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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 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 loveseat. He reaches over, taking hold of my hand, and I’ve never appreciated such a simple gesture 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.
