Chapter 27 #2
“We were just leaving,” I tell him, gathering up my skirt and getting to my feet. As I do so, the man reaches out and grabs my elbow.
“You afraid of me or somethin’?” he asks, holding me in place. “I’m here to keep the big bad wolf away. Don’t you know we have a murderer running loose? Cutting people’s heads off with an ax.”
“It was probably a scythe,” Mary speculates. “He was a farmhand, murdered with his own instrument. Have some respect.”
The guy snarls at Mary and yanks me closer to him. I try to pull my arm away, but he doesn’t let go until Mary marches forward and shoves her hands at his chest.
“Scram!” she yells at him, enough that he lets go of me. A few heads turn toward us, murmuring, and the guy starts to back away, holding his hands up like he’s innocent.
We watch him disappear into the crowd, hopefully to somewhere where he can sleep it off.
And it’s at that moment I think I see a familiar face among everyone else.
Dark hair, deep black eyes, a beard on a handsome face.
I see Brom staring at me.
But when I blink, he’s gone, replaced by another dark-haired man who has his arm around a dark-haired girl.
“Don’t worry,” Mary says, putting her hand on my shoulder. “I don’t think he’ll be back to bother us.”
I can’t tell her that it’s not him I’m worried about.
—
Katrina.
I groan and roll over onto my back. I hear my name being called, a whisper on a breeze, but I don’t think it’s real. I must be dreaming.
Katrina Van Tassel.
The voice again. A little deeper now. More urgent.
I open my eyes and stare up at the ceiling at the wood rafters. The room isn’t pitch-black; there’s light coming from somewhere, but it’s not outside. The shutters are closed.
I slowly raise my head and look. There is light streaming in from under my door. It flickers in and out, so someone must have the fire going.
What time is it? The middle of the night? How long was I asleep?
After the incident with the drunk at the bonfire, we decided to leave.
It wasn’t just that he ruined the mood, more that Mary was sincerely worried about the murderer still at large and thought the earlier we headed back home, the better.
She made a joke about me being a witch, and so I’d have a better chance at protecting myself if I wanted to stay behind, but the joke fell flat.
Because somehow, I think my being a witch makes things worse. It makes me a target.
Needless to say, she dropped me off at home early, and I went straight to bed while she went straight home to deliver the treats to Mathias. My mother was just leaving with Famke—they had decided to go to the bonfire after all and said they would be back late.
Now I have no idea what time it is and—
Katrina. Kat.
Kat.
There it is again.
That voice.
Unlike any voice I have heard before. Low and guttural and yet also a whisper. It makes my scalp prickle, sending sickly shivers down my spine.
Then I hear a thump. Another thump.
The sound of footsteps inside the house. They echo, shaking the floorboards that reach under my door. Whoever is out there is coming straight for me.
They stop outside my door.
I try to sit up, pull my sheets over my body, but I can’t.
I can’t move at all.
I’m stuck, frozen, paralyzed. I can only stare as the doorknob turns.
I gasp, but no air moves. It’s like I can’t even breathe.
The door opens slowly, inch by inch, with a low, long creak.
Until it reveals a man standing on the other side.
He is seven feet tall, and he has no head.
I open my mouth to scream.
I can’t.
I try to get out of bed.
I can’t move.
I can only watch in pure, utter horror as the man places something down by the door and slowly walks across my bedroom toward me. This giant man in a black cloak that seems to blend with the shadows. This man with no head.
Unlike the other times I had seen him—in the void, on the trail—I don’t get the sense that he’s looking for someone else. Instead, I know he’s looking for me.
Katrina Van Tassel, he says, his voice flowing through the air and over my body like the wind. It settles over me, a physical thing, ripe with desire, and I see him reach down to his crotch, stroking something large and long and dark as sin.
I open my mouth to cry out, but nothing, there’s nothing. My scream is choked in my throat, and I can’t even breathe as he stops in front of me. With a raise of his other hand, the bedsheets are ripped right off me, leaving me exposed in my nightgown.
I don’t know what to do. I can’t defend myself; I can’t call for help. I’m prey caught in a trap, and he’s the hunter coming to finish me off.
It’s like he was saving me for last.
He’s at me now. Heavy, cold hands on my thighs, and I pinch my eyes shut and try to pull up whatever power I have inside me, whatever means I have to get over this enchantment.
I think of the energy between Crane and me.
I think of its power, of how infinite it made me feel. I focus on that.
And then I use that energy to open my mouth.
And I scream.
The sound reverberates off the walls, and suddenly, I can move. I’m scrambling backward on the bed until my back hits the wall.
And the headless horseman turns to leave. Slowly, as if he’s not in a hurry, not afraid of being caught.
He strides out of the room, picking up the thing he left by the door, and then he’s gone into the house, past the fire, and out the door.
And I’m getting to my feet, I’m grabbing the knife I keep in the drawer of my desk, and I’m running after him to make sure he’s gone, so I can lock the door, as if that will keep him out.
I nearly slip before I reach my own door, something wet and slick beneath my bare feet.
I look down at the floor and see a trail of blood, his footprints still in it.