Traitor to the Crown The Patriot Witch Read Free Page B

food before he finally nodded, if not in approval then at least in understanding. Emily relaxed, taking her foot off Proctor's.
    “When you get ready to move your cattle toward Boston market,” Rucke said, “you might want to begin by contacting a man named Elihu Danvers. Danvers has a house near the mouth of the river, across from Cambridge. Though he's no great sailor anymore, he moves goods around the bay—”
    As he continued with his advice, Proctor grinned at Emily around his mouthful of chicken. Of course her father liked him.
    She smiled back, but with tighter lips; beneath that smile lingered worry over his unexplained comment about magic.
    Eventually, Proctor would have to figure out a way to explain the magic. He wouldn't be able to keep it secret from her, not if they were going to be together. He reached under the table, wiped his fingers on his breeches, and then stretched his arm to try to touch her hand. A huge rippingsound stopped Rucke in the middle of his description of the harbor shipping lanes.
    “What was that?” he said.
    Proctor looked over his shoulder at the torn seam in his linen jacket and sighed. “That is what happens when you grow more than you expected.”

Chapter 2
    Proctor dreamed he heard a gunshot and it woke him, or else a gunshot stirred him from his dreams.
    Either way, he lay half awake in bed. The full moon was past its apex, shining down through the gap in his curtains, so it was a few hours before the break of dawn. He thought of Emily and the next chance he might have to see her. As he tugged up the wool blankets and rolled over to go back to sleep, a horse galloped down the Concord Road. The hoofbeats grew closer, and a voice shouted across the spring fields.
    “The regulars are coming! The regulars are coming!”
    The Redcoats were marching.
    Sleep sloughed off him. When Proctor had returned from Boston a few days ago, his militia captain had passed the word to be ready. The Redcoats were planning on taking the supplies from the armory in Concord. Proctor jumped from bed and dressed in an instant, 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 high-backed chair, wrapped in blankets. Light snagged on the pale scar across his forehead from when he'd been scalped and left for dead during the French and Indian wars.
    There'd be no chance of anything like that to night. Theregular 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. She 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.
    Prudence Brown was ten years younger than her husband, but years of labor had aged her like a tree on a cliff. She was deeply rooted and could withstand any storm, even if she was too weather-worn to bear much fruit. 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 about