D. Jackson - A Plunder of Souls

He made his way to the North End as quickly as the old injury to his foot would allow; by the time he reached Copp’s Hill, his limp had grown more pronounced and his leg was aching. Entering the grounds, he saw a cluster of men and women gathered around a gravesite, including a parson, who was administering rites.

Ethan began yet another search for disturbed graves, making sure to give the mourners a wide berth. Even so, when he found sites that had been desecrated, as he had known he would, he did nothing more than give a cursory examination of the damage done to the coffins. He didn’t dare touch the corpses. Nor did he have to.

What he saw in these sites resembled in almost every way what he had seen at King’s Chapel and in the Granary Burying Ground. The disturbed graves-seven in all-were the final resting places for men and women, old and young, even a child. According to their grave markers, all had died since the beginning of the year. Each one had been robbed of its head and right hand. Ethan had no doubt that if he had climbed down into the graves he would have found the same odd symbols carved into each corpse’s chest and each left foot mutilated to resemble his own. Again some, though not all, had rents in their clothing.

He made note of the names on the gravestones, just as he had at the Granary. At last, weary, sweating, he left the burying ground and trudged back toward the Dowser.

Halfway there, on the edge of Middle Street, he stopped and stood blinking in the midday glare, swaying like a drunkard. How foolish he had been. Ignoring the pain in his leg, he hastened back to King’s Chapel.

He had walked past the graves of both Cotton Mather and Samuel Sewall, sparing little more than a glance for either. But now it occurred to him that perhaps the Common Burying Ground had been spared for a reason. Or more precisely, maybe the grave robbers had chosen to strike at Boston’s three oldest burying grounds because of something specific in their history.

He strode into the courtyard at King’s Chapel and entered the sanctuary. Mr. Troutbeck stood at the pulpit, reading from a large Bible set on a carved wooden stand. As an afterthought, Ethan grabbed his hat off his head.

Troutbeck looked up at the sound of Ethan’s footsteps. “Mister Kaille-”

“Who is buried here?” Ethan asked.

“Excuse me?”

“In your burying ground. Samuel Sewall is in the Granary Burying Ground. Cotton Mather is at Copp’s Hill. Who is here?”

“This is the oldest burying ground in Boston. I assure you, we have no shortage of great men interred on our grounds. And several women of note, as well.”

“I don’t doubt it, reverend sir. But I need to know who. Are there any who were present at the trials in Salem?”

Troutbeck stiffened. “I don’t know about that. John Cotton is buried here, but he died in the 1650s, I believe.”

“Cotton,” Ethan repeated. “He was-”

“The father of Maria Cotton, who married Increase Mather.”

“So, he was Cotton Mather’s grandfather.”

“Yes.”

“Who else?” Ethan asked.

“John Davenport was a minister as well. I believe…” Troutbeck hesitated, licked his lips. “I believe he played a role in the witch trials at Huntingdon in the middle of the last century.”

Ethan nodded slowly.

“Why?” the minister asked. “What does all this mean?”

“I’m not really certain.” Ethan stood thus for another moment before looking at Troutbeck again. “Thank you.” He turned to leave.

“Mister Kaille! What is this about?”

“I’ll be back when I know more,” Ethan said, and walked out of the chapel.

He started down the path toward the street, but after a few steps veered off and walked back to the burying ground. The sexton was nowhere to be seen, which came as a relief in light of what Ethan needed to do.

With each new bit of information, he felt more certain that a conjurer had robbed the graves and disfigured the corpses. And he guessed-though he had no real evidence to support this theory-that the speller in question had chosen these three burying grounds because of the men buried in each. Thinking this, a memory stirred deep in the recesses of his mind-a name from his past. He dismissed the notion as quickly as it had come. Sephira Pryce was the likeliest suspect for these foul deeds, especially since she now had a conjurer in her employ. He didn’t need to compound his problems by imagining enemies in every shadow.

He had assured Reverend Caner that he would try to cast as few spells as possible on the congregation’s behalf, but already he could tell he would be conjuring far more than the rector would like. He needed to know if the thieves had used conjurings to locate the graves they wished to rob. If they had, he wanted to see the color of the power they wielded.

He chose the grave James Thomson had shown him, which was farthest from the chapel, in a corner of the burying grounds shaded by maples and elms. It belonged to a woman named Mary Clark, who had died at the age of twenty-two. Ethan knelt by the open grave, and making certain no one could see him, drew his knife and pushed up his sleeve. But he paused with the blade over his forearm, wondering if blood was the proper choice. He sheathed the weapon and instead pulled out the pouch of mullein Janna had sold him.

Different spells demanded different sources. Ethan was not always as careful as he should have been in choosing what to use as fuel for his conjurings, which was one of the reasons he was not yet as accomplished a spellmaker as he wanted to be. Most of the time he still used whatever was at hand; more often than not, this meant blood. He was learning, though. He now used mullein for most of his wardings. A revealing spell, which was what he intended to try here, didn’t need any special source to be effective. But though he was not a religious man, he didn’t like the idea of using blood for a spell on the grounds of a church. He knew Caner would have liked it even less.

Pulling three leaves from the pouch, Ethan held them in his palm and said, “ Revela potestatem ex verbasco evocatam. ” Reveal power, conjured from mullein.

The leaves vanished. Ethan felt the conjuring hum in the ground and saw Uncle Reg appear beside him, ethereal in the dappled light. But nothing else happened. No glow appeared on the corpse or coffin, or even on the earth that had covered the grave. He sat back on his heels, frowning.

The conjuring should have revealed the glowing residue of any spells cast on the gravesite. Every conjuring left some residue, and the power of every spellmaker glowed with a unique color. In the past, Ethan had used the revela potestatem spell to learn the identities of conjurers who had committed crimes of various sorts.

“The spell worked, didn’t it?” he asked the ghost. “I felt it.”

Reg opened his hands to indicate that he didn’t know.

Ethan walked to another of the disturbed graves, watching for signs of the ministers or the sexton. Seeing no one, he tried the same spell on this site. Again he felt the spell and so assumed his conjuring would have worked had there been any residue of power to reveal.

Whatever the intent of those who had robbed the graves, no spell had been directed at the grounds or the corpses themselves. Another idea stuck Ethan, and he pulled out three more leaves. “ Reperi evocationem ex verbasco evocatam. ” Locate conjuring, conjured from mullein.

This second spell should have found the residue of any power used anywhere in the vicinity of the burying grounds. But again, nothing happened, beyond the thrum of his conjuring in the earth beneath him.

“Were any of the people in these desecrated graves conjurers?” Ethan asked Reg.