Page 38 of Hollow

And I—because I’m apparently a sucker for following his orders—am going along with it.

“Well,” I say to him, eying the clock in the room. “We have a few hours until it’s dark.”

“Indeed,” he says. “Shall we grab supper?”

I shake my head. “I would rather not eat with you in the dining hall.” He looks so comically aghast that I laugh. “People are already talking about us,” I explain.

“Are they now?” he asks playfully, grabbing his coat. “What are they saying?”

“I imagine they’re saying that you are the dastardly seductive teacher preying on his young students, in particular, the ravishing Katrina Van Tassel.”

He grins at me. “You got everything right except her name. She prefers Kat.”

I laugh, and my stomach tickles like vlinders are taking flight.

This man is giving me butterflies.

“But I do like this business about me being dastardly seductive. Makes me sound like a menace.”

“You are a menace,” I say as we walk out the door, and he shuts the classroom behind him. “A menace to the supernatural. Why do you think so many women are haunting you?”

He rolls his eyes at that but then grows silent, his thoughts trapped somewhere as they often seem to be. After all that, we still head to the dining hall anyway. Luckily, the both of us are able to sit with Paul and a few of his friends. They all seem to admire and fawn over Professor Crane, so they don’t mind him there. I just stay quiet and let Crane answer a plethora of questions over a meal of roast pigeon and turnip.

It’s the first time I’ve eaten here and the first time I’ve seen the hall in action at dinner. Usually, I’m riding home by now. In fact, Snowdrop is probably getting restless in the stables, and I make a note of visiting her after this. Until then, I just eat the food—it’s not as good as Famke’s, but it’s pretty close—and by the time the dessert of broiled honeyed apricots and ricotta comes out, I feel strangely at home.

This is what I’ve been missing, I think, feeling a pang in my chest, an ache for belonging. It’s foreign and familiar at the same time.

It’s too bad my mother would never let me live on campus. She was so obstinate about her sisters not taking me, even though I would have nothing to do with them. In fact, since I’ve been going to school, I haven’t even seen my aunts. Neither Leona nor Ana have ever come to my classes to check on me. Instead, I’ve only seen Sister Sophie and Sister Margaret, both of whom treat me with a sort of quiet contempt. For how often they seem to deride my mother, it baffles me that my mother comes to visit with them once a month. They might not be related to us by blood, but they are still part of the same coven.

I guess she needs them a lot more than they need her.

I just wish I knew what she really needed them for.

Chapter 13

Kat

When dinner is over, my stomach full and my heart happy from the company and conversation, Crane goes over to the faculty dorms to get supplies while I go check on Snowdrop.

“Hello, darling,” I say to my mare, but she seems especially anxious tonight.

“I know, I’m sorry. We will go soon,” I tell her, scratching my fingers along her neck.

“You’re still here.”

I jump in fright and whirl around to see the stableboy holding a lantern and staring at me.

“I am,” I say, trying to catch my breath. “I have to stay later tonight. Don’t worry about tacking her up for me. I can do that later.”

“You shouldn’t be here after dark,” the boy says flatly. He’s not blinking at me, and his eyes seem especially black.

I swallow uneasily. “It’s alright. I won’t be alone.”

“You’re never alone. Not when you’re here. They’ll never let you be alone again.”

Then he turns and walks away, disappearing into the night.

I glance at Snowdrop, my heart racing. “Gosh. He must have had a rough day.”