The Hidden

by Jessica Verday

  THE PERFECT DRESS

  The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best, and indeed only suit of rusty black …

  —“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

  Old toys and busted-up junk filled the shelves of Clutter and Cobwebs Antiques, a cross between a really bad estate sale and a going-out-of-business dollar store. As I looked closer, I could see remnants of yard sale stickers here and there. “Nice,” I muttered.

  It seemed like a waste of space, and I was just about to leave when a steamer trunk caught my eye. It was pushed out of the way, half buried under a pile of moth-eaten fur coats in the back of the clothing section. But there was something about it that drew my attention. …

  The trunk looked old. A lot older than any of the other stuff surrounding it, and it was covered in faded stickers. Shoving the coats out of my way, I knelt in front of it. The stickers were from everywhere—Madrid, Ireland, France, Turkey, Indonesia, Brazil.

  A white piece of fabric hung out of the corner, trailing forlornly down the side. It looked really fragile.

  I had the briefest notion that it was a wedding dress. That I’d just found someone’s long-forgotten wedding dress, but as I lifted the lid and removed an old wooden tray filled with handkerchiefs and gloves, I saw that I was wrong. It was a gown. A ball gown.

  Digging deeper, gently pushing my way past petticoats and nightgowns, I pulled at the edge of the silvery-white fabric. It felt like gossamer in my hands.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, it came free, and I lifted it up from the trunk. It was the most beautiful dress I had ever seen.

  A full, flowing skirt fell away from the front in a graceful V shape, the color of a fresh pearl. Little silvery capped sleeves looked dainty and ethereal, while a black lace overlay ran from the corseted bodice down to the floor. It almost looked like someone had taken two dresses and put one on top of the other, then taken scissors and cut away the front so that the bottom dress could peek through. It was stunning.

  I pulled it close, and a faint wave of rose scent drifted up to me. Closing my eyes, I was suddenly lost in a flood of hazy images.

  Waving good-bye as your beloved goes to sea … Waiting for him, handkerchief in hand, stained with fresh tears … Red roses, given at a Christmas dance, now dried and pressed for all eternity … A watchful bride, walking the shore as she prays for her sailor to find the bottle she’s tossed into the waves … A stolen kiss …

  Pulling the dress away from me, I stared down at it.

  That all felt so … real.

  Which was crazy. I had no idea where this dress had come from or who it had belonged too. And yet something … something was calling to me. Even now, as I pushed it away, my fingers kept creeping back into the soft fabric.

  It felt like mine. It felt like home.

  Hardly daring to breathe, I looked at the tag. It was marked with pencil, and had an odd size on it. I didn’t know how it compared to my size, but I couldn’t let the dress stay there. I had to try it on. A sign by the front register said that dressing rooms were in the back, so I headed there.

  Once inside the small room, I barricaded the door and hung the dress on the metal hook on the back of the door. Soft folds of fabric fell gracefully to the floor, whispering for me to try the gown on.

  I took my clothes off swiftly. Carefully unlacing the front of the bodice, I tried not to pull too hard in case the strings were fragile. It opened easily, and I stepped inside, pulling the dress up over me. I held my breath until every last fold was in place and the front strings had been tightened once again, before daring to look in the mirror.

  It wasn’t me. And yet … it was.

  I looked closer, staring hard into the reflective surface. Somehow the dress had given my waist definition and had magically created an impressive amount of cleavage that certainly hadn’t been there before. Tiny capped sleeves graced my arms, while the black lace netting gave it a decidedly wicked look. The full fabric of the skirt rustled delicately as I turned from side to side to admire every angle. It was Gothic. It was Victorian. It was Gothic and Victorian all rolled into one, and I was in love.

  But what would I wear it for?

  It wasn’t right for Ben and the Hollow Ball. The red flamenco dancer dress suited him better. But this one? This dress was pure romance and lost love. Pure … Caspian.

  As soon as that thought entered my mind, I knew. I knew what the dress was for. This is what I would wear somehow, or someway, for him. For when we could be together on November first.

  His death day.

  I reached for the front laces slowly, and began to carefully undo them. I wiggled my arm out of the right sleeve first, and then the left. As I pulled the dress over my head, the bottom rustled past me and I caught an odd sound as it went past my ear. Almost like a crinkling.

  Did something just rip? I turned it over to look at it.

  The hem looked fine. It wasn’t ripped. And there weren’t any leaves or dirt that could have caused the sound. Flipping it up, I examined the other side. There was a small slit. But it didn’t look like a tear or hole. It was a perfectly clean slit. Like someone had cut it.

  Pulling it closer, I peered at it. Then I held it up to my ear and moved the fabric around. The rustling noise came from within.

  I stuck my finger into the hole and felt something wedged inside there. It was hard to get it loose, but eventually I turned it the right way, and a slip of paper drifted out. It was tiny, old, and yellowed, with spidery cursive writing. I knelt to pick it up.

  Holding the paper up to the light, I read the words:

  When he shall die,

  Take him and cut him out in little stars,

  And he will make the face of heaven so fine

  That all the world will be in love with night

  And pay no worship to the garish sun.

  —William Shakespeare

  “Wow,” I whispered. Those words were beautiful. And someone had thought so much of them that they’d tucked them into their clothes to carry around with them? I folded the paper back up and put it inside my pocket. I would keep it close to me, too.

  Grabbing the dress, I draped it carefully over my arm and went to go find out what it cost. It didn’t matter what the price was. Somehow I’d find a way to pay.

  The store clerk was a mousey-looking old man, who peered up at me from behind the counter with thick-lensed glasses, and a hearing aid in each ear. “Do you want that?” he asked me as I approached.

  “I didn’t see a price on it anywhere,” I said. “I was wondering—”

  “It’s just an old dress, right?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Clothes are ten dollars. You got ten dollars?”

  Ten dollars? Of course I had ten dollars. “Are you sure? That’s all this is?”

  He chuckled roughly. “If you want to give me more, missy, you can.”

  “Ah, no, that’s okay.” I didn’t want to rip him off, but if that was the price, then that was the price. I fished out a ten-dollar bill from my wallet and passed it over.

  “Do you want a bag?” he asked, taking my money. He held up a white plastic grocery bag, and I knew there was no way in hell I was stuffing my dress into that tiny thing.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll just carry it.”

  Suddenly he stood up. Peering closer.

  “Did you get that from the trunk?” he asked, eyes turning sharp.

  “Which trunk?” I said defensively. I didn’t know if he was going to try to get more money out of me.

  “Steamer.” He waved a hand. “In the corner. With the tags on it.”

  I couldn’t help myself. I glanced over at it. “Yes,” I said reluctantly. “Why?”

  “Came from a lady.” His eyes narrowed. It looked like he was trying to remember. “A widow. She lost … She lost her …” His eyes grew cloudy again. “She lost her husband. At sea, I think.”

  A chill ran do
wn my spine. Lost her husband … waiting, by the sea …

  Just like I’d pictured it. And even if he was wrong, even if the trunk hadn’t been hers, just the idea that he thought it might have been was eerie.

  “Okay,” he said suddenly, back to the present again. “You enjoy it. Bye-bye now.”

  I nodded and slowly walked to the door, dress clutched tightly in hand, and that little slip of paper tucked safely in my pocket.

  When I found Beth back at the dress store, she was standing in line, trying to juggle my red dress and a black dress, while simultaneously pulling out her phone. “Hey,” she said, looking up at me. “I was just going to call you. You’re definitely going with the red one, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Here you go.” She handed it off, and then caught sight of what was in my hands. “What’s that?”

  “Um … Halloween costume?” I replied.

  “Okay.” She looked at me like I was a bit crazy, then shrugged and turned back toward the line. I peeked over her shoulder. “What did you pick?”

  “Since you’re going with the sexy red dancer dress, I went with one of those too. We’re going to bring a little Latin flare to the Hollow Ball.” She held her dress up so I could see it. It was super short, matte black, with ruffles that zigzagged along the hem and up one side.

  “Niiiiiice,” I said.

  She stepped up to the counter to pay, and I moved behind her. I couldn’t see who was at the register, but I recognized the tone. “Will this be all for you today?” a bored female voice asked.

  My head whipped up. “Aubra?” I moved out of line so I could see her.

  She gave me the barest hint of a smile. “Hey.” Then she turned back to Beth. “Cash or charge?”

  “Charge.” Beth sat her purse up on the counter to dig through it, but it fell over. A tube of lip gloss and the perfume sample I’d made her went rolling. “Sorry,” she said, but Aubra was already reaching for the perfume.

  “What’s this?” She opened it and sniffed.

  Beth pointed back to me. “Abbey makes perfumes. That’s an exclusive one she made for me.” She said it with such an air of superiority that I had to hold back a grin.

  Aubra smelled it again. “Smells good. Vanilla.” She capped the tiny bottle and reluctantly gave it back to Beth, who was standing there with her hand out.

  “Can you make one of those for me, too?” Aubra asked, looking past Beth and directing her question to me.

  “For a price,” Beth replied before I even had a chance to open my mouth. “Of course, it won’t be this blend exactly, since it’s an exclusive. But we can work something out.”

  I cast an amused glance between the two of them.

  Aubra nodded at Beth, then rang up her purchase. She motioned for me to move forward next, and I placed the red dress on the counter, being careful to hold on to my white dress. She tallied up my total, and I slid some cash across to her.

  “So when can you make a perfume for me?” she asked, putting my dress into a plastic garment bag.

  “Uh, I guess whenever,” I said.

  “There will have to be a deposit,” Beth broke in. “Half of the formulation fee up front, and the other half on delivery.”

  “How much will that be?”

  “We’ll get back to you,” Beth said as she smoothly reached across the counter and picked up my dress. “Come on, Abbey. We have to go.”

  I shrugged at Aubra, and followed Beth outside.

  “That was awesome!” she exclaimed, turning to grin at me as we walked to the car. “Can you believe it? She is so totally sold on that perfume.”

  “I need to hire you as my salesperson,” I joked.

  “You’ve got that right.” Beth agreed. “I never liked Aubra. She’s such a bitch. We’ll have to jack up the formulation fee to include an I-hate-you charge.”

  I laughed at her. “We can’t do that. Besides, I’m not even sure I can make her a perfume.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s hard to make perfumes for other people. Especially when I don’t know them that well.”

  “But you don’t really know me. I mean, not super well. And you made me one.”

  “That was different.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know.” I struggled for words. “It just … was.”

  “You can totally do this, Abbey. I’ll pimp you out to a bunch of other people I know too. They’ll eat it up.”

  “I’m going to need that shop space sooner than I thought,” I mused absentmindedly.

  “What shop?” she asked.

  “My shop. My mom paid the rent for a year on a storefront downtown as an early graduation gift. So I can start Abbey’s Hollow.”

  Beth turned to stare at me. “She did? That’s sweet!”

  “Yeah. I just didn’t think I’d ever get the chance to actually follow through.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Well, complicated or not, I just scored you your first client, sister, so I’m thinking I need to become your partner.”

  I stayed silent on that one, but it was an interesting thought. I’d never pictured anyone other than Kristen helping me out at Abbey’s Hollow. To imagine Beth there was strange.

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE SÉANCE

  … and haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow …

  —“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”

  Caspian was finally awake when I got home, and I was thrilled to get the chance to tell him about everything that had happened.

  I hid the white dress behind the red one in the back of my closet, and spent most of the night talking about Mom and Dad’s graduation gift and my shopping trip. I left out the part about what I’d found at the antiques store, but it was so good to just be able to lie in bed and talk with him again.

  The only thing that didn’t come up was how long his sleep had lasted this time. And there was a moment of uncertainty when I rearranged a pillow to get more comfortable and it fell off the bed. He reached for it, but he couldn’t pick it up. Couldn’t grab on to it.

  I quickly told him that it was fine where it was, and I moved on to a funny song that I’d heard on the radio at the store today, but his eyes were worried even as he agreed.

  Since I stayed up half the night talking to Caspian, I woke up the next morning feeling like a zombie. Cyn must have noticed me dragging through the day at school, because she kept asking if I was okay. After lunch she waited by my locker, resting the back of her head against it.

  “So, I’m thinking about having a séance,” she said abruptly. “You want in?”

  I turned to her. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. Haven’t you ever been to one before?”

  “Yeah, right. Sure.” I snorted with laughter. “Séances are common occurrences around here.”

  “They’re not? This is Sleepy Hollow, right?” She looked surprised. “I would have thought in a town like this it would be a weekly occurrence.”

  “Nope.” Then what she’d said dawned on me. “What do you mean, ‘a town like this’?”

  She made a gesture with her hands. “You know. Historical. Haunted. The mascot of the whole damn town is a headless ghost on a horse. Don’t tell me you can’t feel it. There’s an undercurrent of … something here.” Her eyes glazed over and she stared off for a minute. Then she blinked. “So, do you want to come?”

  “Where and when?”

  “We need someplace spooky. Know any spooky places around here?”

  There was the cemetery. But that wasn’t really spooky. At least not to me it wasn’t. And it didn’t feel right to think about holding a séance there. It felt sacrilegious. “Not really,” I said.

  “We’ll have it at my house, then. It has an attic. I’m at 24 Main.”

  “Are you sure that’s …?” I didn�
�t know how to word it, so I just looked at her, hoping that she got my meaning.

  “What? Spooky enough?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, yeah.” She laughed derisively. “It’s spooky enough. Trust me. The deaths of a thousand dreams reside there. I can feel it. Hell, I die a little each time I have to go back there.”

  She looked so unhappy that it actually made me uncomfortable to see her that way. “So, yeah, okay,” I said hastily. “When do you want to have it?”

  “Tonight.”

  “Tonight? That’s … soon.”

  “It feels right. I generally go with what feels right and don’t question it.” Cyn shifted away from the locker and turned to head down the hall. “Be there at nine o’clock.”

  She was almost out of earshot before I realized what I wanted to ask her.

  “Hey, why exactly are we having a séance?” I yelled.

  “To summon up the dark spirits and confer with them, of course,” she yelled back. “Mwahahaha!”

  I told Caspian about the séance when he came to pick me up, and we talked about it on the way home from school. I thought he’d be against it, but he surprised me by saying that it sounded like fun.

  “You’re going to come?” I asked, astonished.

  “All séances need a ghost,” he said with a smile. “Isn’t that the point?”

  It was nice to see this playful side of him. I thought that the incident last night with the pillow had really shaken him up. I smiled back. “Will you put on a good show?”

  “I aim to please. You know that.”

  There was something more behind his words, and the look in his eyes had my heart beating faster. Suddenly all I could think about was the white dress in my closet and the fact that his death day was almost here.

  When we got home, Sophie was there with Mom and they were both bent over the kitchen table. A bunch of papers were spread out between them.

  “Hey, sweetie,” Mom said as I walked in.

  Sophie said hi too, and tipped her head at Caspian when Mom wasn’t looking. I slid my book bag next to the chair and went to grab a bottle of water. “What are you guys doing?”