D. Jackson - A Plunder of Souls

He and the sexton moved with grim efficiency from grave to grave. Thomson climbed down into each site and held up the profaned foot for Ethan to see, before leading Ethan to the next one.

Ethan soon realized that every foot looked much the same. The three smallest toes had been removed perhaps half an inch below the joints; the cuts were clean, precise. If the resurrectionists had hoped to mimic his own old injury, they had been both too exact and not exact enough. His wound was not as straight or neat as these cuts; it had been made by plantation physicians who hardly knew what they were doing. Ethan had often remarked to himself and to others that it was a miracle their butchery hadn’t cost him his entire leg. Also, his ordeal had left him with somewhat less of his foot than the cadavers now had.

Still, seeing what had been done to the corpses reaffirmed what he had already deduced: The people who did this knew him and wanted Ethan to understood that.

“What kind of witchery uses bones?” Thomson asked, breaking a silence that had stretched on for many minutes. Ethan wondered if he was trying to make conversation.

“Dark,” Ethan said.

“Isn’t it all dark?” the sexton asked, surprising Ethan with a conspiratorial grin.

Ethan smiled. “No, not all.” He turned a slow circle, his expression growing grim as he surveyed the burying ground. “This is, though. I don’t understand it, but I’m certain there’s some dark purpose here.” He proffered a hand to Thomson. “You have my thanks for showing me all of this. I should speak with Mister Pell before I go.”

“Of course,” the sexton said, shaking his hand.

“If I have more questions-”

“Mister Pell knows where to find me. So do Doctor Gardiner and Reverend Caner.”

Ethan nodded before walking back toward the front of the chapel, more aware than ever of his limp.

“Thieftaker!”

He stopped and turned.

“I have friends who are sextons at other churches, with other burying grounds. I don’t know if it’s the same everywhere, but King’s Chapel isn’t the only place where these robberies are happening.”

Ethan felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He raised a hand, acknowledging what Thomson had told him. Turning away, he hurried into the sanctuary.

Pell, Gardiner, and Caner were waiting for him just inside the door.

“James showed you?” Caner asked.

“Aye,” Ethan said. “I’m wondering if there is anything more that links the mutilated corpses beyond their membership in your congregation, and the fact that they all died within the past several months.”

Caner pondered this, his brow knitting. Pell and Gardiner wore similar expressions.

“Some among them share certain traits,” the rector said at last, “just as you would expect. Abigail Rowan and Bertram Flagg were neighbors, and also had in common considerable wealth. John Newell and George Wright both practiced law, but they were the only attorneys among those whose graves were robbed. I can go on, but you see my point. Many of them had certain attributes in common, but I can’t think of anything-beyond the factors you mentioned-that links all of them.” He faced Gardiner and Pell. “Can either of you?”

Both men shook their heads.

“I assumed as much,” Ethan said. “I should be on my way.”

“Where?” Pell asked.

“To start, I need to speak with a friend.” He turned and pulled open the door. “I’ll keep you apprised of what I learn.”

He hadn’t made it two steps down the path leading back to the street before he heard the door open again. He knew without looking who had followed him.

“Ethan, wait.”

“You needn’t be concerned about me, Mister Pell,” he said, facing the man.

“I’m not sure I believe you.”

Ethan’s amusement was fleeting. “Will you accept that, while unnerved, I am all the more resolved to complete my inquiry?”

“Aye. I just hope that you’ll exercise some caution. More than you usually do.”

“I’m always cautious,” Ethan said, frowning.

“If that’s so, why is it that every time you conduct an inquiry, you wind up beaten, or thrown in gaol, or at the wrong end of a pistol or blade?”

“I wouldn’t say that happens every time.”

Pell raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll have a care,” Ethan said.

“Good. If you require help of any sort, let me know.”

Ethan gripped the minister’s shoulder briefly and left him there.

He walked to Marlborough Street, and turned southward to journey back out to the Neck. He could admit to himself that he shared Pell’s concerns. But he wasn’t about to hide in his room on Cooper’s Alley, or in the back of Kannice’s tavern. The best thing he could do was find the resurrectionists, whoever they were. And the truth was, intentionally or not, they had helped him narrow his list of suspects to those who knew him, or at least of him.

Speaking to Pell, he had referred to Janna as a friend; the truth was he had never been certain that she thought of him that way. Or anyone else, for that matter. Janna could be generous and kind, she could be as witty as anyone he knew. But most of the time, she was cantankerous to the point of rudeness.

She was also defiantly proud of her conjuring abilities, and acted as though she had never given a thought to the possibility that church leaders or representatives of the Crown might decide someday to hang her for a witch. She had long ago proclaimed herself a “marriage smith.” Indeed, the sign on her tavern read “T. Windcatcher, Marriage Smith. Love is Magick.” Short of writing “I am a conjurer” across her brow, she could not have been less subtle about her talents.

Reaching her tavern, the Fat Spider, Ethan knocked on the door. Early as it was, he couldn’t be certain that Janna would be awake. But at his knock, he heard a voice call for him to enter. Ethan opened the door and walked inside, hat in hand.

It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness. Before he could see properly, he heard Janna say, “Kaille,” drawing out his name as if it were a curse. “I shoulda known it would be you. No one else bothers me before noon.”

“Good morning, Janna,” Ethan said, walking to where she sat.

It was cooler in the tavern than it had been on the street, but it was still warm in the building. Nevertheless, Janna sat with a shawl wrapped around her bony shoulders, a cup of what was probably watered Madeira wine resting on the table beside her. Janna claimed to come from somewhere in the Indies, and it seemed to Ethan that she had never adjusted to life away from the tropical clime. She was always cold, even on the hottest days of the Boston summer.

He had heard some say that she was an escaped slave, and she herself admitted that it was possible she had been born to servitude. But she was orphaned at sea as a young girl, and rescued by the crew of a ship out of Newport. To this day, Ethan wasn’t sure how she had managed to avoid being sold into slavery, but according to one account a wealthy man took her in and over time a romance developed between them. She chose the name Windcatcher for herself, having no recollection of her family name. Windcatcher had no particular meaning; she once told Ethan that she simply liked the sound of it.

Whatever the truth of her past, today Janna was one of the few free Africans in Boston. Her skin was a deep, rich nut brown, and her hair was white and shorn so short that one could see her scalp peeking through the tight curls. She was thin, almost frail, with a wizened face. But her dark eyes were fierce like a hawk’s.

“What do you want?” she asked, as Ethan took the seat across from hers. “As if I don’t already know.”

Ethan often came to Janna for information, because she knew more about spellmaking than anyone else he had ever met. More often than not, she helped him, though only after complaining that he never paid her for anything. Today, he thought to surprise her.