Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100859 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
“Smells like nettle,” Crane says before blowing on it. “One of my favorites. Alleviates pain. Soothes the nervous system.”
“You seem to know a lot about it,” my mother says tritely.
“He went to medical school,” I speak up, but Crane gives me a look, wishing for me to stay quiet.
“Oh?” she says, looking a little more interested now. “And why did you go the teaching route instead? You preferred to be poor?”
Crane chuckles at that. “I preferred being able to help people in whichever way possible.” He blows on his tea again and has a sip. “So, is this your witchcraft? Herbal teas and tinctures?”
My mother shrugs lightly. “I suppose. It’s not very fancy, is it?”
“No, but if it works, it works. It’s magic all the same. It’s healing people, helping people, wouldn’t you say? Tell me, Ms. Van Tassel, for I’ve been very curious about you. Why don’t you teach at the school? Surely your skills and knowledge would go a long way, given your family name.”
That was a question I had wondered, too, and yet never asked. But Crane gets right down to brass tacks.
My mother presses her fingertips together, and I can see she’s thinking. “I’m afraid you think too highly of the Van Tassel family name,” she says. “I may be Leona and Ana’s sister, but I haven’t been part of their coven for a long time.”
That takes me by surprise.
“But I’m not a part of their coven either, and I teach at the school,” Crane points out.
She gives him a stiff smile. “Yes. And perhaps you’re a much better teacher than I could ever be.” She nods at us both. “Now, finish your teas, and off to bed. I’ll be making the journey with you to school tomorrow. I may not be part of their coven, but the Sisters need to know what you saw.”
I want to tell her that we can inform them ourselves—it’s about time I saw my aunts—but then I stop myself. I want to see how my mother is on campus. I mean really watch her and watch how the Sisters interact with her. There’s something about their relationship that nags at me, but I can’t put my finger on what it is.
“Well,” Crane says, bowing slightly to my mother. “Thank you for the tea and your hospitality. I better go get ready for bed.”
He turns to me, and our eyes lock. I don’t want to be apart from him, not tonight, maybe not any night. I think from the intense look in his dark eyes, he doesn’t want it either.
But then he heads toward his room just as Famke comes out of it, showing him around, and my mother steps in beside me.
“There’s one man for you, Katrina,” she whispers in my ear. “And that man is not it.”
The next morning, we rise with the dawn. The roosters crow from the yard, and golden light streams through our windows. I’m curled up in the corner of the bed, alone, forgetting I’m upstairs in my mother’s room. I think I slept like the dead; the tea probably knocked me right out.
I get up and slip on my dressing gown, surprised to find Crane already up and reading a book by the fire. He glances up at me as I walk down the staircase and grins.
My heart does a little dance in my chest. I don’t care what my mother said about him looking like a ghoul—he’s certainly beautiful.
“Good morning,” I say to him, feeling stupidly shy at having him see me so early in the morning, despite how intimate his fingers were with me last night.
“Good morning,” he says, his smile getting deeper, one that makes me feel weak at the knees.
“Katrina, get dressed and get ready,” my mother barks as she bustles out of the washroom. “We need to leave soon.”
I roll my eyes and get ready as quickly as I can. Then we have a quick breakfast of a few hard-boiled eggs and bread, which Famke was very insistent we eat.
By the time we’re out in the stables getting the horses tacked and ready, the sun has already burned off the layer of fog that was sitting on our pastures and over the Hudson. The water sparkles now like a mirage.
My mother gives Crane my father’s old horse, Gunpowder, a sway-backed dapple grey who is still strong but only gets more stubborn over time, and once she’s on top of her sorrel gelding, Chester, we’re off and riding toward the school.
It’s a brilliant morning, clear blue skies and the air scented with bonfires and the last of the season’s blackberries, October only a couple of days away. Goldenrods that dot the lane sway in the breeze, and I’m having a hard time reconciling this bucolic morning with the terror of last night. Is it possible that it all happened? Could it have been an illusion, not an actual ghost of a soldier?