The rider had no head.
“Get out of my sight,” I whispered, rejecting my Horseman.
The figure shrugged its cloak aside and grinned down at me. “Did I scare ya?” said Brom.
“What on earth are you up to?”
“Our last prank!”
“Ours?”
Brom whistled and a trio of his boys manifested, wrapped in homespun shrouds and waving their arms. “Ichabod’s about to leave. He’s on a plough horse, though. We’ll be waiting in the swamp for him. You should have seen him chattering at the ghost stories. He’ll wet himself. We plan to spook him good, don’t we boys?”
The trio of ruffians whooped and hollered.
“You’ll do nothing of the kind, son.”
“It will be a prank for song and story!”
“No.” I approached and stroked Daredevil’s snout. Such a good strong animal and such a good strong son. “This rivalry ends tonight. Katrina has made her choice.”
He leaned down, so his boys wouldn’t hear. “But Mother… I can’t let him beat me.”
“Has he beat you, truly? You only wanted Katrina because I wished it. Here.” I withdrew the string of wampum from my pocket. “Give this to your Indian girl. Marry for love, not wealth. Do not make my mistakes.”
Brom accepted the string. “What’s come over you?”
I kissed his hand. “Go home, Brom.” I took the pumpkin in my arms. “No horseman will ride tonight.”
Brom and his boys turned aside, dejected, but someone told a merry joke that unbridled their laughter and spurred them hallooing into the October night, their prank forgotten.
I continued my walk, entering Wildey Swamp, crossing over Andre Brook, listening to a lovely cicada song. That childhood drama merely amused me now. Given time, I might find it endearing. Little Agathe and her hitchhiker. Why do we let such things latch on to us? Why not pluck them off and let them starve? Why keep feeding them? Why allow ourselves no fallibility, and show our child-selves so little forgiveness? Forgiveness costs nothing but one’s hoard of resentments. Oh, I would be a different woman. I blessed my dear wise Papa. I would take my leeches off and let my bruises heal. When I reached home, what manner of life would I plan and build? I was eager to know. What a miraculous potion of love I had swallowed!
But once I crossed the bridge, its power ended.
I felt as though winter had howled down the Pocantico Hills to pierce my heart with stakes of ice. The cicadas mocked me once more and I hated them. The sky must have lost its thimble. It bled merciless light from innumerable pinpricks, without a scrap of cloud to bandage them. I sank to my knees with a cry of pain and outrage. Hot tears, long unshed, brimmed my eyes and salted my lips. Anger kindled and flared. What had I done? Oh, what a prank had been played on me! A prank for song and story! Papa had tricked me into renouncing my plans!
The pumpkin slipped from my arms and rolled away. I foolishly went after it. A brackish mire gripped my ankles. My legs grew heavy. I found the fat pumpkin and staggered onward, overcome. I fell to my knees at the bank of my slough, my Slough of Despond, into which the sinning Christian fell and could not escape.
What cruelty had been done to me! To be granted a vision of some impossible life I would never achieve again. How could I? How could I love life, when I’d taken so much of it? Papa had taught me a lesson fit for Ichabod and his whip of birch. Pert Miss Prat-A-Face in her dunce cap, I was. Foolish little Agathe! What a fine, fine joke!
I snarled at my own weeping face. I struck the water and beat my tears away. I felt no guilt for the things I’d done. I had nothing to feel guilty about. The world deserved my rage and indignation. I’d been deceived by a mirage. A fantasy. The real world deserved no such sentimentalism. I’d seen how hard life was. I knew. I was the practical person, not that weak barber who’d swung for the crimes of another. Not those fools who spouted bad poetry and called it love. Passion was love. Hate was love. I would show them all. I would not be their victim. I would never be helpless. Never again.
I took my oyster-shell knife from my pocket and slit my wrists.
I felt no pain. I’d bled countless times before. Bleeding was my natural state. I’d never bled this deeply, though. I’d never seen blood arcing from my veins or pulsing with my heart. So this was the fountain my leeches so loved. Let them drink their fill now. Let me return the magic I’d stolen. I’d slaked my thirst with these cursed waters—now let them drink from me.
I saw my mother’s face in the void below.
“I will never be the girl you wanted,” I said.
My heart skipped a beat. I went limp and gave my all.
The pumpkin beside me burst into flame. It leapt from the ground and whirled overhead, as if swung by its vine, tracing a circle of blinding fire. Brittle leaf and sedge-weed danced in a rising wind, a swarm of cicadas scratched out the shadows, and my mother’s bones rose up from the slough. She roused herself from her bed of rot, throwing off her sheet of slime. Her rib cage sifted the muck and she raised long fleshless arms, reaching for me. Her mouth flew wide to spew condemnations. Her eye sockets wept tears of algae and blood. Her Little Agathe’s blood.
I raised my wrists and we wept together.
Her body spasmed, her back arched, and her spine snapped. Her bones broke apart and whirled above—like broomsticks riding a foul wind. A shape coalesced, straddling me, a horse of bone and rot, its glossy hide crawling with leeches. It bore a rider of complete darkness, a rider conjured by my desperate sacrifice.
The Headless Horseman’s voice shivered the waters and bent the trees—
ICHABOD CRANE!
His ghastly horse reared and kicked hooves of stone—
ICHABOD CRANE!
His pumpkin licked its jagged teeth with a forked tongue of fire—
ICHABOD CRANE!
—then, in a flash of motion and a hail of mud, they tore away with thunderous speed. They gained the Post Road and were lost my to sight. A banshee wail echoed through the Hollow—the cry of our terrified schoolmaster—joined by two pairs of galloping hoofbeats in frantic chase, dwindling away into distance and legend.
I lay dying, face-down in the murk.
“I love you,” I whispered. “I love you, my Horseman.”
And the night closed in.
CHAPTER FIFTY
“Agathe’s Tale Concludes”
I did not die, of course. I woke in my own bed in my own house, with Brom by my side. I’d slept for many days, but Baltus’s own physician had sewn my wrists. I would live. Baltus himself appeared at my elbow. “Katrina told me you gave your approval and showed her love. I am sorry for my harsh words, old friend.” He kissed my cheek and left. I loathed his pity, for he thought me a failed suicide. Mine was no act of self-destruction, but of majestic creation.
Ichabod had been found near-death as well, unconscious at the foot of the Church Bridge, with scorched trees above him and a shattered pumpkin at his side. He lay in a deathly sleep. Brom had laid him to rest in his own room, and intended to nurse him back to health.
Brom also informed me that he had spoken with his Indian girl and they planned to marry. He assured me that she would take a Dutch name.
I sat at Ichabod’s side for many days, thinking over the implications of what had happened. One day he sat up and whispered, “I beat him.” I cursed myself, for I knew what this meant. I had never seen it happen before, but Hulda had explained this strange phenomenon. Ichabod had survived his Horseman attack and become a Founder. I wondered what his Gift would be, and I watched him closely.
He told Hans and I a marvelous tale of goblin pursuit, over hill and down valley, through the haunted forest and back again. “But I remembered the stories, my friend! I crossed the bridge and would have escaped but—I turned to look back! Oh, I was a fool! If a monster chases you, never look back. Never look back.” He drew the History of Witchcraft from beneath his pillow and studied it intently.
At the end of November, he appear
ed at my kitchen window and asked if I would speak with him in the barn. He trembled like a scarecrow in a high wind. “Oh, my dearest friend! I fear I’ve lost my soul to that devil! I have become a witch myself!” He had begun to see visions, glimpses of the past whenever he touched an item with his bare palm. This still puzzles me. Founder Gifts are said to always express some fundamental aspect of the receiver. Yet Ichabod taught English, not history. Why would he get a Gift to touch the past? What had I missed?
“You are well versed in lore,” he whispered. “Can you tell me what has happened?”
“You’ve spoken to no one?”
“I came to you first.”
“Thank heaven you did, my dear. Yes, you are a witch now.”
He let out a little squeak, terrified but unable to escape, for we cannot run from ourselves, can we?
“Will I live?”
“Yes, but to reveal your Gift to another is to mark them for death. Oh, poor Katrina. Now you must hide from her forever.”
“Must I?”
“I’m afraid so. Yet that is no impediment to marriage, as many a man knows. I see no reason to despair.”
“If I am a danger to her, how can I stay? Oh, Agathe. Tell me what to do!”
“Meet me in the burying ground tonight. I know a way to help you decide.”
He kissed my hand and left with a pair of borrowed work gloves in his pocket. That night I flung a brick through a window of Beekman Manor and entered it for the last time. Afterward, I met Ichabod in the moonlit burying ground with a package tucked under my arm. We sat among the graves and I unwrapped it for him.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Your father’s hatchet. You have always lacked courage, my dear. You have such need of it now. Use your Gift. See the Hero of Gory Brook in all his glory, and know that his blood courses in your veins. Take heart from his example.”
Ichabod kissed my cheek. “You are a wise friend.”
I passed him the hatchet and he stripped his gloves. He took a deep breath and wrapped his hands around the blade. I watched his face as his eyes lost focus, as he sat immobile and gazed into the past. I knew what he would see. I’d seen it myself. I had seen William Crane’s crimes. Now his son would see them too.
When the vision broke, Ichabod threw the hatchet down and shot to his feet, trembling. He dashed away and tripped over a headstone. He wailed as he ran. He disappeared behind the Old Dutch Church, and I never saw him again.
A sealed envelope appeared on my windowsill the next morning, accompanied by a scrawled note:
Dearest Friend,
Thank you for your hospitality. I cannot explain, but this is farewell. Please give the attached letter to Katrina. I can never face her, but she must not live in doubt of my affections.
Your scarecrow,
Ichabod.
I slipped the sealed letter into my pocket. I would never give it to Katrina. I alone would know the true reason for our schoolmaster’s disappearance.
Yes, Ichabod Crane was chased from Sleepy Hollow by a ghost.
The ghost of his father.
Brom carried Katrina to the altar by the end of December. I stood on the church steps smiling as my son threw coins to the kneeling throng. I would have to be patient, but eventually Baltus would die so that my quarry could live. I had won. I had triumphed over every obstacle thrown in my way. We stood at the cusp of a new century, one of stone houses and grand earthworks. The Van Brunt future was assured.
I left the celebration and walked down to the Church Bridge, where I took out the silk scarf—found in the Horseman’s saddlebag long ago—and draped it over my head as a bridal veil.
“I will have your kiss,” I whispered. “You will rise headless, and ride with me forever. I will give you your enemy’s hatchet to swing, and you will reap for me. ’Til death do us part? We shall never part. We shall be together, I swear it.”
And now, my Dylan. I see how his resurrection may be accomplished! I’ve given much thought to the events of that night. My Horseman rose full of power and majesty because I made a supreme sacrifice in his name! I bled myself almost to death. What if I had died, and given my all? What if others could be bled in like manner? Would that not strengthen his spirit, so that he may dominate all others and make them his slaves? Oh! I have found another key now. I had overlooked a clue.
Mother Hulda.
She gave her all, did she not? She bled herself into the Gory Brook, even as the soldiers bled, and that is how the magic was wrought. That is how he may be brought back. No small sacrifices, never again. No meager dabs of blood dripped into my Devil’s Lantern. I must glut him with sacrifices. All the waters of Sleepy Hollow must be made gory with my offerings. I shall be the necromancer at last, by the spill of my midnight blood. But no ordinary blood will suffice, no! I will need—
Agathe snapped the diary shut.
Thunder rolled, reverberating, trapped inside the lighthouse with the three men and the witch. The little round room trembled to two spots of candlelight. The one red candle had dwindled, now a mere blood-puddle of wax. Eddie sat next to the woodpile, hatchet held limply in his hands, staring at the blade as if seeing it for the first time. Hadewych sat in a chair by the cold stove, idly fidgeting, his lips moving soundlessly, still tormented by the summons. Jason dangled from a beam, like something ready for the butcher. His hands had stopped glowing. That was probably a bad sign. Once the thunder had died, the air hung still and drowsy; so did Agathe’s listeners, as if reluctantly awakening from a dream, trying to hold it, knowing the slightest move might scatter it entirely. She’d grown progressively more distant as she read, forgetting her audience. But now her eyes were sharp and cunning.
“Why did you stop?” said Hadewych, leaning forward in his chair.
“There’s no more.” She didn’t look at him, but at Jason. “I died.”
Jason struggled with the ropes racking his arms over his head. The tale had taken him out of himself, but now the pain came back fourfold. “You’re hiding something. What were you about to say?”
“I’ve said enough.” Agathe rose. “I should be planning. I’ve but two more nights.”
“Until what?” said Eddie, rubbing his eyes.
“You’ll see.”
“What happens in two nights?” said Jason.
She threw the diary aside. “The rain will cease and the millpond will glut.” She lifted the bleeding bowl, still crusted with Jason’s blood, set it in her lap, and ran a finger lovingly across the watery blue patterns and vivid red splashes. “The magic of the Hollow will concentrate there, gain potency. A red moon will rise, as on the night you released me. I shall make my sacrifices, and by my spill of blood, work my necromancy at last.”
“By your spill of whose blood?” whispered Jason.
She smiled but did not answer.
Hadewych rose, hands shaking. “Lyndhurst. Yesterday. Nine p.m. Lyndhurst. Yesterday…”
Agathe set the bowl down on the table, went to Hadewych, and patted his back. “I will make you another potion. Go upstairs and lay yourself down. Let us complete our business. My bedtime story is told, and I made a promise to this young man.”
Hadewych’s voice became small. “You’re going to kill Jason?”
“Not I,” she said. “My Monster should be strong enough by now. Only he can kill the last Crane.”
Eddie gave an evil grin. “Let’s do it.” He lunged, hatchet high, laughing when Jason flinched.
“I can’t watch that,” said Hadewych.
“Make him watch,” said Jason.
Hadewych bit a finger. “I am sorry.”
Jason swung forward. “For what? None of this was your fault, was it? Was it?”
Hadewych couldn’t meet Jason’s eye. He ran a hand through his hair. “Lyndhurst. Yesterday. Lyndhurst.”
“Shh,” said Agathe. “I’ve read you my story, child. Now go to sleep. We have much to do tomorrow. Many sacrifices to gather. And don’t worry about our swe
et Zef. We’ll find him.”
Hadewych took a last glance at Jason and disappeared upstairs.
Jason’s head swam. He had to do something. Now. What did she plan to do at the millpond? Fill it with human sacrifices? If Agathe was telling the truth, the whole town could be in danger. Joey. Zef. Valerie. Someone had to warn them, but only he knew that Agathe was coming.
He searched for a weapon, found none. The knife she’d used to cut him had gone back into her pocket. And he couldn’t kill her, even if he got the chance; she was in Kate. Would he have to choose between Kate’s life and everybody else’s? He thought furiously, running through every comic book scenario he’d ever read. What would Spider-Man do, if he hung helplessly in the lair of Doctor Octopus? He would… keep the Doc talking. Soliloquizing. Yeah. Villains love to talk.
“So that’s all you’re after?” Jason said. “Two hundred years of this, God knows how many dead, for your sick love life?”
Agathe slapped him, viciously. “My love is beautiful!”
Jason spat. “Yeah. A dead woman and a severed head. It’s a real Hallmark card.”
“I’m no dead woman. I live.” She bent and gathered the reliquary. “And so will he.”
“Yeah,” said Eddie. “She and I are going to be together. We kick ass.”
“You idiot,” said Jason, with sudden realization. “She doesn’t want you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Jason looked to Agathe. “Tell him.”
“Tell me what?” said Eddie.
“That’s enough,” Agathe said, hugging the reliquary. “Let my Horseman rise, Edward.”
Eddie scowled. “What’s he talking about?”
“Obey me.”
“You heard the story,” said Jason. “She wants handsome. Not your ugly face.”
Eddie cocked a thumb at his chest. “But I’m her Horseman.”
“Only from the neck down.” Jason turned to Agathe. “Right? Only half the Horseman is in Eddie. The half that was buried behind the church. The rest is still in the head.”
SLEEPY HOLLOW: General of the Dead (Jason Crane Book 3) Page 51