Chapter 18
Crane
“Professor Crane.” A student named Matilda who always wears her brown, unruly hair in a high bun, puts up her hand and starts waving it once I notice her.
She’s huddled in the corner with two other students, Josephine and Mark, trying to enter each other’s minds and, from the looks of it, not having a lot of luck.
I walk over to them, but my eyes drift to Kat and Brom where they sit with their desks turned toward each other.
I’ve been watching them the entire class, unable to look away.
The student they’re working with, Paul, has given me a look a few times as if to ask me what my problem is, why I’m staring, but I can’t explain it to him any more than I can explain it to them.
How is this happening? How did Abe, my Abe, end up in my classroom?
It’s him. There’s no doubt now that it’s him.
When I first walked into the room, I thought I was looking at a ghost from my past. Then I figured there was no possibility this could be the same man I’d been with in New York.
Despite looking exactly the same as before, there was one big difference: he no longer looked afraid.
That fear was replaced with a blankness.
And when he looked me in the eyes for just the briefest of moments, his eyes held nothing in them.
They were glass black and empty. He didn’t see me at all.
No recognition, no nothing. I would have been insulted, as if my cock was that forgettable, had it not been so confusing.
But when Sister Margaret announced him as Abraham Van Brunt, that sealed the deal.
It was him.
My haunted lover.
My hunted lover.
And he’s here for reasons I don’t understand.
Then there’s the fact that Kat knows him. Knows him well. Perhaps even loved him at one point, judging by the fierceness of their embrace.
Jealousy stabbed me like a knife to the heart. I was jealous of him. I was jealous of her. Two humans I craved, and they shared this ease and intimacy with each other, giving each other what I wanted.
But then they were called out into the hall by a Sister Margaret I barely recognized, her face stretched with glee.
I don’t know much about Sleepy Hollow; I don’t know their legends and their ghosts and what has happened in the walls of this school or in the streets of their town, but it’s apparent that both Kat and Abe/Brom/Abraham have some twisted history here.
It’s absolutely maddening. This mystery I don’t understand is like a thorn in my side, one that’s disappeared under the skin and impossible to get out.
I must get to the bottom of this because none of this makes sense, and in my experience, when things don’t make sense, that means something has gone wrong.
I walk over to Matilda, Mark, and Josephine and force myself to listen to their issues.
This is psionic class, and today, we’re learning about how to block telepathic intrusion.
I figured since this was something Kat had learned to do, it might be possible to give other students the same set of skills.
The problem with these particular students is that none of them can get into each other’s minds, let alone learn how to block such an infiltration. Heaven help me from giving them all Fs.
The class drags on, and by the time I’ve dismissed everyone, I’m unable to look away from Brom or Kat. They drag their feet, lingering behind, and then I remember that Sister Margaret suggested some after-hours tutoring. How simple that must have sounded to her.
“Professor Crane,” Abe says as he approaches the desk, and fuck if that phrase doesn’t sound so sweet coming from his lips. He’d never called me professor—I don’t even think I told him I’d been one. But now that he’s saying it, I never want him to stop.
Though I should probably stop thinking of him as Abe.
“Brom,” I say with deliberation, keeping my voice level, staying seated behind my desk so he can’t see how aroused I am. It’s been a godsend with Kat this past month, and it’s coming in handy again. “Or do you prefer Abraham?”
Abe?
“Brom is fine,” he says to me, giving me a half smile. Still nothing in his eyes for me. They’re friendly—I’ll give them that—but it’s a friendliness that seems apt to change on a dime. I’ve picked up on several mood shifts from him already.
“His nickname when we were young was Brom Bones,” Kat says. Her tone is light and easy, but from the look in her eyes, she’s feeling as bewildered as I am.
Brom Bones, huh? Fitting.
“So you two know each other from long ago,” I say, folding my hands on top of the desk.
“Yes,” Kat says through a wavering smile. “We were best friends.”
I lock eyes with her for a moment, wondering how deep their friendship went.
I know it’s terribly unfair to be so indignant over their shared pasts, but I am.
I’m possessive over her, even though I have no right to be, and I might just feel the same way about him too.
This should make the rest of the school year torture, along with the ghosts of dead teachers and a headless horseman running amok.
“I see,” I say, steepling my fingers together. “Well, I have to admit, Brom Bones, it’s quite a surprise to have a new student in my class a month into the semester. Can I ask why you missed so much already? Where have you been?”
Kat looks to Brom with an eagerness she can’t hide, her fingers gripping the ruffles on her dress bodice as if holding on for dear life.
Brom stares at me blankly for a moment, like he’s trying to gather all the thoughts in his head and not having much luck.
Then his thick black brows furrow, and I pick up on a flash of pain, his eyes seeming darker than ever.
He reminds me of the man in New York, the one who would give himself completely to me, a toy for me to do with what I wanted, and how after we were done and spent, the light would drain from his eyes, and they would turn so dark and haunted again.
I was a welcome respite, but the relief never lasted.
“I…,” he begins, licking his lips, that wildness coming across him. “I don’t know.” He looks around him as if to double-check that the room is empty. “I don’t remember.”
His chin dips at that, and shame wafts off him.
“You don’t remember?” Kat asks, reaching out and putting her hand on his arm.
“What do you mean?” I add, leaning forward, ignoring the way she’s touching him.
He pinches his eyes shut and lets out a shallow breath, shaking his head. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember the time I’ve been gone. I don’t remember any of it.”
Then he opens his eyes and stares right at me with such desperation that I feel it in my skin. “You’re a teacher, right? You know things? Maybe you can help me.”
“I don’t understand,” I say, and his expression crumbles. I splay my hands out. “Try explaining in layman’s terms, and then I’ll see what I can do.”
He looks up to the ceiling for a moment, then says, “Four years ago, I left Sleepy Hollow. I don’t know why.
I don’t remember why I left. I remember a feeling—I remember fear.
But I can’t remember why I left. I have vague memories of a city—New York, maybe.
I don’t know. But I know that time passed, and now suddenly, I’m here. I woke up…here.”
“What do you mean you woke up here?” Kat asks, her dainty brows coming together. “Out in the hall, they said you returned a few days ago and that you’d been ill.”
“That’s what they say. But I don’t remember any of that either. That’s why I didn’t come by to see you, Kat. I would have been to see you right away, you know that.” He reaches out and takes her pinky in his hand, giving it a squeeze, and the air gets caught in my lungs.
I swallow my jealousy down. “So you don’t remember why you left. You don’t remember where you’ve been. You don’t remember how you got here. You just woke up in this classroom today. Is that it?”
He nods. I glance at Kat, who gives her head a shake, a thin strand of blond coming loose from her bun.
“This is impossible,” she says.
“I know how it sounds,” he says gruffly. “But I’m telling you the truth.”
“Crane,” Kat says to me, hope swimming in her beautiful blue eyes. “You can help him. Try to read him.”
“I…,” I begin. I’m about to say that I already have tried to read him once and that I didn’t get any further with him than I did with her. But while I’m sure that truth will come out sooner than later, it can wait.
I pause and fix Brom with my gaze. “Are you sure you would like me to try? I can gain access to your memories using magic. You just have to go into it wanting to let me in.”
Brom licks his lips and nods quickly. “Yes. You can try. I don’t remember anything.”
At that, Kat’s face flushes slightly, but she doesn’t say anything.
And then I realize what he means to Kat. He was the one she was searching for in the void during the ritual, the one that made her feel desperate and aroused. He’s the dark, hot lust I glimpsed when I first tried to read her.
He’s the thread that we share, the common denominator that has always bound us. I thought it was a shared experience from our past, perhaps grief or something else, but all this time, it was Brom.
“All right,” I concede. I get up and move around the desk, glad that my desires are under control. I walk right up to Brom and make myself stop before I get too close inside his personal space. I have to remind myself that he doesn’t know me the way I know him.
But did I really know you at all? I think. Who are you?
I hold out my hand, palm up, my eyes flickering over his face.
“Give me your hand,” I tell him.
He meets my eyes and holds them there, and for just a moment, he frowns, not out of confusion by what I’m asking, but in a searching way, like he just had a glimmer of his past.
Brom places his hand in mine, and I wrap my fingers around it.
Do you remember this feeling? This feeling of your hand in mine, of my fingers wrapping around your dick and bringing you to a finish?
He blinks, perhaps a little unnerved at how intensely I’m staring at him.
I close my eyes. I picture my energy welling up inside me like a bubbling pot, heat pouring through my arm and hand and onto him. I’m in the void and see a door in front of me, but it’s closed. This is his mind. This is what I want to see.
But try as I might, I can’t open the door. I can’t get any feelings from him either, not in the way they once rushed through me or in the way it happened with Kat. Instead, I feel like there’s something else behind this door. But whatever it is, it isn’t him.
I press to the door and listen.
“I will do your bidding,” a low, sinister voice says from the other side.
Then I hear other sounds. Cannon fire. Horses whinnying. Cries and shouts and the drawing of swords. People begging for mercy, pleading for their life. The sounds of death. Blades slicing.
I hear war.
There is nothing else beyond this door except war.
And then the door opens, swinging out toward me so that I’m knocked backward into the void, and hot wind smelling of brimstone and rot comes flowing toward me.
“There is no room in here for you, Teacher,” the voice says.
Then the door slams shut, and suddenly, I’m being pushed backward, enough that I’m stumbling back into the classroom until my back hits the wall.
“What happened?” Kat exclaims.
Brom’s eyes are wide, still holding out his hand. “What did you see?”
I gasp for air, my heart thundering against my ribs. I feel the sulfurous smell sticking to me like a cloak.
“I saw war,” I tell him, catching my breath. “I heard it. There is a war inside you, Brom Bones.”
He frowns and quickly exchanges a confused look with Kat before coming back to me. “A metaphorical war?”
I have to pause, rubbing my lips together as I think. “I’m not sure. I didn’t see it. I didn’t see anything, but it’s what I felt and what I heard. It was almost as if it didn’t belong to you.”
There is no room in here for you, Teacher.
That voice hadn’t been Brom’s.
But right now, something is telling me to keep that close to my chest.
Because this man isn’t the same man I had once been intimate with.
That man had been on the run because he’d been hunted.
This man is one who has finally been caught.