Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 130924 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130924 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 655(@200wpm)___ 524(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
With newfound verve, I give them a wave goodbye as I gather up my courage and walk down the curved path towards the women’s dorms, my gait awkward thanks to Ms. Choi’s boots. It’s still early and everyone here seems to sleep in on the weekends, so the grounds are quiet except for the birds chirping about, small flocks of sparrows and finches that land on the heads of the statues like jaunty hats, coupled with the sound of the breeze rustling the dead and dying leaves of the surrounding woods. The mist from earlier has started to infiltrate the campus, like a phantom’s translucent fingers wrapping around a neck.
A chill runs through me and I turn around to see Crane and Brom still standing in the doorway to the faculty dorms, watching me until the fog moves in and makes them blurry.
I gulp and turn around in time to see my mother emerging from her buggy holding a box of my things, heading to my new dorm, the door to the building propped open. Her back is to me but she senses me anyway because she comes to a dead stop and whirls around to look me dead in the eyes.
“Kat!” she says sharply and for once in my life I see relief in her face, as if she’s actually been worried about me, even though it does nothing to hide how frail and awful she looks. “Goodness gracious, where have you been?” She adjusts the box in her hands as I approach her and she looks me up and down. “And what on earth are you wearing?”
Time for another lie, but this one is one she’ll want to hear.
I perfect a sheepish grin. “I had to borrow clothes from one of my teachers.”
She shakes her head. “Why? I don’t understand? When I woke up this morning and you weren’t there, I was afraid the worst had happened.”
“And what would the worst be?” I ask curiously.
She frowns. “That you were murdered or abducted by the headless horseman.”
Funny. She didn’t seem that concerned about it before.
“Oh,” I say. “No. I met up with Brom at the bonfire and we came back here to his room for the night. My clothes, uh, they got damaged in the process.”
She seems to transform before my eyes. The whites of her yellowing bloodshot eyes growing brighter, her cheeks turning pink, a smile broadening.
“You were with Brom?” she says, excitement palpable in every word.
I keep the shy smile on my face.
“Yes.” I say. And I shouldn’t say the next part but I do. “That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Her expression falters for a moment. “It’s what everyone wants. And it’s what you want too.”
I nod slowly, keeping up the appearance of the daughter who doesn’t want to discuss such intimate things with her mother. “Yes, well, I would like to get some of that special tea from you.”
Her eyes narrow. “Tea? What do you mean?”
“I just started school, mother,” I tell her. “I don’t want any children, not yet.”
She scoffs loudly at that. “Gracious me, Katrina. Your studies aren’t as important as your future husband and family. Just who do you think you are, expecting to choose an education before all else?”
I feel like I have whiplash but I don’t have the energy to get into why my mother wanted me to marry Brom my whole life, then forced me to go to this damn school once he disappeared, and now wants me to marry Brom again as if the school no longer matters. If I questioned on it she would give me a bunch of lies stacked on top of lies.
“Still, I’d like the tea,” I tell her in a measured voice.
Her eyes narrow further and for a moment I feel suction, as if I’m looking into an airless void.
God. What kind of witch is my mother?
“I will not make you any such tea. You were born to carry Brom’s baby, Katrina. That is your purpose. That is your fate.” She gestures to the school. “All of this is just…filling the time.”
My teeth grind together and I can’t keep the words to myself. “And what if Brom isn’t the only man I’m still sleeping with?”
She reaches out and snatches my wrist, her grip hurting me until I cry out and try to twist away but she doesn’t let go. “Don’t tell me you’re still with Crane? What kind of whore are you?”
Turns out I only like being called a whore when Brom says it.
Rage explodes inside me and I growl at her, pushing all my fiery energy onto her until she yelps and lets go, the force causing her to tumble backwards onto the ground, dropping the box, my books spilling out onto the cobblestone.
She stares up at me and I expect her to get back up and come at me, fueled by anger, or perhaps back away out of fear of her own daughter, but instead she’s staring at me with awe, her mouth open, while my hand prickles with electricity.