Chapter 5
Kat
Did this schoolteacher just say that I was late for class?
“Late?” I repeat, tearing my eyes away from Professor Crane in the doorway and facing Sister Margaret. “You told me there was no such thing as being late here,” I say to her.
Sister Margaret doesn’t look at me, instead just gives the professor a thin smile. “This is Katrina Van Tassel,” she says to him with emphasis. “I told her she can go at her own pace.”
His dark brows raise. “Van Tassel?” he repeats. His voice is low and rich. He glances at me briefly before looking back to her, bowing his head slightly. “My apologies. I had no idea.”
Sister Margaret raises her chin and gives an even thinner smile to him before patting me on the shoulder. “I’ll be back after your class to finish giving you a tour.”
She walks off, her cloak flowing behind her like ink, and I feel my cheeks flush with embarrassment as I look at my teacher. I didn’t think I’d be getting special treatment, and I can tell Professor Crane is already annoyed with me.
“Katrina Van Tassel,” he says, clearing his throat and stepping aside to let me in the room. “After you.”
“It’s Kat,” I tell him, a vague smell of fire and spice lingering in the air as I brush past him.
The classroom is nothing like I expected, other than the fact that every student is staring at me as I walk in.
The teacher’s desk is at the center of the room with a small, low platform in front that resembles a stage, and the desks are arranged in a horseshoe shape around it, probably a dozen or more students in total.
Along one wall is a row of windows that look out onto the trees, and at the back of the room is a collection of empty cages and jars half hidden by a dark curtain.
“And it’s Professor Crane to you,” he says stiffly, flicking his hand to an empty desk directly in front of his.
I suppose no one wanted to sit in the line of fire.
“And despite your relationship with the headmasters of the school, this is where you’ll be sitting. Sorry you didn’t get first pick.”
A few students lean in and whisper to each other, eyeing me up and down.
None of them are dressed as fancy as I am; in fact, the girls’ dresses are plain, high-collared, and threadbare at times, the boys’ shirts wrinkled, suit jackets ill-fitting.
My skin flames even hotter. I immediately feel like I don’t belong here.
I quickly take my seat.
“And, Ms. Van Tassel,” the professor continues, his gaze piercing, “you’ll be expected to be here every morning when class starts, not twenty minutes later.
I don’t care who you are and what Sister Margaret told you, but how she operates isn’t the same way I operate, and I am the god in this classroom. ”
My eyes widen as he rounds the back of his desk, his hands clasped at his back as he stares at the floor.
But when he turns his head to meet my gaze, I keep mine steady, lifting my chin to let him know I won’t consider him to be any god at all.
It’s by some sort of miracle that I bite my lip and refrain from telling him so.
I’m not sure my so-called status would prevent me from getting kicked out of his class.
“Now,” he says, his charcoal eyes still on me, “let me get back to the lesson at hand.”
He circles his desk, snapping up a textbook, and steps onto the platform right in front of me.
His trousers are a little on the tight side, framed by the long length of his black jacket, and I immediately look down at the desk, not wanting to get any inappropriate thoughts.
Someone had scribbled something in pencil at the corner of the desk, the words faded: Welcome to Sleepy Hollow. May you never leave!
“As I was saying before I was interrupted,” Professor Crane goes on, his voice louder as he addresses the class, “energy manipulation is all about giving rather than receiving. You’re all in this class because you’ve shown potential to the sisters, and they’ve deemed that worthy of being explored.
Many of you might not even be aware that you have this specific magic, that it’s been lying dormant inside you all this time.
Some may have an inkling of this talent.
Others yet may practice energy manipulation on the daily…
away from prying eyes, of course. Perhaps trying it out on your dog or cat. Or a bothersome little sibling.”
A few chuckles and appreciative murmurs sound.
“But the first step to figuring out what to give is figuring out what kind of manipulation you can do. What kind of energy.” He clears his throat. “I want you to take out your pad and pencil and jot down the first five things you think about when you think about energy.”
Everyone rustles around me while they reach into their book bags and satchels, and I’m just sitting there, feeling Professor Crane’s eyes on me.
“Ms. Van Tassel?” he says in a low voice, an edge to it.
I dare to meet his eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t have anything to write on or with.” I open my mouth to explain that my mother never told me to bring supplies, but it would just sound like an excuse, so I shut it. “Perhaps you can lend me some.”
“Perhaps I can?” he repeats, his forehead wrinkling beneath a strand of floppy hair. “The school should have provided you with all you need.” He sighs and looks to the students. “Does anyone here have an extra pencil and paper they can lend her for now?”
The Black boy next to me rummages through his bag and pulls out another pencil. He rips out a few pages from his ledger and hands it to me.
I give him an appreciative look, knowing how expensive paper is. “Thank you,” I say softly. Like everyone in this classroom, his face is unfamiliar, a stranger to Sleepy Hollow.
He just nods, his attention rapt on the professor, as if afraid to look away again.
“Well, go on,” the professor prods. “Five things.”
I twirl the pencil in my hand, trying to think.
It’s hard. My eyes keep being drawn to my teacher as he paces around his desk, looking deep in thought and then occasionally casting a glance around the room.
He meets my eyes, and they flash with frustration, probably because I’m staring at him and not writing anything.
I look down at my paper and scribble down the numbers one to five on the margin, hoping that my brain will start working in the meantime. What do I think of when I think about energy? I should be learning Plato or reading a guide to runes or something. Not something that sounds like science.
Professor Crane’s fingers appear in the frame of my vision, pressed against the top of my desk. I stare at them for a moment, his long, slender fingers tapping the wood. He has beautiful hands, I think absently, struck by the sudden impulse to reach out and touch them.
Thankfully, I pull my own hands toward me and look up at him.
His gaze holds me in place, like there’s no one else in the room. What a peculiar man, so singularly focused on me.
I have to remind myself I’m also focused on him.
You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to be, he says in such a low voice that I barely hear it. In fact, he’s not even moving his lips.
Is he playing tricks on me somehow? Is my mind playing tricks on me?
It’s like you don’t even want to be a witch, he goes on, that voice still so low, as if it’s seeping into my brain like mist. His lips are moving now, but barely, and I twist in my seat to glance to see if anyone else is listening, but they’re all focused on their writing.
How strange, coming from a family like yours.
His fingers still on the desk, he leans in closer. I am talking to you, Ms. Van Tassel. No one else. I can tell that you don’t want to be here. Perhaps it’s what your family wants, and so you must. But I won’t force you to stay here. You are free to leave.
“I’m not leaving,” I say, and now my classmates stir, shifting in their seats, looking up from their papers at us.
“Then perhaps you’d like to participate,” he says in his normal low voice, smooth as silk.
I can’t help but glare at him. Doesn’t seem fair that he’s able to throw his voice around like that and speak to me so privately when he chooses but I can’t do the same to him.
I close my eyes and breathe in deeply through my nose until I feel his presence leave my desk.
I exhale, like I can finally breathe, and try to think about the task at hand.
When I think of energy, I think of the bright, blinding sun on a summer day.
Of the creek flowing under the bridge, of the wind bending the tops of the pines in winter.
I think of Snowdrop galloping across the pasture, kicking up the grass with her hooves.
I think of my heart beating, steady and strong, drawing its own energy from some mysterious place inside of me.
I think of love. The love I have for my father still that flows through me in a constant stream with nowhere else to go.
I write down these five things. But then I lift my pencil, tempted to write down one more.
Because there’s energy that I’ve been forgetting. The energy I both created and expended with Brom that night in the barn, the last night that I saw him. There is no energy like love, but there’s also no energy like sex.
It wasn’t just with Brom either. I was intimate with Joshua Meeks last summer, a farmhand who was new in town.
He was a true gentleman, kind and soft, and though my heart didn’t flutter like it had for Brom, he did teach me a thing or two.
He taught me the power one can derive from sex and in more ways than one.
Through him I learned what I wanted from the act, something with a little roughness, with a hint of danger.
The memory of it makes my skin grow hot, and I shift in my seat, immediately pushing those memories and feelings away. I open my eyes and see that I’ve written down the word sex.
I gasp and quickly scribble it out so it’s unreadable, wishing I had a rubber eraser. The last thing I want to do is have the professor see what I’m really thinking about.
“Very good,” Professor Crane says. He’s suddenly beside me, peering over my shoulder.
I suck in my breath, automatically sitting straighter.
I quickly glance up at him, and he’s frowning at where I had scribbled out the word sex.
He cocks a brow and gives me just a hint of a smile before walking on to the next student.
Oh goodness. He couldn’t tell what I wrote, could he? I peer closer at the mess of charcoal, and I can’t make out the word at all. Must be my imagination that he can read it. I pray it’s my imagination.
Twisting in my seat, I watch as the professor looks over everyone in the class. I take the opportunity to nod at the boy across from me. “Thank you for the pencil and paper,” I tell him. He’s cute, maybe a few years older than me, his skin dark and luminous. “I’m Kat, by the way.”
“I know,” he says before giving me a quick bashful smile. Then he sits up as the professor comes walking back between our desks. “I’m Paul.”
“There will be time for everyone to get to know each other later,” Professor Crane says as he passes by us.
“We’ll know each other very, very well by the end of the school year.
” He steps onto the platform and claps his hands together.
“And let’s start by doing a little practice. I will need a volunteer.”
No one puts up their hand. I’m not surprised. I keep my head down and avoid eye contact, hoping I won’t attract his attention.
“Ms. Van Tassel,” he says with a hint of triumph in his voice.
I sigh. Boy, did I ever get off on the wrong foot with this man.
I look up. “Yes?”
He gestures beside him. “Would you care to join me?”
“I’d rather not,” I say.
A few classmates snicker while another gasps. I suppose talking back to the teacher is rather uncouth.
But the professor only chuckles. “That’s plain to see. So let’s see how energy works with an unwilling participant.”
I exchange a glance with Paul, who gives me an encouraging nod. I get out of my seat and walk around the desk, one hand gathering my dress, wishing I wasn’t wearing such a fancy outfit, wishing the class wasn’t staring at me.
The professor sticks out his hand to help me up on the platform. It’s only a couple of inches off the ground, but with my dress and my clumsy luck, I’ll probably fall. Reluctantly, I place my hand in his.
And the world goes black.