Chapter 22
Crane
“Ms. Van Tassel, may I have a word?”
Kat meets my gaze as she gathers her books, her eyes glimmering with amusement.
“Of course,” she says, as the other students exit the classroom.
I can hear their scoffs, see them rolling their eyes.
There is no hiding it with us but, even so, I can’t be reprimanded by the sisters for wanting to talk to a student after class.
It’s one of my rights as a professor. They may have told me to stop fucking Kat, but they can’t expect me to let her flounder in her studies, can they?
Kat comes over to me and stands by the desk, staring down at me expectantly as she clutches her books to her chest. I feel the need to pinch myself, to remind me this stunning, special young witch is mine.
“How are you?” I ask in a low voice after I’m sure the last student has gone out the door. “I’ve been thinking about you all morning. It’s been torture not to talk to you.”
“I’m fine,” she says quietly, giving her shoulder a shrug. “A little tired, a little out of sorts. I slept hard and didn’t want to wake up this morning.”
“And your wounds?” I ask, my heart pinching slightly as I remember Brom and me rubbing the poultice down her front and back before we left the circle. I applied a bit of my healing magic but not enough, since I was already in a state of exhaustion.
“They hurt a little,” she says, and that pinch increases.
“If you close the door and lock it I can help heal you more,” I tell her, handing her the key to the classroom. “I can do a lot of things to make you feel better.”
She plucks the key from my hand. “I have to be honest with you, Crane, I’m a little worn out from last night.” Then she grimaces. “And I just, uh…”
“Uh what?” I coax.
She wiggles her lips. “I am experiencing that woman’s time of the month.”
“You’re menstruating?” I ask bluntly.
She nods shyly, averting her eyes. “Yes.”
“But that’s good news, Kat. It means, well…” It means she’s not pregnant with my child, but she’s certainly not pregnant with Brom’s. “It means you’re in the clear, for now.”
“Which is a relief. It’s just a hindrance when it comes to…”
I grin at her. “If you think I’ll find a little blood a hindrance, clearly you weren’t paying attention last night.” I nod at the key. “Now, be a good girl and go lock that door.”
Kat gives me a quiet smile and turns, walking toward the door in time for loud footsteps to ring out from the hall. She freezes just as Brom appears in the doorway, then she sighs with relief.
“I need to talk to you,” Brom says, looking at me, then at Kat. He walks over to her first, puts his arm around her and kisses the top of her head, and then comes over to my desk. “I learned something in class today.”
“You mean to tell me you’ve been learning in everyone else’s class except mine?” I ask, leaning back in my chair and folding my hands across my chest.
He fixes me with his glare. God, I love my moody boy.
“What is it?” Kat asks him.
He breaks his stare to look at her. “In history, my teacher was talking about the Salem witch trials. She had said that there were two covens that had escaped and might have settled in Sleepy Hollow, the…Devotus? And the…I can’t remember the other one.
Starts with an E. She said they were enemies, but they had made a bargain with a demon to get them out, if they gave the demon one of their heirs.
Meaning, the child of the two covens. That demon would bring about the end of the world while the covens would be granted immortality. ”
I stare at him grimly, a sinking feeling in my chest. It’s not that what he’s saying doesn’t make sense. It’s that it makes perfect sense. And I wasn’t able to figure it out. A damn history teacher at the school did instead.
“Who is your teacher?” I ask.
How does she know more than I do?
“I don’t know her name, I never pay attention,” Brom says.
“I need to speak to her,” I tell him, getting to my feet. “I need to find out where she’s heard this, where she’s read this.”
“Do you think it’s true?” Kat asks, wringing her hands together.
“It could be,” I tell her.
“She kept saying it was a rumor,” Brom says. “She didn’t seem to believe it herself. Said it was…”
“Was what?” Kat asks.
“Another legend,” he says, his voice growing quiet.
“Well, the only way to figure out the truth is to do my own research, after I talk to the teacher. Brom, can you take me to your classroom? Perhaps she’s still there.”
“Sure.” He nods.
“I’m coming too,” Kat says.
“Of course you are,” I tell her, putting my hand at her lower back. “This involves you more than anyone.”
We leave the classroom and head out the doors of the building and into the damp afternoon, when Daniels passes me heading inside.
“Crane,” Daniels says, looking bothered, his mustache bristling. “Have you heard the news?”
“What news?” I ask.
“Another body has been found in Sleepy Hollow. Head sliced clean off, hasn’t been found yet. It’s said to be Constable Kirkbride.”
Both Kat and I look immediately at Brom.
He doesn’t say anything, just looks down, shadows casting over his eyes and making them unreadable. My blood goes cold.
“That’s terrible,” I manage to say to Daniels. “Hey, listen, while I have you here, what’s the name of the history teacher?”
“Joy,” he says. “Ms. Joy Wiltern. And don’t bother making any advances toward her, she’s not interested,” he says with a huff, walking into the building.
The door closes behind him, and I spin around to face Brom.
“What did you do?” I ask him.
He holds up his hands. “I didn’t do anything. It was the horseman.”
“When? Last night when you weren’t in chains? Is that when you snuck out and did it?”
His gaze hardens, blackens, turns into the gaze of a would-be killer. “I didn’t leave your side. It was the horseman. You know I can’t control him.”
“That’s funny, because I could have sworn you said something last night about being able to control him one day.”
“So I was wrong,” he snaps.
“Boys,” Kat says, putting her hands on both our chests. “It’s quite obvious the horseman did it, whether you wanted him to or not, Brom.” She eyes me. “We can’t keep blaming him every time someone loses a head.”
“Oh really?”
“Crane, be kind,” she admonishes me. “You know…”
She trails off and a flush of embarrassment comes across her cheeks as she shifts slightly.
“What?” I ask.
“I, uh, have to go. I’ll find you later,” she says and starts walking off quickly toward her dorm.
“What’s wrong with her?” Brom asks.
“Lady problems,” I surmise, watching her go. Then I reach out and grab Brom by the arm and yank him back toward the building. I practically drag him down the hall until we’re back in the classroom and I have the door shut and him pressed up against it, my forearm at his throat.
“You want to tell me again, now that Kat’s not around, that you had nothing to do with the constable’s death?”
He just stares at me, his mouth a hard line.
Finally, I let him go and he sucks in a greedy gulp of air.
“Be honest with me, Brom, for once,” I say, running my hands through my hair and tugging. “Please.”
“I see why you like it when I say please,” he eventually says. He looks away, rubbing his lips together. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what you want to hear.”
“The truth,” I plead. “All I care about is the truth.”
“Even when it hurts?”
“Especially when it hurts,” I tell him. “Because that means it’s real.”
“Fine,” he says in a clipped voice. He walks over to me and places his hands on my shoulders, and for a moment, a brief moment, I’m afraid he means to hurt me.
But instead, he gives my shoulders a tight squeeze and looks me dead in the eyes.
“I killed the constable,” he says flatly. “I told the horseman to do it, and I saw it happen through my own eyes.”
I feel faint, but his hands keep me in place. “Why?”
“Because,” he says. “I didn’t like what the constable said to me. I didn’t like how he was treating you and Kat. I didn’t like him, period. And the horseman demanded a sacrifice, and that’s who I chose, Crane. That’s how this works. That’s how I’m able to keep him from hurting the ones I love.”
“You can control him,” I whisper, though my heart is stumbling over the fact that he used the word love.
He wiggles his jaw, hedging that. “I’m trying to. This is what I have so far.”
“Oh, Brom,” I say, my heart sinking. “You poor boy.”
“Don’t give me your pity,” he snaps. “I don’t deserve it, and I don’t want it.
This is what has to be done. You want to exorcise him from me, but until that happens, I have to learn to live with him inside me.
Sacrifices must be made, and I will do everything I can to never let it be either of you. ”
I nod, putting my hand behind his head, the other on his neck. “I understand. All right? I understand. You did what you had to do.”
“I did,” he says. “And I don’t regret it.
If someone had to die, I’m glad it was the constable.
I have a black heart, Crane. I’m the devil’s pawn, a chess piece in his game.
Nothing good has ever come from me, and nothing good ever will.
” He gives his head a shake. “And now you’re looking at me as if you’re any different. ”
I blink at him, my hands dropping away. “What are you talking about?”
“You think you get to take the moral high ground because you’re so composed, so in control, because your emotions could never get away from you like they do with me.”
“I—”
“You know my truth, Crane. But I know yours too.”
My molars press together, jaw flexing. “What truth?” I grind out.
He takes a step toward me, heat rolling off him, his face inches from mine, black eyes reflecting my anguished face.
“You’re so used to your own ghosts, you don’t even see them anymore,” he says.
“Vivienne Henry isn’t the only thing that haunts you.
Your late wife does too. And in the middle of the night, she has a lot of interesting things to say about what you did. ”
I suck in my breath, feeling the ground crumble beneath me.
“Namely,” he goes on, “that you murdered her.”