Chapter 26
Kat
“Are you ready?” Brom asks me, bringing Daredevil over to where I’m mounted atop Snowdrop.
I pat the necklace that I have safely tucked away in the small pocket on my dress and nod. “As I’ll ever be.”
The last few days I’ve been wearing the cross-and-moon pendant around my neck, believing in what Famke said about its protection, but since she went to the trouble to sneak it out to me in a piece of pastry, I figure that it’s best I keep it on me but out of sight.
I don’t want Famke to suffer if my mother sees it.
“Return as soon as your supper is over,” Crane barks at us as he leans against the stable door. “I want you both back here before dark.”
I roll my eyes at that, while Brom twists in the saddle to face Crane. “Yes, Daddy.”
I burst out laughing. The flustered expression on Crane’s face is priceless.
“You deserve a spanking for that, pretty boy,” Crane growls. “You also need to be spanked, Kat.”
“I didn’t even say anything!” I protest.
“And I didn’t say you deserved it,” he says.
I shake my head. Any excuse for you to bring out your ruler.
Then I coax Snowdrop to follow Daredevil down the path and through the center courtyard. For a Saturday, it’s awfully quiet, not a soul about the campus, despite the weather being mild, the gray clouds higher than they usually are, and the air calm.
But things seem to have shifted in the last week, since both Lotte’s and the constable’s deaths.
The classes are more subdued, the students seeming to shrink in on themselves.
Some of them look just as sick as Ms. Peek, all gaunt and pale with darkened eyes and bruises, and I wonder if her illness (if you can call it that) is spreading.
It’s enough that only about half the students are even showing up for class.
I voiced this to Crane and Brom the other day, and of course Crane thinks it’s all connected.
He’s probably right too, though we can’t figure out how or why.
But they’ve been wrapped up in the bigger mystery of who left the dead snake and key on Crane’s desk in the middle of the night.
That key goes somewhere, and we’ve tried it on every door we’ve come across, to no avail.
“I really hope my…,” Brom begins as the gates swing open to let us through. He trails off as we go through the wards, the pressure in my ears ringing until they finally stop. “My parents,” he continues, giving his head a shake, “for lack of a better word, aren’t there for dinner.”
“For lack of a better word?” I question.
He gives me a cold look as we ride side by side down the trail. We’re a little early for supper, so there’s no use rushing.
“You know my parents aren’t who they say they are,” he says matter-of-factly. “They aren’t my parents at all. Sister Sophie told you I was related to her.”
“But that doesn’t mean your parents aren’t your parents,” I point out.
“Nah,” he says, looking ahead. “I know they aren’t. Ever since I was a child, I knew they were only minders of mine. Think about it, Kat. Think of how they’d always act around me, from day one.”
I fall silent, mulling that over as we ride through the autumnal woods, the horses’ hooves rhythmically plodding over the damp ground.
Brom’s parents were always indifferent and distant, yes, but I figured that was how they were.
I never for a moment thought that they weren’t his actual biological parents.
Then again, I had felt like they acted more like cousins toward him at times. Maybe everything that was once far-fetched is now a distinct possibility. Everything I once thought and feared as being impossible might very well be real.
Even the things I’ve been too afraid to think about.
Like what really happened to my father.
“Maybe you’re right,” I say quietly. “But then who are your real parents?”
He shrugs. “Does it matter? They aren’t here. All this time I was afraid I never had a real family, and it turns out that I was right. I never did. I never will.”
“You know I’m your family, Brom,” I tell him, my chest aching at the tired acceptance on his brow. “Crane and I, we’re your family now.”
He glances at me, longing in his gaze, but doesn’t say anything.
“This kind of family is the one that counts,” I tell him. “This is the one that’s chosen. Not by blood, though I reckon we’re bonded by blood now anyway, but by choice and with purpose. The three of us, we have chosen each other, and that counts for everything.”
“I want to believe you,” he says quietly.
“Then believe me,” I tell him. “You can choose to believe me.”
He opens his mouth slightly, wanting to say something, then closes it.
We keep riding, and all I can think about is how Brom’s inability to believe he’s worthy of family and love might be the biggest obstacle of all. How do you get through that? How do you convince someone that they’re worth everything?
It’s not long before we’re crossing over Hollow Creek and nearing Mary’s farmhouse, when I decide to bring the horses down her lane.
“Where are we going?” Brom asks.
“I wanted to talk to Mary,” I tell him. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen her, and she’s the only friend I have left on this side of the gates.”
By luck, Mary is outside in her front yard, riffling through the pumpkin patch.
“Kat?” she asks once she spots us. She wipes her hands on her apron and comes running over, a piece of hay in her messy updo. “What a pleasant surprise!” she exclaims. She looks at Brom and gives him a hesitant smile before facing me again. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s Saturday, I was invited down for supper,” I tell her. “It’s been ages since we talked. Would you like to come?”
“Come to supper?” she asks, surprised.
“What are you doing?” Brom says under his breath.
“Yes,” I tell her, ignoring him. “It wouldn’t be a problem at all. My mother loves to have company. Brom is coming with me right now, we would love to catch up with you.”
She weighs that for a moment, then looks at Brom. “I suppose this would be the time to introduce myself. My name is Mary Wilson,” she says, giving him a slight bow. “And you must be the infamous Brom Bones.”
“Pleasure,” Brom says stiffly. He’s never been very affable when it comes to meeting new people, and he’s not turning a new leaf with Mary.
“And you don’t mind if I come for supper?” Mary asks him. “I wouldn’t want to intrude on you young lovers.”
“Mary,” I chide her with a potent look. “Don’t be silly.”
She laughs. “All right, let me go ask my mother.”
She turns and runs into her house, the front door closing behind her. In some ways it feels like a lifetime ago that I was knocking on that door and pleading for someone to save me from the very person I’m riding next to.
“Why did you invite her?” Brom asks me while she’s inside.
“I need time to talk to Famke alone, and I don’t think you’ll be able to distract my mother long enough,” I tell him. “I wouldn’t put that burden all on you, and I don’t trust her around you either. I also haven’t seen Mary in a while. It would be good for me to hang on to the few friends I have.”
He nods. “Your mother won’t be happy about this.”
“Well, it’s a damn good thing I don’t care.”
Finally, I see a ghost of a smile on his lips.
Mary comes running back out of the house. “I can come for an hour or two,” she says, taking off her apron and leaving it on the fence post. “I’ll skip dessert, if that’s all right. I have to help Mathias with his homework after.”
She walks over to us, and I pat Snowdrop’s back behind me. “Want a leg up?”
She shakes her head. “No, I’m used to walking. I had to lend my brother my horse for the last few weeks. His mare went missing for a bit, she’s back now, though.”
My stomach churns. Oh no.
“Missing?” I ask, trying to sound calm and not at all like I had stolen her brother’s horse in the middle of the night when I was trying to escape the horseman.
“Yes. The sweet little roan? She went missing the night of the bonfire. Which was so odd because after we came back, I checked on the stables and she was there, snug as a bug. Someone must have taken her in the night or freed her. I don’t know how else she could have gotten loose.”
“Don’t you think you would have heard that?” I ask warily.
She laughs. “Oh no. Not our family. We all sleep like the dead. Doesn’t help that my father snores so loud he drowns out all noise for acres.”
I force a laugh at that. That explains why she never heard me banging on the door that night.
“Well, I’m glad the horse returned,” I tell her as we continue down the road.
Mary, meanwhile, has lost interest in the horse and starts peppering Brom with all sorts of questions, telling him she’s heard so much about him. She asks him about his parents, about what I was like as a kid, about New York, to which he gives one-word answers.
Finally, she says, “And since you’re at the school, I take it that you’re a witch too? Don’t worry, Kat told me everything.”
I give him a cautious look, so that he knows I’ve told her some things, not everything.
“Actually, I’m not a witch,” he admits, and for the first time I really hear the resentment in his voice and realize how much that must bother him. “I’m only there because my parents were able to pull a few strings.”
“Oh,” she says, staring up at him curiously. “So you go to class to learn magic and you just…”
“Sit there and look like a fool,” he says. “It’s fine, I’m used to it.”
Oh, Brom. He says that with a faint smile, trying to play it off, but I can tell he means what he says.
As he predicted, when we arrive at my house, my mother is displeased that Mary is there.
She doesn’t show it, of course—that would be rude and my mother has always tried to uphold her gracious, if reserved, reputation with the town—but I can tell she’s upset.
She wanted Brom and me alone at supper for who knows what, and I’ve completely foiled her plan.