Chapter 24
Kat
I feel awful.
I’ve never dealt with my monthly bleeding alone before.
Normally I have Famke, who would sew together the rags and cloth pads that she would then button onto the soft belt I wear under my drawers.
And while she had the foresight to pack the belt and pads with the rest of my clothes, I feel embarrassed that I don’t have that many pads, which means I have to go use the communal sink on my floor to wash them.
I know all the girls in my dorm have to deal with a similar situation, but even so, it seems like something that should stay very private.
In addition to that, I get cramps during menstruation, which in the past I’ve been able to mitigate with raspberry leaf and willow bark tea, but I’m not sure where to find that here.
I suppose I could go out to the herb garden and forage for some, but I never saw any raspberries there, and it’s been raining steadily all afternoon, ever since I left Brom and Crane out on the grass as they were about to hunt down the history teacher.
I sigh, trying to ignore the discomfort and my general sense of malaise, and I sit down at my desk, unwrapping the banketstaaf that Famke had made me.
They’re my favorite Dutch pastry and I’d been trying to save them for when I really needed it, but a healthy dose of sugar might do me a world of good right now.
I try and savor the first one, but my stomach growls hungrily, and I end up devouring it, the almond paste from inside sticking to my fingers, leaving flakes of pastry on my desk. I decide to slow down and take my time with the second one, that way I’ll still have two to give to Brom and Crane.
But when I pick up the second one, it comes apart in my hands like it’s been halved in two, and I realize that there’s something inside it.
I reach in and pull out a sticky folded-up note wrapped around something hard and silver: a chain necklace.
Hanging from it is a small Byzantine cross accented with a black stone, maybe onyx or obsidian, with a crescent moon overhead.
I rub the pastry off until the silver shines, then I pick up the note with shaking hands.
Dearest Katrina,
This has kept me safe all these years.
It’s time for it to keep you safe.
Your father would want you to have it.
Famke.
Famke buried the note and necklace in the pastry for me to find without my mother knowing. Now that I know, I must go back to the house, and soon. I need to speak to her. She knows far too much and I far too little, even at this point.
In any event, I have to tell Crane and Brom.
I grab the note and necklace, gather up the rest of the pastries, slip on my boots and coat, and hurry out into the rain.
Darkness will be falling soon, and I know Crane won’t want me anywhere near Brom at this hour, but I’m willing to take the chance.
At the very least, Crane could put a circle of salt around his room as an extra precaution.
Though I’m starting to doubt that does anything.
Constable Kirkbride was beheaded last night by the headless horseman, and I know Brom had something to do with it.
He may have protested that it was out of his control, and maybe that’s true, but I saw the way Brom was staring at the constable after our meeting.
He was looking through that window as if he was plotting to kill him.
But while that should scare me, the thought of Brom being responsible for the murder, it doesn’t. I don’t know if that means my morals have sunk to new lows, or that the blood ritual cemented us together in ways that defy convention, but I feel myself having empathy for him instead.
By the time I get to the faculty dorm, my hair and coat are soaked, and I’m chilled to the bone.
I go through the front doors, the building only a little warmer than outside, and head up the stairs, but once I’m at the top, about to silently creep to Crane’s side, I stop.
Another cramp flutters inside me, and I remember Ms. Peek.
Surely she might have some sort of tea for this kind of thing.
So I head down toward the women’s wing and knock on her door, hoping she’s not teaching a later class.
She opens it right away.
“Kat,” she says quietly. “My goodness, you’re a drowned rat. Come in.”
I step inside as she closes the door behind me. It’s warm and cozy in here, her incense filling the room in a cloud of sweet-smelling smoke.
“Let me take your coat,” she says, looking at the cloth in my hands. “And what is this?”
“Banketstaaf,” I tell her. “I was bringing them for a friend of mine. You’re welcome to have one.” I’m sure neither of the boys will mind.
“That’s kind of you, but I haven’t had an appetite lately,” she says, placing the pastries on the coffee table and hanging my coat on the hook behind the door. “Have a seat. Make yourself comfortable.”
I sit down on the desk chair, but I don’t get too comfortable, knowing I won’t be staying long.
“How are you doing?” she says, sitting on the bed across from me. “You must be having a rough go. I was there when Lotte fell from the roof, I saw you there too. Horrible thing to witness.”
“Fell?” I repeat. “I’m certain she jumped.”
She gives me a quick smile. “Yes, well, as you know that’s not the official statement that the sisters have put out.”
I frown. “It’s not?”
“I take it you weren’t at the assembly in the cathedral?”
“No.”
“I see,” she says slowly. “Well, the sisters have declared her death an accident. She didn’t kill herself, she didn’t mean to fall. She went up to the roof to do some sort of elemental spell and she slipped.”
I shake my head, nearly laughing at how incredulous this sounds. “But you know that’s not true. You saw her. I saw her too. That was no accident.”
Ms. Peek rubs her lips together and looks out the window at the rain spattering on the pane.
“I don’t know what I saw except a girl that fell to her death. Tragic.”
I frown at her. “I may be a Van Tassel, but I am not on my aunts’ side. I’m not telling them anything. You can tell me what you really think,” I say to her, though I’m lowering my voice. “They aren’t watching you.”
Ms. Peek swallows audibly and looks over my shoulder with a fearful expression.
I twist around and look to see a painting on the wall. One of a raven perched in a tree, a full moon behind it. Its eyes are black and shiny and lifelike.
Fear trickles down my spine.
It’s almost as if the raven is real and staring right at me.
“What?” I ask, looking back at her.
She clears her throat. “I’m sure it was an accident,” she says in a clipped voice. “Poor girl, she should have never been up there.”
And now I’m noticing something different about her.
The Ms. Peek of last week had smooth skin, bright eyes, shiny hair.
This version of her has dry, sallow-looking skin, hollows under her cheekbones that weren’t there before, and black circles under her eyes. Her hair is dull and peppered with gray.
“Are you all right?” I ask her, leaning in closer.
She gives me a faint smile and nods. “Mmm-hmm. I’m fine,” she says, rubbing at her thumb. “So, what can I do for you? I feel you came here wanting something.”
What have they done to you? I want to ask.
Something is terribly wrong here.
“My apologies,” she adds, dropping her head slightly and pressing her thumb into her forehead. “I’ve not been feeling well lately. I think I got a terrible illness over the weekend, and it still hasn’t left me. I can barely remember the last few days.”
And you barely remember what happened to Lotte.
“That’s all right,” I tell her, wondering if perhaps she’s telling the truth. She does look sick. “I came here because I, well, I’m having my monthly bleeds and the cramps that come along with it. Do you perchance have any sort of herbal tea or medicine for it? I suppose I could go to the nurse…”
She raises her head and blinks at me. “I have just the thing.”
She gets up and goes into her bathroom, coming out holding a small reddish-brown bottle with a faded label on it. “Here. This is laudanum. It’s an opium tincture. Better than any herbal or witch’s medicine, believe me. I’ve been taking a lot of it lately. Really does make the pain go away.”
At those last words she gets a dreamy look in her eyes.
“Thank you,” I tell her, getting to my feet and taking the bottle from her. “How much do I take?”
“Start with a few drops into water and see where it takes you. Avoid alcohol if you can, it will make you extra sleepy. Unless that’s what you want.
” She goes to the door and grabs my coat.
“Some nights the nightmares are so terrifying and feel so real, I take more than I should, just to get a good night’s sleep. ”
“What do you have nightmares about?” I ask as I drape my coat over my arm, slipping the laudanum in my pocket next to the note and the necklace, then gather the banketstaaf.
Her face falls in such a way that I immediately regret asking the question.
“It just started a few days ago, but it’s almost always the same,” she says, her voice a whisper.
“I’m on the altar in the cathedral. Completely nude.
Four cloaked figures stand around me, chanting.
One of them reaches out with a bone, it looks like a human bone, a femur, except the end is carved into a knifelike point.
They take the bone and slice open my stomach and remove something.
The first time I think it was my appendix.
Then my gallbladder. A kidney. Each time they take something different. ”
It feels like a cold hand is wrapping around my heart. “Then what happens?”
She shrugs. “I wake up.” She runs her hand over her stomach. “I’m always so certain I’ll see a suture or some sign that something was done to me, but there’s nothing ever there. It’s just a dream.”
I think about that for a moment. “You said that Sister Leona had asked you to bring back a lot of opium for them,” I say. “Do you know what they do with it?”