Chapter 14
Brom
Eleven years ago
“Where do you want to live when we get married?” I ask Kat.
We’re sitting on a log under the Hollow Creek bridge playing troll and princess, a game that is starting to feel too young for me, now that I’ve just turned twelve and my father says I should start acting like a man, but Kat was insistent. As usual. We always do things her way.
“I suppose my house,” she says, her long blond hair falling over her shoulder, reminding me of the silk that comes off the corn at harvest time. “My house is bigger,” she adds brightly before throwing a stone into the creek.
“No,” I say to her, picking up an even bigger rock and chucking it into the fast-moving stream. “I mean, what town? City? Where do you want to go?”
She stares up at me, puzzled. “Why would we leave? My father and mother are here.”
“Mine are here too,” I point out, but I don’t say anything else.
She just gives me a nod, because she knows. She goes into deep thought, rubbing her lips together as she does so.
“I think I’d like to stay in Sleepy Hollow,” she eventually says. “I like it here.”
“You’ve never been anywhere else.”
“Neither have you,” she says, poking me in the arm.
“But I read about other places, in books,” I say. “And I’ve been on the riverboat once and I’ve been to Tarrytown.”
“Everyone has been to Tarrytown,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “I’m not moving there.”
“So then pick a place. Any place. How about London? I like the idea of moving to England. And what type of house? Do you want horses?”
“Of course I want horses,” she says excitedly. “I want horses and goats and chickens and pigs and cows. I’ll make them all be my friends. I’ll be a mama too, so we’ll have lots of babies running around. It will be fun.”
“Well, I’m going to buy you the nicest carriage that you can ride around in,” I tell her. “And all the ladies will look at you in envy. They’ll go, There goes Brom Van Brunt’s wife. Isn’t she the luckiest girl in town?”
“That would be nice,” she says shyly. Then she grows serious, her lip pouting. “Do you promise to take care of me?”
“Of course I’ll take care of you,” I say imploringly. “I’ll be your husband. That’s what husbands do. They take care of their wives.”
“And you’ll protect me?”
I put my arm around her and hold her to me and her hair smells like meadow flowers. “I will always protect you, Kat.”
She rests her head on my shoulder and I feel like I’m melting on the inside. “Because my father once told me that he won’t always be here to keep me safe,” she says quietly. “And my mother won’t be either.”
I feel darkness at the mention of her mother, like a cloud over the sun. I’ve never liked her mother, never trusted her. She’s one of the reasons I want to take Kat away from Sleepy Hollow, even though I don’t understand why.
“I told my father you would protect me though,” she adds, sounding small.
I swallow. “Did he agree?”
She nods.
“I’ll protect you, Daffy,” I tell her. “I’ll keep you safe.”
Even though I’ve never felt safe a day in my life.
She lifts her head to look at me, smiling so broadly. “Really?”
“Really.”
I can’t help myself.
I lean down and I press my lips to hers.
I kiss her.
It’s soft and strange and she goes completely still and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to do anything else, but nothing else in this world has ever felt so nice.
But it’s nice and it’s scary at the same time.
My body is doing strange things. I feel dizzy. Like I’m going to be sick but in a good way.
The sudden trundle of a carriage over the bridge breaks us apart and I’m breathing hard, eyes wide, my lips tingling where hers were pressed against mine.
But Kat doesn’t look surprised at all. She just smiles at me and looks away, picking up another stone from beside her and throwing it into the creek, like nothing happened.
How can that be? My whole world feels like it’s been turned upside down.
I get to my feet, staggering down to the creek, and quickly crouch down to splash the cold, clear water on my face to try and feel normal again. My first kiss. I kissed Kat and it feels like nothing will ever be the same again. I won’t be the same again.
I glance at her over my shoulder and she’s sitting there with her skirt neatly around her, a pebble in her hand, staring at me curiously.
“I should go home,” I tell her, my heart beating hard. “My parents said I had to come home straight after school.”
“Why are you lying?” she asks, getting to her feet and shuffling toward me. “Your parents have never said that before.”
“I just have to go, okay?” I tell her, grabbing my books by the book belt and walking out from under the bridge. Down the road toward Sleepy Hollow, dust rises from behind the carriage that passed moments earlier.
I can’t be here with her right now. I have to go think. I need to be alone.
“Okay,” she says in a soft voice as I walk up the bank to the road. “Did I do something wrong?”
I stop, trying to take a deep breath.
“No, Daffodil,” I say to her, glancing at her over my shoulder. “I just have to go home. I’ll see you tomorrow before school.”
“Okay,” she says brightly, her voice as sweet as sugar, as pretty as a flower.
I feel bad leaving her there but she doesn’t live too far from the bridge and I know when I’m not with her, she’s often wandering about the fields by herself; at least that’s what her father jokes about.
Katrina constantly communicating with Mother Nature, calling to the birds.
I’ve seen some pretty special things happen around my best friend.
Nothing as special as that kiss though. I run my hand down my face, trying to get some sense back into me. It was like when I kissed her I saw my future with her. And it wasn’t here in Sleepy Hollow, it was somewhere far away and we were happy.
That means she and I are really meant to be with each other.
I better start learning how to act like a man so I can provide for her one day, be a good husband and run a good farm. I have to learn how to be brave and tough, how to protect her from harm.
I think about that the entire walk home, every single thought revolving around Kat, about how I’m going to make sure she’s happy for the rest of her life, how she’ll need only me, until I’m right outside my front door, a wayward chicken running past that I’ll have to deal with later.
I step into the house and am met with silence. My mother and father are both sitting by the fire, my father reading a book and puffing on an awful-smelling pipe, my mother knitting something as always. Neither of them says a word, neither of them looks toward me.
“I’m home,” I say loudly, putting my books on the table.
They still don’t stir. It’s like I’m a ghost in my own house.
“I said I’m home!” I yell, the anger snapping through me like a mangy dog. I bang my fists, making my books jump.
“Heavens, Abraham,” my father says around his pipe. “We heard you the first time.”
“Try and use your manners, dear,” my mother says to me, looking at me only briefly before going back to her needles.
I stand there and I suddenly think, These aren’t my parents.
These aren’t my parents!
They are just people pretending to be my parents.
Playing a role, just like the performance I did at school last week when I was in the background of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s all acting, all make-believe, made by somebody else.
But I have to shake that thought out of my head. It’s pure nonsense. Of course they are my parents.
They just don’t care about me, that’s all.
And it doesn’t matter in the long run.
I don’t need my parents to love me.
I’m going to marry Katrina Van Tassel.