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)
“Excuse me, Ms. Van Tassel?” a deep Bostonian accent rings out from across the lane. The three of us look over to see Constable Wesley Kirkbride riding up on his horse, a grim expression on his face.
It’s not every day that the police want to have a word with you. I immediately get a sour taste in my mouth.
“Yes?” she says with a wary expression. “What can I do for you?”
The constable pulls his horse to a halt right in front of us and nods at both me and Brom before facing my mother. “I’m investigating an incident that happened around midnight last night. Do you know of your whereabouts at that time?”
“I was asleep,” she says. She looks to the two of us. “I’m sure we all were.”
He looks at Brom. “And you?”
“I was asleep,” he says. “You can ask my parents.”
He sighs. “I believe you, boy.” He runs his hand over his face before straightening up, a look of weary horror on his face. “I’ve never seen anything like this in all my life, even up in the cities.”
“What happened?” Brom asks.
The constable stares for a moment, gauging us, then shrugs. “You’re going to hear about it sooner or later. This will make news all over the state, maybe the country.”
My stomach drops, ice filling my veins with dread. “What?” I whisper.
“A Sleepy Hollow man was murdered last night.”
My mother and I gasp in unison.
“Where?” Brom asks.
“Meeks farm. Found in the middle of the cornfield. All the stalks around the scene trampled like someone running from a horse.”
“Meeks?” I repeat, my heart going cold in my chest. “Who was murdered?”
“Joshua Meeks. Had his head chopped clean off him.”
The world seems to fall out from under me, and I lean forward, clutching Snowdrop’s mane. My mother proclaims her shock, and the constable describes the scene further, but I’m not even listening.
Joshua Meeks. The man I had an affair with last summer. Always had a smile for me, kind green eyes, hair like the sun. A man with gentle hands who made me discover things about myself, what I liked and what I wanted, who helped me come into being a proper woman.
He was dead. His head sliced off in a cornfield after being hunted by a man on a horse.
Why him? Why Joshua?
And why after I happened to tell Brom about it?
The sour pit in my stomach gets bigger. I look over at Brom, and he meets my gaze.
He knows what I’m thinking, but he just gives the faintest shake of his head. His dark eyes gleam. I didn’t do it, they say. It wasn’t me.
And I believe him.
But I’m not sure for how long.
Chapter 23
Crane
“Crane, you look terrible,” Daniels says as I stagger into the dining room and swipe a mug from the stack by the door.
“Thanks,” I say as I stand beside him as the cook takes the metal carafe off the wood stove and pours us both some coffee. If I have to give this school some credit, it’s that their coffee is the best I’ve ever had, no doubt because some sort of magic has been used in the process. “I feel like death warmed over,” I add.
“Perhaps you’re working too hard,” Daniels says as we walk together toward a table in the corner. Daniels leans in, the scent of pipe tobacco clinging to his tweed jacket. “Did you hear what happened to Desi?”
“The linguistics professor?” I ask. “No. Do tell.”
We sit down, and he gives the room another sweep of his eyes before he whispers, “He’s gone.”
“Gone?” I pick up my mug, but my hand is trembling enough for me to put it back down. Must be the lack of sleep, the nightmares, the everything. “He quit?”
“We don’t know. Yesterday afternoon, they were looking for him. Searched his room. All his possessions are there, his bed made. But he never showed up for class. I think they searched the campus for him, and there’s no sign of him.”
Aman Desi. Smart man, always talked of his family back in Bombay. “He probably left in the night. Wanted to escape.”
“It’s not a prison,” Daniels snorts. “Besides, he left his papers behind.”
My stomach churns uneasily, and when I take a sip of my coffee, there’s a bitterness there. I wish I could separate the images I have from last night to figure out what’s real and what’s a dream. But I’ve got nothing. And as much as I want to discuss it with Daniels, he obviously doesn’t see the school the same way I do. If I were him, I wouldn’t be so trusting about a school for witches run by a coven.
Then again, I’m still here. I’m still here because of Kat and now Brom. And I’ll be damned if I don’t help Brom get to the bottom of what’s happened to him.