Chapter 17
Kat
Brom is back.
He’s back and in my classroom, of all the places to show up.
How is this possible?
Crane meets my eyes, and it’s more than obvious that he knows Brom, except he knows him as Abe.
Crane’s expression is torn but then quickly melts into his teacher mask, chin raised, eyes turning a cool gray, though the curiosity in them can’t be quenched.
He never looks so alive as he does when he can’t figure something out.
I look back at Brom, meeting his eyes now, and though they don’t seem to acknowledge the professor at all, I realize I can’t just stare at him open-mouthed like this, frozen in time.
“Brom?” I manage to say, my voice coming out high and squeaky.
He gets out of his seat, and my goodness, has he grown. Not just up—he’s still around six feet or so—but in terms of muscle. He’s really earning that moniker of Brom Bones now.
“Kat?” he says, and the sound of his voice brings relief flooding through me.
This is him.
This is him.
The entire class is watching as he strides toward me and envelops me in a huge hug, his arms wrapping around me with near bone-breaking strength.
He smells like he always did, like bonfires on an autumn night, warm and cold at the same time.
He smells like my childhood, my teenage years.
He smells like a home I thought I’d lost.
“Oh God,” I whisper against him, burying my head in his chest, the scratchy wool of his coat harsh on my skin, tears threatening to come down my cheeks. “It’s really you.”
“You’ve changed,” he says, his large palm at the back of my head, cradling it. “You’re a woman now.”
I laugh, joy flowing through me like a river. None of this seems real.
“Is this a dream?” I ask.
He pulls back and grabs me by the shoulders, those black eyes skirting over my entire body, looking impressed, an impish smile on his face. “You look like a dream,” he says. “So maybe it is.”
I feel my cheeks go pink. “Brom, I have so many questions.”
“Ahem,” Crane says, clearing his throat loudly.
We both turn to face him and realize we’re not only holding up the whole class but that Sister Margaret is standing in the doorway, grinning at us. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her genuinely smile before, and the effect is disconcerting, like watching a cat try out a human expression for a change.
“May I?” Sister Margaret says to Crane, extending a hand into the classroom.
“Please,” Crane says imploringly, obviously wanting an explanation for all of this. Crane may not know that Brom has been missing, but he’s at least wondering how he came to be in his classroom suddenly.
Sister Margaret walks into the classroom and steps up on the platform in front of Crane’s desk. Her hood is down today, but she’s in the same long black cloak as the sisters always are.
“Students,” she says, her voice bright and carrying across the room. “We have a new student joining you today. He’s born and raised in Sleepy Hollow and just came back after a four-year absence. Everyone, say hello to Abraham Van Brunt.”
She gestures to him with an even wider grin.
I had no idea that Sister Margaret knew anything about Brom, but she’s treating him like he’s a star pupil.
In fact, Brom never showed an inkling of witchcraft while I knew him, but perhaps that’s changed.
I mean, it has to have—why else would he be attending the institute?
The class gives a lukewarm welcome with a few hellos. Brom may not be a Van Tassel, but the fact that he’s from Sleepy Hollow and the fact that Sister Margaret is positively glowing over him means that they’re also placing him in the same category as they put me. Not the same. An “other.”
Brom gives an awkward half bow, his eyes darting over the room briefly before finding mine again as Sister Margaret turns her attention over to Crane.
“You should have a little chat with Brom after class to try to get him caught up with what he’s missed. Perhaps a few private tutoring classes should do it.”
Crane’s brows rise briefly, but his face quickly goes neutral. “Very well.”
But Brom is still staring at me as if he can’t believe I’m really here. That makes two of us.
“Brom,” Sister Margaret says. “Can I speak with you out in the hall? Katrina, your presence is requested too.”
Brom and I exchange a bewildered look but follow her flapping cloaks out into the hallway.
I meet Crane’s eyes as we go, but they’re still unreadable.
I can only imagine what he’s thinking right now.
Is this really the Abe that he had been talking about?
Is it possible he met Brom while in New York or San Francisco and he changed his name slightly?
But if it is Brom, then why is Brom acting like he’s never seen Crane before? It’s like Crane barely exists to him.
Of course, it might all be an act. It’s not as if their affair would be allowed publicly anyway, so he could just be pretending he doesn’t recognize Crane.
And didn’t Crane say that Brom nearly broke his heart?
Perhaps it ended badly enough that Brom feels guilty.
I have no idea, but every second that passes, I’m getting more and more curious and more and more confused.
We step out into the hall with Sister Margaret, and she closes the door to the classroom. She looks at him, then at me, her smile coy, her eyes dancing. “How wonderful to see you again, Brom.”
Brom gives her a faint smile, the confusion clear on his face. “Have we met before?”
“You wouldn’t remember,” she says.
“No,” he says, his smile faltering. “I don’t remember anything.”
“Be that as it may,” she says, clapping her hands together, “it’s so nice to finally welcome you to the school. Did you ever imagine you would be here alongside your sweetheart?” She looks to me now as if suddenly she’s glad I’m here too.
“Brom!” my mother’s voice rings out through the hall, and for a moment, I’m gobsmacked by the sound until I remember that she rode with Crane and me to the school this morning. That seems like a lifetime ago.
“Ms. Van Tassel,” he says to her with a polite nod as she comes running down the hall toward him with her arms open.
“Please, it’s Sarah,” she says against him. While she embraces Brom like he’s her long-lost son, my focus is beyond her.
At the three witches coming down the hall in her wake.
Sister Sophie.
Aunt Ana.
Aunt Leona.
The air in my lungs goes cold at the sight of them, especially my aunts.
This is the first time I’ve seen them (that I’ve remembered), and they look nothing like the aunts in the memories from my youth.
Their faces are nearly identical, which is odd because I didn’t think they were twins but perhaps they are, and much like it had happened when I first met Sister Margaret, I can’t seem to get a focus on them.
It doesn’t help that they have the hoods over their heads, casting their bony features in shadow so that they resemble skulls.
The three of them glide down the hallway like a floating triangle with Leona at the front, her palms pressed tightly together as if in prayer, wearing a smile that’s a little too wide for her face.
“Here he is,” Leona says. Her voice is also not like I remembered. It sounds projected, as if coming from above and below me instead of in front of me, and it’s the coarse voice of a smoker, raspy and drawn-out.
The triangle of sisters stops in front of us, all their attention on Brom.
“We are so glad to see you here,” Leona says to him. “To have you back.”
She glides toward him and places her hands on either side of his cheeks. “Yes, yes, it is you. We have been looking for you for so long.”
“Everyone in Sleepy Hollow was,” Sarah interjects.
That was true. For at least a year, search parties would go out, up to Boston or down to New York City, searching for Brom. The odd thing was that it wasn’t his parents who seemed to care as much but my mother. I figured it was just because he mattered so much to me.
“We nearly gave up,” Sister Sophie says.
You did give up, I want to say. The town may have looked for that first year, but for the years after that, no one even mentioned his name, as if he didn’t even exist.
As if hearing my thoughts, Leona’s sharp eyes swivel over to me.
“And, Katrina,” Leona says. Less of a smile for me, which is fine because it doesn’t suit her.
“I suppose we owe you a nice welcome as well. I apologize that Ana and I haven’t come by to check on you.
We hear you have been doing quite well in your classes though.
I’m sure in no time you can help get Brom caught up. ”
Ana just nods at me, her smile tight-lipped and more like the type of greeting I’m used to seeing from the sisters.
She really does look like Leona though. The only difference is their hair color—Ana’s a graying dirty blond and Leona’s dark and streaked with white—plus Ana’s nose hooks to the right. How didn’t I know they were twins?
“After all,” Sister Margaret says, “I’m sure you’ll want to get your schooling done before you get married.”
“What?” I ask, blinking at her.
Brom coughs, and I give him a look of confusion that he gives back in return.
“The marriage,” my mother says, as if we had just been talking about it. “Your betrothal to each other. As it’s always been promised. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.” There’s a sharpness over those last words, something hard coming over her expression.
“Mother,” I begin, exchanging another glance with Brom. “I hardly think this is appropriate, given the circumstances. He just got back.” From where? “And we haven’t seen each other in four years. A lot can change.”
“Nothing changes,” Leona says, her voice going low, her cold eyes bouncing between Brom and me. “Some things are meant to be. You were destined to be with each other from the day you were born.”
Brom makes a low, guttural sound, and I look at him. He looks like an animal about to pounce, his jaw set. “I don’t even know how I fucking got here,” he growls at them, his eyes flashing with petulance. “How about I figure that out before you talk about us getting fucking married.”
Everyone looks stunned, their eyes wide. Only Ana looks like she’s trying to hide a smile.
He doesn’t even know how he got here?
“Abraham!” my mother admonishes him. “I don’t know where you were living before, but that kind of language isn’t appropriate in Sleepy Hollow or at the institute.”
“Sarah,” Leona admonishes her with a wave of her bony hand. “Let him be. It’s quite all right. He’s been through a lot, I’m sure. Let him speak in whatever way he sees fit.”
My mother clamps her mouth shut into a white line, shrinking slightly into the background. How quickly she cowers to Leona.
“Brom,” Leona says. “That is what you still like to be called, isn’t it? Not Abraham or Abe?”
He grunts, and I notice his hands flexing and unflexing at his sides.
“Perhaps it would be best for you and Katrina to get to know each other again,” she goes on. “Sarah, why don’t you invite Brom and his parents over for dinner tonight.”
It was a command more than anything, and my mother nods. “Yes, of course.”
“Wait a minute,” I speak up. None of this is making any sense. “He just got back, yes? As much as I would like to see Brom, doesn’t he need time with his parents alone? I’m sure they want to talk to him.”
“Darling,” Leona says with a sympathetic tilt of her head. “Didn’t you know that Brom got back days ago? I’m sure it would be fine with them all to join you tonight.”
I turn to Brom in surprise. “You’ve been back for a few days and you didn’t tell me? You didn’t come by and…and…”
There was no news of it. Nothing.
He stares at me for a moment, and he must have learned something from Professor Crane already because I can’t read his face at all. He doesn’t say anything either.
I’m not sure I have a right to feel it, but I feel utterly betrayed that he’s been back and he didn’t even come by to say hello, to let me know he was in Sleepy Hollow and he was okay. What has he been doing?
“He’s been ill,” Sister Margaret says. “Have some compassion, Katrina.”
I look at the sisters. They’re all staring back at me with an expectant look in their eyes, like I’m supposed to shrink into the background like my mother did.
“I do have compassion,” I tell them. “I’ve been sick with worry for years, thinking he was dead, and suddenly he’s back, my best friend is back, and I’m supposed to just be understanding that this was kept from me for days?”
“I’m sorry,” Brom mumbles.
But the fact is I’m not mad at him, not really.
I’m not sure what I’m mad at; I’m still trying to get a handle on it.
Everything is happening so fast and at once.
Me and Crane together, then the horseman, then Brom back in our lives.
It’s overwhelming, like I’ve been torn into too many different directions and too soon.
“Perhaps we should let you get back to class,” Leona says. “I’m sure it won’t take long before you’ll be hitting it off like you used to.”
She gives the other witches a look and a sharp jerk of her chin, and they start floating down the hall away from us.
“Sarah,” Leona barks at her. “Come.”
My mother meets my eyes, and for one moment, I see fear. Pure terror, as if she’d just been asked to stride into hell. Then she turns, her head down, and follows her sisters.
And I’m left in the hall with a boy I once knew who has turned into a man I don’t.