Sleepy Hollow: Rise Headless and Ride

by Richard Gleaves

  “Always…”

  “I don’t chase after them. They just…”

  “Chase after you.”

  “Right.”

  “And you don’t like it.”

  “No, I don’t,” she said and put the cup down firmly. She stared off again, toward the bleachers where Zef stood telling a joke, and Martinez howled with laughter.

  “But,” said Jason, “you don’t like them ignoring you, either.”

  Kate grinned. “I like you,” she said. “You’re smart.” She put a hand on the back of his chair. “Are you really related to Ichabod?”

  “Does it matter?”

  She leaned in, her eyes scanning his face, noticing the details, his green eyes, his eyebrows, his shaggy auburn hair.

  “I don’t see a resemblance. No, no Ichabod here. Ichabod was never this cute.”

  She smiled, stood, and reached for her jacket.

  “Yes,” he blurted, stopping her.

  “Yes, what?” she said, turning.

  “That’s my answer. Yes.”

  “Yes to what? That you’re related?”

  He shook his head. He stood. He pushed the hair out of his eyes.

  “Yes, I would love to dance.”

  “Oh?” she said, with elaborate skepticism. “I thought you didn’t feel like it.”

  Jason offered his hand to her, palm up. “A guy’s got to play hard to get.”

  She grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the crowd. A new song had started.

  “Are you a good dancer?” she said.

  “We’ll find out.”

  She threw her arms over her head and laughed.

  “The trick is not to care if anybody’s watching,” she said.

  And she was right. The music was loud and fun and they forgot themselves in it. Jason found his groove at last. He stopped thinking about it. He stopped worrying. He swung her, spun her, bumped hips with her.

  They danced for a long time. Up on stage, Joey grew hoarse, his voice raw. The band tired, but that only made them push harder, bring more of themselves to the music. The dancers pushed themselves harder, rolling up their sleeves, tossing jackets on chairs and losing ties, keeping the night going, refusing to let it end, until midnight came and faculty members tapped their watches.

  “Last song, everybody,” said Joey, “last song.”

  Joey leaned into the mike to croon something soft and slow. Couples slipped into each other’s arms. Bodies pressed close, swayed and clung together. Kate and Jason stood awkwardly apart, out of place among the rest.

  “If it’s the last song…” muttered Jason.

  “Yeah. I should…”

  “…find Zef. I know.”

  “This was fun,” said Kate. She walked away. But she glanced back over her shoulder. Twice.

  Jason drifted over to the stage. Joey saw him standing alone. He put his hand over the mike while the guitar took over. “Hey. I’m only playing this for you two,” he whispered. “Dance with her.”

  “I’m not her date,” replied Jason.

  “Let her decide that.”

  “Decide what?” said Kate. She had returned, and stood at Jason’s elbow. He looked up to Joey for assistance, but Joey was singing again. And smiling, just a little.

  “Did you find Zef?” Jason said.

  She shrugged, looking a little helpless. She reached for him, drew him into the dance. His arms closed around her, but he hesitated.

  “What if he sees us?”

  “I told you,” she said. “The trick is to not care who’s watching.”

  Her arms came around his neck and her fingers played in his hair. She melted into him. Jason smiled. He had not wanted to come to this dance, but now there was nowhere he would rather be. His arms circled her, his palm pressed flat against the small of her back. They swayed together. She tightened against him, and the sheer black silk of her blouse rode up, slipping from beneath his fingers, until his palm lay pressed against the naked skin of her body.

  Then there was no music. No breath. No life. Nothing. There was no time, no memory, no sensation. He felt the touch of his hand on her, nothing else. He wasn’t dancing with a girl anymore. He was holding a column of energy, a warm golden energy that raced into him through the palm of his hand, pouring out from her, into him, up his arm, across his chest, along the artery, flushing his cheeks, blocking out his sight. But what sensation was this? It felt strange. Wrong, even. Where was the beat? He couldn’t find the music. He couldn’t... He…

  Oh, no, he thought, oh no no No!

  He recognized this immobilizing, muffling sensation. He wasn’t just getting caught up in the girl. He was reading her. This was psychic. This was Owen and the Brown Paper Bag. This was… oh no no no… not now not now not now!

  He fell into it, helplessly.

  He rode with Kate, on the back of Gunsmoke, down a long trail framed with ravishing autumn leaves. She held the reins, leaning back against his chest for warmth. Blue sky twisted on the periphery of his vision, rippling. He was a pebble dropped through the surface of things, a splash in the substance of the world.

  “I’ll show it to you,” she said. “It’s beautiful. People say Spook Rock is the place where the Indians bewitched the Hollow.”

  He inhaled her scent. A twig snapped under Gunsmoke’s hoof.

  So vividly real, but it can’t be. It can’t be…

  He broke through another surface.

  He lay on his back in a drifting boat. Kate leaned over him and kissed him on the nose.

  “Stop being lazy. It’s your turn to row.”

  He sat up. They skippered a rowboat, on the sea, off a ragged coast. The air wrapped them with summer heat, but the spray cooled their faces. He whirled to stare at her. So real so real. She wore shorts and a blue checked shirt tied off in front. Her arms had reddened. She should have worn sunscreen…

  “What’s the matter?” she said. “Bad dream?”

  He tried to speak, but his breath blew a bubble that engulfed her and carried her away. Or perhaps she had remained still and he had fallen back? No time to wonder.

  Because Kate screamed. Vines reached for them both, mist coiled in a sickening green light. Something lived in the mud. It had her. Jason ran, reached for her. She grabbed his wrist, his grip twisted and her slick hand rotated around his forearm. He couldn’t hold her. He was about to lose her in the swamp. He fought for purchase, reached for an immense chunk of mortared brick that lay tipped over in the mire. His fingertips caught the edge, scrabbling to find a crevice. So real so real so terribly real. But the broken structure lurched beneath him when he pulled. No.

  He couldn’t feel her now. Had Kate fallen through the surface of the swampy marsh or had he fallen away again himself? He didn’t know. He couldn’t tell anymore. His heart beat in his ears and he screamed for her, but heard bubbles escaping his lungs… bubbles, and then a rising music. The music of an organ, a wave of sound that lifted him up.

  Light broke again, and Kate walked toward him, slowly, up the aisle of a tiny church built of fieldstones. The Old Dutch Church. A white veil dimmed her face, but he could see that she smiled happily. She wore a white dress, and carried a bouquet of white roses and baby’s breath. As she drew nearer, his eye traced a path from a tiny pearl earring, to the tiny crystals sewn into the fabric, to the skin of her shoulder barely visible behind the floral lace. She joined him at the altar, turned to him. The veil rose… and everything broke again… irreparably.

  Something struck Jason and he flew backwards, falling. He was in the gym, lying on the dance floor. Kate stood over him, her face twisted, her eyes wide and terrified. She’d struck him, pushed him away, and he had fallen hard.

  “What the hell was that?” she said.

  Jason raised his hand, turned it, looked at the palm. He half-expected it to glow. It didn’t. He reached for her.

  “Don’t touch me,” she snapped. “Don’t ever touch me again!”

  Kate spun and ran.

>   A crowd stared down at him now. Joey still sang, halfheartedly, as if he couldn’t decide whether to help Jason or to give him cover.

  Jason stood. The details of the vision evaporated. His eyes went wide with wonder…

  She saw it too.

  “What did you do to her?” said a girl, suspiciously.

  “I – I don’t know,” said Jason.

  A pimply freshman raised his hand. He had the obvious answer. Everyone turned to him. The boy frowned at Jason and wagged a finger, sternly.

  “Did you touch her boob?”

  #

  Jason moved to follow Kate, but one of the Sleepy Hollow Boys stopped him with a palm.

  “Easy now, Ichabod, she said to leave her alone.”

  Jason considered. The boy wasn’t quite as tall as he was, but he was broader and stronger.

  “Fine,” Jason spat.

  Jason found a dark corner halfway between the double doors and the risers. He crossed his arms. What had happened? What had he seen? A psychic vision? That was absurd. But… it had happened before, of course.

  He exhaled slowly.

  Back in his last year of middle school, when Owen had come to Thanksgiving dinner, when he’d challenged Jason to read objects and Jason had had his strange experience with the boot, had it been like this? No. Then he had seen a vision of the past, of the night when his parents’ car went off the dam and into the Kensico Reservoir. Though the memory of that vision still disturbed him, no matter how he tried to put it out of his mind, he could at least lie to himself. Well, Jason, that was just your overactive imagination working. You’ve thought about that event so many times, it’s no wonder you could picture it clearly.

  He hadn’t seen the past this time, though, had he? He’d seen scenes of himself and Kate, scenes of the two of them in the future.

  No. Get over yourself. You don’t have any powers. You had an intense daydream. You were just worked up. Both times. Worked up over your parents, worked up over this girl. And something went cuckoo in your brain both times.

  He looked down at his hands. Tiny disco lights revolved across them. What if he’d caught something? What if the flashing lights had set off a seizure, and his brain had experienced a rush of… daydreams? But they’d been so specific. Riding with Kate on the horse. Then they’d been in a boat together. Then had come the terrible swamp, and then…

  The last part of the vision, daydream, whatever, scared him the most.

  After all, he was only sixteen.

  I’ve kissed three girls in my life.

  He listed them now. He had kissed Lily Clark, his Homecoming date, before she dumped him to dance with Mitch Everett. He had kissed Chelsea O’Hara several times one heady afternoon, when Eliza had been away grave-hopping and the precocious redhead had come over to watch DVDs. The third kiss? When was that? Way back in the fourth grade, when little Anna Beck puckered up on the playground and dared him to risk contagion.

  He had a long dating career ahead. Of course he had. A long journey before he met The One. A journey full of fumbling and mistakes and fights and breakups. He would fill his youth with girlfriends and ex-girlfriends and stalker girlfriends and unrequited love. He had decades, maybe, before he would have to get his act together, decide who he wanted, and find someone who could, possibly, maybe, by some wild stretch of the imagination, be able to stand him long enough to marry him.

  It couldn’t be Kate. He’d just met her. He felt cheated out of that whole long adventure. He looked forward to dating and playing the field and being young. No. I refuse to believe it. Knowing something like that is like… reading the last page of a book first. No. Worse… like… like spoilers before a Star Wars film.

  Me and Kate?

  “Jason?”

  Joey Osorio poked him in the shoulder.

  “What’s the matter with you? Why are you grinning like that?” said Joey.

  “Was I grinning?”

  “Like a pumpkin. What happened in there? One minute you and Kate were steaming up the place and the next I thought you were going to lose teeth. Hey? Hey? Are you listening?”

  Jason pushed the hair out of his eyes. He’d remembered something from the vision. Something that Kate had said to him, as they rode her horse through the woods. Something specific and testable… I’ll show it to you… she had said. It’s beautiful…

  “Joey, this is important. Think hard. Is there someplace near here where people say the Indians bewitched the Hollow?”

  “Sure,” said Joey, “Spook Rock. Why?”

  A chill ran through Jason. This was confirmation. This was… true.

  “Spook Rock…” he whispered. That’s what she said. In the vision. Spook Rock. And I know for a fact that I have never heard of that place before today. So it’s real. What I saw was real… And that means…

  “What’s going on with you?” said Joey.

  “I think… I’m going to marry Kate.”

  13 ELIZA

  Eliza fussed with a foil packet of Alka-Seltzer. Her insides felt uncomfortable and sour. She’d managed to fetch a long-stemmed wine glass from the lowest shelf and fill it with water, but she couldn’t open the foil packet. Her fingers were stiff, unresponsive. She’d forgotten to take her arthritis medicine again, and her knuckles had grown as big as gumdrops.

  You’re getting old, she thought to herself, then chuckled. Getting? She’d gotten and gotten good. She wasn’t just old, not anymore. She’d sailed right past old and into the port called Decrepitude.

  She dangled the packet between two fingers. Charley sniffed at it, hoping for a treat.

  “Open this for me, sweetheart?”

  The dog spun in a circle and barked.

  “Shh. You’re no help.”

  She brought the packet to her mouth, palms together as if in prayer. She tilted her head and tried to tear the thing open with her teeth, but her dentures would give before the foil would.

  Damn.

  The blue packet slipped and fell to the floor. It lay there, a square fruit hanging in the leaf-pattern of her linoleum.

  She cursed, real sailor cursing like her stepfather used to do when Laura burned the dinner. Eliza kicked the cabinet door with one slippered foot. She would have brought a fist down on the counter if she could make one. She leaned forward about three inches, air filling the front of her housedress. She couldn’t bend far enough and the effort made her hips wretched and angry. Forget about kneeling. She’d have to get steroid shots in both knees and a gallon of morphine before she even attempted it. She brought her heel down on the packet and felt the contents grind into powder. That, at least, made her feel better.

  She found milk in the refrigerator. That would do. She slipped a thumb through the plastic handle, grateful that Jason had bought a half-gallon, not a quart. She never would have been able to open one of those paper containers. She pushed the white cap with the heel of her palm. It popped off and fell to the floor. It could just stay down there too. She didn’t feel up to setting the jug on the counter, fetching the wine glass, emptying the water into the sink on the other side of the kitchen, returning, pouring the milk. Even thinking about it exhausted her. So she lifted the jug to her mouth and took a swig straight from the bottle. What Jason didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

  She spit it back out. It had gone bad. Oh, that boy! She could really thump him sometimes. Rivulets of white ran down the front of the green refrigerator. She reached out impulsively to wipe them away. The milk jug went tumbling from her thumb. It hit the floor, bounced an inch, and tumbled over, spraying her slippers with sour milk.

  She stood like that for a long time as a puddle formed. Charley licked at it, made a face, and ran into the living room.

  No use crying, right? That’s what her mother used to say. No use crying over spilled milk. Eliza hated that cliché. She hated all clichés. They irked her. She’d grown up a cliché, her life a bowl of cherries, duck soup, easy as pie, child’s play behind a white picket fence.

&nb
sp; Her mother had been the perfect little woman, with the emphasis on little, only four foot four, with a little head of brown hair, a little mouth suited to church gossip and thin soup, a little house, a little pension, and a very little imagination. Everybody liked Laura Merrick, but nobody admired her. Mother had been the Wyatt Earp of clichés, firing them off quick-draw: “a rotten apple spoils the barrel,” “smile and the world smiles with you,” “every dog has his day,” “children should be seen and not heard.” She believed them all, particularly this last. Eliza obliged, preferring to wander the streets of Wytheville, Virginia on her own lonesome terms. Anything to get away from mother’s nagging twitter – high and tinny, full of hiss and scratch.

  Father had a booming bass voice. His Liza-dumpling had adored the plummy, solid sound of it. She would climb on his stomach and press her ear to his chest while he sang “Old Man River,” kicking her feet and closing her eyes. But the war had widowed Laura Merrick when Eliza was four. Widowed. What’s the word for a child without a father? Eliza wasn’t an orphan, no, though she felt like one. Waif, maybe, or wretch, or lost soul. Tired of living and scared of dying. Her father had been the joy and iron of her life, always would be, and she would look for him again through all her years of honeymoons and third-string husbands.

  Her mother wore black crepe dresses, right up until V-J Day. She remarried: a nasal baritone who slurred words on Friday nights. Travis Wright doted on them at first, hit Laura after six months, whored after nine, and filed for divorce by their paper anniversary. Laura took her lumps meekly, patiently, with a prayer to Jesus and a steak on her eye. Eliza drew murderous cartoons in her room. Travis died in an auto accident that February, wrapping his pick-em-up truck around a statue of Robert E. Lee.

  The divorce left Laura a spinster librarian, and one false step on icy stairs left her an invalid as well. The accident happened on New Year’s Eve, nineteen-fifty. Laura had just locked the doors of Wytheville Public Library, a forbidding civic mausoleum on Jefferson Avenue. She always liked to organize the card catalogues at the end of the year, and she’d spent that particular New Year’s Eve sorting out a thorny Dewey Decimal classification. She had to scurry home by nine, of course, to make sure her boy-crazy daughter didn’t sneak out. Eliza had kissed more beaus at seventeen than most women had at thirty.