He stands up, and we both move in the direction of the strange hallway to get us out of here. When I look around, we are no longer in the exhibit. We aren’t in the museum at all, and I have no idea where we are.
Chapter 10
How are we not in the museum? All I see is a forest with fog, and it continues on and on, until I can’t see anything past the trees.
August grabs my hand, and it wakes me out of my staring spell. I start to walk in the direction that we came from, hitting a wall that pushes me forward and bounces me back. It’s sort of like a rubber band.
“What the hell?” August’s face is full of determination. He lets go of my hand, steps back a few steps and then runs forward hitting the wall of invisibility. He catches himself before he falls to the ground as he bounces back.
I shake my head as if in a daze. “Hold on. What are you wearing?” My attention is on August completely instead of the wall, and he isn’t wearing the same clothing he had on when we came in. He is wearing black pants or trousers with a button-up black vest. Underneath the vest is a white collared shirt that covers most of his neck. He also has on a long black jacket that I can’t even tell you what century it’s from, paired with tall, black boots over his pants.
August focuses his eyes on me, looks up and down, and then back up at me. He points at his chest. “What do you mean me?” he says as he points at me. “What are you wearing?” Then he walks forward, lifting a piece of my hair. “And when did you get curls?”
I grab my hair that has fallen out of my ponytail. When I bring the hair around to examine it, it didn’t fall out of my ponytail. Somehow it has gotten curled, and it’s also a whole lot longer. I drop it and quickly run my hands over the top and feel that some of it has been placed back in a clip.
Seriously, I’m in full on panic mode. What is going on? I look down at my clothing and am stunned to a halt. I’m wearing a long black dress; the sleeves come to my elbow where there is lace at the ends that flares out. There are so many buttons down the center of the dress, and I run my hand up from my stomach all the way to my neck where I can feel the squeezing of it.
I have never had a problem with being claustrophobic, but I’m now with all these buttons. The dress is almost dragging on the ground, and I lift it away to see my shoes. These shoes! They are a dark gray, almost black, with a pointy toe and heels. I have never worn heels in my life!
Even when I went to prom with August, I still had on flats with the dress I wore. These don’t seem as uncomfortable as they look. I shake my head because why on Earth am I thinking about shoes. We need to find a way out of here.
“I don’t know why I’m wearing this, or why I have curls. I sure didn’t have time to change or magically find these clothes in the one second transition from where we were to wherever we are now,” I snap. I’m talking to myself in this moment.
I’m at a loss for words, and it seems August is too. My legs carry me slowly back to the barrier, while I hold my arm out with my palm up and fingers spread apart. When my hand comes into contact with the invisible wall, I can feel something that is like rubber mixed with gel. There is no breaking it as I push, claw, and scratch as hard as I can.
I mime my way to the left, and then to the right. August does the same thing letting our hands alternate movements across, until we get to a point where you have to turn left and the wall continues.
We move to the other side to our right, and it’s the exact same thing. The only option we have is to go in the other direction, which I’m hesitant about.
“The only other choice we have is to just sit here,” August sighs.
I have no intention of sitting here and waiting for who knows what. This whole week has been a total mess, and I’m freaking out inside and have no idea what is going on. Is this a nightmare? I pinch myself on the arm like they do in the movies, and what a waste of time because all that does is make my arm hurt.
There are bushes and trees straight ahead, but I can’t see much over the tall plants. “I guess the only way is forward,” I say.
It’s still strange that the pointy shoes aren’t bothering my feet at all. Even though I haven’t worn heeled anything ever, besides when I tried some on one time and could barely walk.
As we walk forward, August reaches out and moves one of the bushes’ limbs out of the way, so I can pass through it. The limbs are long and covered in green leaves and some type of red berries that I’m going to assume are poisonous, but I could be wrong.
After I walk forward, I turn around, pull back the branches and hold them so that August can make his way through. His jacket snags on a branch, and he rips it away before walking past the bush. I release the branch and turn around to find August is looking forward and slightly up.
My attention draws forward to a large wooden sign that curves and is secured on either side by tall and round wooden posts. The sign looks rotten and so old that I don’t know if it has much life left in it.
I finally read what is written across it: Welcome to Sleepy Hollow.
I raise my hand to my mouth and move forward and grab August’s shoulder and turn him around to face me. “That is the same sign we saw in the exhibit in the display!”
“I realized that when I saw the sign and the village.” He continues to be the one delivering sarcasm.
“What village?” I turn my head where he is pointing, and farther up ahead there are two rows of houses. I didn’t notice. If you look past the sign straight ahead, it looks like nothing except a field, but to the left there is a row of houses that goes all the way down. To the right is a twin set of another row that continues in the same direction.
They look like old cabins, and I have no idea how their structures can withstand the environment.
I look over to August. “Where are we? I mean, seriously, what is going on?”
August looks up at the sign again. “I feel like we already have our answer.”
He’s right. This is the exact sign from the display. It doesn’t seem possible, but somehow, we must be in the display or transported somewhere. Except nothing here is glass.
I bend down and run my hand across the grass just to make sure, and I pick one small single blade of grass and stroke it across my palm. The texture is real and smooth.
There is also wind here that blows against the new curls in my hair that are brushing against my waist.
I throw the blade of grass on the ground. “Maybe we can find someone here?” I suggest. If we somehow magically got sucked into this disturbing reality, then maybe someone else did too.
“As you wish, milady.” August bows.
“I’m pretty sure that is a different era,” I laugh.
August starts walking. I take one more look at the large sign and then follow him. It isn’t quite night, but it doesn’t look like daytime either. It’s hard to see too far ahead with the fog that is attached to the surroundings.
When we approach the first set of houses, we decide to go left and knock on the doors. Maybe someone will be inside.
We knock on the first house and walk up the couple of wooden steps. We manage not to fall through the stairs in their dilapidated state of decay and rot. No one answers when we knock. August tries turning the knob, and it’s locked.
After going to about ten houses, I’m starting to assume that no one is home in this village. When we walk to the next house, my fist is in midair and ready to knock when a voice shouts from inside. “Go away!”
I’m startled, jumping back. August catches me from behind before I fall down the stairs. “Please, can you open up? We’re lost,” I say.
A man’s voice that sounds elderly shouts even louder. “I said, go away!”
“Look. We need help, and we are lost. My friend here is injured and needs somewhere to rest,” August lies.
I shake my head. “Injured? What am I going to say that I have, a stomach ache?”
“Just go with it.”
After a pause, the man responds. “No. Go
find someone else. If you don’t get off my property, I’m going to have to shoot you and your friend. Do you hear me?”
That does it. We turn around and scramble down the stairs. “What now?” I ask as I leap down from the last step and hurry as far away from the house as I can.
August shrugs his shoulders. “You got me. I guess we can try a few more houses and then keep on walking. There has to be a way out of here.”
As we reach the next house, August stops me. “Do you hear that?”
I pause and listen, but I can’t hear anything. “Hear what?”
“Exactly, I’m not hearing anything. It’s as if even the insects quit making their sounds.”
“Well, I don’t know. I haven’t been paying attention to sounds. I’m a little busy trying to find people.” I think about it a little harder. “But the wind doesn’t seem to be blowing anymore.”
August’s eyes are scanning the landscape, and he grows tense. “Something is off, even more than it already seems to be.” We make our way to the next house, and I knock on the door.
I’m expecting no answer, and that is exactly what we get. There are obviously people inside because we had some crazy threats from one house already. Either there aren’t people in these houses, or they just aren’t answering the door because they are frightened of us.
Before we walk to the next house, I grab onto August’s coat and stop him. “I don’t know why I didn’t even think about this before, but what do you know about Sleepy Hollow?”
“The Headless Horseman,” he responds.
My thoughts run wild, knocking around my brain with worry. “That is what I know, too.”
He isn’t real, I don’t think, but who am I to say what is real and what isn’t anymore.
We walk up to the last house, and this time August knocks. Nothing happens like all the others—all except for that one house. If the guy didn’t mention the thing about the gun, I would have kept bugging the crap out of him, until he let us in.
As we turn to leave, I hear a small creaking sound and a soft voice. “You have to hide now.”
I whip around so fast that lightning wouldn’t have been quick enough to strike. I stare at the door and see the face of a girl through a small, open, circular peephole that she has opened.
“What do you mean hide? Can you let us in? We are lost, and you may not even believe us if we told you the truth,” I say.
Her eyes look frightened. “It is only me here. If I let you two in, you have to be quiet and silent when I tell you.”
August has a look on his face like he doesn’t know what kind of creature this girl is, but I quickly agree with her.
She closes the tiny opening, and I hear at least a dozen bolts grinding and unlocking.
“Maybe we should go back to that guy’s house that wouldn’t open the door,” August says.
I give him a dirty look, and he just smiles wide with that maddening grin I love so much.
The door slides open, and there is a girl or young woman around the same age as me or maybe a little older. She has beautiful, blonde hair that falls in waves around her and is wearing a dress similar to mine, except hers is a light shade of gray. When I look down at her feet, I see that she is barefoot.
The girl waves us inside, and we hurry into what looks like a very small living room. She begins locking each one of the bolts and then turns around to face us. “My name is Katrina.”
Chapter 11
When Katrina says her name, it sounds vaguely familiar, but I’m ashamed that I have never read the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Her face even looks familiar as if I have seen her before, but maybe she just has one of those faces.
“Hi Katrina. My name is Perrie, and this is August.” I’m unsure whether to bow or what, so I just stand there, and August says hello.
Katrina walks over to a wooden chair, sits down and motions us to do the same. “I would offer you something to eat, but we have to wait until it passes.”
August and I look at each other having no earthly idea what this girl is talking about. “Until what passes?”
Her face begins to look frightened once again. “He who is the Taker.”
“The Taker?” August asks.
Katrina looks up at the ceiling in a dream-like motion, as if she is not completely all there. “He who has stolen everything from me including my father, mother, my love, and everyone else I have cared about. The taunts continue one by one, until he decides that it is my time.”
The hairs on my arms rise like needles, and I’m starting to get more than a little scared right now. I want to ask her questions about the Glass Vault, but I’m going to hold off on that for a little while, and I think August would agree with me.
August leans forward slowly, as if he’s approaching a frightened kitten. “What year is it?”
Her eyes move slowly to look at August. “Seventeen-ninety. Why?”
My eyes widen. Seventeen-ninety? I think for a moment that maybe we went through some type of time travel, but that can’t be right. The whole Sleepy Hollow thing never occurred, it was just a story. But we have traveled somewhere.
August leans back and shows no emotion on his face. “We have been on the road a long time and have lost count of the days, and we were unsure if the New Year has already passed.”
That is a better answer than I would have thought to give. I would have probably said, “Just wondering.”
When I look around, there isn’t much to the living room, four chairs, a large rug, and a small kitchen that has a wood burning stove with dated cookware.
She asks us several more questions, and we answer the best we can. I’m about to ask her some more questions when I hear a noise in the distance.
Katrina goes completely rigid and drops flat to the wooden floor that is covered in layers of dust. “Lie down on the ground and don’t make one single sound, until I tell you to,” she whispers anxiously.
August lies down flat on his stomach, and I follow right next to him with my shoulder against his. I don’t know what is going on, but I’m following her instructions. Katrina looks like this is a daily ritual and that she knows exactly what she is doing.
The noises outside are getting louder and louder and louder, until I hear distinctly what the sounds are. They’re hoof beats. The sound of a horse’s feet beating upon the ground and making imprints in the dirt.
Around us, the ground begins to quake as the horse draws closer. August grabs my hand and squeezes it to help keep me calm, while my heart is making the loudest racket possible in my ears. I worry that whatever is outside can hear its intense pounding.
I look over at Katrina, who is watching the door like a bird of prey with a focus that nothing can break. There are beads of sweat on her forehead and above her rose, red lips.
Suddenly, the horse’s hooves come to an abrupt stop. The horse must be directly in front of Katrina’s house or somewhere near it. It lets out a loud whinny that echoes within my ears, beating its own musical beat.
It’s so loud, and I want to move my head and look at August. I don’t to avoid making a sound. My fingers are digging into his hand so hard that I hope I’m not hurting him, but he hasn’t flinched.
Outside, I hear someone jump to the ground from the horse and after a few moments, there is what sounds like boots walking up the steps to the porch with a thump, thump, thump.
My jaw is clenching so tightly I’m afraid my teeth will break. I don’t know how much time goes by, but it must have been several seconds before the rider turns around. We hear the boots hit the steps as the person walks back to their horse.
The horse lets out another loud whinny, and they leave. I don’t even twitch. August lets go of my hand and starts to move, when Katrina grabs his other hand so fast and grips his wrist. “Not yet!” she says in a hushed, desperate whisper.
He looks at her like he wants to tell her that he doesn’t care, but he must see the look on her face, and he relents.
Boom. Our heads
move toward the door, and we hear a gunshot. Boom. There is another, and then there is an aching man’s scream. I have never in my life heard someone scream like that. It as if he’s in the worst pain of his life.
My instincts are telling me to run to the door and help whoever is out there, but I have nothing on me. No weapon or anything, so I stay down afraid and wait. All I can think about is the man who would not answer his door that threatened us.
There is only hushed silence, until the hoof beats stomp hard again as they grow nearer and nearer. They pass by and drift farther into the distance. Softly and subtly, the beat of the wind begins to whisper again as it blows against the house.
Katrina lays her head on the side against the floor and lets out a long breath. “We can breathe now.”
Moving takes me a minute from staying so rigid, but I get up to a standing position. “What’s going on? Who was that?”
August pulls up beside me and stretches his arms to the ceiling. “It can’t be who we think it is, is it?”
I turn to him. “You aren’t thinking the Headless Horseman, are you?”
“We are in a place that makes no sense; the impossible could be possible.”
Katrina is the last to stand up, and she runs her hands through her hair to straighten out the messy strands. “August, you would be right, sir. The tales of the Headless Horseman are most certainly true. We call him the Taker. There is no certain time he comes, but he continues to take us one by one. Mr. Roberts and I were the last ones left, and now it is just you two and I.”
“Mr. Roberts? That was the man farther down with a gun. He wouldn’t open the door for us earlier,” I say.
She sighs. “He hasn’t opened his door in quite some time after his wife and two children were taken away from him.”
August steps back and then sits down in one of the wooden chairs. “I’m confused here. If all this is happening, then why don’t you just pack up your things and leave?”
I wonder that, too. If some man—especially one without a head—was going around taking people, I sure would not be living here.
Quinsey Wolfe's Glass Vault Page 7