by Irvine, Alex
Knowing this danger, Seamus assented. He brought us to a ritual hut and outlined for us what we must do. Defeating Ro’kenhrontyes was only possible by entering his realm and facing the challenge he placed before us. To achieve the penetration of his realm, known to the Mohawk as the Valley of Death, one must be put in a state of waking dream through ritual means. Seamus’s version of this ritual incorporated blue jasmine tea and scorpions. I confess to some discomfort at the specter of the scorpion’s sting, which I had never experienced but understood to be quite painful. However, the intensity of its sting was matched by the clarity of the vision it provided in conjunction with the tea, which he had altered with other shamanic ingredients unknown to me.
Ro’kenhrontyes kills by forcing his victims to confront endlessly the errors they made that caused pain to their fellow creatures. His Valley of Death is the passage all souls must take from this world to the afterlife, whether it be with the angels or with the infernal hordes. He may not touch those committed to one path or the other; it is those whose fates still hang in the balance who become his prey. When Abigail and I awoke in the Valley of Death, we were separated. Ro’kenhrontyes challenged her by forcing her to face what she had done by lying about her experience seeing the demon. I tried to intervene but was unable to thwart the Sandman until Abigail, displaying a reservoir of courage I suspected must be present in her as it is in her sister, at last admitted her sin and the damage it had caused her sister. In an instant Ro’kenhrontyes froze in a crystalline form and Abigail smashed him to fragments. In doing so, she also saved my life, for the demon’s strength had overmastered mine, and I was drowning in sand. Is drowning correct? Suffocating, perhaps. I have never been an habitué of beaches and after this experience am even less inclined to become one.
We emerged from the Valley of Death. The forces of evil, if I may be permitted so melodramatic a phrase, are gathering to oppose the work of the Two Witnesses: Abigail Mills and me. The Hessian, Serilda, now the Sandman of the Mohawk … what monstrosity shall we confront next?
Today’s events have reminded me of a man called Louis Atayataronghta. He and I fought together at the Battle of Oriskany, the most bloody of all the fighting I saw during the course of the war for the future of the American colonies. At this time the Six Nations of the Iroquois were wavering between loyalty to the Crown and allegiance to the colonies. After Oriskany, they would fall into a civil war; before Oriskany, the Oneida were on the colonists’ side, the Mohawk divided, and the other tribes tending toward the British side. At Oriskany many Mohawks fought with the British, who ambushed a relief column making for Fort Stanwix. It was a terrible slaughter. Louis, one of the few Mohawks who fought for the colonial forces that day, saved my life.
Given the elaborate operation involved in firing a musket in 1776, even the fastest of men could not reload in less than fifteen seconds, and most could only accomplish it in twenty or more. During that pause, when a soldier was occupied with the business of tearing open cartridges of powder and so forth, he was vulnerable to attack. The Indians fighting with the British soon learned that once a soldier fired, if he could be engaged at arm’s length before reloading his musket, he was no match for a skilled wielder of a tomahawk or spear. A great many of the colonists met their end in this way during the engagement at Oriskany—I would have joined them had it not been for the quick reflexes of Louis, who saw a Mohawk moving to take me as I fumbled whilst reloading.
I was at Oriskany with the relief column because General Washington had sent me. Why, I did not know at the time—although now, with the advantage of hindsight and the revelations contained in his Bible, I suspect something supernatural was afoot. All I knew then was that I was accompanying a column sent in relief to the commander of the besieged fort, Colonel Peter Gansevoort.
Needing to catch up with the caravan, which had left some days before, I sought Louis’s knowledge of the terrain to make up time and join the resupply effort before it arrived. As events transpired, we had just made contact with the relief effort’s commander, Nicholas Herkimer, when the British and their Iroquois allies attacked. The ambush resulted in the loss of the artifact to the British—but only temporarily, as shortly thereafter I and a small group of rebels sallied out from the fort under cover of darkness and sacked the British encampment. We burned their supplies and escaped, recovering the artifact, which Colonel Gansevoort then carried to Fort Saratoga when the siege was lifted.
I saw a great many men die during those days. For miles around, one could stumble across the bodies of those fallen in the battle, as skirmishes spread through the entirety of the valley. My lasting impression of Oriskany, however, is the lightning quickness of Louis Atayataronghta, striking seemingly out of nowhere to bury his tomahawk in the head of a fellow Mohawk who was about to strike me down. I know not what became of him after the war.
Two other developments of note:
One is that Captain Irving continues to walk his narrow path between permitting us to work and keeping the knowledge of our work from those who would not be so sympathetic. He suggested—in a tone that I took to mean a polite command—that we commence using the archives as our base of operations, to keep us out of sight of the rest of the constabulary and those who monitor them. We agreed, happily on my part.
Second: I spoke with Abigail’s sister, Jennifer, who agreed to see me despite her refusal of a visit from her own sister. There is genuine steel in that young woman, forged and tempered by her experience. From the files kept by Sheriff Corbin I was able to extract a less-than-diligent assessment of her condition, conducted on the occasion of one of her multiple confinements in a mental institution. Apparently she was freed on several occasions for a short period of time, and incarcerated again each time, the last for the theft of survival equipment. She believes in the approach of the End of Days and did not flinch when I broached the topic, or when I revealed to her that the Horsemen were soon to ride. She is angry and suspicious, rightfully so—but when I asked her for aid in our struggle, she did not refuse. I write this now because after our battle with Ro’kenhrontyes, Abigail rode her newfound wave of courage to the asylum in Tarrytown, and found that Jennifer had escaped.
[October 9]
We were given twelve hours to find Jennifer before Captain Irving began a manhunt. This courtesy, scant as it was, proved enough. As it happened, we needed much less, as a visit to the Mills sisters’ last foster mother revealed the location of Jennifer’s sanctuary, a place whence she fled at those moments when her troubles grew too great—or, as Abigail and I learned, when she became entangled in events which might endanger her foster family or other innocents. When we arrived at the specified location, a cabin near a charming small body of water known by the equally charming name of Trout Lake, Abigail and I learned quite a lot in little time.
First, the cabin had belonged to Sheriff Corbin. Photographic evidence indicated that the sheriff and Jennifer were acquainted. This news was a considerable shock to Abigail, perhaps even more than what transpired immediately thereafter.
Second, Lieutenant Mills possesses certain skills ordinarily the province of her criminal counterparts. She dismantled the cabin’s lock with an alacrity I could only admire, hearkening back no doubt to her own days as a lawless youth.
Third, Jennifer was there ahead of us, and armed. She and her sister stood like duelists awaiting the command to fire while I endeavored to restore calm. This was successful, and instead of firing on one another, the two sisters began to exchange information. Jennifer recounted Corbin’s belief in her version of the sisters’ childhood experience. He sent her on a number of secret errands to different parts of the world, for the purpose of collecting rare artifacts that would contribute to his research. This accounted for the records of her travels Abigail discovered when we began our search.
Jennifer’s story grew yet stranger, as she recounted a visit from Corbin the night before his murder—and, therefore, the night before I awoke in the cave. He came to
her and warned her of his death, drawing a pledge from her that she would protect a sextant hidden in the cabin. She produced it for us, and I was hardly able to believe what I saw, for the sextant was scored with marks I had seen before.
Every American knows of the Boston Tea Party, but at the same time every American knows nothing about it—beginning with the name, which is quite glib in light of what transpired on the Boston wharves that night. We called it “the destruction of the tea” at the time, and understood our actions to be very serious. The purported goal, to protest ruinous taxes imposed by King George III, was certainly valid; yet the specific choices made by the Sons of Liberty, perpetrators of this famous dissent, masked a more devious goal. I know this because I was there. I saw the costumed revelers dumping tea in the harbor, and I saw the Redcoats responding. While they were so engaged, I and my commander, a Virginia militiaman by the name of Doxford, led an armed party to seize the true object of the mission. We were sent by General Washington himself, who commanded us to capture a weapon of unknown nature held by the British on a pier at Boston Harbor on Griffin’s Wharf. The ships moored there made for a convenient diversion, nothing more; had they held rum or coffee or beaver pelts, our men in Mohawk costume would have thrown those into the harbor with gusto equal to that they demonstrated with the casks of tea. The tea ships were there, and the question of taxes and tea was a stormy one. Thus the way was paved for our mission.
TARRY TOWN
PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL
254 Van Winkle Drive · Sleepy Hollow, NY 10599
[Confidential]
PATIENT INTAKE ASSESSMENT
Jennifer Mills presents as a lucid, somewhat aggressive African-American female of seventeen. She stands five feet five inches tall and is extremely physically fit. She is aware of her involuntary commitment (her third) and understands she has been committed due to acts of vandalism and threatened violence, as well as repeated references to such topics as the end of the world. These suggest a paranoid or paranoid schizophrenic disorder. Testing will continue along those lines. This impression is further strengthened by Jennifer’s desire to train in martial arts and acquire weapons. She states that a war is coming and she will be required to fight. Apocalyptic visions of this sort are atypical in Jennifer’s demographic and are considered another marker of the severity of her mental illness.
Jennifer’s history includes a number of arrests and citations for breaking and entering, theft, and possession of stolen goods. She has avoided incarceration in state juvenile facilities due to her psychiatric issues stemming from an as yet undisclosed childhood trauma, which occurred during a three-day period in Janua ry 2001 when she and her sister, Abigail (now in foster care), were lost in the woods at the edge of Sleepy Hollow’s boundaries. Jennifer alleges that the two girls encountered a supernatural being. Abigail denies this. There exists palp able tension between the two sisters, at least in Jennifer’s view. The natural interpretation of Jennifer’s paranoid tendencies and her mythologizing of her childhood trauma is that she has suffered some manner of sexual abuse.
The natural interpretation of Jennifer’s paranoid tendencies and her mythologizing of her childhood trauma is that she has suffered some manner of sexual abuse. Jennifer denies this and is vehement about the particulars of her story. The natural interpretation of Jennifer’s paranoid tendencies and her mythologizing of her childhood trauma is that she has Therapy and antianxiety medication are indicated; a physician consult will be scheduled with Dr. Vega, who conducted Jennifer’s courses of therapy during Jennifer’s previous commitments to TPH.
Signed,
Lucinda Echevarria, RN
March 21, 2008
We crept to the storehouse on the wharf and Doxford commanded me to stand watch outside. A moment later a tremendous explosion sounded and much of the storehouse was destroyed. I ran to the aid of my comrades and found everyone inside dead, including a Hessian terribly mangled by the grenade he had set off to defend the object we had come to collect. The fire and collapsed ruins made my task exceedingly difficult, but near the Hessian’s body I found a small chest made of stone. Without opening it or making any effort to ascertain its contents, I conveyed it to General Washington, along with a ciphered report detailing the night’s events. Then, in the next years, I thought no more of it; such tasks were quite common in the years leading up to the rebellion, and indeed throughout the years of active conflict. Looking back on it, I think that of all the tasks General Washington set me, this was hardly the most unusual.
I recounted this tale for Abigail and Miss Jenny while I examined the sextant, and after a moment I guessed its function. With a beam powered by batteries—a flashlight, so called, and here again I must note the incomprehensible advance of batteries over the initial investigations of Messrs. Franklin and Leyden—I projected an image via the sextant and instantly identified it as a map of Sleepy Hollow. From my time, at that. A location marked on this map, I felt certain, would hold the chest whose remembered markings had allowed me to recognize the nature of the sextant. I am coming to believe I have awakened into a world where no coincidence exists, or is possible.
Gunfire interrupted us then, and three bandits assaulted the cabin. I have been in a number of battles, but no volley of musketry or artillery had prepared me for the bludgeoning barrage of these modern weapons. We returned their fire, however, and though two of the miscreants escaped with the sextant, we held the third captive, who bore a tattoo identifying him as a Hessian. I interrogated him in German, and with the fearlessness and arrogance common to his cohort, he revealed without hesitation that the box contained the Lesser Key of Solomon. He had no fear of revealing this, he said, because Sleepy Hollow was rife with Hessians, hiding as it were in plain sight.
Abigail communicated with Captain Irving, and he led a search to this man Gunther’s house. There they discovered all manner of esoterica and occult paraphernalia. Abigail demanded of Gunther that he reveal the name of the Hessians’ leader and he replied that they had already seen him. The blurred demonic figure—of the Mills girls’ childhood terror, of Katrina’s otherworldly prison—was none other than the demon Moloch himself. It was he who had summoned the Horsemen, he who returned evil spirits to the world. We pressed Gunther further, but with a final salute to his demonic allegiance—Moloch erheben—he committed suicide by means of a pill hidden in his mouth.
Moloch erheben. “Moloch rises.”
MOLOCH. Attested by the ancients as a god requiring the sacrifice of children by fire. Later understood as a demon, whose favor could only be gained through terrible sacrifice. Records from Carthage suggest the sacrifice of hundreds of children at once—
I cannot bear to write of this anymore. The barbarity of mankind overwhelms me at times, when I am tired and sleeping poorly. All cultures create demons to explain their worst qualities, but we need no demons to excuse our pillage and rapine; it is in us. I have witnessed it today and it is, I fear, my destiny to witness a great deal more. Nevertheless, demons are real. Perhaps they are created from the very stuff of our transgressions, or perhaps they have always been, and alter their appearance to suit the stories we tell of them. Who may know? The Moloch of the ancients would watch my suffering and approve, though it would not satisfy him. Wherever his name appears, there is soon to come accounts of the worst of human behavior.
He is our enemy now, it seems—a warrior against heaven. He is real, and pitiless, and will destroy all those who refuse their consent to be his thralls. The purest distillation of Moloch’s character comes from the pages of Milton. I first read Paradise Lost before I came to Oxford, when I was still a boy, but no force of nature or man could tear these lines from my mind. I seem to hear Moloch’s voice as if the council of his fellow fallen angels was taking place within my brain.
…(I)f there be in Hell
Fear to be worse destroy’d: what can be worse
Then to dwell here, driv’n out from bliss, condemn’d
In this abho
rred deep to utter woe;
Where pain of unextinguishable fire
Must exercise us without hope of end
The Vassals of his anger, when the Scourge
Inexorably, and the torturing houre
Calls us to Penance? More destroy’d then thus
We should be quite abolisht and expire.
What fear we then? what doubt we to incense
His utmost ire? which to the highth enrag’d,
Will either quite consume us, and reduce
To nothing this essential, happier farr
Then miserable to have eternal being: