Page 64 of Hollow

My father was the only one who cared about me, the only one who gave instead of taking. He loved me, loved me enough for me to leave Sleepy Hollow.

Why did he have to be the one to die?

Why did he have to leave me with someone who treats me like a commodity, a bushel that could be traded for something in return?

Something wet drips on my hand, and it takes me a moment to realize that I’m crying. Instead of pushing the tears away like I usually do, I let them fall. I collapse onto my side on the bed, and I sob for my father, my fingers making fists in the bedsheets, the sorrow rocking through me. I miss him, miss his devotion, his love, the way he made me feel safe, a safety I didn’t realize I’d been searching for.

A safety I know I’ll never have with my mother.

I don’t think one can ever feel so alone as when the person who you think is supposed to love and protect you, the person who should be your rock, just ends up being a shadow.

* * *

A couple of hours later, the Van Brunts are seated at the dining room table with my mother and me. They were insistent that Brom sit at one end of the table and I at the other, like my father and mother used to do. I think it disturbs me as much as it does Brom, but he’s hard to read tonight. Then again, there’s nothing to be read when it comes to him.

His parents are equally as strange but in a different way. I’ve known Emilie and Liam Van Brunt my whole life, and they’ve always been peculiar. I would chalk it up to her being a witch and Liam being a stoic farmer, a man of few words. But their relationship with Brom always felt more like they were distant cousins rather than parents. It was common in these parts of the country, especially among Dutch immigrant farmers, for there to be a coldness and distance in families. Life was about surviving in a new land. Children were often seen as someone to help on the farm. They were never coddled or fussed over.

And yet with Brom’s parents, there wasn’t any of that. Brom did work on the farm, hence how he got his strong physique, but his father had money and hired people to do most of the work. And they were never cold with him either; they just kind of existed. People he shared a house with, nothing more. They were ice cold but never cruel. Indifferent but never callous.

Tonight is no different. It should be different. They should be overjoyed, hugging him, perhaps even crying at their good fortune of his return. Instead, they’re stiff in their seats and staring at him with stretched smiles on their faces, barely talking, just observing him and, on occasion, me.

The only sense of normalcy in this dinner party is Famke. Despite everything she told me earlier, Famke is busy serving the roast pumpkin and salted pork and making sure everyone is fed and happy, commenting on how it’s been such a long time since we had any guests over. That much is true. When Mary first moved to Sleepy Hollow and I had been spending a lot of time with her, my mother had her family over for dinner, but never again after that. Her family was a little too “normal” for us, I think. And other than visits to the doctor and to her sisters at the school, my mother doesn’t seem to have a social life or any friends. Even though she always stayed friendly with the Van Brunts since Brom had disappeared, it was never the same. He was the glue holding them together.

Sometimes I think Brom was the glue holding me together. After my father died, I turned to him for comfort and company, to his brazen strength. After he left, I had to learn to get those things on my own (after all, my mother wasn’t an option). If he’d stayed, I know I would have married him, had children, and become a wife, and I would have never learned who I was without all the glue to fix the cracks.

“I want to make a toast,” my mother says, raising her glass of wine. She looks at Brom and smiles at him warmly. “I want to say how absolutely wonderful it is for you to be back in Sleepy Hollow, Brom. And not only that, but to be attending the institute. I know the school was never on your agenda growing up, but now that it is, I’m sure we can all agree that it makes a lot of sense.”

I snort at that, and my mother looks at me sharply. Brom’s brows nearly disappear into his hairline.

“Katrina?” my mother says testily. “Did you want to add something?”

I exchange a look with Famke, who just gives a barely noticeable shake of her head before hurrying to the kitchen.

“I find your choice of words amusing,” I say before having a sip of my red wine. “Because absolutely nothing about all of this makes any sense. And you know it. You all know it!”

“Kat,” Brom says in his gruff, quiet voice, his expression telling me not to rock the boat. But I’m sick of how everyone is acting like all of this is normal.

“What? None of this is normal!” I cry out, ignoring him. “Brom has been gone for four years, and he doesn’t remember a single thing. He should be at the doctor’s, at a psychiatrist. If you want to use witchcraft, then he should be going through regression hypnosis, reverse divination, anything. But you’re all just accepting it!”

“Katrina,” Emilie says, her hand shaking slightly as she folds her napkin. “We are all in shock, dear. We know it’s not normal, but we are doing the best that we can. Brom is back, and that’s all that matters now. Doesn’t that matter to you? That he’s back?”

My heart sinks, as if they think it doesn’t matter. I give Brom a pleading look, hoping he knows that it matters more than anything. “Of course it matters! And I’m in shock too. This is all I’ve wanted for so long, but…we have to know what happened to him. There has to be an explanation. I can’t just sit here and not find out what the truth is.”

I look around the table. Everyone is staring at me with such sympathy it makes me want to flip the table over. Only Brom remains bothered, a fist curling over the knife in his hand, his dark eyes focused on his plate.

“I think you’ve been spending too much time with that Professor Crane,” my mother chides, and Brom’s gaze turns sharply to mine. “Always wanting an answer to something and asking too many questions while missing the big picture. I was kind enough to let him stay over, but really, I think your focus should be Brom.”

What are you doing? I want to scream at her. Why are you bringing up Crane in front of Brom like this?

I dare a glance at him, and his grip around the knife is so tight that his knuckles are going white, his eyes blazing with unmistakable anger and betrayal.

“Professor Crane,” Emilie muses. “I’ve never heard of him. But perhaps with Brom living on campus, he can get to know him too.”

“Brom’s…living on campus?” I say. I look to Brom, but he’s still looking at me with fire in his eyes.

“Yes,” my mother says with a smug smile. “Brom will be moving to campus this weekend.” Her smile gets even deeper. “And so will you.”

Chapter 20