Chapter 31 #2
I look away from the gruesome sight, and Brom yelps, grunting and moaning, biting so hard on the ruler I hear it crack.
“You’re doing so well,” Crane croons to him. “You’re taking it so well. Just a little more. I’m almost done.”
I give Crane another look, but his focus is entirely on Brom. I suck in my breath, watching the devotion on Crane’s face, the way he’s gazing at Brom with such regard. There’s tenderness in his words, the way he’s handling Brom. It unwinds something inside my chest.
Finally, Crane pops the round bullet out with his finger, and it rolls to the ground. Brom cracks the ruler in half, the edges falling away from his mouth as he screams.
“Stay with me, sweet boy,” Crane says, reaching into his other pocket and pulling out a small vial of liquid and crushed leaves. He pours out the contents onto his fingers. “Stay with me. Almost done. You’re doing so good, Brom Bones.”
Then he presses the poultice into the wound, and Brom screams again, gasping in agony, his body jerking against the ground in violent spasms.
Crane keeps his fingers there, closing his eyes, and starts reciting something that sounds like Latin but isn’t. The words seem to float in the air around us, and Brom’s eyes roll back in his head.
Crane is healing him.
I watch in awe as a warm glow appears on Crane’s fingers and flows down to the wound like honey. Brom is still groaning, but his body has stopped writhing.
What a magnificent witch this man is. He may be my teacher, but I’m practically beaming with pride.
Finally, Crane pulls his hands away and sits back on his knees. He’s breathing hard and looks drained, all the color gone from his already pale face, but there’s a satisfied glint in his eyes, a small smile lifting the corner of his mouth.
“You didn’t have to shoot me,” Brom manages to say through a cough, and I nearly cry in relief at the sound of his voice.
Crane laughs softly. “I’m afraid I did,” he says. “But I knew what to do to fix you.”
I shift to the side so that I’m sitting on the road and Brom’s head is in my lap.
He glances up at me, his eyes exhausted and bloodshot, and even though the feeling of the monster he becomes is fresh in my mind, I can’t help but want to keep him close, especially when he’s wounded. I run my fingers through his hair.
He frowns and lifts his head, twisting it around, wincing in pain as he does so, trying to get a better look at me.
“Who did that to you?” he asks, his voice hoarse as he looks from the marks on my throat to whatever damage he did to my head.
Unlike the rage that came from Crane, Brom’s expression crumbles in sorrow and shame.
“Did I do that to you?” he whispers.
I look up to meet Crane’s eyes, wondering what to say.
Crane clears his throat. “Brom, I don’t think I need to tell you this, nor do I think there’s an easy way to tell you this, but you’re possessed by a Hessian soldier.”
Brom puts his head back down in my lap and closes his eyes, a tear escaping. “How could I do that to you?” he ekes out, the pain in his words breaking me.
“You weren’t yourself,” I try to soothe him.
“The soldier is a retrieval ghost,” Crane goes on, getting to his feet.
He wipes the dust off his trousers and starts to pace back and forth on the road.
“Someone conjured him to bring you back, Brom. They used the spirit of the Hessian soldier, the headless horseman, to find you and possess you and physically bring you from wherever you were to Sleepy Hollow.” He pauses, his hands behind his back as he glances at us.
“We don’t know who it was. Either your parents, perhaps Kat’s mother, or the coven.
But I’m starting to doubt the reasoning was pure. ”
I mull that over. Could my mother have conjured a spirit to bring Brom back? That does sound like something she’d do. But why not tell me?
Unless there’s a reason why she didn’t want me to know.
“And there’s another complication,” Crane adds, in teacher mode now.
“The spirit should have left you. The Hessian decided to stay. He’s both tied to you in his spirit form and in your physical form.
He’s just beneath the surface, Brom. I can see him there.
It’s like looking at a dark lake, ripples on the surface of something underneath. ”
“You need to get him out of me,” Brom says in horror. “Please.”
“That’s exactly what we plan to do,” Crane says, stopping in front of us and gazing down at Brom. “There are a few rituals that the three of us can try that might just free you from him.”
“Well, we need to do them now,” I cry out, flooded with impatience.
“They aren’t that easy,” Crane says slowly. “They might take some…convincing to get everyone on board.”
“I’ll do anything,” I implore him.
He gives me a quick smile. “I have no doubt you will, sweet witch. But it’s Brom who may need persuading.”
Brom frowns. “I will do anything. I promise.”
Crane gives him a rueful smile. “You say that now,” he says. “But until you remember what I need you to remember, I’m not sure how easy this will be.”
“What do you need me to remember?”
Crane exhales, tilts his head as he holds Brom’s gaze. “I’m going to need you to remember me. And what I was to you. I need you to remember us, Abe.”