“Joey!” Zef called from the porch.
“Leave me alone.”
“We’ll get through this.”
“How? Jason’s gone! How do we get through that?” Joey was a tiny speck of a thing, standing on a ball of dirt, hurtling along at thousands of miles an hour. What held him to the Earth? What if he fell off? His whole position in the universe felt precarious and strange.
Zef reached for him. “It’ll be okay.”
“Oh, what do you care?” Joey pushed Zef away and staggered across the lawn. “You never liked Jason.”
“That’s not true.”
“You hurt him. You and your precious daddy.”
“Talk to me!” Zef followed him to his car. “What can I do?”
Joey climbed in and rolled the window down. “Make Jason not be dead. Can you do that?”
“No.”
Joey started the engine. “Then go to hell.”
Zef watched Joey drive away. He turned around, choking back tears, and walked back to the house.
Jessica waited on the porch. She snagged Zef’s sleeve and pulled him close. “You boys okay?”
“We’re fine.”
“Look at me.” Her face was gentle. “He’s just upset about Jason. We all are. I’m devastated.”
“Me too,” Zef whispered.
“Come here.” She ran a thumb across his cheek. “I think that you and Joey… make a cute couple.”
Zef tensed, fearing a trap, but…
I know, baby, she said, telepathically.
“You do?”
“Sorry, but I kind of lied.” She bit her lip. “Your brain projects like a lighthouse. At least where he’s concerned.”
“Then you’re… okay with it?”
She shrugged. “Who am I to judge? Keep it from Paul, though. You… shouldn’t have put his daughter through all that. It’s why you broke up?”
Zef nodded.
“Let her explain it. If she comes back.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not why she ran off, is it?”
“I hope not.”
“Don’t blame yourself.” She took a drag off her nebulizer and lit a cigarette.
Zef hugged his mother, hard. “I love you.”
She laughed. “Hey. Watch my makeup.”
After dinner, Zef snuck upstairs. The door of Kate’s bedroom stirred the air and sent a mobile in the corner turning. Moonlight threw the shadows of horses across the walls, clopping lazily around the room. Zef didn’t turn the light on. Mather might catch him and order him out. He was trespassing, possibly disturbing a crime scene.
“Where are you, Kate?” Zef whispered.
He opened the bedroom window, bent, and swung a leg out. He climbed through and pulled himself into the branches of the oak tree that grew alongside the house. He didn’t have to think; he knew exactly which branches to reach for, where to brace his feet, when to turn and press his shoulders to the chimney stack, how to push off and swing his body onto the slope of the roof. He climbed backward up the shingles, to a crook between the eaves, and sat Indian-style under the stars.
This had been their spot. Their mountaintop retreat. This was where they’d come to complain, to dream, to escape. And they’d needed escape. They’d had no mothers, and their fathers… their fathers pushed them too hard. So Zef and Kate had escaped up here, where they talked about everything. From pop stars to politics. Their dreams and their nightmares.
We should have left it like that. Why’d I let it go so wrong?
“What are you doing up here?” It was Paul’s voice.
Zef bolted upright, about to mutter apologies, when he heard Jessica answering.
“It’s been a long day,” Jessica said, “and your sheets have a higher thread count than mine.”
Zef sat perched very near to Paul Usher’s open bedroom window. He froze, terrified to be caught eavesdropping.
“Out of my bed,” said Usher, his voice friendly but firm.
“Do I have to? I’m comfy.”
“Up. I’m about to fall over. What is this?”
“I wanted to thank you for letting us stay. Come here.”
“What?”
“I’ll give you a shoulder rub.”
“Stop.”
“Just a shoulder rub. You look like you could use one.”
“Fine. Just don’t… erase my memory or anything.”
“I solemnly swear that my hands will not go roaming north of your shoulders.” They fell silent for a while, and Usher groaned appreciatively. “Ooh,” Jessica said. “You are one big knot.”
“That… feels good.”
“We don’t mean to add to your plate. Really. I know this is a hard time. But I wouldn’t worry. Kate will turn up.”
“I hope so. Just… someone get me through November.”
“How are the polls?”
He groaned. “Jessica.”
“Sorry. Just shore up the eighteenth district. Wood’s got a good ground team there.”
“I know.” Usher’s voice lowered. “I really might lose this thing.”
“Don’t say that.”
“It’s true. I’m making rookie mistakes. That debate last weekend was—awful.”
“So you lost a debate. You’ll turn it around.”
“How?”
“You’re Paul Usher, for God’s sake. Can’t you see the future?”
“Not my own. You know that. And an election… it’s tricky. It’s random-ish. Like lottery numbers. Why do you think I don’t win the Powerball every month?”
“All right. Then I’ll prophesize for you.” Her voice became low and mysterious. “You are going to win in a landslide. Eighty-four to fifteen. With one percent undecided. And Kate will come running home. She’ll come back pregnant with twins by a double-heritage warlock with… what Gift?”
“A Powerball Gift.”
“… a Powerball Gift, whose Founders came over on the Mayflower. And you’ll go to Washington and get lots of committee assignments and people will come groveling. And the whole country will see what I see: the handsomest, most powerful, sexiest future president in the entire US Senate.”
“Not likely. Half my super PAC died at Stone Barns, remember?”
“Yes, but… I might be able to help you there.”
“How? You don’t have two nickels to rub together.”
“Don’t I? If the Crane boy is dead… someone just inherited a hundred and twelve million dollars.”
Zef flinched and groaned. He clapped a hand over his mouth, hoping he hadn’t given himself away.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” said Usher.
“I am the closest Pyncheon relative.”
He chuckled. “You are, aren’t you?”
“Mm-hm. So I’ll have pleeeenty of nickels to rub. Won’t I? Little Jessie Bridge will be the all-time nickel-rubbing champion.”
“Okay. Stop, Jess.”
“Stop what?”
“Your hands.”
“What about them?”
“You promised they wouldn’t go roaming.”
“I promised they wouldn’t go roaming… north.”
The pair fell silent. After about a minute, Jessica let out a small “Ooh” of pain.
“Sorry,” whispered Paul. “Your bruises. Should I stop?”
“No,” said Jessica, with a laugh. “What’s a few more?”
Zef had heard enough. He pulled into the shadows, up the slope of the roof. So. This was what his mother was really like. He lay on the shingles, eyes wide, trying to process what he’d heard. He lay there for a long time, beneath the stars, listening to his own soft sobs…
… and the rapping of Paul Usher’s headboard.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“The Empty House”
Night had fallen by the time Hadewych returned to 417 Gory Brook. He backed his Phantom Coupe down the driveway and parked. The Van Brunt homestead lay shrouded, indistinct, nestled in the shadow of the blighted woods.
Hadewych killed the engine and got out, locking the door. He climbed the drive and went to the roadside mailbox. The words CRANE / VAN BRUNT swam through the gloom to meet him. The corner of his mouth twitched. Here was a job that needed doing. He picked away the first five letters and studied the result. Just VAN BRUNT now. As it should be.
He opened the box and felt inside. He knew he’d find it empty but he wanted an excuse to delay. To linger. He couldn’t cross the lawn. He couldn’t go in. Not yet.
He couldn’t face the empty house.
He closed the mailbox and wandered up the road, to the black mouth of the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail, open and exhaling warm air. The depths of the wood lay silent. Even the insects had fallen dumb. Two bicycle ruts converged in the distance. Why did that path look so, so dark? Darker than mere night. This was… abyss. No…
… absence.
He strode across the lawn. He had no reason to fear the house. It was his home, after all. He’d earned it, hadn’t he? He gained the porch, turned the key and entered. On the floor, his spindly shadow swam in a rectangle of blue.
“Zef?” he called. “Zef, are you home?”
He knew better than to hope for a reply. Zef’s cruiser wasn’t in the driveway, was it? Hadewych shut the door behind himself. He didn’t flip on the lights. It didn’t occur to him to do so. Electric bulbs hadn’t been invented yet, here in this ancient house. And he didn’t need them anyway. He raised his left index finger and set it afire with his Gift, his little candle throwing grotesque shapes around the entrance hall.
He crept down the dark back hallway, past photographs of the Crane ancestors, interlopers he should have pulled down months ago. The grey Crane dead stared at him with angry faces. Did they know? Did the boy’s ancestors know what Hadewych had done, what he’d been arranging all afternoon? Did they know that they had lost everything? That was the game, after all. The happiness of the Cranes or the happiness of the Van Brunts. One or the other. Winner take all, as when Ichabod and Brom had competed for the hand of the Van Tassel heiress.
“Ichabod loses, Brom wins. That’s just how the story goes.”
He swept the Crane photos off the wall, letting them clatter and crash. He stepped across their faces and knocked at Zef’s bedroom door.
“Son?”
The door swung aside, unlatched.
Zef’s room was as tidy as his father’s was foul. His books were organized, his desk neat…
Such a fine young man. Such a good boy.
… and his bed was still made, with tight hospital corners. Hadewych wiped a tear. He couldn’t look at the bed. He didn’t want to imagine where Zef might be sleeping, or… with whom.
Something glinted in the moonlight. Hadewych clicked on the overhead bulb, blinking against the harsh glare. The civil war sword of Dylan Van Brunt lay threaded through the handles of the closet’s double doors. It was slightly bent and… bloody. He withdrew it, appalled at the condition of the heirloom and frightened by what it could mean. He leaned the sword in a corner and pulled open the closet doors.
A stench hit him in the face. A stench like the collected death of two hundred years. The floor of the closet had exploded, the boards knocked aside. He covered his nose and peered into the space below. He took a book from Zef’s shelf, a battered paperback Bible, and dropped it through the hole. It took a long time to hit bottom. And when it did, something below shifted and moved. Horseflies swarmed the room. Hadewych cried out and batted them away. He lurched backward and heaved the doors shut again.
What had broken through? What had risen from the tunnels below? Hadewych didn’t want to find out. He turned for the door and ran straight into—
—the Headless Horseman.
He cried out in fear but came to his senses immediately and chuckled at himself. Zef’s Headless Horseman costume hung on the back of the bedroom door—the costume he’d worn as mascot of the high school football team. Hadewych stared at it as if he’d never seen it before, the closet forgotten. He ran his hands across the cloak, the comically wide collar with its hollow space. This was the classic ghost, as in the Disney cartoon. The symbol of the town and its darkest mystery. He fought an urge to try the outfit on himself. He’d never been the Monster. He patted the shoulder of the costume and opened the bedroom door.
A figure stood at the end of the hall. A male figure in silhouette, its hands at its sides.
Hadewych raised his arms in greeting. “Zef?”
The figure neared, catching light. It wasn’t Zef. The man was massive, muscular. He wore a red T-shirt with a football logo. He carried a hatchet.
And he had no head.
Hadewych cried out, backing away, hands up. He fell onto the bed and kicked the door closed. The classic Horseman of the black cloak, the high school mascot, reappeared for the briefest moment, then flew aside, replaced by a monster of flesh and blood. It seized Hadewych by the ankle and dragged him down the hall. Hadewych’s hands searched for purchase, catching the leg of a side table and pulling it after. A lamp crashed to the floor somewhere behind. He grabbed fistfuls of throw rug as if peeling skin from the floor. The fallen faces of the Cranes laughed at him as they rushed past.
The Horseman threw him into the living room. Hadewych’s cheek hit the coffee table hard and he careened onto his back. He remembered his flame and ignited his hands. The Horseman fell on him, its knee on his chest, pinning his wrists. Hadewych’s flame sputtered and went out. He went limp, expecting the end—almost hopefully. It wasn’t death he feared, but the moment just before—when his entire life would flash before his eyes.
“Brom?” called a voice.
A light in the master bedroom above threw a woman’s shadow down the stairs.
“Brom?” The voice was feminine, and strangely hoarse. The figure descended, slowly. Bare, blood-crusted feet. Slender legs, a silken slip, a familiar face wreathed with blond hair.
“Kate?” croaked Hadewych, uncomprehending.
The girl’s head tilted. “Brom, have you come home to me?”
Hadewych struggled against the Horseman. “Kate, run!”
Her voice became harsh. “Who is here?”
“Run! He’ll kill you!”
Kate laughed. “Kill me?” She stepped into the room, unafraid of the Monster. Something ludicrous swam in her eyes, some touch of madness—the whites too prominent, cutting through the dark. She scrutinized Hadewych, moving her lips anxiously, as if her teeth had become unfamiliar to her. “My Horseman would never kill me.”
Hadewych understood. He recognized the voice, the mad eyes, the posture both imperious and distorted at once. This was the matriarch, the ghost in the attic. This was… “Agathe?”
“You know me?” She raised a finger. “Yes. And I know you… Hadewych.” She pronounced it in the Dutch way: “Hodda-weak.” She knelt at his side, and her breath was foul. “Hadewych Van Brunt. Son of Jonus, son of Tonnis, son of Nicolas, son of Cornelius, son of Dylan, son of Brom, my own son. You are my seventh generation.” Her hand went to his injured face and came back red. “My blood.” She licked the smear away, rose, and touched the Horseman’s shoulder. “Release my boy.”
The Horseman obeyed. Hadewych crabbed backward so desperately that his shoulders struck the stones of the hearth. “What did you do to Kate?”
Agathe whirled, raising a fist. “I took her.”
“No. No.”
“I take what I want.” She ran her hands over her body—over Kate’s body—sensually, as a woman might relish a new mink coat. “Isn’t she a fine host?”
“Where is she?”
Agathe sat on the davenport. “Gone. I sent her into the Spirit World forever. She won’t be back.”
“Why her? Of all people…”
“She is perfect. Unlike any I’ve had before. She was emptied when I found her. The Crane boy had emptied her. He took her energies into himself, accidentally, and made her a perfect vessel for me. I feel what she feels. I know what she knew. I can speak through he
r. I have teeth again, and a tongue for weaving spells.”
She muttered some string of incomprehensible syllables. The feeble light shimmered. Hadewych caught motion in his peripheral vision. Shadow men, leaping aside when his eye found them, human silhouettes watching from the corners of the room, radiating melancholy. Faces appeared in the windows, on the stair. The wood of the old house groaned, like the creaking of a rib cage around a deep breath. A cold wind moaned down the chimney and chilled his spine. A flume of ash broke against his shoulders, like the sweepings of a crematorium. It swirled, taking the bodies of men. A circle of ghosts knelt before the Horseman.
Agathe went to one knee herself before her Monster, her face worshipful. “The dominant spirit of Sleepy Hollow has killed the last Crane child.” She bent and pressed her lips to his hand. “He has achieved his revenge. His satisfaction.”
“You’re sure of that?” asked Hadewych.
“I’ve sent my spirits searching. They cannot find the boy. He is not in this world. He’s in the next.” She made a dismissive gesture, and the ghosts dissipated. The tide of melancholy went with them.
“You need to get out,” Hadewych stammered, summoning his courage, even as the Horseman loomed above. “This is my house.”
“This is my house,” Agathe replied. “Do not give orders to me. I am Agathe Van Brunt. Who are you? A drop of my blood in a barrel of water.” She bent over, heaving. “Brom! Brom! The water, Brom!”
“Just go, please.”
Agathe scowled. She approached Hadewych and scrutinized him. He shrank from her. He could feel her presence, the ancient power within the girl. His eye fell on the fireplace tongs, but he didn’t dare seize them. Perhaps the Horseman sensed the fleeting thought. He brought his hatchet to the ready. Hadewych didn’t know which of them frightened him more. The Horseman filled him with physical fear, but Agathe brought… spiritual dread.
“Do you have my reliquary?” she whispered.
“Yes. It’s in the—”
“Shh. Be silent.” She glanced at the Horseman. “We must keep them separate. He is sometimes tempted to take his Treasure back. Keep it safe, for much of my power is invested in it. Do not bring it here until I ask you for it. And do not use it.”
SLEEPY HOLLOW: General of the Dead (Jason Crane Book 3) Page 7