Traitor to the Crown by C.C. Finlay Page B

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 starburn 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.
    “I was walking through the orchard,” Abigail said, and then she hesitated.
    “Go on,” Deborah told her.
    “There were strangers, men—well, young men, boys really—walking through the rows on either side of me. I kept trying to spy them through the trees, but I couldn’t see their faces. I starting calling out their names, and I remember I was laughing, like we were playing a game.” She grinned, remembering the dream, then noticed everyone else looking at her and her expression grew serious again. “I chased one of the boys. I couldn’t see him clearly, just glimpses of him as he rounded the trees, always ahead of me. I was holding up my skirts in my hands, and they were feeling very heavy, and I ran around one of the apple trees, and suddenly it was night. Magdalena was standing there, only she was dressed in white and silver. She looked young and she was laughing with me.”
    “I don’t know that I ever saw Magdalena laugh much,” Proctor said.
    “She suffered constant pain from her injuries after the Covenant’s first attack on The Farm,” Deborah said. “She and my mother laughed together often, but that was years ago. I was a little girl.”
    Abigail leaned forward earnestly. “It seemed perfectly normal in the dream.”
    “Did she say anything to you?” Deborah asked.
    “I think she was going to, but I was so excited to see her that I turned around to call you. That’s when I woke up. And that’s when I became scared. Realizing that it was a dream, but not a dream. Well, that and Lydia, sitting awake, staring out the window as if she’d seen a ghost.”
    “And didn’t I?” Lydia asked.
    “What did you dream, Deborah?” Proctor asked.
    Deborah stared at Maggie and started to rock back and forth. “Magdalena was at the foot of the bed, and I was still in labor with Maggie. I pushed and pushed.” She kissed Maggie’s forehead and the baby grabbed at her face. “But Maggie refused to be born. Magdalena looked over my swollen belly and said, ‘You and the boy will be a grave danger to each other.’”
    “Boy?” asked Abigail. “Like the one I saw in the orchard?”
    Lydia snorted. “I think any man too young to have gray hair was a boy to that old woman. I heard her call Ezra
young man
once when she was mad at him.”
    But Proctor’s heart had already sunk in his chest. “She meant me,” he answered. He held up his scarred hand, turning