Sleepy Hollow: Children of the Revolution

by Keith R. A. DeCandido

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know, I—” He smiled ruefully. “This used to be my refuge. Back when I was a kid, I used to come up here to get away from it all. Whenever I was having problems in school or with my family or with the kids in the neighborhood, I’d come here. It was always quiet and peaceful, and it helped me make sense of things. After I joined the force, I came here a lot, too.”

  “By yourself, I take it?” Macey grinned when she asked the question.

  Irving chuckled, grateful for the tension release of his daughter’s teasing. “Yeah, by myself. Helped me deal with some stuff. And every time I came here, I felt better. Until the accident.”

  Macey wheeled the chair around so that she could put her hand on his. “Dad, I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine, but I’m okay.”

  “I know that, Little Bean, but I didn’t know that when I came here. You were still in the hospital, the doctors didn’t know if you’d ever walk again—they weren’t even sure how far up your body you’d be paralyzed.”

  Now Macey’s face fell. “I didn’t know that.”

  This time Irving broke the tension for his daughter. “Yeah, well, you were on the really high-quality painkillers at that point. You were having trouble remembering your own name.”

  She grinned. “So what happened when you came here?”

  “It still didn’t make sense. This place always made me feel better before, helped me get my thoughts in order, but when you were hurt—” He shook his head again. “Then I stopped coming. Didn’t even realize it until now.”

  Irving went over to one of the places where you could sit, and just took in the peace. Anxiety over the accident, over what might happen to his little girl, overwhelmed that peace last time.

  Today, the peace was swimming upstream against a headless soldier who’d murdered a colleague before Irving had helped capture him. The peace fought against witches and ghosts and time-displaced revolutionaries. The peace struggled to excise the threat to life, limb, and sanity that he had been facing from the second he transferred to Sleepy Hollow to replace a man who’d been beheaded.

  He’d been a police officer his entire adult life, an NYPD cop for most of that. Yet he had never encountered a headless corpse until he took what was supposed to be a cushy position in the suburbs. Sleepy Hollow had had more murders in the past four months than in the previous twenty years.

  And so for the second time in a row, and the second time ever, the Astor Court failed to provide the solace that Frank Irving had sought every time he’d come here since he was a teenager.

  With a sigh, he rose to his feet.

  Macey was still enjoying the quietude, and so he let her have it, standing off to the side until she was ready to go.

  “Okay,” she finally said after she had spent several seconds staring down at the fish in the pond, “where next?”

  “How ’bout the American Wing?”

  Shrugging, Macey said, “Sure.”

  Once, the American Wing had been a separate building just to the north of the museum. A courtyard separated them, but it wasn’t long before that courtyard was enclosed. That was all before Irving’s time, but he imagined that going outside to check out the American Wing probably wasn’t any fun in winter.

  Irving hadn’t been over to that part of the museum in some time, not since they’d remodeled. The courtyard had been completely redone so that it was one big flat marble surface instead of a multilayered garden. Aesthetically, he didn’t like it; as the parent of a teenager in a wheelchair, he loved it.

  “Oooooh!” Macey said as she wheeled past the large glass door that led to Arms & Armor. “Can we go there?”

  Shuddering, Irving said, “Maybe later.” Swords and armor were the stuff of nightmares for him of late.

  Of course, it was those same nightmares that drew him to the American Wing. They went through the façade of the former stand-alone building and found a computer terminal that provided an interactive map of the section. Irving was particularly interested in what they had from the time of the American Revolution.

  “Why do you care about that, Dad?” Macey sounded understandably confused.

  “Just curious,” he said lamely, finding that most of the art from 1770 to 1800—what he’d started thinking of as “the Crane period”—was in one room, plus some other items in the huge vault of decorative arts that they’d collected at the museum.

  The gallery in question was on the second floor. They went up in a glass-enclosed elevator that Macey decided was the coolest thing ever.

  En route to that room, they came through the gallery that included Emanuel Leutze’s famous portrait of George Washington crossing the Delaware River. A tour was in that room at the time, and Macey slowly wheeled her way through the crowd, all of whom quickly cleared a path for her to get through.

  The tour guide was saying, “While Washington did indeed cross the Delaware on Christmas night in 1776, it’s pretty much impossible for it to have looked anything like this. For starters, while it was a full moon that night, it wasn’t that bright. By the time dawn rose, they were already en route to Trenton, not still crossing. They went across at about three in the morning. It was raining that night; the horses and field guns came across by ferry. The stars-and-stripes flag Washington’s men are carrying wasn’t in use yet. He would’ve had the Grand Union Flag, which had stripes, but no stars. And, the real biggie, there’s just no way Washington could’ve stood like that in the boat without falling into the river.”

  The crowd laughed at that. So did Macey as they went into the next gallery over, which had paintings by Ralph Earl, Charles Willson Peale, John Trumbull, Gilbert Stuart, and others, many of whom had studied abroad and then returned to the newly formed United States to provide portraits of the heroes of the revolution.

  A part of Irving half expected to see a portrait of Crane present, but he was spared that.

  “Okay, that’s just weird.” Macey was staring at another portrait of George Washington, this one just of the first president standing near a tree.

  “What is it?”

  “He’s pointing at the door.”

  Irving laughed. Washington was, indeed, pointing across his body with his right arm toward the entrance to the gallery. Perpendicular to that portrait was one of someone named Marinus Willett. Irving had never heard of the man who, according to the placard that he bent over to read, was a leader of the Sons of Liberty, negotiated treaties with the Muscogee tribe, and was appointed mayor of New York in 1807.

  Macey followed Irving’s gaze to the placard. “They appointed mayors? That isn’t right.”

  “Aren’t they teaching you stuff at school?” Irving asked with a chuckle. “New York mayors were appointed until 1834.”

  “That sucks.”

  “That’s the great thing about this country, Little Bean—we adjust. Remember, you and I wouldn’t have been considered people when the Constitution was signed.”

  “Yeah, I know, Dad,” Macey said in her best duh voice. “They do teach us some stuff.”

  Irving smiled at his daughter, then read the rest of the placard. “Looks like Willett got two awards from the Continental Congress before they made him mayor. That sword he’s holding in the painting is one.”

  Pointing at the display case to the left of the portrait, Macey said, “Not just in the painting.”

  “Yeah, that’s the same sword.” Irving was impressed with the level of detail that Earl, the artist, had put into the painting, as the sword Willett held on the canvas was a perfect match for the short sword in the case Macey was pointing at.

  Now Macey peered at the placard. “What’s the other one he won?”

  “Something called the Congressional Cross.” He straightened. “Says they’ve got that one, too, but it’s on the mezzanine with the other decorative arts stuff. Wanna check it out?”

  “Sure!”

  Irving hadn’t expected the enthusiasm, but then he realized that it required a trip to
the mezzanine, which meant another ride in the “totally awesome” glass elevator.

  Unfortunately, the Luce Center, which housed Willett’s Congressional Cross, was made up of forty-five floor-to-ceiling glass cases crammed fairly close together. It was hard for Macey to navigate through them. They also got sidetracked by the many different objects on display, including some very interesting everyday items. Macey in particular found it fascinating. “This is really cool. You don’t think of historical people as having stuff, y’know?”

  Thinking about Crane and his aversion to ever changing his clothes, Irving decided not to comment.

  Eventually, they found where the Congressional Crosses were supposed to be. The case itself was empty, though the placard said that there were supposed to be two such, which were awarded to ten heroes of the American Revolution who’d displayed conspicuous bravery. A second placard in a different typeface claimed that the two crosses were being cleaned.

  A fist of ice clenched Irving’s heart when he read the name of the other person besides Willett whose medal was supposed to be on display: Abraham van Brunt.

  Once, Irving knew, van Brunt had been Crane’s closest friend. Both were aristocrats who sided with the colonies over the crown. Both also loved the same woman. Katrina van Tassel was engaged to van Brunt, but she loved Crane. When van Brunt found out, he went a little crazy, and Moloch took advantage of that craziness to make van Brunt into one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

  At times, he was seriously tempted to tell that story to Reverend Boland so he could use it to illustrate the value of following the Tenth Commandment. Covet your neighbor’s wife, have your best friend turned into one of the harbingers of the apocalypse …

  “You okay, Dad?”

  Irving looked down at his daughter. “I’m fine, Little Bean, just got reminded of some stuff from work.”

  “Well, stop it. You’re out with me,” Macey said primly. “You shouldn’t be thinking about work, just about making your daughter happy. Like letting her ride that awesome elevator again.”

  Irving grinned. “Sounds like a plan.”

  THREE

  TRENTON, NEW JERSEY

  DECEMBER 1776

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL JOHANN Rall, the commandant of the Hessian regiment that occupied Trenton on behalf of the British Crown, had received two communiqués, both of which filled him with a sense of dread.

  The first had been brought to him by one of his regiment commanders, Lieutenant Colonel Balthasar Brethauer. Rall broke the seal and read over the missive, sighing the entire time.

  “I take it that the news is not good?” Brethauer asked dryly.

  “You surmise correctly, Colonel. Major General von Donop sends his deepest regrets, but General Grant has denied my request for some British troops to supplement our own.”

  Brethauer made a tch noise and tugged on his waistcoat. “The Geordies hired us to help them put down their rebels, yet they won’t commit resources to aid us? Typical.”

  Rall shook his head and put the letter down on his desk. “Grant and von Donop are fools.” He snorted and shook his head. “That the latter is a fool is hardly a revelation, of course, but I had hoped for better from General Grant. Trenton is not sufficiently defensible with only fifteen hundred troops. It’s a strategically valuable location, one the colonials may well target. If the rebels do attack—”

  “May I remind the colonel that our engineers have drawn up plans to physically fortify the town?”

  “You may not remind me, Colonel,” Rall said tartly. “I have already rejected those plans, and I’m not in the habit of repeating myself.”

  Bowing his head in a gesture that approached respectful, Brethauer said, “Of course, Colonel, my apologies. Will that be all?”

  “Yes, Colonel, dismissed.”

  Brethauer clicked his heels, bowed, and departed the office.

  Which was good, as the second communiqué was not for Brethauer’s eyes and ears. No, this was a burden that Rall had to bear on his own.

  Tonight was a full moon, which meant that tonight he had to perform the ritual that would bring Abaddon’s power into the world.

  Moloch’s instructions were as final as those of von Donop, and the consequences for disobeying them were far greater. Though ironically, Moloch orders served to, in a way, fulfill the request that von Donop and Grant had rejected, for the witch who would be infused with Abaddon’s fury would prove to be a valuable ally to the cause, once Rall performed the ritual.

  He had already instructed his men not to exceed a single celebratory drink on this Christmas night. Everyone had to be sober if the ritual was to be performed properly. Even though they weren’t to participate directly, he needed their life force to help power the spell.

  As the full moon rose, Rall opened a bottle of brandy so he could follow his own orders, and have one drink in celebration of the birth of Christ. The irony of his toast to the son of God preceding his bringing a tool of Satan into the world was not lost on him.

  After finishing his snifter of brandy, he retired to the sitting room and removed the area rug. Retrieving a piece of chalk from the drawer of his desk, he knelt down and painstakingly drew a sigil on the wooden floor.

  In truth, he could have performed the ritual a month ago on the previous full moon, but he had not yet received explicit instructions from Moloch.

  His father had tried to anticipate Moloch’s wants and needs absent direct instruction. Joachim Rall did not live long enough to make that mistake a second time.

  When the sigil was complete, Rall got to his feet and called out to his adjutant, a very young lieutenant named Piel, who entered and stood at attention. “Sir?”

  “Bring Fraulein Serilda in, please.”

  “Sir!” He hesitated.

  “What is it, Lieutenant?” Rall asked impatiently.

  “We’ve received a message from one of the informants, sir.” Piel held out a slip of paper.

  Rall’s rebuke died on his lips. His men had standing orders from the British Crown to always take messages from loyalists who served as informants. But no message was more important than the ritual that he had to perform this night, so he took the slip of paper from Piel, nodded his head, said, “Dismissed, Lieutenant,” and shoved the message into his waistcoat pocket.

  A few moments later, the door opened again and the woman walked in. She wore a thick black wool cloak, no doubt to protect her from the cold winter weather.

  She didn’t look like much, this Fraulein Serilda. The woman, who apparently led a coven of witches, had arrived two months earlier, and had spent her entire tenure in Trenton living in a boardinghouse, taking meals at odd hours so she would not have to interact with the other boarders. From what Rall had been told, the other boarders preferred it that way.

  The fraulein had not left the boardinghouse, and indeed this was Rall’s first time seeing her in person. They had communicated solely by messenger these past eight weeks. What he saw now was an unassuming woman of normal height and build. She threw back the hood of her cloak upon entering Rall’s office, revealing herself to have brown hair tied up in a style that he saw every day back home in Stralsund.

  “You are not what I expected, Fraulein.”

  Her eyes, though: they stood out. A deep black, he could get lost in those obsidian pools. Those eyes fixed him now with a penetrating gaze that actually made him take a step back, and he swore his heart skipped a beat.

  She spoke with a honeyed voice, and spoke with the accent that was common to the Gypsies of Rall’s native land. “Do you doubt our master?”

  “Never.” Rall said the word emphatically. “Shall we begin?”

  “Of course.” Serilda removed her cloak, revealing herself to be wearing a simple white shift, with apparently nothing under it.

  Rall immediately averted his eyes.

  “Do not be a fool,” she said with contempt as she pulled the shift over her head, revealing her naked body to him whether he wanted to see
it or not. “And do not let false morality interfere with the great work we do.” She pulled off each of her boots, revealing bare feet.

  “There is nothing foolish about—”

  She walked right up to him, forcing him to observe her nakedness directly. “Your priests tell you that the human body is unclean and must remain covered.” She smiled nastily. “Those same priests tell you that if you believe in their absurd deity you will live blessed lives. But we both know that they are wrong about that, do we not?”

  “Of course,” Rall said tightly.

  “Then why believe them about this?” She smiled. “Perhaps I should have you strip off your clothes as well.”

  “That is not necessary for the ritual.” Rall knew that the spell would have a transformative effect on Serilda. Her clothing might interfere with that. For him, however, there was no reason to disrobe, and several reasons not to, the chill in the air being primary among them.

  With a derisive laugh, she turned on her bare heels and walked to the center of the sigil that was written on the floor.

  “Shall we begin?”

  Rall let out a long breath. Serilda spoke the truth, of course. He had violated every other tenet of faith that he was raised with back home in Hesse, so why be bound by the nudity taboo?

  He held out his hands and began chanting the spell. The language was one that hadn’t been spoken on earth with any regularity for millennia, though his father told him once that there were creatures who spoke it conversationally before they were banished to the nether-realms of hell.

  The tongue was guttural, even by the standards of the German Rall usually spoke. He wasn’t sure what the words meant, though in general he knew that they were terms of summoning.

  When he was done, he knew that Serilda would be consumed with dark power that would then be unleashed on the enemies of Moloch. And woe to the foolish rebels who stood in her path.

  As he recited the spell, though, he grew frustrated. Nothing was happening. He spoke the nonsense words, Serilda stood in the center of the sigil, and yet nothing changed.