The Crafters Book Two Read online

  She succeeded in keeping the fear at bay until the middle of the day, when Michael awoke and called weakly to her. She went into the bedroom, and saw the fever in his face, too. Then the fear began gnawing at her heart.

  “I seem to have caught it now. How are the children?” She tenderly wiped his face with the wet cloth she carried.

  “No better, I’m afraid. Do you feel like drinking some cold willow bark tea?” She smiled sadly.

  “It doesn’t seem to have done much good, does it?” Nonetheless, he dutifully sipped at the tea, then leaned back on the pillow, eyes closed, as if the effort of sitting upright had cost him dearly. Rachel’s throat tightened and panic threatened to take over. Then her hand went to the leather case hanging from the thong around her neck and her fingers felt the shape of the claw inside. I’m of the Bear Clan, she said to herself, and my mother came from a great lineage. I’m a Crafter and my father is a fierce fighter. I won’t give in!

  The hours dragged on, and Rachel kept watch over her family. Noah whimpered and twisted in his cradle. Leah shifted and murmured in delirium. Michael wandered through the paths of fevered dreams, muttering half-audible words. All she could do was offer them water to drink, and try to cool them with sponge baths.

  As darkness fell, she realized she’d have to go fetch water, and the thought of the hollow under the bank made her shiver. But she lit the pierced metal lantern, stepped outside, and picked up the pail by the door. Resolutely she walked down the trail, guided by the wavering beams of light from the lantern. Her apprehension increased as she heard the burbling of the brook grow louder. But she made herself keep walking.

  She reached the stream bank, and forced her hand to hold the lantern high, forced herself to look across the dark water to the cave under the bank. You see? There’s nothing there. A glimmer showed in the darkness but she told herself it was probably the gleam of light on a wet rock, nothing else.

  But the glimmer seemed to grow, to resolve into two separate gleams. Like eyes, she couldn’t help thinking. Enough! Fill the bucket and go. You have a sick family waiting for you.

  She lowered the lantern and set it on the bank, then stooped to fill the bucket. The gurgle of water as it swirled into the pail seemed unnaturally loud to her. She straightened, lifting the now-heavy bucket, and reached for the lantern with her free hand. Then, like a child picking at a wound, she couldn’t stop herself from glancing across to the hollow again—and stark terror shot through her.

  There, floating above the dark water, moving towards her, was a dreadful, inhuman scarlet face. It had no body. Long white hair streamed down either side of its horribly twisted features. Flat eyes like beaten copper gleamed madly in the lantern’s yellow light. It made no sound as it crossed the water.

  Once more Rachel was held motionless as panic grew within her. She knew what she was looking at. Crooked Mouth, her mother had called it, one of the false-face spirits that roamed the forests, spreading sickness and disease. They had terrible strength, and only one powerful in orenda could defeat them. And the thing, bobbing horribly in some invisible wind, drew ever closer.

  Even in her fear, she found that she could think. Each of her family had fallen ill after coming to the stream, yet she had not. Somehow she had to drive it from her family. Her family was all she had in this new land. Her family was more precious to her than anything else. She had to fight for them, fight to save them. Her hand reached up and clutched the bear claw in its pouch.

  I will fight you! she shouted silently at Crooked Mouth.

  Its mouth contorted in a fearful, triumphant grin as it floated up to her.

  She gathered herself within, reached out for some measure of strength, the strength she could feel all about her, waiting to be gathered. She took a deep breath—

  —and a roar echoed through the night air. Rushing up the stream, as though the water were as solid as a forest path, came a huge silvery bear, glowing like the moon. Far behind it gamboled two pale cubs who tumbled over one another in the starlight. The bear snarled at Crooked Mouth and swung a great clawed paw at the scarlet head, hurling it against a tree trunk. The head seemed to burst into a thousand blood-red splinters, which vanished.

  And the dread in Rachel’s heart, the dread for her family, vanished too. She watched as the bear turned back to its cubs, nosing them gently. She reached out a hand, and the bear raised its head and looked into her eyes for a long moment—

  —when a wave of disorientation swept over her. She was in some other place. Yet she still stood by the stream bank. Only now it was bright daylight, and before her Michael and a slightly older Leah splashed in the stream. Noah, a sturdy toddler, sat in the shallow water near the bank, laughing as he kicked his feet and sparkling drops of water showered around him.

  The bear and her cubs had vanished. Rachel was standing in the dark, the lantern tipped on its side, the filled bucket heavy in her hand. She picked up the lantern and looked across to the hollow.

  It was just a hollow made by the overhanging bank. She smiled, and went up the trail to her home.

  Philadelphia

  Anno Domini 1787

  It is not surprising that along with their Talent, some of the Crafter family inherited Amer’s analytical mind. Their own unique abilities also gave them a far different approach to the unknown than was common even in the iconoclastic new United States. This could be an exciting thing in a age where science, as we know it, was still being born. A penchant for the new physical philosophies was particularly true of those fourth- and fifth- generation Crafters who remained in the Boston area, which even then was a major center of learning for all of America.

  Andrew Crafter Smithson sat in the neatly appointed office of his small house in the prestigious Germantown neighborhood of Boston. His twenty-two-year-old heart sank again as he reread the last few lines of the letter in his hand. The words were written in an old-man’s spidery script:

  “ ... and so, tho’ flattered I am that my early work with that marvelous discovery Electricity has touch’ d your Curiosity, and tho’ I send heartiest good wishes for your own studies in that Estimable Area, my advanced age together with the New Duties vot’d upon me as the President of Pennsylvania and as Delegate to the Constitutional Congress preclude me from enjoying such Further and Intimate Discussions of the Science as I would so greatly enjoy.

  Your Humble Servant,

  Benjamin Franklin, Esq.”

  Andrew had read Franklin’s Experiments and Observations on Electricity three times. Now he felt like some importuning young puppy. But he’d so keenly hoped for this interview with the man. Yes, Franklin was an old man. Yes, those experiments had been done thirty-five years ago, but the man had been audacious. Flying a kite in a thunderstorm to catch electricity in a jar, indeed! In his Experiments, Franklin had touched again and again on issues and theories that both Andrew and his fellow scientist and correspondent in Italy, Count Alessandro Volta, now pursued in their attempts to manufacture and store electricity. Volta had also tried to get an audience with Franklin, while that great man was so long in France. But Franklin had rebuffed Volta in the same genial and terse manner.

  Andrew laid Franklin’s letter down and went to stand by the window, the better to catch a refreshing breeze now that the heat of summer was fast approaching. He put a hand on the cool glass of his Leyden jar. It brought back the memory of when he’d so excitedly demonstrated some of his experiments for his family—for Grandpa Jim and the Crafter cousins. Andrew had filled the jar with water and used his Hauksbee machine to charge the water with electricity. Then, taking a metal T made for the purpose, he’d touched one end of the T to the rod on the top of the Leyden jar and the other end of the T to the metal jacket that wrapped the jar. For a brief moment, a flicker of yellow light had snapped across the connection.

  Andrew had stepped back, expecting cheers, praise, or at the least, surprise from h
is audience. All he’d received were a few raised eyebrows, some shrugs and some smirks. Then Grandpa Jim said, “Filling a jar with light doesn’t take much Talent, son.” And there it was again. All the Crafters had Talent. They could scry, they could dowse, they could transmute metals. Everyone, that is, except for Andrew. But he didn’t need magic, didn’t even believe in it. He had his science: his trade as an astrologer, his electrical experiments. And someday that pity he saw in the eyes of his family would turn to respect. That was the real purpose of his work with Volta.

  But nowadays, his experiments had reached an impasse. Volta’s experiments also. Andrew was certain Franklin would say something, insinuate something, that would make everything fall together. If only he could speak to him just for a few moments.

  The Congress Franklin mentioned was to start in Philadelphia this June, only two weeks away. Though he didn’t consider himself a political man, Andrew knew what the meeting was for; the newspapers and essays were abuzz with it. The Articles of Confederation, the best the colonists could do as a manifesto for central government during the hectic first days of the Revolution, were to be overhauled. America would have its own Constitution.

  Andrew checked his calendar and did a quick survey of his own astrological chart. He could always rearrange his work; the businessmen and farmers who called on him for astrological consultations would be patient if he was gone for a short while. And the auspices were good for a business endeavor. He himself could be in Philadelphia in two weeks, he realized. He might meet Franklin on the street—or maybe in a tavern. Since Franklin’s return from France, rumors of his predilection for carousing and for women of low estate had abounded. The word was that he was still a spry old man. Hopefully his mind was also still keen.

  * * *

  Standing in the muggy Philadelphia air had all but turned Andrew’s dark woolen attire into a sodden, wrinkled mess. But he had to put forth the appearance of an established man of letters. He ran a hand across his light brown hair which he’d so carefully powdered that morning. It wasn’t mussed. The handkerchief at his throat was still in its snug knot, so perhaps the June weather hadn’t ruined him.

  He’d counted almost a hundred other people standing on the street in front of the Philadelphia State House waiting for a glimpse of the powerful men who would sit in this Congress. Since the war had ended four years before, patriotic fervor was the rage, even to lionizing the leaders of the Revolution. Andrew was more curious than fervent.

  He looked around at the periwigs, bonnets and parasols, and wondered again if these people, like him, had work they’d abandoned for capricious reasons. Did they all have an independent income? Andrew did; he received a stipend from his deceased mother’s estate.

  Andrew had been only five when his mother, Rebecca, died.

  His father, a respected printer and bookbinder, had invited a longtime friend of the family to live with them. Felicity King had moved into the Boston house with her own two daughters. Gunning King, her husband, lived there too, on the few odd weeks a year he wasn’t at sea. Felicity had raised Andrew and his brother and sister as though they were her own children, never seeming to notice any difference between the pale milk of their skin and the rich brown of her own.

  Felicity had been almost as bad as Grandpa Jim about the sanctity of the Crafter blood, too. Andrew didn’t give any credence to the idea that there was some mystical Talent he should have just because of who his great-grandparents were. It was embarrassing, It was the reason Andrew had chosen such a scientific profession as astrology. The stars spun in the heavens playing their part in the destiny of men. You could read it in a book, plot it out with your pen. It was real.

  The first official meeting of the Congress wasn’t for another few days, but the delegates were to pay a visit to the State House this morning to sign the registry. A liveried carriage drew up, and out stepped, not a foot, but a stick of some sort. Andrew looked again and saw it was the peg-leg of a scowling older man with flyaway hair and a beaky nose.

  “Gouverneur Morris?” he heard. So, this was the urbane and droll Philadelphia lawyer he’d read about. The crowd began to clap, and Andrew joined in. Immediately another carriage drew up; its door opened quickly and a tall man in dark blue with a rigid soldier’s posture stepped out and hastened over to Morris. The taller man grinned, making his somewhat stem face seem almost boyish. He shook Morris’ hand and then nodded to the crowd.

  The crowd began to cheer, first raggedly, then in unison: “Wash-ing-ton, Wash-ing-ton!”

  Andrew caught his breath. This was him! This was the man who led the Continental Army and so valiantly won the Battle at Valley Forge! Why, he did look powerful and, though it was now a term rarely used by the Americans, regal. “Huzzah!” cried Andrew.

  “Pardon me,” said a small man at his elbow. Andrew was a few inches short of six feet, but this fellow barely broke five. His sparse hair was caught back in a dark ribbon, and his suit was the same light grey as his eyes. He moved and looked like a rabbit.

  “Did you want to see the Colonel?” said Andrew, turning aside.

  “Oh, I’ll greet George soon enough,” said the man, and began ascending the steps to the front door of the State House. Aware that this was a delegate, but not sure which one, Andrew stepped back, almost tripping on an older man who walked with a cane as though favoring a gouty foot.

  “Pardon,” said Andrew, one hand on the man’s elbow to steady him. He suddenly realized the crowd had formed a circle around the two of them. Someone began to clap politely. Andrew looked at the man, at the bald head and trailing grey hair, at the odd spectacles perched on his nose, at the brown worsted coat. “Mr. Franklin?” he cried. “Mr. Franklin, it’s Andrew Smithson, sir. I came all the way—”

  Ben Franklin didn’t even seem to hear Andrew. The eyes beneath his shaggy brows had a glint that Andrew associated with younger men. Andrew followed his gaze and saw a buxom middle-aged woman, rouged and powdered, smirking back. Franklin gave a gallant waggle of his cane and stepped smartly forward.

  “Mr. Franklin?” Andrew tried again, and moved to intercept him. Instead, he collided with a tall young woman wearing mustard yellow. Though slim, she seemed unusually solid, for Andrew and she both nearly lost their footing.

  “You made me lose Mr. Madison!” she cried, her dark eyes flashing fury at him. Then her expression changed, as Andrew could feel his doing also. “Andrew?” she said incredulously. “What are you doing here?”

  “Calliope?” Andrew heard his voice squeak. “Why aren’t you in Virginia?”

  Calliope King, Felicity’s daughter, Andrew’s sister by upbringing if not by blood, just rubbed her elbow and grinned at him.

  * * *

  “You have a job here?” Andrew said, looking up at the building before them. The Green Dragon Inn was down a quiet lane. It stood three stories tall, with a coach house and barn, all built of the same grey slate shingles. He knew Calliope had never been a tavern wench before—her mother forbade it. “How did you acquire it?”

  “I convinced the publican. Henry Gant. A very nice man, and this is a very respectable tavern.” Calliope tossed her head. Andrew was her elder by less than a year. As children, she’d formed the irritating habit of regularly topping him in height. Now that they were grown, she was shorter than he by only a few inches. Her tallness and her noble air were said to be inherited from her great-grandfather, the first freedman holder of the King name. He was supposed to have been a prince or a priest, a man of rank. Her narrow nose and high cheekbones were from her mother’s side, which had some mixture of Indian and white blood. Andrew often thought Calliope looked more like an Italian woman than a Negress. He’d even convinced her to learn a smattering of Italian because of it.

  “You can convince anyone of anything,” said Andrew. It was true. Calliope could stretch that long neck of hers and speak so commandingly that no one could deny her. Andrew, u
nfortunately, had a high raspy voice and diffident manner. He found it difficult to get attention. Like today. “What did you mean, I made you lose Mr. Madison?”

  Calliope removed her bonnet and hung it on a peg inside the front door of the tavern. Andrew saw she had braided her gleaming black hair in a new style. It made her look almost womanly. He hadn’t seen her for three years, he realized now. “Madison is the reason I’m in Philadelphia,” she said. “I followed him here when I heard he’d be the Virginia delegate to the Constitutional Congress. And I took this position because this tavern is the meeting place for many of the patriots. All the Masonic groups hold their meetings here—right in that back room. It’s a perfect opportunity. I’ve got my plan all worked out.”

  “What plan?” said Andrew. She always did the same thing to him, assumed he could read her heart without her having to say. And, truthfully, many times he could. But it had been three years. “What are you talking about?”

  “I must beg his leniency for Billy.” Calliope bit her lip and her eyes softened. “I met him in Virginia. Oh, Billy’s such a wonderful man. Honorable, proud, witty. He’ll be a freedman someday, I just know he will. He was Madison’s valet, but escaped to the British when they were offering the black men freedom. Now he’s been caught again. Madison could free him, and he would, if only he understood what a proud man Billy is.”

  Through an unexpected lump in his throat, Andrew asked, “Is this important to you? Personally?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Calliope. She tied a clean white apron around her waist. “May I get you a mug of something? My gift.”