Page 33 of Horsemen and Hot Chocolate

A hand on his cheek startled him from the reeling memories. He gasped at the foreign touch.

How was this possible? He had no face to speak of. But her chilled fingers against his skin were not a figment of his imagination. He looked down, finding the hazy shape of a nose in his sight, and he jerked away in shock.

His gaze flew up to hers, where a frown sat on her lips. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice dipped with pity—the sound ground against his heart. Her hand retreated. “Your face is disappearing again. I thought it might remain once your memory returned.”

A tremor ran down his arms. “I still have some recollections of the past, but I… I do not remember it all.”

Katrina’s eyes flashed up in surprise. “You don’t?”

“No, I don’t. I don’t wish to remember this.”

“But…” she said, taking a step toward him. He backed away, unable to bear the weight of shame slamming down on him. Her eyes rounded with sadness… and more pity.

He could not bear the look. He imagined he could handle her hatred, her disgust, but pity? It drove through his stomach, eating every inch of dignity he had left. He did not want her pity. He wanted more—so much more…

She’d never look at him the same. His body screamed to run—to be the coward he had always been.

“Sleepy Hollow is that way,” he said, his voice as hollow as his neck. He pointed to a different path. “You should find the church within half an hour.”

Without another word, he strode toward Inferno and mounted him.

“Wait,” she said, her voice inclining in panic. “Where are you going?”

He gripped the reins and snapped them. Inferno mirrored his panic, rearing back on his hind legs before he broke into a run.

“Willem!”

The foreign yet familiar name chased him like a haunting echo. But he couldn’t look back. He fled into the dark forest, wishing it would swallow him whole.

Chapter nineteen

Her father’s breathing was getting worse. His lungs rattled with each inhale, and there was a low wheezing sound when he exhaled. Katrina sat by his bedside, holding his hand. Steam from Marta’s hot chocolate on the bedside table wafted into the air. The sweet aroma couldn’t comfort her tonight, not when her thoughts tangled with despair.

She wasn’t sure how much hurt a heart could take. Ever since she discovered the news about her father’s failing health, everything had fallen apart. All she ever wanted was to right her wrongs—to find the closure she desperately needed with her brother, but it appeared she only managed to ruin things.

Her throat tightened at the memory of Willem riding away and abandoning her in the forest. Somehow, she’d said all the wrong things to scare him. Desertion or not, his past did not affect her opinion of him—he was still the same caring man in her eyes. She wished she had started with that when she saw the devastation in his slumped shoulders.

Willem rode away before she could tell him the rest of what the witch had told her.

“Why did you curse him?” Katrina asked, her heart beating wildly against her ribcage. How powerful was this witch if she could wield such magic?

Hildegard’s brows drew together, her mouth disappearing into a grim line. “Because I was grieving my son who’d passed at the time. The pain was raw when Willem stumbled across my cottage. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He felt my wrath and has paid for it since.”

The witch elaborated further on how she discovered Willem squashing one of her pumpkins and his desertion. Katrina pursed her lips.

“Why? Why would you curse a frightened child?” she asked.

“Because, at the time, I believed it would take away some of my anguish for my fallen son. I thought I was righting an injustice, but it did nothing to ease my pain.”

Katrina’s heart squeezed in sympathy and frustration. She understood the anger that followed grief like a sullen cloud. She’d had many nights where she cursed herself and the cruel world around her for taking her brother. But that did not excuse the witch’s actions.

“Can you undo it?” she asked.

Hildegard folded her arms and sighed. “No. The lad has suffered enough, but I cannot undo what has been done. Only he can break his curse by confronting the ghosts of his past. He must return to White Plains and face what he’s done.”

Something fluffy brushed against her skirt, and bright orange eyes gleamed at her.

“Oh, Smudge,” she said. “What am I to do?”