The Spellbook of Katrina Van Tassel

by Alyssa Palombo

  “Another visitor?” I said. “I cannot imagine that President Washington himself entertains as many guests as we do.” But my mother was already gone, no doubt headed outside to check on her flocks of chickens and geese—her personal pride and joy.

  I headed out to the portico, where I could hear my father’s booming voice. I pinned on my charming daughter face. “Mother said you sent for me, Fa—oh.” I broke off when I saw who our visitor was and switched to Dutch. “Brom. That is, Mr. Van Brunt.”

  Brom Van Brunt—nicknamed Brom Bones for his large frame—was the town’s favorite son. The girls wanted to be his wife, and the boys wanted to be him—or at least be a part of his merry band of miscreants. Brom and his crew got into more mischief and fights than anyone else in Sleepy Hollow, yet somehow his rough charm and good looks—he was tall, muscular, and blessed with pale blond hair, blue eyes, and a perfectly sculpted face—guaranteed his punishment was never worse than good-natured tongue clucking from the farmwives and tolerant chuckles from the men. It was infuriating, especially because once, as children, there had been no closer band of mischief-makers than Brom, Charlotte, and myself. But that was before Brom had done something that could never be forgiven.

  “Miss Van Tassel.” Brom swept me an exaggerated bow, his cocky grin holding fast to his face as he straightened. “You are as blooming a beauty as any of the flowers in the meadow.”

  I rolled my eyes, my father too busy beaming his approval at Brom to notice. “Well put, young man,” he said. “Katrina, what say you to such a fine compliment?”

  “I would prefer one not so utterly trite,” I retorted.

  “Well, we can’t all be that fusty old poet you read all the time,” Brom said, annoyance flickering in his eyes. “What’s his name, that Englishman … Shakeston?”

  “Shakespeare,” I replied through gritted teeth.

  “Yes, him.” Brom waved a large hand dismissively.

  “Now, now, Katrina,” my father said. “Brom only means to give your beauty its due, as well he might. You look quite lovely this morning, my dear—I notice you have finally seen fit to wear one of your new dresses.”

  The pleased look on Brom’s face made me wish I had dressed in an old sack. “It is most becoming indeed, Katrina,” he said. “You must have known I was coming.”

  I was about to sharpen my tongue on him yet again when the door behind me opened and Mr. Crane stepped out onto the portico. “Ah, Miss Van Tassel, there you are,” he said. “I was just…” He trailed off awkwardly, having caught sight of Brom. “My apologies for the intrusion. I am Ichabod Crane,” he said, extending a hand. Brom eyed him before taking it. “I am to be the new schoolteacher.”

  “Brom Van Brunt,” Brom said, glancing at me, then back to Mr. Crane. Reluctantly he switched to English. “And you lodge here, do you?”

  “Just for the time being,” my father said. “Once he is more at home in Sleepy Hollow he will be lodging with his students, as is customary.”

  “Indeed,” Brom said, releasing Mr. Crane’s hand and stepping back. “An honor to meet a man of letters. We’ve not had need for many of your kind around here, in truth.”

  “High time that changed, if you ask me,” I interjected, hoping Mr. Crane had not noticed Brom’s barb.

  “Indeed,” Mr. Crane echoed, his tone cooler. He turned to me. “I would not wish to interrupt your visit,” he said, “but I wondered if you might like to commence your music lesson?”

  I could have kissed the man. “Yes, let us do so,” I said.

  Smiling faintly, Mr. Crane extended his arm to me. I took it and let him lead me back into the house. “Perhaps I shall see you again soon, Brom,” I called over my shoulder to him.

  But when I glanced back, he was not looking at me—did not appear even to have heard me—but was instead fixing a chilling glare on Mr. Crane’s retreating back.

  3

  Singing Lessons

  “I owe you a debt, sir,” I said, as Mr. Crane and I headed toward the back room beside the parlor, which my father had determined best for our lessons. Mr. Crane had not, I noted with some pleasure, removed my hand from his arm. “You have quite rescued me from odious company.”

  Mr. Crane laughed, a warm, rich sound. “I had hoped I was not too bold, nor overstepping. But it did seem that you had no particular desire for that gentleman’s company.”

  “How correct you are, Mr. Crane,” I said. “Sadly, what is obvious to you is not to Brom, nor to my father.”

  We went inside the small room, and I saw that Mr. Crane had already been preparing: an instrument case was already inside, as well as a few books of songs.

  All disagreeable thoughts of Brom Bones disappeared as Mr. Crane opened the case. “Oh! A guitar, yes?” I asked excitedly.

  “Indeed it is.”

  “How wonderful! There is no one in Sleepy Hollow who has one. We did entertain some travelers one evening who thanked us by playing some music, and one of them had a guitar. I thought it the most delightful instrument.”

  “I think so, too,” Mr. Crane said. “It is quite versatile in the styles for which it can be used, which has made it useful for me. And I’ve found I have rather a talent for it.” He smiled politely at me. “You will have to tell me if I am correct, however.”

  “Oh, I am sure you are just splendid,” I said. “Before we begin, would you play something for me?”

  “I would, but…” He hesitated. “I am quite certain your father is not paying me to serenade you, Miss Van Tassel.”

  I waved a hand. “No matter,” I said. “He will not know; and you would bring me such joy, truly. It is so seldom that I get to hear music.”

  His smile sparkled, warm and genuine. “Very well,” he said. “But then I wish to hear you sing.”

  “I shall be happy to.”

  Mr. Crane placed his guitar on his knee and began to strum and pick at the strings, producing a rich, vibrant sound. Perhaps Mr. Crane’s instrument was of a finer quality than the one I had heard previously, or perhaps he was a superior musician—or both—but the sound was much smoother and warmer than I had anticipated. He began to play a lovely, cascading sort of melody that called to mind a stream running peacefully through the forest. I closed my eyes, letting it wash over me, pull me in as the music played for dancing when we hosted parties never did. It seemed to tell a story and paint a picture all at once, of a leaf gently borne on a current of water, content to be always in soothing motion. Of a bird soaring over the treetops, kept aloft on a gust of wind. Of a girl wandering through the forest, content to be alone, never wondering what it might be like to have someone beside her.

  As he stopped playing and I opened my eyes, I felt altered. I knew that now the girl would begin to wonder what life might be like were she not alone.

  * * *

  Given Mr. Crane’s calm demeanor, I had expected he would be a rather relaxed and even complimentary teacher. This did not prove to be the case.

  It began well enough. He had me sing a scale for him, up and back down again, with his guitar accompaniment. “Good,” he said when I’d finished. “Very good. Your father is quite correct, Miss Van Tassel. You do indeed have a lovely voice, one of the finest I’ve heard.”

  I beamed at the compliment.

  “A lovely voice, however,” he went on, “can only take one so far. I would now like to get a sense of your ear, if I may.” He plucked the first note of the scale. “Start here, if you will, with your scale again.”

  I began to sing once more, but this time Mr. Crane did not play along. Instead, after playing the first note, he dropped out altogether. I faltered, tried to go on, but so lost my place that I could not. “I … I am sorry,” I said. “I do not know what happened.”

  “Not to worry,” he said. “It is partially my fault, for I did not warn you I would not be playing along with you. Start again”—he plucked the first note of the scale twice—“and this time know I shall not be accompanying you. This is your first n
ote; the rest is up to you.”

  Yet even though I was prepared to sing unaccompanied, I lost my place again. I did manage to at least find my way toward the end, landing on the correct final note, which Mr. Crane confirmed by playing for me.

  “Again, if you please,” he said.

  If I did better this time, it was only just.

  “As I thought,” he said. “Your voice is lovely, Miss Van Tassel, but you must begin to employ your ear as well. Only then will you be certain you are singing the correct notes, and thus keeping the tune of the song—or in this case, the scale—as a whole.”

  “But this is silly,” I said. “I sing all the time, when I am out of doors, or alone in my room, and it always sounds right.”

  “Perhaps it does, and perhaps you find it easier to keep tune within a song,” he said. “Many do. Yet with no instrument of your own to allow you to check, and no trained ear to hear you, how can you be sure you are singing the correct notes?”

  I remained silent.

  “You see, then,” he said. “There is more to singing than just a fine voice. You must have a fine ear as well. And luckily for you, a fine voice I cannot teach, but the ear I can.”

  “May we not try a song now?” I asked, widening my eyes in what I hoped was an innocent, fetching expression. “I am sure I will do better with a song.”

  “No. Not yet. First you must perfect the major scale, and then, and only then, shall we move on.”

  I sighed loudly, wondering what I had gotten myself into, then began the wretched scale again. This time, Mr. Crane stopped me on my first wrong note—only the third one I had sung. We continued in this manner for the rest of the lesson, by the end of which I had improved somewhat, but not enough to satisfy either of us, it seemed.

  “A good start,” Mr. Crane said, putting his guitar back in its case. “Perhaps by the end of the next lesson you will have mastered it.”

  I left the room without bidding him goodbye. For goodness’ sake, it is not as though he is training me to grace the opera stages of Europe, I thought crossly as I stalked up to my room to fetch a book of poetry. I sing only for my own enjoyment, and sometimes that of our guests. And so far I do not enjoy this.

  I called for Nox as I stepped outside. He came bounding around the corner of the house, panting and tongue lolling, no doubt having spent the morning in a playful tussle with his brother, who guarded my mother’s geese and chicken flocks. He fell into step beside me, and I headed off the Van Tassel property, across the Albany Post Road, and into the woods, determined to shake off my unsatisfying singing lesson.

  Yet later that afternoon, perched on the bank of the stream, I found myself lowering the book and singing the first notes of the scale to the trees and birds and to anyone else who might hear me. I had no other audience that I could see, but that did not always mean much here, not in the woods of Sleepy Hollow.

  I sang it again, and again, and again, until I thought I had it right. Until I thought Mr. Crane might approve.

  4

  Scale

  “You are so close, but still not quite there, Miss Van Tassel,” Mr. Crane said three days later. The lesson room suddenly felt incredibly warm and close. “The distance between those two notes is not as far as you think. Listen here.” He played a series of notes on his guitar. “Do you hear it?”

  I sighed for what felt like the hundredth time. Despite how well I had done practicing after my first lesson, as soon as I was standing before Mr. Crane, I felt uncertain once again. The moment I opened my mouth, my voice seemed to shrink and shrivel away to somewhere deep inside me, somewhere so deep I could not seem to reach it. The sound came out small and fragile, like a tiny bird unsure of its place in the world, unsure even if it will survive the season.

  Never had I been nervous or frightened or indeed cared what any of my listeners might think, yet with Mr. Crane suddenly, somehow, it was different.

  “You are far too hesitant, Miss Van Tassel,” Mr. Crane said after my first attempt. “Louder, and stronger, if you please. I had rather hear a loud mistake than a nearly silent success.”

  I had gotten slightly louder over the course of the lesson, but not much. I could barely meet my teacher’s eye as he demanded that I repeat the scale, over and over again.

  “Do you hear it?” he asked again now, when I did not answer immediately. “You are going much farther than you need to in order to get to that next note.”

  “I think so,” I said.

  “Do you know, I feel as though you are not really trying, Miss Van Tassel,” he said, almost conversationally. “You made such progress last lesson, and today, not much. Did you practice since then? I neglected to mention you should, but I thought it was understood—”

  My head snapped up and I glared at him, his words erasing all trace of my earlier meekness. “I certainly did practice,” I shot back. “It is quite different practicing on my own and trying to do it with you here shouting at me.”

  “Was I shouting?” he inquired mildly. “I hadn’t thought so. But I shan’t believe you’ve practiced until you can show me—”

  Fixing him with a cold, haughty look, I opened my mouth and loudly, defiantly, began to sing the blasted scale again. I was barely paying attention, and yet as I reached the top I realized I had done it right. I wobbled a bit on the top note as this realization set in, but then I came down again strong.

  If Mr. Crane’s criticism was prickly and difficult to bear, his praise was warm and effusive and somehow worth all the difficulty. “Brava, Miss Van Tassel!” he cried, rising from his chair and applauding me. “That was wonderful! You see, your voice knew what to do all along, you had only to let it!”

  I beamed at his words, though a part of me felt foolish that I should experience such a sense of accomplishment after singing just a few notes. “I suppose you are right,” I said.

  He clasped his hands over his heart. “Ahh,” he said, “fine words to hear from so disdainful a lady.”

  I laughed. Slowly, realization dawned. “You did that on purpose,” I said, an admiring half smile sliding onto my lips in spite of myself.

  He regarded me quizzically, yet he was betrayed by his own small smile. “Did what, pray?” he asked.

  “You were … you goaded me and made me angry, so that I would want prove you wrong and do it right,” I said.

  “Ah,” he said, and spread his arms wide. “Guilty as charged, I am afraid.”

  I laughed again, at his gall, at his honesty, at his seemingly unwitting charm. “You are quite the trickster.”

  “No trick,” he said, smiling openly now. “It worked, yes? It is one of the reasons I fancy myself a rather successful teacher. I am usually able to discern how best to coax—or provoke, if necessary—a given student into doing what I know they are capable of.”

  “Indeed,” I said. “And what exactly did you discern from me, Mr. Crane?”

  He met my gaze evenly. “You are a proud young woman, Miss Van Tassel—and rightfully so. So when our previous attempts today were unsuccessful, I thought I ought to … anger your pride, as it were.”

  “Indeed,” I said again. Spontaneously I bowed from the waist, my arms held wide to the sides. “I yield, good sir. It seems I have been bested and outsmarted. Not to sound too prideful, of course, but it does not happen often.”

  He took my hand and kissed it, and my silly grin stilled at the touch of his lips on my hand. “I well believe it,” he said.

  I drew away, flushed and uneasy and not sure why. “And what task shall you set me next, Mr. Crane?” I asked after a moment. “Now that I have mastered the scale.”

  “One successful performance does not a mastery make,” he said, chuckling when I sent a glare his way. “But we are out of time for today, I am afraid. Therefore here is what I propose: you must repeat your successful performance at the beginning of our next lesson, and if you can, I have a song we may endeavor to learn together.”

  “At last!” I said, heaving a mock s
igh.

  Mr. Crane reached out and took my hand again, but his face was quite serious. “And, Katrina,” he said, his voice low. “You must never let your voice hide again. Now that I have heard its true power, I do not think I can go without it.”

  I froze for a moment, wondering if he was joking, but there was naught but earnestness in his eyes, green as the forest. “You … you quite flatter me, sir,” I said, struggling to find the very voice he had so praised.

  “I do not,” he said. “Flattery is not an art in which I am particularly gifted.” He released my hand, then turned to collect his guitar and its case. Instrument in hand, he turned back to me and bowed. “Miss Van Tassel.” Then he went past me out the door.

  I remained rooted to the spot, replaying his words in my head, thinking of how he had slipped, for the first time, and used my Christian name.

  5

  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

  The next day, I was headed out of the house, Nox at my side as usual, with a copy of one of Master Shakespeare’s plays—Macbeth, procured on my last trip to New York—when I happened upon Mr. Crane coming down the stairs with a book of his own. “Good day, Mr. Crane,” I said. “I trust you are well?”

  “Indeed, Miss Van Tassel, I thank you,” he said.

  His tone was so polite and proper that I felt a pang of disappointment. What had become of the strange intimacy of the day before? But no doubt he had reflected upon it and found such forward speech inappropriate. Yet this logic did not serve to make me feel any better, somehow.

  “Where are you off to?” I asked, trying surreptitiously to peer at the title of the volume he carried.

  “To find a reading spot where I will not make too much of a nuisance of myself,” he said, bending down to scratch Nox behind his ears. “The portico is lovely, but I should not want to be in the way if your father must entertain any guests. Perhaps you could recommend a place to me?”

  “I should be happy to,” I said. “In fact, I was just on my way to my favorite such spot. Would you care to join me?”