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Article Excerpt
PROCTOR DREAMED HE heard a gunshot and it woke him, or else a gunshot had stirred him from his dreams; either way, the full moon was well past its apex, so it was a few hours before the break of dawn and he lay only half-asleep in bed. As he tugged up the wool blankets and rolled over, a horse galloped down the Concord Road and a voice shouted across the spring fields that the Redcoats were coming.
Sleep sloughed off him. The twenty-year-old jumped from bed and dressed in a minute, tugging suspenders over his shoulders as the door creaked open below. He ducked his head when he came to the narrow steps and ran downstairs. Outside, the chickens cackled in their coop.
A candle flickered in the kitchen. His father sat shut-eyed in the corner, propped in a highback chair, wrapped in blankets. Light snagged on the pale scar across his forehead where he'd been scalped and left for dead during the war against the French and their Indian allies.
There'd be no chance of anything like that tonight. The regular army and the colonial militia, they were all Englishmen at root. A show of force would remind the royal governor of that, just as it had in February at Salem.
Proctor retrieved his father's old doglock musket and tin canteen from the cupboard. Powder horn and hunting bag went over his left shoulder, hatchet in his belt, hat in hand. He reached for the door, but it swung open in his face.
His mother barged in with a lantern in her hand and unloaded two eggs from her dress pocket into a bowl on the table. "Where're you off to in such a hurry?" she asked.
"To muster--the Redcoats are marching on the armory."
"Not without a scrying first, you aren't."
"Mother, there isn't time."
"I've been awake all night with worry, because I knew something was coming. Now that I know what it is, I'll not risk you dying from the guns of the Redcoats without a glimpse of the future first." She blew on her hands and rubbed them together for warmth.
Nothing could dissuade her once she had a notion to do something. Truth was, Proctor wanted to see what was coming too. He propped his musket against the door and put down his hat. "Let's be quick."
She fetched another bowl, a pitcher of water, and moved the candle to the center of the table. Proctor held the chair for her. Wooden legs scuffed across the floor as he pulled his own seat catty-corner to hers.
She nudged the broad shallow bowl to the middle of the table and poured water into it. Drops splashed cold and sharp on the back of Proctor's hand.
One by one, she retrieved five small candle stubs from her pocket and handed them to Proctor, who arranged them in a circle around the bowl. She frowned, made minor adjustments in their position, then lit them with the candle. A honeyed scent spread across the table.
Proctor tapped his shoe impatiently, forced his foot to still. The other minutemen would be marching without him, and scrying didn't require any candles or rituals.
His own talent had appeared by accident, no rituals required. He'd been carrying in the eggs and dropped one--it'd practically leapt out of his hands, an egg near to hatching that left the tiny chick inside sprawled dead, wet in the dirt. Without knowing why he said it, Proctor announced that his friend Samuel was dead. The next day they heard that Samuel had been shot by Redcoats during a riot in Boston. That's when Elizabeth Brown told her son about the family talent for witchcraft, passed down generation to generation from their roots in Salem.
His mother turned the two brown eggs over in her hands, squinting at the specks.
"I'm surprised you could find any eggs this time of night," he said.
"The hens lay more at the full moon." She pursed her lips, selecting one of them, and had it poised to crack on the edge of the bowl. Over in the corner, Proctor's father moaned and rocked so hard his chair banged against the wall. Proctor winced--his father hadn't been the same since his apoplexy.
His mother switched the eggs. She tapped it on the edge of the bowl, letting the white drain from the cracked shell into the water.
Her free hand sought Proctor's, gave it a squeeze. "Holy Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name," she prayed.
Proctor leaned forward to study the picture formed by the egg white.
"If I have found grace in Thy sight, then show me a sign that Thou speakest with me. Be Thou a light in the darkness of days, showing us the way forward, that we might know the path Thou wishest us to take."
A shudder ran through her arm. The eggshell crunched in her palm and the yolk splashed out into the middle of the bowl.
They both flinched. Proctor didn't know if it meant anything or was just an accidental spasm. She didn't say.
The yolk floated in the center like the sun reflected in a pond. Candlelight slicked off its thick bulge as egg white filmed over the surface, forming ghosts in the water. A streak of red blood trailed off the yolk into the white.
Hairs went up on Proctor's neck. He could feel a vision gathering in the back of his head like bees to a hive, but he wasn't ready for it yet.
His mother flicked the eggshell pieces onto the table and wiped her hand on her apron. She licked her right forefinger and traced the name of the angel Gabriel across the circle of water. Gabriel, the messenger, revealer of the future.
The yolk swirled round, off-center, as reflections from the candles danced with one another. A sharp intake of breath and his mother pulled her hand back to the edge of the bowl.
She swallowed, and then tugged Proctor's finger up to the bowl. "Take a moment to sweep your mind clean," she said.
He nodded acquiescence, but the broom in his head chased futilely after the stray thoughts. The other minutemen would already be on their way, and he didn't want to look like a Johnny-come-lately. Then a tightness formed in his chest, the way it always did when the sight was coming on.
"Heavenly Father," he said. "If it pleases Thee, give me a sign, so that I may better know Thy will."
His eyes drifted shut.
This vision was clearer, more vivid than any Proctor had ever scryed. A militia man, an officer, marched across the green in the pale before dawn. A horse stamped through the grass--its flanks, the rider's boots, blocked Proctor's view of the militia officer, but the mounted Redcoat's face flushed with anger. A golden coin of fire burned at the Redcoat's throat. The Redcoat leaned over and aimed a pistol at the militia man's back. He was going to shoot--
A sudden bang made Proctor's eyes blink open, but it was only his father's chair cracking into the wall. The old man moaned as if he'd been wounded.
Proctor breathed deeply and fell back into the vision. At first everything was white, like fog, only dry and sharp--the smoke from musket fire. The bitter taste of black powder ran across his lips. A single line of red bled through the white haze. Then more lines of red, slashing across the back of his lids until they resolved into shapes of men, marching--no, running--away. The backs of the Redcoats. A sense of their fear, of his own elation, flushed through him.
His eyes opened.
"And what did you see?" his mother asked quietly.
Pulling his hands away from the bowl, he said, "I saw the Redcoats, Mother. Marching back to Boston, in a fine hurry."
"Is that all?"
He nodded firmly.
Her mouth tightened and she jabbed a finger into the yolk, breaking it. She whipped the egg into the water, mixing it all together.
"I thought I heard gunfire," she said. "And I think I saw men shot, dying."
"That last part is your fear talking. I didn't see anything like that, only the Redcoats marching off."
"It would gratify me deeply if you were not to muster," she said. "Let other mothers with children to spare send one of theirs, and not risk my only son."
Proctor couldn't blame her, not with his father all but gone. But he had to do his duty. "I'm on the roster, Mother, so I have to muster. Don't worry, we just need to show the governor our resolve to stand up for our rights. It won't come to shooting."
Maybe a single round of warning fire, just for show, like in his vision, and the Redcoats would march back to Boston. If only he knew what the golden coin at the Redcoat officer's throat meant.
He rose to go. His mother leaned over and blew out the five candles in one breath. "Be cautious," she said. "The future is a blank road to me like it has never been before."
"I won't do anything to put myself in harm's way," he said, picking up his hat and musket. "Besides, you know what Miss Emily would do to me if I got myself hurt."
His mother smiled, just like he hoped. She was almost as fond of Emily Rucke as Proctor was. The two of them were a bit young to be getting married yet, at just twenty and nineteen. But in truth, he expected to rightfully take over the farm soon if his father's health continued to fade, and he and Emily could live there with his mother.
"You best hurry on then," his mother said, resigned. She wrapped an end of bread and a slice of cheese in cloth, and tucked it in his pocket. "You wouldn't want them to muster without you."
"No, ma'am," he answered. He paused at the door and looked back to see his mother fussing with the blankets around his father's shoulders. He tipped his hat to her and ran out into the night.
The wind gusted--the air was chillier than he expected. He stopped at the well to fill his canteen. When he was done, he pulled Emily's yellow ribbon from his pocket and tied it to the buckle. Smoothing the silk through his fingers made him eager to see her again, but that would likely have to wait for another day.
He crossed the pasture to the road, his path broken by boulders; lights flickered like stars in distant windows, forming a constellation of his neighbors. Shadows moved through the moonlight on the road ahead.
"Hold up," he shouted.
Someone called back and the shadows paused. Proctor ran over the field, the horn, bag, and canteen banging against his sides. He climbed the stone wall that lined the road; the moon was bright enough to see their faces. There was old Robert Munroe--carrying the same heavy Queen's Arm musket that he carried during the last war when he fought beside Proctor's father--with square-jawed Everett Simes and his nephew Arthur.
"Good morning, Proctor," Munroe said, tugging at his beard. "Your father not coming?"
"No, sir," Proctor answered.
"No, didn't think so. He was a good 'un in the thick of it, though. Sure hope you take after him some."
"I could do without seeing the sharp end of an Indian tomahawk," Proctor said, and the other men chuckled. He started one way and they turned the other. "Shouldn't we be headed into Lincoln to muster.?"
"Cap'n Smith says a few of us ought to fetch back a firsthand report of the situation from Lexington," Arthur explained. He'd turned fifteen back in January but was small enough to pass for twelve. Although not on the militia rosters, he showed up to every muster.
"Well, all right then," Proctor said quickly and fell in.
"Say, Proctor, we'll march right past the Rucke place, won't we.?" Everett asked.
"Reckon so," Proctor said, trying to sound as if he was talking about the weather. He was eager to change the subject before they started teasing him about Emily; Arthur carried a long fowling piece for his weapon, so Proctor said, "You going bird hunting there, Arthur?"
"Sure," Arthur answered back, deadpan. "Plan to shoot some redbirds if I see 'em."
Proctor chuckled with the others but the remark made him uncomfortable. Sure, there'd been some conflict between the soldiers and the colonists, but they were all Englishmen. They might squabble with each other, like a large family did; in...
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