Chapter 19
Kat
“That’s a lovely horse, Brom,” my mother says to him as we’re tacking up at the school stable, the strange stable boy running around and trying to help us all.
I absently stroke down Snowdrop’s neck, peering over at Brom, who is leading his fully saddled horse out of the stall.
It’s a magnificent stallion, completely black and shiny like the polished obsidian arrowhead I have in my desk drawer.
Its size and strong, arched neck make it look like a Dutch warmblood crossed with a Friesian rather than the thoroughbreds and cobs that frequent these parts.
It’s not lost on me that it looks exactly like the black horse the horseman was riding last night.
The only difference was the horseman’s seemed like it was born from the bowels of hell, and this horse is calm and gentle.
“It is a nice horse,” I say, leading Snowdrop out. “Where did you get him?”
He swings up onto the saddle in an effortless display of horsemanship and gives me a loaded look, one that says: I don’t remember.
“I picked him up on my travels,” Brom says with forced confidence, fiddling with the reins.
“And what’s his name?” I ask, though I know he doesn’t know that either.
He’s nearly glaring at me now.
“Daredevil,” the stable boy speaks up, coming out of the stall with my mother and her horse. “I heard him referred to as Daredevil.”
“By whom?” I ask.
Sarah laughs. “By Brom, naturally. It’s his horse.”
But the stable boy doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he meets my eyes, and something blank passes over his expression before he turns and runs back into the stable.
I ponder that as I mount up on Snowdrop, feeling Brom’s eyes on my back. So he has a horse that he doesn’t remember, and it has a name that he didn’t give it. Who gave the horse the name? Whoever gave it the name gave him the horse.
I need time to talk to Brom alone. After Crane tried to read him after class, looking visibly shaken by whatever he said he didn’t see—this war inside of Brom—Sister Margaret showed up and gave Brom a tour, much as she had done for me, and I had to hurry off to my next class, spells and chants, which I was already late for.
The rest of the day I was locked in a mix of magic and non-magic classes, and I didn’t get out until twenty minutes ago when my mother came for me to make sure I was riding back with her and Brom into town.
My mother takes the lead, clucking to her horse, and we follow single file with Brom behind me as we head down the path through the courtyard.
The weather seems to have shifted since this morning, but then again, everything in my life has shifted since then.
No longer are the students studying and conversing out in the grass.
Now, the ground is covered in a layer of dew, and the flowers are drooping.
The leaves on the maples, birches, and elms are still bold with color, but so much more has fallen to the ground in decaying piles.
The mist is ever present, hovering above the black surface of the lake, and for a moment, it reminds me of Brom’s eyes.
Black yet veiled. Him but different. Him… but not him.
I glance at Brom over my shoulder, wishing that Crane had taught me how to do that speaking-without-speaking thing so that I could talk to him.
He’s glancing around, a look of strange contentment on his face, as if he’s seeing his surroundings for the first time.
I must admit, he looks good on that horse, his black hair and eyes matching the horse’s black coat and eyes, both strong, muscular, commanding.
He looks good out here with the backdrop of the school behind him, like he belongs there, maybe even more than I do.
“So you’re a witch,” I say to him.
He meets my gaze, brows arched. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you wouldn’t be at the institute if you weren’t.”
“Katrina, don’t pester him,” my mother says from in front of me. “You know that Brom’s mother, Emilie, is a witch. It runs in the family.”
“I’m not pestering,” I tell her, unable to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “And I know she’s a witch; it’s just that while growing up, I was the one who had a bit of magic, and Brom never did. I would do tricks for him, and he could never do it in return. We tried—remember, Brom?”
“I was a dud,” he admits. “Daffy had all the magic.”
My heart warms at the way he calls me Daffy. I haven’t heard that nickname in a long time.
My mother twists around in her saddle to look at me sharply. “You performed magic for Brom?”
I remember my father’s words, and I immediately feel shame. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” she says quickly. “I just…I had no idea. You never showed any magic around me when you were little. I thought perhaps you barely had any, as if it skipped a generation.”
I’m about to confess that Papa told me not to show it around her, but something stops me. Something that lets me know that my mother shouldn’t know of that conversation. Something in my father’s voice and eyes that had always seemed to say more than he was saying.
That my mother couldn’t be trusted.
She couldn’t be trusted around my magic.
“It wasn’t much,” I eventually say.
She stares at me for a moment, trying to read me. Then she looks back to the gates that rise up before us. “We all start small,” she says. “The small things add up with time.”
The gates open for us, and I wonder if Brom will lose his memories of earlier, if he even knows that it’s a side effect of the school. Did he take the tests at all? If so, when?
We ride under the iron arch of the gates, the pressure of the wards reaching into my skull and squeezing, the wash of cold, and then the pressure lifts, and we’re on the trail, riding through the dark woods.
I glance over my shoulder at Brom. He’s wincing, one hand pushing on the side of his temple.
“What was that?” he asks.
“The wards,” I say. “You must have felt them when you rode in.” I pause, waiting for him to tell me he didn’t remember that either. Unless going through the wards has the opposite effect on him. “Do you remember anything now?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“Do you remember class earlier with Professor Crane? Your tour with Sister Margaret?”
“Yes,” he says, frowning.
“He remembers just as I do,” I announce to my mother as I face forward, though lately I’m remembering pretty much everything that happens at school and not just Crane’s class. “How do you explain that?”
“There’s a lot that can’t be explained right now, Kat,” my mother says in a tired voice.
That can’t be explained, I think. Or won’t be?
When we reach our house, Brom continues riding on, telling my mother that he’ll invite his parents over for supper.
Brom’s family lives on the next farm over from ours, and I contemplate riding with him just so I can have a chance to be alone with him and ask questions, but he’s already pushing on his way.
Maybe he needs some time to be alone himself to try to figure out what’s happening.
I can’t imagine what it must be like for him.
The desperation in his voice when he asked Crane to fix him… it broke my heart.
We untack the horses and go inside the house, which smells like soup. My mother finds Famke in the kitchen and tells her to make extra for dinner since we’re having company. Famke couldn’t look more surprised to hear of Brom’s return.
“Is it true?” Famke whispers to me while she’s chopping up celery, my mother having gone to take a bath. “Is Brom really back?”
“He’s really back,” I tell her.
She squints at me through a few strands of frayed gray hair that have fallen across her forehead.
“You don’t look happy, child.”
I put on my best smile. “I am happy. I’m relieved.”
“But?” She presses the knife against the celery but doesn’t cut it.
“But he doesn’t remember anything,” I whisper.
“Not why he left, not what’s happened while he’s been gone.
He doesn’t even know how he got here. The sisters said that he’s been home for days but was too ill to see anyone.
But I don’t believe that, and Brom doesn’t either.
He says the only thing he remembers is waking up today in my class. That’s it.”
Famke searches my eyes for a few moments.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Are they talking about marriage again? Between you and Brom.”
“Yes,” I say emphatically. “As if he hasn’t been gone at all. Don’t get me wrong, I still love Brom like I always have, but…”
“But now you’re with the professor.”
I give her a look. “How do you know that?”
“The walls listen,” Famke says, resuming her chopping. “They listen and watch.”
“Are you the walls?”
She smiles to herself, but it’s a bitter smile. “I have been here a long time, Katrina. I have seen a lot.”
I’ve always liked Famke. Always trusted her.
“What have you seen?” I whisper.
Famke’s eyes dart to the empty doorway, then back to me. Her expression turns melancholy. “Your father wanted the very best for you. You know that, don’t you?”
I nod. “I know.”
“But what he wanted for you was not what your mother wanted. He didn’t want you to marry Brom.”
I blink at her, shocked. “What do you mean?”
Of course he did. That’s all they ever talked about. My destiny, how Brom would be the perfect husband, and we would have perfect children and never want for anything.
“He didn’t want you to marry Brom because your mother wanted you to marry him. And his parents wanted you to marry him.” She pauses, slicing the celery with one hard cut. “And the sisters wanted you to marry him. Because it was never up to you or Brom.”
“He wanted me to have my own free will,” I muse.
She purses her lips at that, tilting her head. “Yes…”
“And?”
“What he really wanted was for you to leave Sleepy Hollow.”
I shake my head. No. That goes against everything I’ve believed, everything I’ve heard.
“No,” I tell her. “That’s not it. His dying words were for me to watch over my mother.”