“What are you trying to protect me against?”I ask her pointedly.“What was my father so scared of?What are you so scared of?”
She gives me a dark, cagey look.“Your mother,” she whispers.“That she’ll do to you what she did to your father.”
I reach out and grab her arm, harder than I meant to.“What did she do to my father?Last time you just told me shetookfrom him.What does she take?How does she take it?”
“She takesyou,” she hisses at me.“She takes what you’re madeof and uses it for herself until there’s nothing left of you.She siphons, Katrina.She siphons your soul.”
I try to swallow but can’t.I can barely breathe.
“I met your father when he was twenty years old,” she goes on, “hiring me even before he got married.Then your mother came along.She looked the same age that she does now.Oh, she was frail, she was always sick, she was too skinny, except for those few days around the full moon when she seemed to glow with health before she plummeted again.Your mother hasn’t aged a single day since the day you were born.”
I stare at her blankly, my mind tripping over itself.
“Is she a…a vampire?”I manage to ask, my voice barely audible, my head swimming.
Famke cracks a wry smile.“A vampire?No.She’s a witch, Katrina.She’s a witch from a very powerful coven, and you were always the key to her existence.”
Those words float over me like ashes.
“So then why don’t you quit?”I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.“Why put yourself at risk by staying here?Doesn’t she take from you?”
“I’m not a witch,” she says, rolling the dough again.“I don’t have any magic or power to offer her.But you, Katrina, you do.There’s a reason why your father made you promise to never show your magic around your mother, because he knew it would only tempt her to take it all for herself.And I made a promise to your father.As long as you are in Sleepy Hollow or at the school, I would be here, watching over you.I don’t trust you up there with those witches.Your mother is your mother, but her sisters?They are so much worse.”
I fall silent.It all feels so impossible to manage.
“Is Mary still someone you can trust?”Famke asks me.
“Yes,” I say absently, trying to come to terms with it all.“Of course.”
“Good.You will need friends, Katrina.”
“And you can trust her too,” I tell her.“If something…happens to me.Up there, with them.If something goes wrong.If you don’t hear from me, please know you can trust her.She will help you when my mother won’t.”
“Ja.” Famke nods, looking grim.“Okay.”
I look around the kitchen, trying to think.“How…how old is my mother?”
“I don’t know, child,” she says to me.“But whatever they have planned for you and Brom, the best thing you can do is get on your horses and head to Tarrytown.You could go tonight.Escape now, while you can.”
“I can’t,” I say pitifully.“I can’t leave Crane.”
She lets out a heavy sigh.“Then go and get him, then leave.”
“That’s not the only problem,” I tell her, debating whether I should tell her the whole truth.Then I figure I don’t have much to lose.“Brom’s possessed by the headless horseman.”
Famke drops the rolling pin and it clatters noisily to the floor.
“What?”she asks.
Suddenly my mom bustles into the kitchen.“Katrina,” she says.“Stop pestering Famke, and go entertain your company.It’s very rude to invite a guest over like that and then completely neglect her.”
I hold Famke’s wild gaze for a moment before I turn around.
“Of course, my apologies,” I tell my mother, walking into thesitting room.In the background I can hear my mother asking Famke what we were talking about.I can’t hear her answer.
I give Mary a shaky, apologetic smile and sit down next to Brom on the love seat.He reaches over, taking hold of my hand, and I’ve never appreciated such a simple gesture so much in my life.It’s like his hand grounds me, gives me all the strength and courage I thought I lost.He may be possessed, but at the moment he is still mine.
“I’ve got you, Daffodil,” he whispers in my ear, his breath tickling me, and I know in my gut that it’s true.“I will protect you.I will do things, things you won’t like, in order to protect you.”
