Chapter 7
Kat
After the incident with Crane’s dead wife, I dressed in his shirt and coat and made my way over to the women’s side of the faculty dormitories.
Since I arrived at school in just my nightgown, the only way to get proper clothes would be to go back to my house.
But I don’t want to go back there. I don’t even know what time my mother and Famke got back last night from the bonfire—or if they did at all—but my gut instinct is telling me that going back to my house wouldn’t be safe.
Of course we’re only assuming that my mother is coming here today with my belongings to move me into the dorm.
One would think she would have come here as soon as she returned home last night and realized I wasn’t there.
Or perhaps she thinks I’m still in my room sleeping. It’s early enough in the morning.
Though I’m hit with the memory of trying to escape from my bedroom and finding the door locked. Did that really happen? Had someone locked me in my bedroom with Brom? Had she been home at that time while I was struggling? Or had it been Brom himself who somehow locked the door when he shut it?
Either way, my mother was determined that I move to the institute.
But since none of us are ready to discuss with her—or anyone for that matter—what really happened last night, I can’t be walking around campus in a nightgown, with bare feet, and covered in bruises.
Thus it’s up to me to try and wrangle clothes from one of the teachers.
I don’t know any of the female students well enough, but at least the teachers will feel obliged to help, given that my family runs the school.
Brom and Crane stay behind in their area as I go down the women’s hallway and knock on the first door I see. Ms. Peek, my alchemy teacher, answers it.
“Katrina,” she says, gripping her dressing gown around her, her black hair swept up under a bonnet. “Good heavens, what are you doing here? Come in, come in.”
She ushers me into her warm room, smelling of incense. Thankfully she’s always been welcoming to me and supportive in my classes with her, even though I’m not as good at alchemy as I want to be.
“What happened, dear?” she asks. She’s probably the same age as my mother but appears much younger in some ways, with beautiful porcelain skin and bright brown eyes that seem to never miss a thing.
I give her a quivering smile and launch into the story I concocted in my head.
“I went for a walk by the lake this morning with my friend to try out a dawn spell and I tripped over some roots. So embarrassing. I fell right into the lake. He was kind enough to give me his clothes but my nightgown and boots are all soaked and I don’t have anything else to wear at the moment. ”
She purses her lips as she listens, studying me closely. I can tell she doesn’t quite believe me.
“Are you all right?” she eventually says, her gaze going to the corner of my head now. “You hit your head?”
“I’m fine,” I tell her quickly, pasting on a smile. “Just smacked it on a rock when I fell, but I feel fine. Just embarrassed, that’s all. You wouldn’t happen to have clothes you could lend me for the day, would you? I’ll return them to you tonight. I won’t get them dirty, I promise.”
She folds her arms, still focused on the wound on my head, and I’m glad I did up Crane’s collar high enough so that it covers the bruises on my neck. “You really should see the nurse. She’s an excellent healer.”
“I will. But I can’t go like this,” I say, gesturing to Crane’s oversized clothes.
I hold out my arms in emphasis and his scent wafts up toward my nose, warm spices and fire, and my stomach does summersaults.
I’m amazed that after all we’ve done and been through, just his smell is enough to make my knees weak.
Crane says he’s under my spell but I think I’m the one under his.
“I don’t have a large selection,” she says with a reluctant sigh, heading toward her wardrobe and throwing open the doors. “Teacher’s budget, you know.”
I take a look around the room while she does this, noticing more than the incense wafting from her desk: the smell of tobacco.
“Oh,” she says, catching me staring at a burning cigarette in a mortar. “I hope you don’t mind. I know smoking is frowned upon, but it’s a habit I picked up on my travels. It’s from Egypt. Not that I’ve been there, but I know people who have. I cleared it with Sister Leona, in case you’re worried.”
I shake my head. “I’m not worried. I’ve never met a woman who smokes.”
“Some of us do,” she says, going through her clothes again. “In private.” She pauses. “I also have some opium, if you’re interested.”
My brows shoot up at the mention of Crane’s weakness, ignoring the fact that my teacher is offering me drugs. “You have opium? How did you get it here? Did you manage to leave the institute?”
“Of course,” she says, coming over to me holding out a plain navy blue skirt and bodice I’ve seen her wear a few times before. “I don’t have a corset that will hold your, well, ample attributes, but I think you should still fit this. I’m sorry it’s not as nice as what you’re used to.”
“No, it’s perfect,” I say absently, taking the items from her, my mind still tripping over what she just said.
“Hmm, you need shoes and stockings,” she says as she eyes my feet. “My boots might be too small for you but they should do for now. Oh and you’ll need a chemise as well. As for drawers…”
“I’ll go without,” I say quickly, and she doesn’t bat an eye at how scandalous that sounds. Instead she goes to her armoire and opens the drawers. “Ms. Peek,” I begin.
“Please, call me Narae,” she says. “We should be on a first-name basis if you are wearing my clothes.”
“Of course, Narae. You said you left the school. When? How?”
“This summer,” she says, bringing out a chemise from the drawer. “I was gone until the end of August. Took the riverboat down to Manhattan, and then the train to Boston.”
“And they let you leave?” I ask, holding the chemise along with the skirt and bodice.
She gives me a funny look. “Of course. Many teachers stay but I like to travel. I don’t remember a thing about the school while I’m gone, just that I teach here and that’s it.”
“But when you’re gone you still know you’re a witch…”
“I do,” she says with a slow nod. “But it doesn’t feel as important when I’m out there.
It’s as if all my magic stays here at the school.
I’m barely a witch at all when I leave.” A worrying expression comes over her as she gives her head a shake.
“But I did have a note from your aunt with me. It said to bring back as much opium as possible. She’d given me money too.
I’d forgotten, but it was there in my pocketbook. ”
“Leona wanted you to bring back opium?” I ask, thinking I’d heard her wrong.
“Yes.”
“What for?”
She shrugs. “I didn’t ask. Or if I did, I don’t remember. Why don’t you go into the bathroom and put those on? I can help you with your boots after.”
In a daze I walk into the bathroom and put on the chemise, skirt, and bodice. It’s a little tight but thankfully it fits because I’m not using a bustle at my rear. The bodice only does up at the front because it has a ribbon closure instead of hook and eye.
When I emerge I feel out of sorts but passable, and I sit down in her chair as she brings out stockings and boots.
“I can do that myself,” I tell her as she starts to roll the stocking up over my foot, and despite what happened in the bath earlier, I’m glad I’m freshly clean.
“You are used to a housemaid,” she says. “And I was a housemaid before I became a teacher. It’s not a problem for me.”
Ms. Peek—Narae—finishes up with the stockings, securing them below the knee with matching navy ribbons, and then the cream-colored boots that are too tight and pinch my toes together, doing them up with a button hook, and I can’t help but think about Famke and the way she always assisted me.
My mother never did. It feels good, even if for a moment, and I wonder if I’ll eventually make any girlfriends in the dorms where we might help each other with things like this.
I’ll miss Famke. I know I’ll have to find a way to go back into Sleepy Hollow to visit her. There’s still so much we need to discuss.
In the end, Famke said she was loyal to my father and to me. Maybe when I graduate from this school I can bring her with me, wherever I end up going, though it feels a little pathetic that the only way I’ll have any sense of family is by paying her to be my housemaid.
And all at once I’m hit with the intensely hollow feeling I get when I miss my father out of the blue, the profound shock of his absence mingling with the present.
“Are you in pain?” Narae asks me, and I glance at her in surprise. She’s finished doing up my boots and is holding out her hand for me to stand up. I quickly reach up under my eyes to find my cheeks wet—I’ve been crying.
“I suppose I am,” I say hoarsely, swallowing the lump in my throat before taking her hand as she helps me to my feet.
“Your feet are too big for my shoes,” she points out, thinking that’s why I’m crying.
“It might be painful for a bit. Try not to walk too much today until you get your clothes.” She drops my hand and then starts fixing my hair, bringing out a few pins from under her bonnet and putting my strands up in a loose bun, letting a few strands hang loose.
“There,” she says. “Now you look less like you’ve fallen into a lake.
” Her gaze hardens. “You know you can talk to me about anything, Katrina,” she says in a low, steady voice.
“You’re a special witch and I think you know it.
Perhaps alchemy isn’t your strong suit yet, but with your bloodlines, you have the ability to go far.
You can do anything.” Her look softens. “You’ll find your place here, with the right people.
Sometimes it just takes time to find the right path to take you there. ”