all of a sudden like, I can’t stop thinking about him—how sick he was, and you prayed over him every day, and then he’s dead, just like that, first day he goes back to the fighting.”

Livingston’s spirit tilted its head toward Deborah, in agony, pleading for release.

They were still walking, and Deborah turned her head away, to say something to Proctor, but then there were more spirits flowing past them, hundreds—as many as were killed in the battle. Just ahead of them, another spirit attached itself to someone else she had healed. They were seeking out those unaffected by the curse. Some spirits landed on officers who were already carrying another ghost.

Deborah began to cry. Proctor didn’t respond, still too numb from his discovery that Deborah had been stealing his power from him. It explained so much: why every time
he reached for his talent, it wasn’t there. Bryan stepped up to put a hand on her shoulder and comfort her instead. But the presence of Livingston’s spirit, pleading for help, only made her sob worse.

“We failed,” Proctor mumbled.

He had never felt so sick, so hopeless, so betrayed. Deborah had used him like a slave. He had to check twice to be sure that one of the spirits had not become bound to him.

Just beyond the wall, a red glow caught his eye.

A pipe coal bobbed along the edge of the woods beside them, all the length of the road, until the woods finally ended. After that, hollow laughter followed them as they marched with the defeated army across the plains.

They could see the jets of flame from the cannons first, and then seconds later the dull boom came across the broad waters of the Hudson and echoed off the cliffs below them.

The Hudson River was the route to the heart of the states, dividing New England from the colonies below. It was clear the British meant to sail upriver and do just that, so they could pick off the remnants of the Continental army bit by bit.

Washington’s strategy had been to block the river passage by sinking hidden obstacles in all the channels—what the military men called a chevaux-de-frise. Two forts, one on the heights at the upper tip of Manhattan, and the other just across the river atop the steep cliffs of the New Jersey Palisades, protected the river and gave the Americans a place to fire on the British as they tried to navigate the sunken hazards. The fort on the New York side was named after Washington.

It had seemed like a sensible plan to Proctor, but the fort’s adjutant commander had defected to the British just two days ago, giving them plans for safe passage through the maze of obstacles. Proctor suspected a compulsion spell—the German certainly was powerful enough—but he had no way to prove it.

Knowing the safe passages through the river would not have made a significant difference with the fort’s cannons overlooking the ships. But the adjutant commander had
also provided plans to the fort, and this morning the British forces, led by the Hessians, had begun their attack.

Again, cannons jetted flame in quick succession, and the dense smoke of musket and rifle fire rolled across the heavily wooded hills defending the main approach to the fort.

A rapid series of booms echoed off the cliff walls below.

Washington, who had been watching the progress of the battle through his telescope, lowered it from his face and knuckled something at the corner of his eye. Then he quickly lifted the spyglass and resumed watching the events.

Men stood back from him, but whether it was to grant him space out of respect, or because they felt the chill force of the spirits attached by the ghostly slave chain at his ankle, Proctor didn’t know. The conversation had died as the day advanced. Colonel Magaw, the fort commander, had promised to hold it against all attack through the end of December. He would be lucky to hold it until the end of the day.

Meanwhile, watching was all they could do from this side of the river. Deborah might have been powerful enough to bring rain or storms, but ever since their failed attempt to break the curse she’d been distant, unwilling to do anything but quietly heal the physical wounds of soldiers.

“Damn it,” muttered Tilghman. He stood next to Washington and watched through his own glass.

There was a chorus of demands for an explanation.

“They’re striking the flag,” Tilghman said. “The fort is lost.”

Proctor strained to see. He could see the grand union flag of the Continental army in his head—thirteen red and white stripes, with the Union Jack of the British flag made small in the corner. It symbolized the thirteen states and their British roots.

The chorus of voices around Proctor insisted it didn’t
matter; they could hold the river from their position at Fort Lee. It was only a matter of time until the British were driven back. Mere words. Proctor paid it no attention. He was focused instead on the next attack, which came rushing, invisible to all but him, across the river.

The spirits of the patriots killed defending Fort Washington sped across the water, some faster than cannon shot, as the flag made its slow descent. The spirits stormed up the Palisades and came over the ramparts like a strike force, hitting the soldiers at the exact moment the flag came completely down.

Every man up there but Proctor was already cursed. The spirits didn’t shoot past them, but plunged through the men and joined with those already clinging to them.

One, showing horrible wounds, wrapped itself around Washington’s neck as if it were trying to pull him over the wall and into the water.

His chin sagged forward to his chest.

He reached up and covered his eyes.

A gasp escaped his lips.

And then he sobbed. The general of the patriot army stood there, as the fort bearing his name fell bloodily into enemy hands while he was helpless to do anything about it, and he sobbed. Watching him, Proctor could have sworn he aged years in that moment. His brown hair seemed to thin and pale toward gray. Lines became etched on his face. His shoulders shook as he wept.

And the spirit yanked and tugged, holding frantically to Washington’s neck. The other spirits chained to Washington’s ankle pulled it slowly away, passing him back to the end of the mob and chaining it by the ankle to its spot in the line.

Washington’s officers turned away from him, more out of respect than embarrassment. Or to cover their own senses of loss, despair, and fear. No man carried the weight
that Washington did, but every one of them carried multiple spirits now.

Every one of them but Hamilton. The young artillery colonel from New York only had his own ghost, a guest from before the Revolution. It was settled so deep into him by something other than magic that Proctor could scarcely make it out as more than a vague haze.

Hamilton went and stood by Washington. Though much shorter than the general, he stood straight and tall. He stared unflinchingly at the fort across the river until Washington cried himself out and lifted his head again.

Much too formal to address the general without being spoken to first, Hamilton drew in a breath and turned his head away from Washington, as if he were planning to speak to someone beside him, though nobody stood there.

“Well, that’s done,” he said. “We’d better go back to work.”

Washington answered with a silent nod that Hamilton didn’t even see. Hamilton took a few steps away, but Washington turned and wiped his cheeks clean with his fist. When the general spoke, his habitual voice of command sounded the same as it ever did. “Colonel, let us review the disposition of the artillery with an eye to discomfiting the British, shall we?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Hamilton.

The two men walked toward the headquarters, followed by the rest of Washington’s staff. Although Proctor was generally expected to keep himself available, he was not under the same rules of command as the soldiers, and he decided to go find Deborah instead.

He went to the tent he’d left her in earlier that morning, nursing the wounded. He opened the flap and peered inside. She was pacing, reciting something to herself, weaving air with her hands. The instant she noticed Proctor at the door, she rushed to the cot of a man and sat beside him, dabbing his head with a damp washcloth. He was the only
patient in the tent—the other injured had been sent home to recuperate, left behind across the river, or returned to duty. The man was sleeping, but with a fever. His face was flushed and sweaty, and he tossed feebly in his bed. A sick stink filled the room like rotting flesh. The man’s ghost was blurry, just a vague outline of a man, as if it had already half detached.

“Deborah?” Proctor said.

She didn’t even look up to answer him. “I’m sorry, but I’m busy right now trying to save friend Donnelson. The surgeon sewed up his stomach wound and pronounced it healed but it’s become infected. Maybe later.”

“You’ve been saying
later
for days.”

She wrung out the cloth in a bowl, dipped it in clean water, and wiped Donnelson’s forehead again. “If you haven’t noticed, there’s a war occurring outside this tent. We’ve been on the move every single day.”

“We need to discuss what happened on All Hallows’ Eve.”

“We will, just as soon as there’s time.”

“When will that be?”

She slapped the rag down on the little camp table by the bed and leaned forward, pressing her hand to her forehead. “I don’t know—you’re the one who can read the future, not me.”

His hand knotted into a fist. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried to read the future, but if there was an egg anywhere near this army, somebody ate it before he could use it to scrye. At one time, he’d thought he didn’t need any focus to read the future, but that had been pride; now he doubted his ability to do any spell.

He uncurled his fingers, flexing them. Then he stepped outside, flinging the tent flap shut behind him.

And stopped. Deborah had gotten exactly what she wanted again. She wanted to make him angry, so he’d walk away, and he’d let her do it.

He stomped back into the tent. “I can’t believe you used me that way.” His voice was choked, angry, but there, he’d said it; it was out.

“I told you I was very sorry.” Her back was still turned to him. She held Donnelson’s hand between hers.

“But you were doing the very thing we’re fighting against, the use of others without their permission.”

“Tell that to your precious General Washington who drags that slave Lee with him wherever he goes. Or to most of the officers in this army. They all own slaves.”

His fist knotted up again. She was right—slavery was wrong, no matter who did it, but—“I’m trying to talk about us, about you and me.”

“I’m sorry, Proctor. Do you want me to grovel for you? Do you want me to prostrate myself at your feet and beg forgiveness?”

“I don’t want you to beg. I just … I feel betrayed.” He unclenched his fist and held his open hand out to her. “I want to understand why you did it.”

She rose so suddenly she knocked over the stool, spinning on him with her own hand raised in a fist. “What is there to understand? Nobody else at The Farm—not you, not Magdalena, nobody—is as powerful as me. And I’m not powerful enough!”

He took a step back and gestured for her to lower her voice.

Instead, she advanced on him. “You saw the widow—you’ve still got the scars on your arms from what she almost did. You saw what that southern woman did to those dead bodies. You’ve seen the monstrosities given life by the German.” She pointed at the ghost hovering over the cot like a cloud of miasma. “You see that, right there, thousands of men cursed, all at once, as if it were child’s play.”

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was coming through the door. If the word
witch
slipped from her mouth and someone overheard it, they could have even
more enemies, and those among their friends. “Deborah—you don’t want anyone to hear you. Quietly.”

“You wanted to understand?” she shouted. “Well, now you understand—I’m afraid. I’m afraid of those people. They killed my mother and father for no reason at all. And they want to kill me too. And who’s going to protect me?”

“I will.”

Her eyes flashed like dark pieces of stone, her lips tightened, and she spun her finger once in the air. Instantly he felt bonds, as if thick cables were wrapped around and around him, pinning his arms to his sides.

“Protect me?” she said. “You can’t even protect yourself. And they’re more powerful than I am. You can’t stop them if I can’t stop them.”

He thought he sensed a way to sever the bonds with a simple breaking spell, but he’d need to distract her to work it. “We’ve done all right,” he said. “I’ve beaten Bootzamon twice.”

“You got lucky.”

“Together we found a way to free men from the curse—”

“Only so they could be killed or cursed again.” Her face tensed in anger, and she whipped her hand in a circle, tightening the invisible bonds that held him until he could barely breathe.

“Is … everything … all … right … ?”

The voice came from the bed, where Donnelson sat propped up on one elbow. His ghost strained toward Proctor and Deborah, seeming to rub its hands with glee. Proctor wasn’t sure what that meant—but if he didn’t breathe soon, he’d pass out before he could find out.