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)
A few chuckles and appreciative murmurs sound.
“But the first step to figuring out what to give is figuring out what kind of manipulation you can do. What kind of energy.” He clears his throat. “I want you to take out your pad and pencil and jot down the first five things you think about when you think about energy.”
Everyone rustles around me while they reach into their bookbags and satchels, and I’m just sitting there, feeling Professor Crane’s eyes on me.
“Ms. Van Tassel?” he says in a low voice, an edge to it.
I dare to meet his eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t have anything to write on or with.” I open my mouth to explain that my mother never told me to bring supplies, but it would just sound like an excuse, so I shut it. “Perhaps you can lend me some.”
“Perhaps I can?” he repeats, his forehead wrinkling beneath a strand of floppy hair. “The school should have provided you with all you need.” He sighs and looks to the students. “Does anyone here have an extra pencil and paper they can lend her for now?”
The Black boy next to me rummages through his bag and pulls out another pencil. He rips out a few pages from his ledger and hands it to me.
I give him an appreciative look, knowing how expensive paper is. “Thank you,” I say softly. Like everyone in this classroom, his face is unfamiliar, a stranger to Sleepy Hollow.
He just nods, his attention rapt on the professor, as if afraid to look away again.
“Well, go on,” the professor prods. “Five things.”
I twirl the pencil in my hand, trying to think. It’s hard. My eyes keep being drawn to my teacher as he paces around his desk, looking deep in thought and then occasionally casting a glance around the room. He meets my eyes, and they flash with frustration, probably because I’m staring at him and not writing anything.
I look down at my paper and scribble down the numbers one to five on the margin, hoping that my brain will start working in the meantime. What do I think of when I think about energy? I should be learning Plato or reading Chaucer or something. Not something that sounds like science.
Professor Crane’s fingers appear in the frame of my vision, pressed against the top of my desk. I stare at them for a moment, his long, slender fingers tapping the wood. He has beautiful hands, I absently think, struck by the sudden impulse to reach out and touch them.
Thankfully, I pull my own hands toward me and look up at him.
His gaze holds me in place, like there’s no one else in the room. What a peculiar man, so singularly focused on me.
I have to remind myself I’m also focused on him.
You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to, he says in such a low voice that I barely hear it. In fact, he’s not even moving his lips. Is he playing tricks on me somehow? Is my mind playing tricks on me?
It’s like you don’t even want to be a witch, he goes on, that voice still so low, as if it’s seeping into my brain like mist. His lips are moving now, but barely, and I twist in my seat to glance to see if anyone else is listening, but they’re all focused on their writing. How strange, coming from a family like the one you do.
His fingers still on the desk, he leans in closer. I am talking to you, Ms. Van Tassel. No one else. I can tell that you don’t want to be here. Perhaps it’s what your family wants, and so you must. But I won’t force you to stay here. You are free to leave.
“I’m not leaving,” I say, and now my classmates stir, shifting in their seats, looking up from their papers at us.
“Then perhaps you’d like to participate,” he says in his normal voice.
I can’t help but glare at him. Doesn’t seem fair that he’s able to throw his voice around like that and speak to me so privately when he chooses, but I can’t do the same to him.
I close my eyes and breathe in deeply through my nose until I feel his presence leave my desk. I exhale, like I can finally breathe and try to think about the task at hand. When I think of energy, I think of the bright, blinding sun on a summer day. Of the creek flowing under the bridge, of the wind bending the tops of the pines in winter. I think of Snowdrop galloping across the pasture, kicking up the grass with her hooves. I think of my heart beating, steady and strong, drawing its own energy from some mysterious place inside of me. I think of love. The love I have for my father still that flows through me in a constant stream with nowhere else to go.