Hollowed: Return to Sleepy Hollow, the Complete Duology

by Candace Wondrak

  Wait a moment. This…this wasn’t right. I wasn’t here before, was I? My eyebrows creased, and I slowly got out of bed, moving to the window. I peered around the curtains at the city outside. I was on the sixth floor, nowhere near the top of the building, but I could still see the other apartment complex across the street.

  No.

  No, this wasn’t right.

  Deep down, I knew this wasn’t right, and yet, simultaneously, I felt drawn here. Like this was supposed to be my home. And it was—I’d lived here for a year and a half now, because it was all I could afford with the job I had. And it wasn’t like I hadn’t applied to other, better-paying jobs out there. I had, but so did hundreds of other college graduates all looking for a decent job, too. I was up shit creek without a paddle, and no one was around to help me.

  That…just didn’t feel right. I wasn’t alone. I had…well, I wanted to say I had some special people, that I wasn’t nearly as alone as I looked, but try as I might, I couldn’t remember them. It was like walls had erupted in my mind, and I couldn’t even think of how I got here, what yesterday entailed. I was just here and I was supposed to go on, living.

  So even though I felt like something was wrong, that’s what I did. I shuffled into the bathroom, showered, ate a little breakfast—dry cereal, nothing too special—and then went to work. While at work in my red shirt and khakis, I helped customers find what they were looking for and answered stupid questions about coupons and our sales. The information flew out of me, because I’d answered questions like that countless of times, and yet, as the hours wore on and the daylight outside dimmed, I still felt out of place.

  After my shift was over, I clocked out and walked home. I didn’t live too far, about fifteen minutes on foot. Having a car was expensive, so I was trying to do without so I could funnel more money into paying my student loans back. Honestly, once those fuckers were paid off, I’d be a lot better off. Have more money to spend on a car, or even a better place to live.

  At least that was my thought process…but as I unlocked my apartment door and stepped inside, smelling the stale air, I knew it was wrong. I shouldn’t be here. But then, if I shouldn’t be here, where should I be? No matter how long I tried to think about it, nothing popped up in my head. I felt out of place, even though I shouldn’t.

  I mean, this was my life, wasn’t it? This was my wonderful, awesome life. There wasn’t—

  A cold, eerie feeling settled along my spine. All the little hairs on my arms and on the back of my neck stood straight up as a chill swept over me. I shivered, glancing at my arms. It was almost like I’d just been shocked, like I’d walked into some electromagnetic field. Something wasn’t right.

  I set down my keys, heading into the bathroom. All the while, the hairs on my arms stood up, goosebumps refused to go away. I stared at myself in the small mirror, meeting my own eyes, a light, sea moss green. My auburn hair was a mess and a bit sweaty from the workday, but I couldn’t help but feel as if time had just become a blur. Like I was a cog in a machine, just here to keep things rolling.

  But that wasn’t why I felt so out of it.

  No.

  My eyes fell to my neck, where I half expected a pendant to sit. Strange, because I didn’t wear necklaces. I reached up, lightly touching the space just below my collarbone, and at the same moment, when my finger tapped the area, my mind flashed to a place I didn’t recognize.

  A man, tall, dark and handsome, gently running his fingers along my collarbone, the expression in his gaze one of lust and urgency.

  And then, just as quickly as the image and memory appeared, it was gone. Just like that, as if it never happened.

  That man…did I know him? I felt as if, deep down, I did, but I was fairly certain I would never forget a face like his. I mean, he was probably the sexiest man I’d ever seen—taller than a fucking tree with muscles for days. I was drawn to him, and yet I just couldn’t place him, or his name. It was the weirdest thing.

  I bit the inside of my lip, exiting the bathroom as I meandered to the kitchen area. As I peeked in the cabinets, wondering what I was going to make myself for dinner—this existence was a lonely one, for sure—I spotted something strange. Something that shouldn’t be in my cabinet, because I hated the stuff.

  Reaching for it, I pulled out the box and studied it, wondering just when the hell it got there. A box of teabags. I hated tea, I didn’t drink tea. Who the hell…

  Again, a sense of deja vu passed over me as my mind went to someplace else. A tall, somewhat lanky man wearing fancy, nicely-pressed clothes. He stood in a kitchen that was worlds bigger than mine, and a whole lot fancier, too. Painted cabinets, nice backsplash, an island to die for. His back was to me, but even so, I could tell he was making tea. His brown hair was somewhat wavy, and I could see two small black ends curling over his ears. The man wore glasses.

  Who the hell was he, and why did I feel pulled to him like a moth to the flame?

  In the blink of an eye, the image was gone, and I was back in my kitchen, holding onto…nothing. I wasn’t holding onto anything. Very odd, because I could’ve sworn I was holding onto a box of tea bags not too long ago.

  I closed the cabinet in front of me, moving to the fridge. Nothing I had called out to me. When I opened the freezer, I found one of those cheap, oven-ready pizzas. They kind of tasted like cardboard, but they were a cheap and easy meal with little cleanup. I pulled it out and went to preheat the oven.

  As the oven was heating itself up, I went to the futon and turned on the TV. I went to a station that constantly played old sitcoms on rerun. They were shows I’d seen a million times over, but also the kind of shows you could always watch. The one about a group of friends living in the city, or even the one about an office space and the workers in it, who constantly had to deal with stupid, silly shit from their boss. I enjoyed them.

  The oven dinged when it was ready, and I hopped up, moving to put the pizza inside. Just as I had the oven door open, its heat escaping, I stared down at the round, frozen pizza. I blinked, and suddenly I was not in my apartment.

  I was in a pizza shop, an old diner, a place that was beyond familiar to me. I was younger, years ago, but even so, I recognized the feelings stirring within me as I stared at the blonde boy sitting beside me. Every time he laughed or smiled, dimples appeared on his face, and those dimples always made my insides clench. Getting pizza with him was just an excuse to spend more time with him, before going back to Mom’s and forgetting all there was about…

  About Sleepy Hollow.

  The moment I remembered Sleepy Hollow, the memory vanished, and I stood before the oven, no longer holding the pizza. The oven door wasn’t open, either. My mind was at war with itself, trying to remember all there was to it.

  Sleepy Hollow.

  Crane, Bones, and Wash.

  Everything came flooding back to me. This apartment was mine, but I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have gone to my job today. I should be back in Sleepy Hollow, with my men. This…this was all some elaborate ruse, a lie to try to make me believe that I was really back here, that this was my life. This was a little witch bitch trying to pull the rug over my eyes as she toyed with my life and my body.

  She might think she’s the baddest of the bad, the best of the best, but she wasn’t. Even after doing all this, I still fought back, subconsciously. I was still here, my memories with me, and even though she tried to correct the mistakes, it was just too damn late.

  I remembered. I remembered everything, and I was going to make that bitch pay.

  The last thing I was doing was sitting in the living room with Crane, Bones, and Wash, ignoring Bones’s terrible sarcasm about hearing Wash and I together the night before. I was going to summon my tablet of shadows, use it to find a spell to locate Katrina. Stupid of me. I should’ve done something to protect my mind from her, first, because apparently she took over.

  If this was like a dream, there was no telling how much time had passed in the real world. W
hen you slept, sometimes dreams flew by, so short, when in reality eight hours had passed. I spent a whole day here—who fucking knew how much had gone by on earth. If Katrina had gotten to Crane, Bones, and Wash.

  If the bitch hurt them…or had her way with them, like she’d done to Crane that one morning.

  Oh, fuck no. I was going to beat her at her own game if it was the last thing I did. I was not going to sit back and let her win this, let her hurt Bones and fuck Crane, not to mention her obsession with Wash. They were my guys, and I wasn’t going to let any old bitch get her greedy, murderous claws in them.

  My fists clenched, and I glanced around, not knowing what to do, how to get out of here. I was fully self-aware now, whether she could feel me being self-aware or not I didn’t know. Things like this were still kind of new to me, but I was a quick learner, and I had a piece of the bitch herself in me. If anyone could beat her with sheer stubbornness, it was me.

  “I’m coming for you,” I said, turning my chin up to the ceiling, as if I spoke to God himself. “You hear that, Katrina? I’m coming for you—and if you hurt any of them, I swear to fucking God I’m going to make your last moments alive the most painful I can.” I wasn’t good at threats, because I never had to make one before, but this? I felt this in my soul. It wasn’t a threat; it was a promise.

  I headed to the door to the apartment, feeling the need to beat a bitch up. I heaved a breath before throwing it open. When the door swung open, I didn’t see the hallway. I didn’t see the apartment across the hall. I saw an old-timey town, and I walked right into it without hesitation.

  The air grew warmer, though it wasn’t too hot to be stifling. I knew where I was: old-time Sleepy Hollow, Tarry before it became a town on the maps. Before electricity and before modern medicine. Before roads and nice infrastructure. This was Sleepy Hollow from the olden tales, and it wasn’t the first time I’d seen it.

  Even back then, I should’ve known I was connected to Katrina, more than just being her doppelganger. I should’ve known something more connected us than our appearance. Matching her looks so closely should’ve been a sign to me that there was more to this, more I didn’t yet understand. I should’ve done something then.

  Now? Now I wasn’t going to sit back and watch.

  It was the same scene as before: two men wearing silly clothes, both looking remarkably like Bones and Crane, arguing in front of a crowd, each trying to act like the better man. Katrina was near the crowd, wearing a light pink dress, her hands folded over her stomach. Her light brown hair sparkled a bit red in the sun, and her attention was not on the two men arguing in front of her; her head was turned, and she gazed longingly at the bridge that rested not too far from where she was.

  I didn’t waltz right into the party; I took the long way around. No one saw me, no one paid any attention to me as I crept along the sidelines in the dirt, the sun warm over my head. This place felt real, but I knew it was in her imagination, just like my apartment and workplace was. This was her mindspace, not mine.

  I walked until I stood twenty feet behind her. With her head turned, she couldn’t see me, and the crowd was busy watching the ridiculous scene between Ichabod and Abraham. Katrina herself couldn’t care less; she’d always wanted the Horseman. Too damn bad, because Wash was mine. They were all mine. She just needed to deal with it.

  My fists clenched at my sides as I tried to figure out the best way to take her down. She was wearing a dress, so she probably couldn’t maneuver well. Could we do magic in our heads? Who knew. If we could, she’d be able to beat me, no problem, since I bet she had numerous spells memorized, what with her long life and all. Me? I had my hands, my anger, and I hoped it would be enough.

  I stalked up to her quietly, feeling my rage raising my blood pressure. Before thinking better of it, I lunged at her, tackling her to the ground. Katrina struggled to turn around, to roll to see who it was that attacked her, but I had my knee against the back of her neck, pressing down hard. Her pale face squished in the dirt, and I leaned forward, grabbing one of her hands waving around, trying to fight me.

  “You’re a stupid bitch if you think it’s going to be that easy,” I told her, feeling like a bitch myself. I was so tired of this woman trying to take what was mine. She poked the lioness; now she’d get the teeth.

  No one else around us paid attention. Everyone still watched Ichabod and Abraham, and Ichabod and Abraham were too wound up in each other to notice that the woman they were each trying to proclaim their love for was down in the dirt.

  If I killed her here, did that kill her in the real world? Or at least buy us some time?

  Only one way to find out.

  I never thought myself a killer, but I suppose everyone’s capable, depending on the situation. Protecting loved ones, self-defense, what have you. Me? It was a little bit of everything. I would rather die than let Katrina take control of my body and hurt any one of my guys.

  My fingers tangled in the back of her hair. I bet I looked crazed, half-insane and totally in a rage, but I didn’t care. Whether this would help or not, it was going to make me feel better, as temporary as it was. Did that make me a monster? A killer? At this point, again, I didn’t give a shit. After all the people Katrina had hurt, all the people she’d taken over just to extend her life, she deserved every bit of pain I could give her.

  I brought her head down to the dirt, this time slamming it as hard as I could. We were on the makeshift road, so the dirt was well-packed below us. It was a hard surface, and when I slammed her head down, I heard its thump. She struggled below me, but I had her pinned, my body on top of hers. Too much adrenaline seared through me; I doubted I could stop now, even if I wanted to.

  Maybe I had some of Katrina’s madness in me after all.

  Over and over, again and again; I didn’t stop. I kept doing it, repeating the same motion, my fingers pulling on her head and her hair, using every bit of strength in me to slam her face against the ground. Even if she didn’t die, she’d have to pass out sooner or later, right? How much trauma can one head take?

  I knew I wasn’t as strong as Wash or Bones, but I had a pretty good grip on her. Eventually, I heard a crack, and I knew that the repeated banging of her head upon the ground had built up some damage. Soon I saw blood on the dirt, and after a while longer, Katrina stopped moving beneath me.

  “Bitch,” I muttered, and the world of old-time Sleepy Hollow faded around me.

  That’s what you get when you mess with Kat Aleson and her men.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I gasped when I came back into my body, my consciousness now in full control. As my vision came back, I saw that I was not in Crane’s house. I was…at the gazebo in the square, surrounded by people lounging on chairs, all of them with a packet of papers in their hands. I had papers in my hand, too.

  My eyes fell to the paper, and I recognized it immediately. I knew it, mostly because I’d been putting it off—because I didn’t want to do it. Playing Katrina in the play was not something I wanted to do. These people just thought I looked like her…but in reality, they had no idea. No idea whatsoever about how twisted the truth really was.

  “Well?” A brown-haired man across from me spoke, his eyes dark. I thought his name was Jimmy, but I could be wrong. All I knew was that he was the one playing Ichabod Crane in the reenactment. “Did you practice the script at all?” When he asked that, the others around us shuffled in their seats, all of them staring down into their laps.

  The whole cast.

  When I said nothing, Jimmy added, “Your next line. We’re doing a run-through.” Still, I said nothing—though I did reach up to my neck. No pendant. Right, because I gave it to Bones. “Look, if you really didn’t want to play Katrina, you should’ve said something—”

  Another actor, this one a middle-aged woman, spoke, “She was doing fine until now. She looks like she’s going to be sick.”

  I noticed Wash was nowhere nearby. I was surrounded by people, and yet none of them
were the people that mattered to me. Something must’ve happened for me to be here without Wash by my side. “I’m sorry. I need to go,” I muttered, dropping the script to the grassy ground. I said nothing as I hurried away, an uneasy feeling in my gut.

  Something was wrong. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

  The area in the square was set up for the festival, but I didn’t know how much time had passed, how soon the festival was. The sky above me told me it was dusk; twilight would be upon the world soon enough.

  Right. Because everything was ten times creepier at night.

  Once I was far enough away from the square, when the other actors couldn’t see me, I took off running. I dodged traffic as I crossed streets, pushing my body to its limits as I ran to Crane’s house. All the while, my mind came up with terrible, awful possibilities.

  What if Crane was dead? What if she’d killed Bones while possessing my body? What if she hurt them, and there was no way to save them? What if…what if it was already too late?

  No, no I couldn’t let myself think that. If it was too late, what was there to fight for? Nothing for me, because without Crane, Bones, and Wash, I had nothing. They were everything to me. Absolutely everything. But even if I had nothing to fight for, there was everyone else in Sleepy Hollow to think about still. Katrina was insane, the literal definition of it. She had to be stopped, otherwise this town would never truly be safe.

  I’d do my best, but I was no hero. Hell, I was barely a witch. I was…I was just me.

  But, then again, I wasn’t just me. I was Katrina 2.0, I had a piece of that bitch inside of me—that might be my ticket to win it.

  It took me far too long to make it to Crane’s house. The front door was unlocked, so I went right in, calling out, “Crane? Bones?” I went into the living room, my voice wavering, “Wash?” In the kitchen, nothing. No signs of life anywhere. “Is anyone here?” I cried, hurrying up the stairs. I struggled to take two at a time, my small frame having difficulties. Plus, I was still out of breath from all of that running.