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)
“There are other witches,” he said carefully. “But they hide it too.”
“So we can’t all be friends?” she asked.
He shook his head. He knew it was safest for Katrina to seem like a magical dud, to appear uninteresting, to appear to have no powers or interest in the occult at all, whether that was among other witches or normal people.
Because if she let her magic keep developing, they would discover her. And they would take her for every ounce of her soul.
Panicked by the thought, Baltus reached out and grabbed Katrina’s hand, squeezing hard. “Promise me this, Katrina. Promise me that when you feel the call to magic, to the strange and the unusual, to power, that you ignore it. That you bury it deep inside you. That you will do all in your power to not be a witch. That you will never show it or tell anyone about it. Including Brom, including your mother, including me. Please.”
Katrina blinked at him in shock, then studied his face. He knew there was nothing but anguish on it, a desperate plea for her to understand and obey.
Finally, she nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I can do that.”
“Do you promise, dear daughter?”
“I promise,” she said.
And God, he hoped she meant it. He hoped that this would stick and that it would keep her safe in the end.
It was as if he knew he didn’t have much time left with her.
Chapter 1
Kat
1871
There’s something at my window.
I hold my breath, my eyes darting across the dark room. I had been in a deep sleep, and the noise brought me out of the depths.
A tapping sound.
At first, I think it’s a tree branch at the window, moving in the wind, but the elm outside doesn’t reach this far.
Then I hear it again.
Something small strikes the pane.
A stone or pebble.
Brom, I think, getting to my feet. I look around for my dressing gown. When I was younger and he came calling, I would have just gone to the window, but now that I’m fifteen, my mother has drilled a sense of modesty into me.
I slip it on and hurry to the window, looking out onto the yard. Brom is lurking in the shadows beneath the elm, its leaves shadowing his face from the half moon. Beyond him and the fields is the Hudson River that laps softly at the edge of our property, reflecting the moonlight.
I push up the window, a chill sweeping into the room, bringing with it the first smells of autumn, fallen leaves and damp earth, and the fading smolder of a bonfire. And something else. Something dark and strange that puts a shiver down my neck.
“Brom? What are you doing?” I whisper harshly, sticking my head out the window. I hadn’t seen Brom for a few days, which wasn’t unusual lately. This last year, he’s been around less and less. Where he goes and what he does and who he does it with is a mystery to me, despite there being less than a thousand people here in the town of Sleepy Hollow.
“I wanted to talk to you,” he says, his voice low and gruff.
A tiny thrill runs through me that I do my best to ignore. We were the best of friends when we were younger, spending every moment playing together, sharing secrets, creating dreams, and to have this distance now as we’ve gotten older has felt a lot like rejection. I know that we’ve been betrothed to each other by our parents since I was born, but I often wonder if Brom really has any intention of marrying me when I turn eighteen or if he’ll rebel against his parents and choose someone else.
For the first time in my life, that thought strikes a pang of jealousy in me.
“It’s the middle of the night,” I point out.
He gives the faintest of shrugs, but his silhouette is tense, like an animal ready to run.
Or to strike.
“Can we go somewhere private?”
I nod. “Let me grab my shoes.”
I pull out of the window, tying my dressing gown tighter around me, then swipe my slippers out from under the bed, hoping he doesn’t plan on going far. I put them on and go back to the window, sliding the rest of it up. I’m not the thinnest nor the most graceful person, so getting through the window is a bit of a struggle, but luckily, Brom comes forward just in time to help me down.
My skin tingles where his strong, warm hands wrap around my waist, my dressing gown feeling too bare and thin under his grip. I want to apologize for weighing so many more than I used to—I can’t remember the last time he helped me sneak out of the window like this—but I don’t want to bring it to his attention. My body has gone through so many changes these last few years, and it’s now more apparent than ever that we are no longer the children we used to be. The more I think about it, the more it overwhelms me, like I’m barreling toward adulthood faster than I can breathe.