“This is the same Broadway, you know,” said Eliza. “It goes all the way down to Times Square. Used to be an Indian trail – Manhattan to Fort Orange. For the fur trapping business.” She kissed the dog. “Don’t worry, baby. Nobody’s gonna skin you. And you know what the town’s most famous for.”
“Well, duh,” Jason said. Every kid named “Crane,” especially one as tall and skinny as Jason, had heard a lifetime of Ichabod jokes. He hoped never to hear another.
“Did you know it was a real place?”
“Of course,” he said, though he hadn’t.
“Don’t be so smart,” said Eliza. “Turn here.”
The streets sloped towards the Hudson, the hillside trying to shake the village off its back. Jason slipped in behind a UPS truck and drove upwards. They turned onto Gory Brook Road. He stuck his head out the window, trying to pass. The UPS truck turned aside to the right. And he saw The House.
“Here, here, here,” said Eliza.
She pointed at the driveway of 417 Gory Brook. Jason brought the RV to a smoke-belching halt.
The house stood on a knoll, above a steep yard that angled downwards toward the Hudson. An ancient sycamore on the front lawn leaned precariously. The roof was an irregular A-frame, with a long slope on the left and a short one on the right, like a rotated check mark. The upper floors were trimmed with bands of chocolate-brown wood in a rectangular pattern. They made the house look as if it were trapped behind the bars of a jail cell. A tidy triangular portico extended over the front door, which was rough-hewn, rounded on top, held together by two vertical metal bands, and dotted with nail heads, a gothic novel in braille. The grey-blue curtains at the ground-floor bay window gave the place a veiled-eye aspect, like his grandmother’s cataracts.
The house seemed to be inspecting Jason with that eye. What are you doing here, boy? I’m watching you…
Eliza put a hand on his shoulder. He jumped.
“This is it,” she said. She slapped the dashboard.
“This is what?”
“Our new home.”
“But…” Jason turned to her, baffled.
Her face sparkled with delight.
“Surprise!”
2 GORY BROOK
“Let me out so Charley can tinkle.”
The poodle turned circles in Eliza’s lap.
Jason’s head swam. He could feel the edge of anger beginning to slice through his confusion, but he didn’t want to start an argument. Eliza could be stubborn. He walked around the cab and helped her out of the RV. Charley sniffed the grass and sneezed.
“So… you rented us a place?”
“I bought it! Here. Does this one have a triangle on it?” She held up a key.
“No. What do you mean you bought it? For like a vacation house?”
“Find the one with the triangle.”
She turned her palm and dropped a tangle of keys in his. The tags read: Garage. Mailbox. Basement. The basement key was heavy, ancient.
“I don’t see a triangle. And none of them say Front Door.”
“Back Door?”
“No.”
“Never mind,” she said, “they’re probably in the box then.”
She hobbled onto the porch. On the doorknob hung a realtor’s lockbox with a numbered dial. Jason tugged at it.
“What’s the combination?” he said.
“Hell if I know. Charley, get out of the road. Grab her.”
The dog always yipped at nothing, at shadows, specks of dust, some blade of grass against which she bore a grudge. This time she yipped at a Hispanic teenager jogging past. The kid made for the trail. It began near the house, wound into the woods and disappeared. Jason noticed the letters O.C.A. on a wrought-iron gate.
He tried to corral the dog. She growled at him, padded up to Eliza and looked down at Jason from the porch. Jason stood in the middle of the yard, his hands spread helplessly, and the anger poked through.
“Where the hell are we?”
“You’ll get used to it. You might even like it.”
“So we live here now? For how long?”
“For good. There’s a moving van coming tomorrow. We can stay in the camper tonight. They’re bringing all our stuff down from Augusta.”
“Were you going to tell me?”
“I am telling you.” Her voice had an edge to it, an undertow, some quality that suggested if you stood in its way it would drag you along against your will. “You’ll start school next week. You’re smart. You’ll catch up quick.” She paused, maybe daring him to correct her adverb. He didn’t. “I thought the boxing and moving could get done for us while we were sightseeing. Who wants to deal with that bullshit?” She cupped her hands around her eyes and peered through a side window. “It’s a good house.”
“I kind of liked our old one,” he said. And he did. It was a tall New England manse of whitewashed boards and balustrades. He’d lived in it since he was seven.
“This will have to do.”
The have to was heavy with authority.
“Okay, but for the record – ” Jason said, pointing to the welcome mat, “I agree with Charley.”
Eliza glanced down. “Bad dog,” she said.
The poodle had dropped off a housewarming gift.
#
Jason dialed, and Eliza left a voicemail asking the realtor to either call back with the combination or bring the key the next morning. They parked the RV behind the house. Eliza climbed up into the camper and settled in. Jason decided to try the keys.
The foundation of the house was an immense block of grey stone, not a knoll as he had first thought. This stone box kept the house level as the land sloped west from the road. On one block he saw lettering. This cornerstone read 1837. From the rear, the back door of the house hung above the lawn. A flight of thirteen steps led up to it.
He thought of Eliza.
This is a dangerous stair.
He climbed up, but found the door securely locked. None of his keys fit. He tried to peer in through the small window but sunlight reflected off the glass.
He found the basement door, set in the exact middle of the foundation, tucked beneath the stairs. He ran his hand across it, brushing flakes of rusted iron. He took out the heavy old key and put it in the lock. It wouldn’t turn. He wrapped the end of his sweatshirt around his hand, twisted again. This time the door popped outwards, and a plume of dusty air whipped around its corners. The hinges sang like an old woman’s laughter.
The sun dipped low in the western sky, setting over New Jersey. Jason’s shadow lurched down into the box of stone, stretching out from his feet and falling into a void. He took four steps down into the space, which was cavernous and appeared to extend not just to the front of the house, but beyond, all the way under the front yard and maybe to the road. The air smelled humid, mildewed. He saw rusted pipes and a few rings set into the wall, suggesting a stable, and a small round drain in the floor. He felt for a light switch, reaching into the dark. The stones were cold and moist. Something delicate and many-legged skittered across the back of his hand.
No way in hell, he thought.
He pivoted, bounded up, closed the door again, locked it, and returned to the RV – just a little too quickly, laughing at himself.
Eliza had boiled brown rice for herself and nuked Jason a hot dog. They ate, and afterwards he helped her undress, undoing the buttons of her sweater, removing her shoes, averting his eyes as she traded elastic-waist sweatpants for light shorts. At last she slipped her bones into a nightdress and, holding his forearm, folded herself down onto the thin mattress. He tucked her in. Charley waited by the bed, whining to be picked up.
“Stay here tonight?” Eliza said. “Don’t go wandering.”
“It’s early. I’d like to see the town.”
“Not yet. Not by yourself.”
“It’s eight o’clock.” Jason sounded as whiny as the poodle. He’d grown tired of the camper and wanted to stretch his legs.
“He
re,” she said. She slipped a hand around her pillow and slid aside a small panel in the wall of her alcove. She drew out a book. The cover was of old leather, tanned a caramel color, like coffee ice cream.
“Know what this is?”
“No.” He reached for it.
“Careful with it. It’s almost two hundred years old.”
She put the volume in his hand. The spine cracked and threads of the binding were visible. A handwritten label on the spine read “The Sketch-Book by W. Irving.”
“What is it?”
“Open it up.”
The cover felt slightly loose. Opening it, he found a sheaf of yellowed paper. The title page read:
THE
SKETCH-BOOK
Of
GEOFFREY CRAYON, Gent.
____
No. I.
“I have no wife nor children, good or bad, to provide for. A mere spectator of other men’s fortunes and adventures, and how they play their parts; which me-thinks are diversely presented unto me, as from a common theater or scene.” Burton.
_____
NEW-YORK
Printed by C. S. Van Winkle
101 Greenwich Street.
………
1820.
He turned the pages. They were thin, almost transparent, with small spots of fungus, as if exposed to attic humidity.
“Looks fascinating,” he lied.
The book consisted of some twenty or thirty short stories. He saw Rip Van Winkle about twenty-five pages in.
“Flip towards the end.”
He did, and a familiar name popped out of the text:
Crane.
“Recognize it?” she said.
He skipped back a few pages.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Jason frowned, remembering an incident in fourth grade. Squealing children. Look, it’s Icky-bod, Ugly Old Icky-Bod Craaaane!
“Thanks, but I know the story,” he said. “I think I’ll just log onto Facebook. Tell people where I am.”
He extended it back to her, but she ignored the gesture and tugged at the blanket.
“Read it. It’s yours. I bought it for you. That’s the first edition – eighteen-twenty. The original pamphlets all bound together. I bought it from a museum. Take good care of it. It cost ten grand, for God’s sake.” She looked hurt. Jason felt guilty. She bought him a book that cost ten thousand dollars? He turned it in his hand. Could this be a gesture of apology for uprooting his life?
“Thank you,” he said, and kissed her cheek. Charley growled. Jason was poaching. Eliza gathered the poodle up onto the bed. Jason climbed the small stepladder to the bunk above her. He turned off the camper lights but for one pin-spot of his own.
“I hope you like it,” she whispered. “Read it close. Pay attention. By the way, before the museum had it, that copy was your great-great-grandfather Jesse’s. It’s his handwriting on the spine. And it was his father’s before that.”
Jason lay on the top bunk, propped on his elbows, and turned again to the front page. Inside the cover he read a faint inscription: Absalom Crane. September 17th, 1834. He knew the name. Absalom, married to the woman in the lonely Bridgeport grave: Annabel Crane, Mother of Jesse.
The one who would stay put.
“Goodnight, my darling,” Eliza said, and Jason hazarded a kissing noise in return. He hadn’t been sure if she was speaking to him or to the dog.
3 THE RED MOON
Across town, Franklin Octavius Darley decided to get high.
He’d come out of the Tarrytown Music Hall around eleven with his date, but Susan had made a lame excuse involving out-of-town company and left him on the sidewalk. He didn’t believe her. He wondered if he had b.o. He sniffed his armpit as he walked down the sidewalk. No stench so far as he could tell. He cupped a palm over his mouth and checked his breath. No problem. What the hell happened? He didn’t want to drive home to New York tonight. Besides, he’d booked a hotel room over on Saw Mill River Parkway. It was a fleabag, but it would have been nice enough for a dog like Miss Susan Birmingham.
Fleabag. Dog. Get it? Ha ha ha.
None of the bars he passed looked inviting. Too many kids.
So he decided to get high.
Around midnight, he realized his mistake. He sat in Patriots Park, cupping his left palm around a lighter as he sparked his second joint, when he noticed something glittering on his finger. His wedding ring. He’d left the damn thing on. No wonder Susan had turned so cold. She’d probably been staring at it the whole night.
Oh, well. Her own stupidity.
He hoped the girl wasn’t mad enough to google him. What if she found out where he lived? She didn’t seem like the Fatal Attraction type. Eh. Stop it. The pot was making him paranoid. He was fine. None of the others made a scene in all his years of marriage. He sat back on the stone bench and looked up at the sky. He rested under an enormous tulip tree, ancient, bearing some historic marker he didn’t bother to read.
“You look like a man who needs a beer.”
Franklin Octavius Darley stubbed the joint. But this was no policeman. He could make out the shape of a woman in a long leather coat, standing a few feet away by the pond. He blinked a few times, forcing himself to focus and be suave.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she said. He heard an invitation in it. This was promising. She sat next to him, put a gloved hand on his knee. More promising, practically an IOU. It was too dark to see her face, but passing headlights lit up her cleavage. She smelled good. She was blonde. He was glad he’d worn a suit tonight, and his red-striped power tie. They gave him confidence.
“You’re up late,” she said. “Me too. I’ve got a cooler in my car… if you’re sharing the smoke?”
“Absolutely,” he said, and sloughed his wedding ring into his pocket.
They fetched the cooler, climbed into his car and searched for a hidden spot.
“Turn in here,” the girl said.
The sign read Philipsburg Manor. They parked in the most secluded corner of the parking lot, which overlooked a lake or pond. The pond reflected just enough light to show him where to put his hands. They made out for a while. She popped the cooler. They had several beers and talked about real estate, of all things. His bladder filled up.
He was relieving himself in the water when he heard the car door slam. He turned and saw that the girl had left the car.
“You’re not going already?” he said.
She twisted the radio antennae off the hood of the car.
She poked his eye out with it.
#
Franklin Octavius Darley opened his one eye and saw a red moon.
Why is the moon red?
He opened his mouth and bubbles came out. He floated underwater. He thrashed. Something held him under.
The moon is red because the water is bloody.
His wrists ached. The moon became redder.
The moon is red because it rose. It rose. Get it? Ha ha ha.
He was still stoned.
The air left his lungs and he sank. The red moon dimmed. It slipped away from him. It split into shards, rippling. The end of his red-striped power tie floated upwards, reaching. Then the weeds took him and his back thudded onto the bottom of the millpond. Clouds of silt billowed all around.
God, am I wasted.
Wasted. Get it?
Get it?
Get…
Then the moon was gone.
Ha ha ha.
4 THE BRIDGE
Jason whipped his horse, damning the animal and wishing it would find some speed. Something loomed behind him. A swarm of shadows, a tidal wave, a murderer with a knife. Something large and oppressive was in pursuit, and Jason’s blood coursed through his body, urging him to flee, flee, flee! The hairs on his neck had risen. His fingers clenched the reins.
They tore through a Disney forest of long-armed beseeching trees. They leapt over rotted logs. Hooves beat against a cobbled road and sparks flew fro
m horseshoes.
If only I can make the bridge…
If only I can make the bridge…
But where was it? The road forked. Forked again.
The evil was on him.
Where was it?
Then, there! Beyond a clearing, he saw the old covered bridge. Something tore at him as he turned. A branch? A hand? He yanked the reins, gave a kick, and the road flew past.
Joy leapt in his heart as they reached the bridge.
But the thing behind him laughed.
The bridge was out.
The planks had rotted.
Jason and his horse fell through space, toward a rippling red moon…
…and that’s what you get for reading The Legend before bed.
He rubbed his eyes and cursed Washington Irving.
Jason had forgotten the dream by the time Debbie Flight arrived with the keys. The realtor was a sunny blonde in her thirties. She kept apologizing for leaving them camped in the driveway, to the point that Jason wondered whether her commission check had cleared. He decided it hadn’t. She opened the lockbox and produced four keys. Front door and back. Two copies. The front door key bore a triangle pattern.
The inside of 417 Gory Brook was far more modern than the façade suggested. Debbie drew aside the grey-blue curtains so the bay window could see again. The living room was generous and inviting, the hardwood floors bright in the morning sun. At the rear of the house was the kitchen, and adjacent to that was a small guest bedroom. Eliza announced that this room would be hers. She did not want to take the stairs every night. This meant the master bedroom was Jason’s if he wanted it.
Jason made his way up steep, narrow steps and found his room. It faced west, and the view was spectacular. To his right, the forest stretched off into the distance, a sea of orange. Below, the rooftops of Sleepy Hollow spread at Jason’s feet. To his left, the Tappan Zee Bridge leapt the blue party-dress ribbon of the Hudson River.
Sleepy Hollow: Rise Headless and Ride Page 2