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)
I write down these five things. But then I lift my pencil, tempted to write down one more.
Because there’s energy that I’ve been forgetting. The energy I both created and expended with Brom that night in the barn, the last night that I saw him. There is no energy like love, but there’s also no energy like sex.
It wasn’t just with Brom either. I was intimate with Joshua Meeks last summer, a farmhand who was new in town. He was a true gentleman, kind and soft, and though my heart didn’t flutter like it had for Brom, he did teach me a thing or two. He taught me the power one can derive from sex and in more ways than one. Through him I learned what I wanted from the act, something with a little roughness, with a hint of danger.
The memory of it makes my skin grow hot, and I shift in my seat, immediately pushing those memories and feelings away. I open my eyes and see that I’ve written down the word sex.
I gasp and quickly scribble it out so it’s unreadable, wishing I had a rubber eraser. The last thing I want to do is have the professor see what I’m really thinking about.
“Very good,” Professor Crane says. He’s suddenly beside me, peering over my shoulder. I suck in my breath, automatically sitting straighter. I quickly glance up at him, and he’s frowning at where I had scribbled out the word sex. He cocks a brow and gives me just a hint of a smile before walking on to the next student.
Oh goodness. He couldn’t tell what I wrote, could he? I peer closer at the mess of charcoal, and I can’t make out the word at all. Must be my imagination that he can read it. I pray it’s my imagination.
Twisting in my seat, I watch as the professor looks over everyone in the class. I take the opportunity to nod at the boy across from me. “Thank you for the pencil and paper,” I tell him. He’s cute, maybe a few years older than me, his skin dark and luminous. “I’m Kat, by the way.”
“I know,” he says before giving me a quick bashful smile. Then he sits up as the professor comes walking back between our desks. “I’m Paul.”
“There will be time for everyone to get to know each other later,” Professor Crane says to us as he passes by us. “We’ll know each other very, very well by end of the school year.” He steps onto the platform and claps his hands together. “And let’s start by doing a little practice. I will need a volunteer.”
No one puts up their hand. I’m not surprised. I keep my head down and avoid eye contact, hoping I won’t attract his attention.
“Ms. Van Tassel,” he says with a hint of triumph in his voice.
I sigh. Boy, did I ever get off on the wrong foot with this man.
I look up. “Yes?”
He gestures beside him. “Would you care to join me?”
“I’d rather not,” I say. A few classmates snicker while another gasps. I suppose talking back to the teacher is rather uncouth.
But the professor only chuckles. “That’s plain to see. So let’s see how energy works with an unwilling participant.”
I exchange a glance with Paul, who gives me an encouraging nod. I get out of my seat and walk around the desk, one hand gathering my dress, wishing I wasn’t wearing such a fancy outfit, wishing the class wasn’t staring at me.
The professor sticks out his hand to help me up on the platform. It’s only a couple of inches off the ground, but with my dress and my clumsy luck, I’ll probably fall. Reluctantly, I place my hand in his.
And the world goes black.
Chapter 6
Crane
I’ve always been a curious man. I suppose that’s why I decided to become a teacher. Well, I suppose that’s why I wanted to become a doctor first, so I could uncover the mysteries of the human body. Unfortunately, when I started to have a nasty habit of communicating with the cadavers in medical school, I decided becoming a doctor wasn’t for me.
But being a teacher has always felt natural. My curiosity rubs off on the students. Makes them study harder, the yearning for knowledge like a drug. And it wasn’t until a few weeks ago, when Leona Van Tassel stopped me on the streets of Manhattan and offered me a position at Sleepy Hollow Institute, that I fully understood how that came to be. It’s not that I’m particularly interesting or commanding, though I like to think those things are true. It’s that I can bestow my curiosity onto others, even without either of us knowing it. That I can literally make others want to learn.
Granted, I can’t get them to do anything. My powers of persuasion work best when combined with equal parts passion and discipline, but their free will always remains their own. I’m merely influencing them. Nudging them in the right direction.