SLEEPY HOLLOW: General of the Dead (Jason Crane Book 3)

by Gleaves, Richard

  Hadewych groaned. “You’ve got to do something. I can’t take it. Lyndhurst. Tonight. Nine p.m. Lyndhurst. Tonight. Nine p.m.” He shot to his feet. “I have to go there.”

  “You cannot, love,” Agathe said.

  “Zef is there.”

  “We will get him back. He is one of us.”

  “Zef?” said Jason. “Zef is one of you?”

  Agathe raised her chin. “Of course. He is a Van Brunt.”

  “Lyndhurst!” Hadewych cried. “Nine p.m.! Nine p.m.! It’s almost ten. It’s—I missed it. I missed—Oh, make it stop!”

  “Shh. I am brewing a potion. It will help.” Agathe set the reliquary on the floor. She bent over the wood stove and lifted the lid from a little teapot. “One more ingredient.” She opened the bundle Hadewych had carried in and withdrew a nasty-looking knife.

  “Here,” said Eddie. “Use my hatchet.”

  “It’s not ‘your’ hatchet,” Agathe snapped. “Put it away. When that hatchet drinks Crane blood again, it will have a barrel of it. I need only a pint or so.”

  She approached Jason and let her blade graze his skin. “Where shall I cut?” She lowered the knife to the exposed skin at his waist, where his T-shirt had ridden up. “Here? No. Belly blood is too thick.” She brought it to his neck. “Or here? The carotid artery is a grand fountain, but you’d die quickly.” She bit her lip. “No. Here, I think.” She dug the point into the flesh of Jason’s forearm.

  Jason cried out, his body swinging. The owl talisman fell loose and dangled from his neck. Agathe recoiled and dropped the knife. Her whole body shuddered and her face changed. The evil light left her eyes, replaced by a soft glow.

  “Jason?” she whispered, sounding bewildered.

  He gasped and swung forward. “Kate!”

  She kissed his cheeks. “You’re alive? Oh, thank God you’re alive. How—did—”

  She trailed off. Before Jason could say “Run” or “I love you” or “Fight her,” her hands dropped and Agathe returned with a swirl of cold wind. The witch yanked the talisman from Jason’s neck and threw it to the floor.

  She bent and scowled at it. “Orichalcum.”

  Eddie nudged the talisman with his toe. “What’s ori—?”

  “Orichalcum. Ghostbane.”

  “I’ve seen that,” said Hadewych. “Valerie used to wear it. He got it from her, of course.”

  Eddie picked it up. “Don’t tell me you’re scared of owls?”

  “Don’t touch it!” Agathe slapped it from his hand. “Not owls. The metal. It’s rare. Worse than iron or salt. Keep my Horseman away from it.”

  “Whatever,” said Eddie. “Stop telling me what to do, you old—”

  She glared at him as she bent to retrieve her knife.

  Eddie stopped himself and sat on the floor, frowning. He took a log from the stack and began whittling it with the hatchet.

  “There is our answer.” Agathe turned to Hadewych, pointing at the fallen bauble with her knife tip. “Very clever. No mere ghost could approach this lighthouse.”

  Hadewych wrung his hands. “I had no idea.”

  “No ghost could report him to me, no ghost could bring him his summoning-stone.”

  “Summoning-stone?” Jason said. “My parents got one. Before they died.”

  “Before we killed ’em,” muttered Eddie.

  Before Jason could react, Agathe dragged her blade down his raised left arm. He cried out as blood trickled from the wound. She produced a peculiar bowl, blue and white with a gap on one side, fitted the gap to Jason’s arm, and let the blood run into it. “Don’t worry, boy. I’ve bled men before.”

  “And women,” Jason whispered.

  She smacked her lips. “And women.”

  “You bled Valerie that night. So he’d be strong enough. To kill my mom and dad.”

  Agathe only had eyes for the blood. “They died for their sins.”

  “Shut up.” Jason closed his eyes. God, it hurt to look at her.

  “They deserved it. Just as you deserve your own bleeding. Look at it run, boy. I said look at it. Open your eyes or I’ll cut your lids off.”

  Jason watched the blood gather in the bowl.

  “You’re a good bleeder,” she said, in the tone of a sincere compliment. “It’s like a scarlet ribbon.” She raised a finger and painted a spiral of blood around his forearm. “This is where we get the barber pole. See? The red stripe of blood, the white stripe of the bandage. My father was a barber. Did you know that?”

  “Do I give a shit?”

  “Hey,” said Eddie, hacking at his firewood. “Mind your manners, asshole.”

  “Let him get hot. It only makes the blood run faster.” Agathe laughed, easily, like an old friend. The sound reminded Jason of his first night in the hollow, of the hinges on a rusty door. A question occurred to him, one he’d never considered.

  “Who opened the cellar?”

  She shrugged. “You did, of course. And I am most grateful. It takes the hand of the Gifted to break an iron boundary.”

  “No. Ten years ago. Who let you out then?”

  “For that, you have Hadewych to thank, as do I.”

  Hadewych looked up. “What?”

  Agathe lowered the bowl, nodding over the contents. She carried it to the stove like a serving of tomato soup. “You were in despair that night, Hadewych. I could feel your loneliness, just as I could feel my Horseman’s desire to kill. The Cranes were at hand. He needed a sacrifice to strengthen him. And you needed… a woman. I helped you both.”

  “A woman?” Hadewych said.

  Agathe whispered an incantation to the blood, and it glowed. Eddie craned his neck, curious to see the magic. “You had lost your Jessica. Our Zef had no mother, and you had no one to keep you warm and fed. So I called to you, remember?”

  “Yes.” Hadewych scratched his head. “That was… the night I broke into Gory Brook.”

  “You what?” said Jason.

  “I… broke into the basement. I’d just had Dylan’s letter translated. I wanted to see if I could solve the puzzle lock.”

  “I called to you.” Agathe stirred the glowing blood into her potion. “Your hand released me. And I rewarded you with a woman. Did you think it was chance that you happened to be close enough to hear the witch screaming in the night? I was your Providence.” She wiped the residue from the bowl with one finger and licked it away, like a child sneaking cake batter.

  Hadewych frowned. “You… planned for me to meet Valerie?”

  “Of course. I could have killed her where I found her, but I dragged her from Spook Rock, all the way down to the bridge. So you would hear her screams. Why were you in the cemetery?”

  “I’d failed with the cellar. I thought I’d break into the tomb.”

  “You wanted wealth and magic, so I brought you a rich witch. There. You see? And you say I’ve done nothing for you. She was a good sacrifice. My Horseman had his fun. It worked out marvelously.”

  Jason felt dead inside. “Damn you, Hadewych,” he whispered, as tears broke down his cheeks. “You killed my parents too.”

  “It wasn’t my fault!” Hadewych tried to rise, but sank into the chair and pressed his palms to his forehead. “Lyndhurst. Tonight. Nine p.m. Lyndhurst. Tonight. Nine p.m.”

  An evil tendril of smoke rose from the teapot. “Coming, my sweet.” Agathe poured her potion into a china cup and pressed it into his hand. “Drink this.”

  “I can’t drink… Jason’s blood.”

  “It’s not a cure, but you’ll feel better.”

  Hadewych took a tentative sip.

  “How do I taste?” said Jason.

  Hadewych grimaced. “I’d rather have a bourbon.” He turned to Eddie. “There’s a bottle in my room. Second floor.”

  “Great. I could use a hit of something.” Eddie bounded up the stairs.

  Agathe stood at the window, her back to the others, wiping down the bleeding bowl with her sleeve. The storm had blown a board away, and flash
es of lightning cast shadow-streaks of rain across her cheeks.

  Eddie returned with the bourbon. He took the first pull, straight from the neck, then handed it to Hadewych, who drained the last of Agathe’s potion and washed it down with bourbon.

  “Don’t forget Jason,” Hadewych said, extending the bottle.

  Eddie brought the bottle to Jason mouth. The liquor burned his throat, but he was glad of it. Anything to dull the pain.

  Lightning lit up the concrete wastes beyond the window. Agathe raised a finger. “What is this land here? I don’t recognize it.”

  Hadewych’s knees had stopped bobbing. He seemed calmer already. “It was the GM plant. We built cars. It went bust.”

  She set the bleeding bowl down on the table. “Of course it did. That land was cursed, long ago.” She pointed toward shore, her voice soft and thoughtful. “When Lord Vredryk Philipse took title to these lands, he dammed the Pocantico to make his millwheel turn. The dam kept breaking. But his slave Tomas had a dream one night. He told the master that God demanded that a church be built first, or the dam would never hold. And so the men were sent to dig stones from the hills. They broke a piece from Spook Rock—a sacred stone to the tribes—and made it their cornerstone. They built the Old Dutch Church, close by on a knoll, and the dam held, just as Tomas said it would. The chief at Alipconk was offended by what they’d done, but he forgave it, for the sake of peace.”

  “When was this?” said Eddie.

  “A hundred years before even I breathed on this earth, and I was born in 1760. Once the dam was built, the millwheel turned and the flour came to market. This was Wheat Town. Tarwe-Dorp in Dutch. Tarrytown. The water below the Philipse Mill grew sluggish and dreamy with silt. They called it the Slapers Haven. The Sleepers Port. The Sleepy Hollow. Right there. Under these ruins.”

  Hadewych’s eyes widened. “So the actual Sleepy Hollow was… right under my factory?”

  “And it was cursed?” said Eddie, swinging the bourbon bottle between his knees.

  “How?” said Jason, curious despite himself.

  She smiled, enjoying their interest. She spoke as if conjuring a fireside ghost story. “A dark spell was cast. The shores of the Sleepy Hollow were good for wheat, but the Alipconk chief forbade the settlers to plant. His dead were buried on that spot, their souls trapped now that the river was dammed, for they had no swift stream to carry them onward. But Philipse held title. He did what he pleased. His men sowed the land about the Sleepy Hollow, expecting a bountiful harvest, but everything planted there withered and died, year after year, for the last Sachem of the Alipconk village kidnapped an English schoolgirl—little Ann Underhill, a sweet thing who wore ribbons in her hair. The savages found her playing, singing songs in the wood. They took her to Spook Rock and slit her throat, spilling her blood into the brook, the gory brook we call it, to curse everything that lay downstream. The Pocantico River, the Philipse millpond, and the Slapers Haven itself. A great charter tree once stood near the Sleepy Hollow. The enormous Hokohongas chestnut. You could see it from the docks. But even the old chestnut vanished. No plant can grow there, not even a plant for building cars, it seems. Your factory was built on a cursed spot. Of course it died. Yet the cemetery thrived, didn’t it?”

  She paused, listening to the rain. “The cursed water makes Sleepy Hollow a peculiarly haunted place, from Spook Rock to the river to the mills. Magic flows through this valley, bleeding in the waters. Spook Rock pumps it, the Pocantico pulses with it, the millpond concentrates it. Magic turns the wheel. It grinds the harvest, and spills. Can you feel it glutting, surging with the storm? These waters will bring me my Horseman. Just as they did when I was a girl of sixteen. My time has come. My satisfaction at last. My harvest. My… someday…”

  “Someday,” whispered Hadewych, taking the bourbon from Eddie.

  “Don’t be upset, child.” She sighed. “Is my diary upstairs as well?”

  “No. I have it here.” Hadewych took it from his jacket pocket.

  Jason groaned inwardly. He’d left the diary at Valerie’s house. How did Hadewych get it? Ever since he’d taken it from the Van Brunt tomb, he’d felt an irrational dread of Hadewych ever possessing the thing.

  “Give it to me,” Agathe said.

  Hadewych obeyed, looking hopeful. “You’ll read it?”

  Agathe pressed the book to her chest and regarded the three. Jason hung helplessly, trussed up like a goose. Hadewych slumped in his chair with the bourbon bottle. Eddie leaned against the firewood, whittling with the hatchet. “A Crane… a Bones… and my Horseman. What better audience could I find?” Thunder rolled through the heavens outside. The candles winced like frightened children. “My Horseman needs time to recover, and young Jason here needs a bedtime story, to give him nightmares while he rots. When my tale is finished, boy…” She drew a blood-crusted finger across her neck. “… so are you.”

  Their eyes met and Jason nodded, as if they’d struck a deal.

  He hoped the tale would be a long one. He needed time to think, to find a means of escape. And… he needed to discover, at last, how this had all come about. To learn Agathe’s motives, the origin of the Horseman, maybe even the true story of Ichabod Crane. That would be… a consolation. At least if he died at story’s end, he wouldn’t die in ignorance.

  Agathe sat, lit a red candle, and fixed it to a holder. Beyond the window, the wasteland that once was the Sleepy Hollow caught lightning-light. She hesitated, searching their faces, but opened her book. The shadows of her companions trembled expectantly. She bowed her head and waited for the long rolling thunder to subside.

  “‘For my heir,’” she whispered, and licked a fingertip.

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY

  “Agathe’s Tale ~ Part One”

  March 14th, 1849

  Secrets are best kept in the head, not in books. Books may be discovered. Books may be published. Books may be read to the entire world. I would not willingly write my secrets. I would carry them in my head and to my grave. Nor would I speak them aloud, my Dylan, for I could not bear to see your face turn fearful or doubtful or contemptuous. When one is evil, secrecy is the shield that allows one to be loved. Yet you are right: my secrets are your inheritance, just as my Horseman is your inheritance, just as this house and my quarry shall pass to Abraham, and then to you, and then to your children. I hesitate to write my secrets in a book, but I have no intention of leaving you my head.

  I’ve resolved, therefore, to keep this diary and to relinquish my hoard, coin by coin, for the grandest of dragons must die, and this old lizard will breathe her last, and soon. I pray that, by my own study of these events, I may understand my Horseman’s origins. I must confess that, even seventy-three years later, I still do not understand all that occurred. I pray also that, someday, when I am in the ground and safe from your judgment, if not God’s, these words will assist you in your own mastery of the monster, that he may ever serve the Van Brunts, and never turn against us.

  Look to family.

  I cut my arm, now, and dip my pen into the bleeding bowl.

  I shall write until this ink congeals.

  I was ten years old when I saw my first ghost.

  The year was 1770. My father was a barber. He kept a small shop at the Couenhoven Inn, where the King’s Road met the Old Loop. Our modest home lay to the north, between the inn and the hanging tree: a simple box of pine boards whitewashed with crushed oyster shell—one room, with a spinning wheel for Mother, a chair for Father, and, up a ladder of branches, a garret where my parents slept.

  I slept on the floor below, alongside my little brother, Hans, five years younger than I. Our floor sloped toward the Hudson, so that when Hans rolled over in his sleep he often went on rolling and couldn’t stop, collecting splinters and grievances. Yet on this particular night, he slept peacefully and I was the fitful one.

  A mouse had taken shelter in our wall, fleeing the October chill. It skritched and scratched, nibbling a nest
for itself. The sound thrilled me. I possessed a vivid mind, full of toadstools and bullfrogs and lightning storms, and so imagined a skeleton writhed in the wood, the bones of Ann Underhill perhaps, murdered by Indians at Spook Rock! I’d heard that tale from my father, who reveled in the Dutch superstitions. He would gather us to fireside on winter nights and spin tales of the Heer of Dunderberg, that Storm King who rattled our white windows; of the Lady of Raven Rock, who died in snowfall, pining for her lover; of trolls beneath the Penny Bridge and hobgoblins in the hanging tree. He’d filled my head with such dark romance that I lay waiting for Ann’s little finger bones to drag me off to some bloody fate. I rather hoped she would.

  A cloud cleared the moon and a square of light fell on my mother’s spinning wheel. The sharp spindle glinted and the wheel began to turn, without touch. I thought perhaps that Hans had rolled and shivered the boards, but my brother lay dreaming, his fists against his cheek.

  I rose to my knees, all amazed, the skritch in the wall forgotten, and watched the wheel turn. A figure appeared before me, as through a mist, a grey head bent to the work. She was as old as I am now, and as toothless. She fixed me with eyes black as open graves and whispered, in a low guttural hiss:

  “Spin, or you shall not eat.”

  I cried out and fell to my pallet, arms over my head. Hans awoke, lost his balance, and rolled away, bleating with pain as he struck the riverside wall.

  Father emerged above. “Agathe? What is wrong?”

  “There’s a ghost, Papa! A ghost! Help me!”

  Hans laughed despite his bruises, and Mother moaned and ordered us to sleep, but Papa descended and took my hands, his blue eyes twinkling.

  “What did you see?”

  “An old woman. She said, ‘Spin or you shall not eat.’”

  “Oh!” He raised a candle beneath his chin. “You saw Old Willow. She lived here long ago, when this was the home of Isaac Hart, our candle maker. Her husband was killed by savages. Hart took her in at the request of Lord Philipse, who paid a token sum for her upkeep. But Hart was greedy and kept the money for himself. He never fed her, unless she spun. So Willow spun and spun and spun, like a spider, year by year, growing old and blind and falling to waste. She died at that spinning wheel, fell over one day, and the spindle pierced her heart.”