Chapter 26 #2
So we all gather around the fire in the sitting room that I grew up in, which now feels like foreign territory.
I take it upon myself to help Famke and serve tea and cookies.
My mother tries to get up and tell me that she’ll handle that, but I refuse her, and Brom, knowing what I need to do, ropes her into another conversation.
“Katrina,” Famke says in a low voice as I return to the kitchen after I’ve served them tea. “You know you shouldn’t be here.”
“You knew I would come back,” I tell her, setting down the empty tray and leaning against the counter. “You couldn’t expect me to find the necklace and the note and never see you again.”
“Yes,” she says sharply, wiping her forehead with her flour-covered arm. “I did expect that. That’s why I gave you the necklace.” She looks over at the door, worry creasing her brow.
“Brom and Mary are in there occupying her,” I assure her. “He knows what to do.”
“And you trust him?” Famke says.
I frown. “Brom? Of course I do.” I grab her arm, firm but gentle. “Famke. You said you want to protect me. You can protect me by telling me everything you know. Please. I feel…I feel I’m running out of time up there, and I don’t have any answers for any of the questions I have.”
She breathes in sharply through her nose, her eyes darting to the door again.
“Please, tell me why you gave me the necklace.”
She looks up to the ceiling for a moment, as if having a word with God, then sighs.
“The necklace belongs to my family,” she says with a rueful smile.
“My grandparents in Holland were religious and also pagan. An odd pairing, yes, but it worked. That necklace was always a melding of both sides, meant to protect oneself from those who wish them harm. The onyx stone is for extra protection.”
I pat the necklace in my pocket.
Her gaze follows. “Your father knew that one day he would be gone and only you would remain. He trusted me to look after you. When Brom left Sleepy Hollow…” She looks away, shaking her head.
“You don’t know how happy I was. I knew your father would have been joyous to know you had been freed from him. ”
I wince. “Did he really hate Brom that much?”
“He hated what he represented,” she whispers harshly, her eyes blazing. “The lack of your free will. As long as Brom was in the picture, it meant that your future was determined for you. And he knew that your mother’s plan for your future never had your best interests in mind.”
I nod, rubbing my lips together, trying to gather all my questions in the short time I have.
“Brom’s parents aren’t his real parents, are they?”
“No.”
“Who are?”
She shrugs and goes back to rolling the dough. “I don’t know.”
“What are you trying to protect me against?” I ask her pointedly. “What was my father so scared of? What are you so scared of?”
She gives me a dark, cagey look. “Your mother,” she whispers. “That she’ll do to you what she did to your father.”
I reach out and grab her arm, harder than I meant to. “What did she do to my father? Last time you just told me she took from him. What does she take? How does she take it?”
“She takes you,” she hisses at me. “She takes what you’re made of and uses it for herself until there’s nothing left of you. She siphons, Katrina. She siphons your soul.”
I try to swallow but can’t. I can barely breathe.
“I met your father when he was twenty years old,” she goes on, “hiring me even before he got married. Then your mother came along. She looked the same age that she does now. Oh, she was frail, she was always sick, she was too skinny, except for those few days around the full moon when she seemed to glow with health before she plummeted again. Your mother hasn’t aged a single day since the day you were born. ”
I stare at her blankly, my mind tripping over itself.
“Is she a…a vampire?” I manage to ask, my voice barely audible, my head swimming.
Famke cracks a wry smile. “A vampire? No. She’s a witch, Katrina. She’s a witch from a very powerful coven, and you were always the key to her existence.”
Those words float over me like ashes.
“So then why don’t you quit?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady. “Why put yourself at risk by staying here? Doesn’t she take from you?”
“I’m not a witch,” she says, rolling the dough again.
“I don’t have any magic or power to offer her.
But you, Katrina, you do. There’s a reason why your father made you promise to never show your magic around your mother, because he knew it would only tempt her to take it all for herself.
And I made a promise to your father. As long as you are in Sleepy Hollow or at the school, I would be here, watching over you.
I don’t trust you up there with those witches.
Your mother is your mother, but her sisters? They are so much worse.”
I fall silent. It all feels so impossible to manage.
“Is Mary still someone you can trust?” Famke asks me.
“Yes,” I say absently, trying to come to terms with it all. “Of course.”
“Good. You will need friends, Katrina.”
“And you can trust her too,” I tell her. “If something…happens to me. Up there, with them. If something goes wrong. If you don’t hear from me, please know you can trust her. She will help you when my mother won’t.”
“Ja.” Famke nods, looking grim. “Okay.”
I look around the kitchen, trying to think. “How…how old is my mother?”
“I don’t know, child,” she says to me. “But whatever they have planned for you and Brom, the best thing you can do is get on your horses and head to Tarrytown. You could go tonight. Escape now, while you can.”
“I can’t,” I say pitifully. “I can’t leave Crane.”
She lets out a heavy sigh. “Then go and get him, then leave.”
“That’s not the only problem,” I tell her, debating whether I should tell her the whole truth. Then I figure I don’t have much to lose. “Brom’s possessed by the headless horseman.”
Famke drops the rolling pin and it clatters noisily to the floor.
“What?” she asks.
Suddenly my mom bustles into the kitchen. “Katrina,” she says. “Stop pestering Famke, and go entertain your company. It’s very rude to invite a guest over like that and then completely neglect her.”
I hold Famke’s wild gaze for a moment before I turn around.
“Of course, my apologies,” I tell my mother, walking into the sitting room. In the background I can hear my mother asking Famke what we were talking about. I can’t hear her answer.
I give Mary a shaky, apologetic smile and sit down next to Brom on the love seat.
He reaches over, taking hold of my hand, and I’ve never appreciated such a simple gesture so much in my life.
It’s like his hand grounds me, gives me all the strength and courage I thought I lost. He may be possessed, but at the moment he is still mine.
“I’ve got you, Daffodil,” he whispers in my ear, his breath tickling me, and I know in my gut that it’s true. “I will protect you. I will do things, things you won’t like, in order to protect you.”
I pull back and see his eyes burning with determination, and my heart skips a beat.
But the moment vanishes when my mother comes back into the room and dominates the conversation. All through the rest of the tea, then the supper (after which Mary left), then the dessert, all I could think about was what Famke had said.
My mother hasn’t aged a day.
She hasn’t aged a day.
I thought back over the years and she’s always looked the same to me, even as a child, but that’s normal, and memories aren’t to be trusted.
You see things differently when you’re young.
We don’t even have any photographs in the house.
I remember that my father was interested in the new medium, wanting a family portrait done, but my mother was very against it. She had said it was too expensive.
I guess I understand why now.
It would have been proof.
Being watchful of the time, Brom and I eat our dessert quickly, armed with excuses as to why we need to get back early. I’m sure she knows exactly why too.
We say goodbye to my mother, and there’s so much more that I want to say to Famke, but I don’t get another chance alone with her. All I get is a quick glance full of warning.
Brom and I head out the door into the cool afternoon, getting on our horses, but then instead of turning to the road, Brom brings Daredevil to one of the fallow fields behind the house.
The sun is low in the sky, another hour until it’s dark, and fog has started to creep in off the Hudson, infiltrating the last of the cornstalks and dead wheat.
“Where are we going?” I ask him. “We should be heading back to the school now.”
“I know,” he says, glancing at me over his shoulder, heading into the low sun. “I just wanted to take you to the barn. To the past. I want to get things right.”