Tears were spilling down Nancy’s face. “There was nothing else I could do. And then you were born and I looked after you and loved you. I mean that, Katrina. But there was never an hour of the day when I didn’t remember you’re not my own, that my daughter is out there someplace only God knows where.”
I leaned over to embrace Nancy, my own tear-stained face resting against hers. We stayed like that for some time, my heart aching that there was nothing I could do, and that I, as heiress to a fortune whose daughter slept peacefully upstairs, could never truly understand. I could only listen, and let Nancy know that I had heard her.
“Well, now,” Nancy said, leaning back and wiping her eyes. “You wanted to know the story, and there it is. Not a happy one. But I do feel a bit better for the telling.”
“I’m glad I could do that much,” I said. “That I could listen.”
She smiled. “And now I think maybe you ought to tell me a story,” she said. “About your own baby.”
There were so many more questions I wanted to ask her, but it was clear she had told me everything she wanted to say. I would not press and ask for more. “Yes,” I said. I bit my lip. “I have been wanting to tell you the truth for some time. No doubt you already suspect, but…” I quickly glanced at the doorway to make sure Brom was not about to appear, before dropping my voice to a whisper. “Anneke is not Brom’s child. She is Ichabod Crane’s.”
Nancy nodded. “I figured as much.”
“But Ichabod disappeared—whether of his own will or not, I do not know—and I married Brom, so everyone would believe Anneke was his. It is not what I would have preferred, obviously, but it was the best choice for her.”
“I admit, I had put together that much, more or less,” Nancy said. “I had a suspicion you were sneaking out to see the schoolteacher, even at night, but I didn’t tell your parents. You’re a smart girl; I figured you knew what you were doing. And he seemed like the type to make an honest woman of you.”
Tears pricked my eyes again. “He tried. He asked my father for my hand; he knew I was with child. But my father refused, and that very night Ichabod simply … vanished.” I looked up at her. “I do not know if he abandoned me, or if … something befell him. But I mean to find out, however I can.”
“It may be that you are better off not knowing.”
Her words had given life to one of my worst fears. “Whatever the truth is, it must be better than this.”
“You be careful, Katrina,” Nancy said. “I don’t doubt Charlotte Jansen is helping you, and I don’t doubt that she has ways of knowing things most mortals do not. But there are some powers in this world that are not to be toyed with. There were any number of wise women and what all in New York I could have consulted to try to find my Sarah—and Lord knows I thought about it. But that was a line I never crossed. One cannot cross it without paying a terrible price.”
“Come, Nancy, surely that is only old superstition,” I said, trying to push my unease aside.
“Maybe so. I can only hope that Charlotte Jansen knows where that line is better than anyone.” She looked pointedly at me. “I assume she knows the truth about little Anneke?”
“Yes. You are the only one aside from her who knows.”
Nancy rose from her chair. “And never you fear, I’ll keep it that way.” She bent down and kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you for trusting me with your secret.”
“And thank you for trusting me with your story.”
She left the room, and I could only hope she might find it easier to sleep now.
49
Death in the Cards
That night was, blessedly, free of dreams—or if I dreamt, I could not remember—and the following night I left Anneke with Brom, Nancy, and Nox, and headed to Charlotte’s. I marked well the look of warning in Nancy’s eyes as I left.
“Come in,” Charlotte said, quickly ushering me in once I arrived. “My mother has more than one patient to check in on tonight, so we shall be alone for a few hours, at least. Let us make the most of it.”
Charlotte had already prepared the table and lit numerous candles about the room. Before her chair sat the worn deck of tarot cards.
I could not suppress a shudder as I sat down across from her. Last time the cards had foretold nothing but ill fortune. Was it possible that today they would give me some measure of hope?
“I confess, I am a bit curious what you are hoping the cards will show you,” Charlotte said, sitting down. “They are used to divine the future, or to give us insight into present events. I have not known them to reveal secrets from the past, which is what you are searching for.”
“Indeed,” I said, “but perhaps some insight into present events is just what I need. Am I on the right path? Do I have the tools I need to discover the truth? And will I ever find the truth I seek?”
Charlotte shuffled the cards. “You’ll want to settle on just one of those questions for now,” she told me. She set the cards in front of me. “Cut the deck with your left hand, and concentrate on the question you wish to have answered.”
I narrowed all my questions down to just one, repeating it over and over: Will I ever know the truth about what happened to Ichabod? Will I ever know the truth about what happened to Ichabod?
Will I ever know the truth?
I finished cutting the cards and pushed them back to Charlotte. Concentrating, she closed her eyes and turned over the first card in the deck.
I gasped sharply upon seeing the face of the card, and Charlotte, when she opened her eyes, did the same.
“The Devil,” Charlotte said. “Again.” She glanced up at me, relieved, unlike the first time this card had revealed itself to us. “Remember, this first card signifies your past. So this means the evil is behind you.”
I let out my breath. Much as I had hoped never to see that card again, if I must see it, I was glad it represented the past.
She turned over the next card, one I had not seen before: a woman seated between two pillars, dressed in flowing blue and white robes, and wearing a tall headdress.
“The High Priestess,” Charlotte said. She blew out her breath in a long, slow whistle. “Interesting. Very interesting.”
“What does it mean?” I demanded.
“As you know, the second card represents your present. And so to see The High Priestess…” She shook her head. “Very fitting indeed. But yes, the meaning. She represents hidden knowledge, and psychic abilities of some kind.” Charlotte looked at me significantly. “Such things are the key to answering your question.”
I sat back in my chair, surprised. But perhaps I should not have been. After all, was that not what Charlotte had been telling me all along?
“The High Priestess can also signify someone—usually a woman—who is guiding you in some way,” Charlotte added.
My lips curled into a half smile. “Most fitting. For is that not what you are doing, have been doing all along?”
“I suppose I must flatter myself that, yes, I have been,” she said, smiling as well. “Onward?”
When I nodded, she flipped over the next card, and I gasped again.
Facing me, right-end up, was a rider on a white horse, carrying a black banner. Below the image the word identifying the card was painted in stark black capital letters: DEATH.
“It does not mean literal death,” Charlotte said quickly. “It almost never does. But … it is reversed.” She tapped a finger against her lips. “Interesting,” she said again.
“Please, Charlotte, just tell me what it means.”
“It is not necessarily an ill omen. The Death card often means an ending of some kind, and sometimes that is a good thing. Yet because it is reversed…” Charlotte looked up at me and took a deep breath before continuing. “I do not mean to distress you, Katrina. Truly I don’t. But I would interpret this to mean that, yes, you will reach the end of your quest, but it may not bring you any peace.”
I rose quickly, jostling the table. “And can you trul
y tell me I will not find death at the end of my quest?” I asked, my eyes still fixed on the card.
“The cards are not absolute, Katrina. You know this. And the Death card does not foretell death. Just endings,” she said firmly.
Still I had not looked away from the card. “It is a horseman,” I pointed out.
Startled, Charlotte glanced down at it.
“A figure on horseback,” I added. “A mounted rider.”
“So it is,” she said, her voice tight.
“And can you also tell me I will not find the Headless Horseman at the end of this road?” I asked.
Charlotte swept the three cards back into the deck and out of sight. She did not answer me.
50
The Secrets of the Flame
The next day, Brom returned to New York, and my whole body breathed a sigh of relief. I had, however, been genuinely touched to see the emotion on his face as he bade farewell to Anneke and promised to return soon.
I spent most of the day with my baby, pushing aside all thoughts of tarot cards and candle flames and death on horseback. I spread a blanket out in the garden for her, releasing her from her swaddlings. I fed her right there in the garden, and when her eyelids began to droop I laid curled up beside her on the blanket.
If nothing else, she deserves to know, someday, what happened to her real father. And what sort of man he truly was, I thought, before drifting off to sleep myself.
* * *
Later that day, I sat again at my desk with my quill and notebook, Anneke dozing beside me in her cradle. I wrote a brief description of my most recent nightmares and visions, and of Charlotte’s cards, then I flipped back to the middle of the book and began setting down a new story, that of Van Dam, the ghostly rower on the Hudson. The story went that he had been very fond of drunken revelry, and had spent most of his Saturday nights in pursuit of such before the Sabbath. One night, he promised he would return home before the stroke of midnight, when the Sabbath began. Yet as the Sabbath bells tolled, he was still in his boat on the Hudson, rowing furiously to make it home in time to keep his promise. And so, in the early hours of Sunday mornings, many have reported seeing him rowing still, doomed to row forever for not keeping the Sabbath.
As I wrote, I heard footsteps come into the room and looked up, expecting to see Nancy. Instead, Charlotte stood there. “Why, Charlotte!” I said, rising from my chair. “Do come in and sit down.”
“Nancy let me in,” she said, sitting down on the daybed. “But I am sorry, I seem to have interrupted you,” she said, nodding toward my notebook and quill.
“Oh, do not worry about that,” I said. “My writing project, you see. I can pick it up again later.”
Charlotte raised her eyebrows. “Writing project? What writing project is this?”
“Can it be that I have not told you?” Yet it seemed that I had not. The birth of Anneke, and the reordering of my life, had made me quite forget to bring it up to Charlotte.
Anneke began to stir, and I rose to pick her up. “No, please let me,” she said. “I’d love to hold her.” She picked Anneke up and cradled her securely in her arms. Anneke stopped fussing immediately and reached up to grasp the strands of red hair tumbling over Charlotte’s shoulders, studying them with fascination.
“So, your writing,” Charlotte prompted.
I told her the whole story, how Ichabod had once suggested it, and how the project had given me more purpose and pleasure than I had ever anticipated, and also how I had taken to chronicling my attempts to find Ichabod.
“What a marvelous idea, all of it,” Charlotte said when I’d finished. “You must read me one of your tales!”
I laughed. “You know them all as well as I do.”
“But you’ve always had such a gift for telling them, truly. I should like to hear how you’ve committed them to paper.”
“Soon, then, if you wish,” I asked. “But what brings you by? And I hope that I can persuade you to stay for dinner. It should be ready any moment now.”
“I’m happy to accept, of course. I simply wanted to see how you were faring this morning,” she said.
I sighed. “Well enough. I spent the day with Anneke and put all the rest out of my mind. But I cannot seem to forget it for long.”
“I may be able to help you,” she ventured.
“Oh?”
“There are certain techniques one can use to bring a vision on,” she said. “If you are certain this is what you want to do. You have been resistant to such things in the past.”
“Yes. Teach me whatever you can, Charlotte. I am done with half measures. Let us find the truth and have done with it, whatever it might bring.”
Charlotte nodded. “Very well, then. After dinner?”
I nodded. “I will tell Nancy to set another place.”
* * *
After dinner, with Anneke in bed for the night and Nox keeping watch, I led Charlotte back into the parlor. I shut the door and drew the curtains closed. A few candles were lit for our purposes, and Charlotte brought one branch to the floor, where we sat across from one another.
“Now,” Charlotte said. “Fire is a difficult medium in which to see anything. On the rare occasion that I seek out such visions, I use a bowl of water or a mirror. But fire wishes to speak to you, and I think we should listen to it.”
I nodded.
“Close your eyes and take several deep breaths; however many you feel are necessary to relax yourself. Keep your eyes closed,” she said, her voice low and melodic. I did as she said.
“When you are ready,” Charlotte murmured, “when your mind is clear and your body relaxed, open your eyes and look into the center of the flame. Ask it—silently—to show its secrets to you.”
I took a few more deep breaths, then slowly flicker my eyes open, fixing my gaze on the flame. Show me, I thought. Show me your secrets, show me the truth. Somehow I felt more powerful than before, as if my intention had given me strength. Show me your secrets, your knowledge. Reveal to me the truth.
The flame danced lightly on the wick, flickering as our breath stirred the air in the still room. For a second it seemed like the dark center of the flame was expanding, and I leaned forward expectantly, ready to see what it had to show me, but to my disappointment nothing was revealed. The flame did not engulf me; I did not tumble into some dark world of revelations.
After a few minutes, Charlotte cleared her throat. “Let us try again,” she said. “Repeat the same process—deep, slow breaths, eyes closed, clear your mind—and begin again.”
I started over, entreating the flame to show me something, anything. And again, nothing.
At least show me Ichabod’s face, I begged it finally. I do not even need to see what became of him, just, please, please, let me see him one more time.
But still the flame proved obstinate.
Tears began to trickle down my cheeks, and I squeezed my eyes shut and looked away.
“Katrina…?” Charlotte said. “Please do not fret if you cannot see anything. This kind of art is very capricious and it takes time and practice. We will try again, don’t worry—”
I shook my head. “It isn’t that,” I said through my tears. “Not really. Not only that. I just…” I buried my face in my hands and let out a sob. “I miss him so much.”
Charlotte did not say anything; she simply slid closer to where I sat on the floor and wrapped her arms around my shaking shoulders.
51
The Woman in White
That night I dreamt that I was the Woman in White of Raven Rock, haunting the lonely forests and waiting for my love to return. In the dream, I called out Ichabod’s name; called out “My love! Have you come for me?” just as the Woman in White had been heard to do, my despair growing with each unanswered call. I awoke in the early dawn light, my cheeks wet with fresh tears, and only the thought that Anneke would need feeding and changing propelled me from the comfort of my bed.
I must have looked nearly as frightful
as the Woman in White, too, for as I came downstairs with Anneke to break my fast, Nancy took one look at me and asked, “You all right, Katrina?”
I smiled weakly. “As well as can be expected, Nancy. I did not sleep well last night.”
She took my chin in her hand, inspecting my face. “Hmmm. You look like you’ve been weeping.”
I met her gaze and didn’t bother to deny it. “Sometimes I am sad.”
“I can understand that,” she said at last, and turned away to fix us both some coffee.
After we ate, I dragged myself to my desk and recorded the techniques Charlotte had outlined the night before, and our unsuccessful results. I was just getting ready to take Anneke out into the garden when Charlotte arrived, announced by excited barking from Nox.
“I just wanted to see how you were feeling,” Charlotte said, stepping inside.
I shrugged. “As well as can be expected,” I said yet again.
“Well, that’s good enough, I suppose.”
“I want to try again, Charlotte,” I told her, cradling Anneke against my chest. “As soon as possible. I don’t want to stop, not until we have the truth. By whatever means necessary.”
Charlotte’s eyes widened at my forcefulness, but she nodded. “Very well. I understand. Come to my house tonight and we will try again.”
“Good. I will be there. And pray we have some success this time.”
* * *
“Why do you not ask the fire, or your mirror or what have you?” I demanded of Charlotte that night, when I saw nothing new—only those same images I had already seen. “Why can you not see the truth for me?”
“Visions are easier to come by when they relate to the seer directly,” she said. “And besides, do you not want to see it yourself? To find your answers yourself?”
“Yes,” I admitted, a touch of petulance in my tone.
“I thought as much. So we try again.”
* * *
Summer faded into autumn as Charlotte and I continued our quest. Our time together was somewhat limited; we preferred to have a house mostly to ourselves so as not to alert her mother or Nancy to our doings, and when Brom was home there was no question of us practicing such arts. God only knew what his reaction would be if he learned I was dabbling in witchcraft.
The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel Page 32