I better start learning how to act like a man so I can provide for her one day, be a good husband and run a good farm.I have to learn how to be brave and tough, how to protect her from harm.
I think about that the entire walk home, every single thought revolving around Kat, about how I’m going to make sure she’s happy for the rest of her life, how she’ll need only me, until I’m right outside my front door, a wayward chicken running past that I’ll have to deal with later.
I step into the house and am met with silence.My mother and father are both sitting by the fire, my father reading a book and puffing on an awful-smelling pipe, my mother knitting something as always.Neither of them says a word, neither of them looks toward me.
“I’m home,” I say loudly, putting my books on the table.
They still don’t stir.It’s like I’m a ghost in my own house.
“I said I’m home!”I yell, the anger snapping through me like a mangy dog.I bang my fists, making my books jump.
“Heavens, Abraham,” my father says around his pipe.“We heard you the first time.”
“Try and use your manners, dear,” my mother says to me, looking at me only briefly before going back to her needles.
I stand there and I suddenly think,These aren’t my parents.
These aren’t my parents!
They are just people pretending to be my parents.
Playing a role, just like the performance I did at school last week when I was in the background ofA Midsummer Night’s Dream.It’s all acting, all make-believe, made by somebody else.
But I have to shake that thought out of my head.It’s pure nonsense.Of course they are my parents.
They just don’t care about me, that’s all.
And it doesn’t matter in the long run.
I don’t need my parents to love me.
I’m going to marry Katrina Van Tassel.
15
Crane
“Good morning, Professor Crane,” Paul says to me as he walks into my classroom.His voice has a knowing tone to it, and when I look up from my books, he’s smirking to himself as he goes over to his desk.
Then I see Kat in the doorway, and my heart blooms in my chest at the sight of her sweet, beautiful face, a halo of blond hair around it, an angel descending to my domain.
Until I see Brom close behind, towering over her, his eyes meeting mine.And though I also feel something soft inside for my beautiful boy, it’s getting tangled up in a tight knot of jealousy, because why are they together?I thought I told him to stay away from her?
But with that dark look in his eyes, the way he lifts his broad chin, he’s telling me he’s going to do what he wants, regardless of what I say.
White-hot anger flares inside me but I remember where I am and I swiftly swallow it down.
Bastard.He just loves punishment, doesn’t he?
They take their seats, and it takes me a moment to get sense back into my head.I open my desk drawer for chalk and see the tincture I made for Kat in the corner.After our visit to the herb garden yesterday, I spent the evening making this tincture for her.Brom was with me after nightfall—a miracle he still willingly lets me bind him in chains—but when he asked what I was making, I just said it was for Kat and didn’t explain what it was.It’s not an abortifacient per se, though I’m sure it could have those effects, rather it prevents pregnancy from taking place.
I can’t help the pinch in my chest.It must be done to keep her from becoming pregnant with Brom’s child, and if that’s what the coven really wants from their union.But if I happen to get her pregnant and we…No, I don’t want to think about that potential loss.
Either way, I’m hoping to hell that the two of them didn’t just fuck on the way over here because Kat does look a little guilty as she sits in the front, and that defiant look in Brom’s eyes is telling me he at least wants me to think that, and if it’s true, I’m going to rip his fucking head off.
I take in a deep breath, and as the last student comes in, I motion for them to close the door.
“I hope you all had a nice weekend,” I say to the class, though I have to admit I have no idea what the students get up to here when they aren’t in class.It’s not as if they can go into town for a change of pace.“Did anything interesting happen?”
