In spite of the new warmth and accord between us, I was still cautious at him and Charlotte being in one another’s presence. “Charlotte has just brought me the news that she is betrothed,” I said, my voice even. “To Mr. Giles Carpenter, of White Plains.”
“Giles Carpenter,” Brom repeated slowly. “Now, why do I know that name?” I prayed he would not remember, that he would just leave us alone to our happiness. “Ha!” he laughed mockingly. “Was that not Crane’s second at the duel? His … cousin, or some such thing?”
“Yes,” Charlotte said, her voice neutral. “It was then that we met.”
Brom smirked. “Then it seems you ought to be thanking me, Charlotte. This Giles perhaps not, though. What did you do, cast a spell on the poor man?”
“Brom,” I said in warning, as Charlotte’s face went white with rage.
“I did not,” she said, her voice tight. “Nor do I have the power to do such a thing. He fell in love with me of his own accord, and I with him. I needed nothing more than that to win him. Not that you would understand such a thing.”
“And what does that mean?” Brom demanded.
“Just that I would not expect you to know anything about winning the object of your affections through honest means.”
“Charlotte,” I hissed, wondering what she was referring to, what she might inadvertently reveal to him in her anger.
A strange mixture of fear and disbelief crossed Brom’s face briefly before his bravado returned. “Oh, no?” he said. He looped an arm possessively around my waist and drew me against him. “And yet I am married to the object of my affections, while you, it seems, are not.”
“Not yet.”
“Brom, they are betrothed,” I said, willing him to calm himself.
“And does he know the truth about you, Crane’s cousin?” Brom demanded. “This Giles Carpenter?”
“He knows the vile rumors you spread about me, yes,” Charlotte said calmly. “He knows, and thinks more of me and less of you for it.”
“You besmirch me to a stranger, you witch?” he shouted.
“I speak only the truth.”
“Why, I’ll have you—”
“Enough!” I cried, stepping between them. “Not in front of Anneke. And not in front of me, preferably.” I scooped my daughter up again and made to carry her inside. “Charlotte, will you help me put her down for a nap? Brom,” I added over my shoulder as Charlotte followed me inside, “please act the gentleman before a guest, won’t you?”
Brom looked abashed and regretful, and followed us. “Charlotte,” he said, his tone subdued, “I am sorry. I should not speak to you in such a way.”
She looked surprised. “I had liked to think you might change with age, Brom Van Brunt.”
“Perhaps I may yet,” he said. I could still see a hint of fear in his eyes as he beheld her, but I could not believe the civility and sincerity in his voice.
She smiled, but I could tell it was forced. “You should,” she said. “For what, in truth, have I ever done to you?”
He had no answer, and with that she left.
55
Impotent
“Damn it. God damn you, Katrina. God damn you!”
I wrenched myself away from Brom. Once more, he found himself unable to perform the marriage act, his member slack against his legs, and no amount of vigorous stroking on his part or mine could rouse it to action. “You blame me for this?” I burst out. That was new.
“You and that witch have cursed me,” he growled. “I know it. You must have. I have never had this problem before, not with any other woman. Only you.”
“How dare you.” I was truly hurt. After the tenderness that had sprung up between us of late, he would now seek to blame me? “You have done a fine enough job on your own with drink this evening, I think. I have no idea how to do such a thing, nor does Charlotte.” A lie well told. “You have long accused my best friend of being a witch; now you accuse me, too? Your wife?” I demanded.
“How else to explain this?” he asked, gesturing down. “You must have cursed me, or poisoned me, or ill-wished me. Or she did. Or you both together.”
I leapt from the bed, angrily grabbing my shift from the floor, where Brom has tossed it in the hope that tearing my clothes from my body would suitably arouse him. “You are a fool,” I said. “And if you ever repeat such vile accusations in anyone else’s hearing, about either me or Charlotte, being unmanned will be the least of your problems, that I can promise you.” With that I left to sleep in the guest room.
“Katrina, wait … I am sorry, of course it is not your fault. I am frustrated, that is all…”
I slammed the door behind me.
* * *
The rest of the summer passed, and Charlotte continued to live in a blissful haze over her upcoming nuptials, though a date had yet to be set. Giles was still finalizing the sale of his tavern, and was unfortunately faced with the prospect that he would likely need to build his own home for himself and Charlotte, further delaying the wedding. But none of this dampened Charlotte’s good spirits, though she longed to make wedding plans, and every once in a while her frustration showed.
I continued to warm to Brom further, though we still argued at times. It was to be expected when we had been at loggerheads for so long. Besides, we had the rest of our lives to continue smoothing out our relationship—a prospect that once made me despair, yet now brought me a feeling of contentment.
But I was not content with everything. Soon it was time for the harvest again. Two years had passed since Ichabod’s disappearance, and I had let his fate remain a mystery. I was ashamed of my failure in a way I could not have explained to anyone else. Though I was happier in my life than I had been, it was still not the one I would have chosen. My visions all continued to be of the clearing in the forest—nothing more and nothing less. But why? Why on earth had Ichabod been there? Why had he been riding through the forest at all? After two years I still only had some of the pieces, but not enough to put it all together, the whole shattered picture.
The clearing was the key, though I had not known it on that winter day when Charlotte, Nox, and I trekked through the snow and frost to get there.
My desperation to know the truth grew to a height only matched by those days immediately following Ichabod’s disappearance. Again the flighty birds of my thoughts returned, relentlessly hopping from one branch to the next and giving me no peace, except in sleep. Every time I looked at Anneke I saw reproach in her face, that I did not yet know what had happened to her true father. It was all in my head, of course, but it did not stop the feelings of anguish and guilt.
And so I decided what I must do, in the days leading up to All Hallows’ Eve, when the veil between this world and the next is the thinnest.
* * *
October 30th dawned bright and warm, the latter perfect for what I had in mind. I kept an eye on the Jansen cottage all morning. After noon, I saw Charlotte leave the house, and after waiting to make sure she was not coming back, I acted.
I went up to the cottage and knocked. Mevrouw Jansen answered, as I had anticipated. “Katrina,” she said warmly. “How nice to see you.”
“Good day,” I said pleasantly. “Is Charlotte home?”
“No, she just went off to see Mr. Carpenter,” Mevrouw Jansen said. “I’m sure you know he is in town.”
“Yes, indeed. Well, I believe she left some herbs for me in the stillroom. She said if she was out I could pop in and grab them.”
Mevrouw Jansen studied me for a beat too long, then stepped aside. “Very well, then,” she said. “Do you need any help?”
“No, thank you,” I said, moving toward the stillroom door. “She told me what I need to know.”
Once I was certain Mevrouw Jansen had no plans to follow me, I acted quickly. Pulling a scrap of paper from my pocket, I read it quickly, then pulled the appropriate jars from the shelves. I took just a bit more of each than what Charlotte had given me the last time. I placed
them in a small glass bottle I’d brought with me and stuffed both the bottle and the paper deep into the pocket of my cloak. Please forgive me, Charlotte, I thought. She would find out what I had done eventually, and I could only hope that she would understand.
I went home, tossing the scrap of paper into the kitchen fire when Nancy was not looking, and went and locked the bottle of herbs into the same drawer as my notebook. Now all I needed was for night to fall.
Then I would have my answers, once and for all.
56
The Fate of Ichabod Crane
As dark began to fall that night, I went to find Nancy in her room, Anneke in tow. Brom was out drinking with friends, celebrating the harvest and the end of all their hard work. “Nancy, can you do me a favor?” I asked brightly.
She eyed me warily for a moment, and I knew she’d seen right through me. “Of course, Katrina,” she said. “What is it?”
I squeezed Anneke’s hand. “Will you put Anneke to bed for me tonight? I am off to visit with Charlotte.”
There was no reason at all for Nancy to doubt my explanation or to think anything of it whatsoever. Anneke enjoyed being put to bed by Nancy just as much as she did by me; Nancy, I knew from personal experience, was also an excellent teller of bedtime stories. Anneke, as if on cue, reached out for Nancy. “Nancy!” she cried.
Nancy smiled and rose from her chair, picking up Anneke. “A bath for you, angel, and then bed,” she said. She glanced up at me, searching my eyes and finding something she did not like. “Katrina…” She sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t do this.”
“I have to.” I gestured to my daughter. “For her as much as for me.”
“I don’t know that I believe that. You remember what I told you about the price to be paid?”
I nodded unwillingly.
“Don’t forget it. And if you must do this—if you really feel you must—then be careful.” She kissed Anneke on the top of her head. “This little one cannot lose you. And neither can I.”
Tears threatened behind my eyes, but I blinked them away. “I do not know what you think will happen, Nancy, but—”
“You are playing with forces outside your control,” she said. “Anything could happen.”
“I have to know, Nancy,” I said softly. “I have to know what happened to him.”
“And there may be some things you are better off not knowing, Katrina Van Tassel.”
Afterward, a part of me would always wonder if everything would have been better if I’d listened to her that night. “I’m sorry, Nancy. I know we disagree about this. But I will not turn back now. I cannot.”
Both she and Anneke regarded me in silence. “Be careful,” she said at last. “Please be careful.”
“I will,” I assured her. “I promise.” I gave Anneke a kiss on her forehead. “I shall leave Nox here as well,” I said, turning to leave. I went into the kitchen, swiftly packing a basket of the things I would need, and donned my cloak against the nighttime chill. Nox was waiting by the door, whining, as if he, too, knew where I was going and what I was going to do, and wished that I would not.
“It’ll be okay, boy,” I whispered. I bent down to kiss his head, then headed out into the eerie night.
I paused at the edge of the churchyard and looked up at the plain, brick-and-clapboard building. I said a silent prayer that I might be protected from evil that night, and might find what I sought and escape unscathed. Even then, I was not sure what I meant by unscathed. And I wondered if God or his angels would hear my prayers, if they granted the prayers of witches. For I was certainly as much of a witch as Charlotte, now.
What would Ichabod think of me if he could see me, dabbling in such arts as he had always feared and mistrusted? Would he even know me? Would he recognize who I had become?
Would he fear me?
But it did not matter. He was gone, and I had become who I needed to be in his absence. And tonight I would find out why.
I headed into the woods behind the churchyard, taking the same path Charlotte and I had that January day, one I had not walked since. I shivered in the nighttime air, remembering all those nights I had gone into the woods to meet Ichabod, and the things I had feared and fancied I’d seen and heard. I tried to clear my mind of all the things I’d written in the book now resting in the basket I carried: the Woman in White of Raven Rock; Major Andre’s ghost; the ghostly rower on the Hudson, and so many more. And, of course, the one story I still had yet to write down, the one that haunted my entire life: the legend of the Headless Horseman.
Yet the more I thought about the Horseman, the more my fear faded, and the more I almost—almost—wished he would appear. He might as well save me some time and show himself.
I made my way purposefully along the path; my feet somehow knowing the way despite having only walked there once. Is this where Ichabod rode that night? I wondered. Is Ichabod guiding me to the truth at last? Or is it someone—or something—else?
My ears stayed perked for the sound of hooves, for a horse’s whinny, and my eyes peered into the dark shadows for a glint of orange and flame through the branches. But there was nothing but the wind in the trees, scattering dry leaves as I walked.
When at last I stepped into the clearing, I could not resist a shiver.
The moon—nearly full—floated directly above the clearing, bathing the circle of grass and dirt in a silvery light. It created a spooky scene, with the pale glow casting the shadows of gnarled and bare tree branches against the ground like so many grasping and twisted claws, but I told myself to be glad of the moonlight. It would be easier to see as I went about my task.
I set my basket near the center of the clearing and gathered a bundle of dry twigs and leaves to use as kindling, then dragged over larger branches and logs. I began to sweat slightly beneath my midnight blue dress and cloak.
Fog started to creep in, blanketing the ground as I worked, a remnant of the unseasonably warm day. I shivered again, trying to ignore the feeling of foreboding as I returned to the center of the clearing, having gathered enough firewood.
I withdrew the flint and steel from my basket. I struck it once, twice, three times and got a spark, which quickly caught on the kindling. As the flames grew, I added a few larger branches, and then finally one of the logs.
I waited as the fire blazed higher and higher, shrugging my cloak off and letting it fall to the ground as the heat grew more intense. Next, I withdrew from my basket a bottle of red wine, a silver goblet, and the bottle of herbs I’d taken from the Jansens’ stillroom. Pulling out my book and opening it to the proper page, I consulted the recipe I’d hastily scribbled down, even though I had it well memorized by then. I poured the wine into the goblet, and then opened the herb bottle. Steeling my resolve, I dumped them all in, swirling the mixture in the goblet. I placed it near the edge of the fire to warm the wine before I drank it.
I glanced around the clearing warily, though what I was expecting to see, I wasn’t certain. What wasn’t I expecting to see, really? Any one of the ghosts that haunted Sleepy Hollow might well have appeared to me, from the Woman in White to Mother Hulda to the Headless Horseman to the devil himself. Yet there was nothing and no one there—that I could see—and so I turned my attention back to the task at hand.
I picked up the goblet and, closing my eyes, drank down the warmed contents in several large swallows. The wine hid much of the bitter taste of the herbs. Once I had consumed it all, I waited a few moments for the potion to take effect, then began the ritual.
Deep breaths, in and out, in and out. Calming my body, quieting my mind, slowing my heartbeat. Once I felt sufficiently calm, I opened my eyes again and gazed with focused intensity into the roaring fire.
“Show me,” I said, putting power and breath into my words, forcefully speaking what I had begun to think of as my incantation. “Show me the truth, O flames. Reveal to me the secrets and the truth I seek. Show me, once and for all, what has become of Ichabod Crane.”
I stared into the center of the fire, and almost at once it flared up and opened around me, becoming a dark mirror, a window, into which I could see.
It was different this time; everything was different, and I could not say if it was due to using a blazing fire as my divination tool, or the herbs and wine, or the combination of the two. But rather than seeing shadows and flashes of images, I saw everything, as though I were present on that night two years ago, bearing witness to it all.
Gunpowder galloped down the Albany Post Road, Ichabod astride him. I saw his face, at long last, and as he turned to look over his shoulder at something behind him, I almost cried out at the sight of him after so long. I was shocked to realize I had not remembered his face exactly as it was; his features were a bit sharper than in my memory, his ears bigger, his hair just a shade lighter. His eyes, though, I had not forgotten, for I saw them every day on my daughter’s face.
Yet then I shifted my attention to what Ichabod looked at so fearfully: a rider, astride a mammoth black horse, directly behind him. Chasing him. I struggled to hold back a gasp, so as not to break the vision, as I beheld the rider: for above the collar of his jacket, where his head should be, was nothing. On the pommel of his horse was a pumpkin, carved with a grimacing face.
It was the Headless Horseman, more real than he had ever appeared in any dream or nightmare I’d had in all my life. I was seeing him; Ichabod was seeing him, too.
Ichabod urged Gunpowder on, though it seemed the old horse was already running as fast as his legs would allow. They sped on, pursued by the ghostly rider, approaching the church and the bridge that spanned the stream near it. Ichabod leaned down closer to Gunpowder’s neck, urging him on ever faster, and his hooves made a hollow sound as they pounded against the wooden planks of the bridge. The Hessian’s horse let out a whinny, and it reared up. I watched the Horseman pick up the pumpkin and hurl it straight at Ichabod.
The pumpkin collided with his head, taking off his hat and nearly knocking him from his horse. Somehow he managed to keep his seat, even as his hat and the pumpkin went tumbling into the stream. Gunpowder, panicking, took off through the churchyard. Ichabod tried desperately to guide him back onto the road, but the Horseman followed close behind and Gunpowder, spooked, would only run forward, away, trying to escape.
The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel Page 35