“I know,” Brom says.“You were snoring.”
“Oh.”
“But listen…,” he whispers.
I hold my breath, straining.
I hear nothing except Brom’s breathing at my ear.
“What?”I say after a moment.
“It was the woman,” Brom says.“The dead teacher.She went past the door.”
I shiver and get out of bed.“I have to admit, I don’t mind that I slept through that.”
I go to the door and unlock it, poking my head out into the hall.A trail of blood gleams along the floor, and I can’t help but think about the stable boy for some reason.There’s a memory deep inside my mind that wants to surface, something about what he said that feels like a grave about to be unearthed.But the more I try to focus on it, the more it stays buried.
I hear the clink of Brom’s chains and my heart skips and I whirl around, prepared to see him rushing toward me, the Hessian in full effect.But instead, he’s standing at my desk, naked, and staring out the window.
“Brom?”I say, closing the door quietly and locking it.“Don’t tell me that she scares you too.We need one of us to be brave when it comes to ghosts, and I’m not sure I’m cut out for it.”
He doesn’t say anything.Doesn’t move.
My heart thumps uneasily.
I slowly move toward him, my hand outstretched for his shoulder.
“Brom?”I say again, more forcefully.
I place my hand on his shoulder and he doesn’t flinch, still facing the window.
I walk around him and see that his eyes are completely black, swirling in inky shadows, like they had when he was possessed.Igasp, quickly looking around for my gun, not wanting to take my eyes off him for long.
But he doesn’t move a muscle.
And when the blackness in his eyes fades, they reveal the fluttering whites of his eyeballs rolled back in his head.
“Brom!”I yell at him, shaking him now by both shoulders.Is he suffering from falling sickness?Is this possession?
I don’t like to hurt him without his permission and not when he doesn’t deserve it, but I wind up and slap him across the face so hard that my palm stings, and the impact would have knocked anyone off-balance.
But not him.
Oh shit.
Shit.
Then finally, finally, he closes his eyes and his chin dips down for a moment.
“Abe!”I try, shaking him again in panic.“Abraham Van Brunt!”
His head tilts back and forth for a moment and then he looks up at me.His eyes are normal, black in this dim light.
I place my hands on either side of his face, his beard rough against my palms.“It’s me.”I swallow hard, staring deep into his eyes, willing him to come back to me.“It’s Ichabod.”
“Ichabod,” he repeats, blinking.Then gives his head a shake as he steps back, running his hand over his face, the chains clinking.“What the devil just happened?”
“I was hoping you would know,” I say, my fingers closing over his wrist and holding him.“I went to go look in the hall, and when I turned around you were staring out the window like this.Your eyes…they’d gone black at first, then they rolled back in your head.What happened to you?Where did you go?”
