Chapter 7
Kat
“Are you sure you’re doing all right?” Mathias asks me as he looks me up and down yet again as we ride side by side through the trail back home. “You’re looking paler than an egg white.”
“I’m fine,” I tell him. “Just hungry, that’s all.”
“They don’t feed you in that school?”
“I didn’t have much of an appetite at the time,” I tell him.
It’s true. After my herbs and tinctures class with Ms. Peters, who was a plain and quiet spinster, I went to the dining hall.
I think I was most excited about this concept because we didn’t have one at the schoolhouse I went to, where we all had to bring our lunch to school in tins and drink out of the pump, sharing one metal cup.
But my excitement was quickly dashed. It was odd walking into a place where everyone already seemed to know one another.
Even though it was only the first day of school, I had to remind myself that the students all lived on campus and had been there for at least a week, whereas I was the odd one out who lived at home and got to leave every day when class was over.
Needless to say, I didn’t eat. Growing up in Sleepy Hollow, I never had trouble making friends.
It’s just that when I found my good friends—such as Brom or Mary—I stuck to them like glue and tended to forget everyone else.
So while I knew that I could make friends if I tried, Professor Crane’s words hung in my head.
He asked if I was a snob, which meant that’s probably what the other kids think of me.
I can’t blame them. I’m a Van Tassel; I showed up late and without any supplies, as if I thought I was better than everyone, not to mention what I was wearing.
There’s no way anyone at this school would want to be friends with me, and I was too wary to test that theory.
So instead I spent my lunch hour walking around the grounds, going over all the places that Sister Margaret took me on the tour, plus a quick stop at the stables to check on Snowdrop.
Despite the sprawl of the campus and the buildings that extend back into the forest, it really isn’t that hard to navigate.
Maybe it has something to do with memory loss, because the farther we get away from the campus, the less that I remember. By the time we ride past Wiley’s Swamp, all I remember clearly are my interactions with Professor Crane.
“So what did you learn today?” Mathias asks. “Normal stuff or something more…titillating?” He bursts into giggles at that, as if he was waiting a long time to use that word in an appropriate sentence.
I give him a placating smile. “You don’t learn much on your first day of college, Mathias. What did you learn today?”
While Mathias starts complaining about Roman numerals and why he, as an American, has no business learning them, I try to think about what I did learn.
I know in Ms. Peters’s class, we went outside to talk about the plants grown in the class herb garden situated right outside the windows, but the details are fuzzy.
The tour I took with Sister Margaret seems to be fading by the minute.
All history of the school is forgotten. I don’t know why my sessions with Crane remain clear.
Perhaps when I’m with him, I’m really paying attention. Perhaps he’s bestowing it on me.
When we eventually reach Mathias’s farm, the sun low and golden above the trees, Mary runs out to greet me, and I feel bad that I don’t have a lot of information to share with her.
Not that I would be allowed to talk about what I learned even if I could remember, but I make a promise that by the weekend, we can have a real talk about my first week at college.
By the time I get home, untack Snowdrop, give her some mash, and turn her out for the evening, I’m more exhausted than I’ve ever been before.
“There she is,” my mother says as I stagger into the house. The warm and comforting smell of chicken soup on the stove, courtesy of our Dutch housekeeper, Famke, instantly makes me feel relaxed. “Supper is almost ready.”
“I’m going to put on my tea gown and freshen up,” I tell her, tired of this dress already.
I can tell she wants to ask me questions, but I bustle past her to the bathroom and let out a deep breath as I lean over the basin. It feels good to be home, though I have a feeling this journey twice a day, five days a week, is going to wear on me.
I splash water on my face and stare at myself in the mirror.
I look different somehow, older and more mature.
My cheeks have thinned out just a bit, my eyes deeper and brighter, my lips more lush, like I lost all remnants of girlhood this morning, as if the school and the magic helped usher me into the future.
Until recently, I had been wearing my blond hair down like girls do, but now that I’m considered of age, my hair is half up, adding to my maturity.
I don’t necessarily look bad, but it’s a noticeable change. I look like a woman.
I wonder what Crane thought of me, I think. Did he think I was attractive? I had noticed him staring at my chest a few times. I have to say I liked his eyes on me as much as I liked the feeling of his hand around mine.
I just didn’t like what he was trying to do while holding my hand.
Trying to read my memories? I can’t think of anything more invasive than that.
Luckily, my body knew what was happening.
I’m not sure if I was born with some sort of defensive mechanism against magic like that, but when his hand first touched mine, it was like the world went completely black, and I could see him in a large, black, empty space, just him standing in the void with me.
So I turned and ran. I put my back to him and ran through the darkness, and somehow, that prevented him from seeing who I really was.
Though perhaps that wouldn’t have been a bad thing. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt for someone else to have a look inside your mind. They might end up knowing you better than you know yourself.
I’m starting to think I don’t know myself at all.
I splash a little more water on my face from the basin and blink. Just thinking about what happened has me feeling off-kilter, but at least I still remember it, unlike the rest of the day.
Will my memories ever come back? I go to my bedroom and change into my tea dress, my fingers quickly working through the laces of my corset, stretching out my lungs in a long exhale. Then I unpin my hair and run my fingers through my curls before heading to the dining room.
My mother is already sitting there, staring at me expectantly, the food dished out on the table. She smiles as if a little unsure of how to act. I can’t help but notice she’s looking worse today, her skin more pallid and waxy, her eyes downturned at the corners, her graying hair straight and dry.
“How are you, Mama?” I ask her as I sit down at my place, gathering my napkin in my lap.
“Me?” she asks, folding her hands in front of her. They look thin and veiny, speckled with liver spots, the hands of a woman much older than forty-five. “I’m fine. Just tired. You know how it is, running the house.”
I glance at Famke as she comes back into the room carrying a bottle of wine.
“Well, that’s why we have lovely Famke, isn’t it?” I point out.
“She needs to rest more,” Famke says with a tsk as she pours us the red wine. “I keep telling her so, but you know, she is stubborn.”
“Mama,” I scold her as Famke leaves the room. “You must do as Famke says. Running this house is her job, not yours. You’re supposed to be a well-kept woman.”
She snorts at that and has a sip of her wine.
“Perhaps another trip to Dr. Fielding?” I venture, though the town doctor doesn’t seem to help anyone. He loves to label every issue a woman has as “hysteria.”
“No, no,” she says dismissively before putting down her glass and fixing her eyes on me. “I am fine. Enough about me. Tell me all about your day.”
My stomach growls loudly in protest, and she seems to hear that.
“No, wait. Eat first. Eat. Then tell me.”
I oblige, drinking some wine and having some of my soup and bread. When I’ve taken the edge off my hunger, I begin. “My day, well, it’s honestly very hard to describe.”
I wanted to launch into a diatribe about how she sent me ill-prepared with no supplies and no class schedule, but now that I’m sitting here with her and she seems especially frail today, I decide to hold off.
Besides, Sister Margaret gave me my schedule earlier, and when I had my mimicry class in the afternoon with Professor Crane, he presented me with a notebook bound with black ribbon, a couple of pencils, a writing slate, and some chalk.
I didn’t have a satchel to carry it back with me, so he said he’d hold on to it until my class with him tomorrow.
Which was rather nice of him. I think he feels bad about the attempt at mind reading.
“The first day is always overwhelming,” my mother says with a nod.
That’s putting it mildly. “Can I ask you something?”
She dabs her napkin at her mouth. “Of course.”
“Is there something…strange about the school itself? Is there some sort of magic or spell that protects the campus? I can barely remember the tests I took when we went this summer, nor anything else from that visit. Even right now, I’m having a hard time recalling what happened today.
I feel like I’m forgetting almost everything. ”
“It’s normal, dear,” she says with a swallow of wine.
“In what way is that normal?” I question.
She picks up her spoon and gives me a steady look.
“It’s normal for that school. There are a lot of things you’re going to experience there that are going to seem strange and unusual.
You just need to trust the program. Trust the process.
I wouldn’t send you to that school if I didn’t think it was necessary. ”
“But you waited so long,” I say.
“We know why we waited,” she says stiffly. “I always thought Brom would be brought back.”