by Ranae Rose
Brom gave John a long, hard look as he smoothed a hand over Torben’s sweat-streaked neck. “Torben isn’t the sort to take flight over a fox or a possum, or any other creature that might be scurrying about in the night.”
Yes, but what of a headless phantom riding a steed from Hell? John stared back. “Perhaps it wasn’t an animal.”
“Don’t start with your spirit-world nonsense – I won’t have it. We’re out to find a man, and possibly even a dangerous one. Keep your wits about you, and your head out of the clouds.”
There were in fact no clouds overhead, only the waning sickle of the moon, which shed enough light to illuminate Brom’s self-righteous expression. That was just as well, for it meant that Brom could see John’s fierce frown. “We’ll see.” Without further ado, John swung into the saddle, barely suppressing the urge to groan when his balls met the leather, insufficiently cushioned by the thin cloth of his breeches. “We’ve wasted enough time.”
Finally, something they could both agree on. Brom nodded and mounted Torben, who snorted, but was otherwise calm. The mad race across the field had exhausted Gunpowder, and he complied amiably enough when John turned him back in the direction of the road. Together, and both surely bruised, John and Brom rode toward the scene of their recent disaster, ready to track down whoever or whatever was haunting the passage through the woods.
The horses both shied at the bridge, but were tired enough that they could be forced across with some urging from their riders.
The wood on the other side of the bridge was eerily silent and steeped in shadow. The moonlight that had illuminated Brom’s face clearly in the field was diminished by the patchy canopy of branches that had begun to lose their leaves, and John blinked, allowing his eyes a moment to adjust. “A man dressed in black, riding a black horse through a black wood, without even a face to catch the light. Perhaps we acted too hastily – how are we going to see him, should he appear?”
Brom grunted, frowning. “Give it a few minutes. Your eyes will adjust.” He heeled Torben forward, leaving John little choice but to follow. “Meanwhile, be quiet and listen.”
John did just that, ears strained for any sound. By the time they’d ridden for a few silent minutes, he could indeed see more clearly. “Someone has come through here in a hurry recently.” The dirt path was marred with deep hoofprints leading in the direction opposite the bridge. Brom had said that he’d turned around at times, searching for anything amiss, but he’d also claimed that he’d ridden slowly.
Brom bent in the saddle, glaring down at the prints. “Those aren’t Torben’s.”
A possible clue. John felt a faint sense of pride and excitement, even as his stomach flip-flopped with a sudden wave of nervousness. Could spirits leave tracks? He’d never read of any cases where they had, but who was to say that they couldn’t? He kept a careful eye on the hoofprints as they proceeded, and was consequently dumfounded when they suddenly disappeared. He reined Gunpowder to a hasty halt, staring down at the place in the road where the deep tracks stopped inexplicably. Beside him, Brom did the same. “Perhaps we’ve got a Pegasus on our hands,” John said. It was a lame joke and did little to ease the tension that had descended as abruptly as the hoof marks had stopped.
Still eyeing the tracks critically, Brom urged his mount ahead, plainly searching for more. John aided him, straining to make out even the faintest impression of a horseshoe in the moonlit dirt. The chilling truth of the matter was that the ground was still soft from the afternoon’s rain, and it would have been impossible for a dog to walk the path without leaving prints, let alone a horse. In what seemed no time at all, they’d reached the edge of the wood without finding so much as a hint of more evidence that anyone else had traveled the road recently. John stopped Gunpowder as they emerged into open space again, and turned to face Brom.
True to his stubborn nature, Brom appeared lost in furious concentration, as if there were some way that a horse could simply disappear into thin air by natural means, if only he could think of it.
“What now?” John asked. If Brom intended to sit still in the saddle until he came up with a logical explanation, they’d be there all night.
Brom picked up his reins, his expression hardening in a flash of decision. “We make rounds through the village, making sure that everything is as it should be.”
This seemed as good a suggestion as any. John clucked to Gunpowder, pressing his heels into the animal’s sides. Normally, venturing from the Jansens’ nearby farm and across the bridge into the heart of Sleepy Hollow was an enjoyable affair – there was always a quiet sort of bustle, and more often than not, a woman kind enough to offer a fresh slice of pie to the schoolmaster. It would be odd tonight, riding slowly through the silent village with no hope of being greeted or fed.
The first property they approached was the Van Tassel farm, which sprawled at the edge of the village, larger even than the Jansens’. John’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of the looming farmhouse, as it always did. Though Katrina was surely asleep, he could’ve sworn he scented a whiff of her delicious gooseberry pie in the night air. The comforting notion was dispelled by a sudden flash of white that immediately set John on edge, conjuring thoughts of specters and ghostly fog. He tensed in the saddle, causing Gunpowder to come to an abrupt halt, snorting as he dug his hooves into the earth.
“What is it?” Brom looked around eagerly, the muscles in his arms bulging beneath his sleeves as he gathered up his reins.
“There,” John said, raising one hand and pointing slightly to the right of the Van Tassel farmhouse. The single word and gesture were all he could muster; his mouth had gone dry as sand, and his heart was beating so hard that he could hear it, each beat ringing in his ears like a gunshot.
Brom squinted in the direction John had pointed, where a pale figure stood bathed in dim moonlight, its face as white as its clothing.
“Damn it all,” Brom muttered, sitting up even straighter in the saddle as he stared. “It’s Katrina.”
“What?” John squinted too, gaping at the other-worldly figure with renewed astonishment. Now that Brom mentioned it, the figure was clearly feminine – the swell of a full bosom was visible beneath her white garment, and skirts fluttered at her ankles. And her hair – it looked silver in the moonlight, but when he squinted, it was clear that it was gold. He touched the cross that hung around his neck as his heart leapt. “Katrina.”
Brom was already galloping toward her, and John hammered his heels against Gunpowder’s sides, urging him to run in the same direction. Gunpowder wasn’t pleased by the notion at first, but watching Torben speed off without him proved too much to bear, and he broke into a grudging gallop.
By the time John arrived at the scene, Brom had already dismounted and was rushing to Katrina’s side. She stood, eyes closed and swaying a little in the moonlight, wearing nothing but her shift. Her feet were bare and her hair hung down her back in a single thick plait, braided for sleep – what on earth was she doing in the field beside the farmhouse instead of in her bed? John glanced wildly around as he climbed out of the saddle, but there was no one else in sight, and each of the farmhouse’s windows was dark.
“Katrina.” Brom gently placed his hands on her arms, above her elbows. “Katrina—”
“Don’t wake her,” John said, reaching out to lay a hand on Brom’s shoulder. “She’s asleep.”
It was true. Her eyelids didn’t so much as flutter, though she turned toward Brom with her lips parted, as if she were on the verge of speech. No words escaped, only a small sigh.
“You mustn’t wake anyone in this state,” John said. “It gives them a dreadful shock.”
Brom looked at first as if he might protest, but eventually nodded.
Katrina swayed in his grasp, raising one bare foot in an attempt to take a step forward. Her other one slipped on a small stone, and she would have tumbled to the ground if it hadn’t been for Brom. He held her steady, turning his gaze to John. “We had better g
et her indoors. You walk on her one side, and I’ll take the other. I’m afraid that if I carry her, I’ll wake her.”
John cast a look at the horses, which had settled into grazing contentedly, and obliged, sidling up to Katrina and slipping an arm beneath one of hers, supporting her. Brom did the same at her other side, and his arm brushed John’s as he laid it across her back. As they started toward the house, John stared resolutely forward, refusing to let his eyes stray to Katrina, whose nipples had hardened in the cold and were like ripe cherries popping against the thin fabric of her shift. The luscious curves of her breasts and hips stood out just as prominently beneath the sparse garment, and the tempting sight called to John’s gaze like a siren. He silently thanked God for his wild bareback ride on Gunpowder and the resulting blows to his balls, which had resulted in an enduring ache that now served to keep his cock from stiffening all the way. God willing, the bulge in his breeches wouldn’t be obvious to anyone he might happen to encounter inside the house, such as Katrina’s father.
No one greeted them when they entered through the front door. The hall was dark, lit only by patches of moonlight that filtered through a window. “Should we fetch her father?” John asked, glancing about warily. What would Mr. Van Tassel think if he found his daughter in the arms of two men, scandalously clad in just her shift? Mr. Van Tassel was a reasonable man, and especially fond of Brom, but still…
“If we don’t and he wakes to the sound of us in the hall or his daughter’s bedroom, he may shoot us,” Brom said pragmatically.
“How then shall we wake him?” It was difficult to imagine a scenario where being shot wasn’t at least a possibility.
They were saved from the necessity of devising a plan by a sudden clatter that came from above – feet on floorboards, and a voice crying out in an alarmed whisper. “Katrina?” In no time at all, Mr. Van Tassel had descended the stairs, his legs bared beneath the hem of his shirt and his normally neatly restrained hair as wild as a lion’s mane around his face and shoulders. Thank God, he didn’t have a gun, though when he laid eyes on the scene before him, he looked so shocked that he himself might have been shot.
“We found her outside, in the field beside the house,” Brom said. “She’s –”
“Asleep,” Mr. Van Tassel said, his face pinched with concern. “Yes, I know.”
So it seemed that this was not the first time Katrina had walked in her sleep. Knowing that she might have wandered outside alone at night before – and worse, that she might do it again – chilled John right down to his bones. “Does she do this often?”
Mr. Van Tassel shrugged, looking almost helpless for a moment. “Every once in a while, but she’s never wandered outside before.”
This admission should have comforted John, but instead, it sent a fresh bolt of alarm through him. That Katrina should have begun wandering outdoors in her sleep, now of all times, when there was something unexplained and possibly malevolent on the loose…
“We found her before she strayed far,” Brom said. “She’s probably chilled to the bone, but hasn’t been otherwise harmed.” His voice was steady and confident, but John could feel the tenseness in his arm – he had it wrapped firmly around Katrina, as if he wished to pull her close to him and hold her with both.
“Of course not, of course not…” Mr. Van Tassel had slumped against the bannister and was leaning on it for support. His face was pale, and even in the dim moonlight, the sweat on his brow was visible. It was understandable that he was upset that his only daughter had strayed outside into the cold, where wild animals might roam, but a heavy feeling in the pit of John’s gut told him that there was more to it than that. Surely Mr. Van Tassel had heard the Smits’ headless horseman tale – everyone in Sleepy Hollow would know of it by now. Whether Mr. Van Tassel believed that the mysterious horseman was a specter or a flesh-and-blood menace, it was clear that he didn’t relish the thought of his daughter crossing its path.
“We’re nearly out of sugar.” Katrina spoke up suddenly, her voice sweet and light in comparison to the men’s rougher tones. “This won’t do – I must go into Tarrytown and buy some.”
Mr. Van Tassel straightened, as if fortified by the sound of Katrina’s voice. “Yes, dear,” he said, as if they were having a perfectly ordinary conversation.
It was anything but – Katrina’s eyes were closed, though her mouth had pursed, forming a rosebud of disapproval. She might have been in the kitchen, surveying an empty sugar sack. Perhaps she thought she was. “This won’t do at all,” she repeated.
“We’ll buy more sugar in the morning,” Mr. Van Tassel promised, stepping forward to take his daughter from Brom and John. With an air of experience, he took her by the arm and began to lead her toward the stairs. He took the steps exceedingly slowly, lest she should trip.
“I promised John Crane another pie,” she said, “and gooseberries are too bitter without sugar to mellow the taste.”
“Indeed they are…” Father and daughter reached the top of the staircase and disappeared into the hallway on the second floor.
Several minutes passed before Mr. Van Tassel reappeared again, this time wrapped in a robe that had been tied shut over his sizeable girth. “She’s in bed,” he assured Brom and John. “Sound asleep, most likely – it’s strange, but if you can manage to get her back to bed without upsetting her, she’ll usually sleep like an angel for the rest of the night.” He looked at Brom as he said this, as if imparting advice.
Brom nodded – it was helpful information, or at least, it would be, in less than two weeks. John’s mind was filled with a sudden vision of Brom easing Katrina into bed and lying down beside her. His imagination whirled as he experienced an odd cocktail of emotion.
“That’s good to know,” Brom said, “but I’d be a liar if I said that the sight of her wandering alone in the moonlight doesn’t haunt me. Will you need help tonight? John and I could stand guard by the doors to ensure her safety, should she rise again.”
“Oh, no,” Mr. Van Tassel said, shaking his head. “That won’t be necessary. I shan’t go back to sleep tonight – I assure you.” The look in his eyes said that though he hadn’t seen Katrina sleepwalking outside, the idea haunted him, too.
“Very well,” Brom said. “Then we’ll be off. Goodnight to you, sir.”
“Wait.” Mr. Van Tassel hopped the last stair, descending to lay a hand on his future son-in-law’s elbow. “Have you found anything?” His eyes, wide and blue like his daughter’s, shone with a mixture of apprehension and curiosity. “I heard this afternoon that you and Mr. Crane intended to patrol the road tonight, and plainly it was true.”
Brom answered without hesitation. “No. Nothing yet.”
The memory of the unexplainable hoofprints loomed in John’s mind, but he said nothing. Though it was certainly perplexing, Mr. Van Tassel hardly needed to know about the phenomena just yet – Katrina’s midnight adventure had given him enough of a scare already.
“Well, that’s...” Mr. Van Tassel wiped his hands on the front of his robe. “No news is good news, I suppose.”
Brom nodded, and the dark gleam in his eyes made it plain to John that Brom would much rather capture the mysterious horseman than discover no sign of his presence.
“Goodnight, Mr. Van Tassel,” John said, following Brom toward the door.
Mr. Van Tassel bid him goodnight and flashed his first weak smile of the night. “I expect I’ll be seeing you soon, Mr. Crane, since Katrina seems so intent on making you another pie.”
John nodded, his mouth watering at the thought of gooseberry pie. “I expect you shall – I must return the dish she left with me last time.” On that promising note, he and Brom exited the farmhouse, stepping out into the night, where they’d hastily left their horses.
Gunpowder’s light grey hide stood out against the night, making him easy to spot in the field beside the farmhouse. Torben loomed beside him like a shadow. Both horses were grazing, their breath rising from their nostrils in f
oggy puffs – the air seemed colder than it had been when Brom and John had entered the house.
“Damn it all,” Brom said when he reached Torben. “He’s broken his rein.” Brom picked up the long halves of Torben’s snapped rein from the ground.
“He must have stepped on it,” John remarked, relieved when he found that Gunpowder’s reins had slid down his neck, but gathered behind his ears, undamaged. “I suppose that’s the consequence of abandoning them so hastily, without putting the reins away safely.”
Brom grunted in response, gathering the two halves of Torben’s ruined rein in one hand as he heaved himself into the saddle.
“Not that we could have honorably done anything else,” John added, fully aware that Torben was Brom’s most prized possession, and that Brom never would have neglected such an essential act of husbandry if he hadn’t felt it necessary in order to protect Katrina.
“A small price to pay,” Brom agreed, patting his mount’s neck. Torben raised his head, his mouth still bristling with grass. With his other hand, Brom gripped the two halves of the severed rein – tightly enough that the leather bit into his palm, it looked like.
“Indeed.” John looked away from Brom and turned his attention instead to Gunpowder, who hadn’t bolted, but was reluctant to be caught. When John reached for his reins, Gunpowder sidestepped him with surprising agility, snapping his teeth at John’s sleeve.
The display of animosity would have been more threatening if Gunpowder hadn’t immediately gone back to grazing, eagerly tearing up thick tufts of autumn grass. John snatched Gunpowder’s reins in one deft movement and managed to swing into the saddle before the horse could bite his leg. “Where to now?”
“A quick ride through the village. Then I’ll escort you back to the Jansens’, and we can search the road through the forest again on the way.”
John nodded and heeled Gunpowder into a trot. Together, he and Brom made a circuit of the sleepy little village. Everything was silent, and nothing out of place. In no time at all, they had turned around and were headed in the direction of the dark wood again.