Sleepy Hollow: Bridge of Bones

by Richard Gleaves

  “Sorry.” Jessica waved the air and dropped the cigarette. Usher stomped it out for her and sneezed twice, wincing at the sudden pain in his injured shoulder.

  “We should get you to a hospital, sir,” said Red.

  “I’m fine. Any potential Founders?”

  “One of the musicians is in the torpor state. The drummer I think. He took the ice sculpture to the head.”

  “Lucky bastard. Okay. Keep an eye on him. Maybe we’ll get a new recruit to make up for our losses.”

  Jessica shook her head. “What the hell happened here?”

  Usher shrugged. “The goddamned Horseman. I lived here thirty years and never saw him.” His eyes took on a faraway look. “What a magnificent ghost. What power he could give us all.” He raised his hand. “I think my palm is more sensitive already.”

  “Really?” said Jessica, rolling her eyes. “Should Red and I leave you two alone together?”

  Zef ran into the greenhouse. All three adults glanced immediately at the lumpy tarp, but the bodies were well hidden. Zef was shaking and his nose was running. He’d been waiting in line for hysteria all night and his number had finally been called.

  “I can’t find him! I can’t find my dad!”

  “Easy,” said Usher.

  “Is he dead? You’d tell me if he was dead.” Zef balled his fists and pressed them to his knees, bending over as if about to vomit. “What—what was that thing? It was—oh, those people. God.” His face twisted and he stumbled a little.

  “You’ve got to stay calm,” said Usher.

  “It was the Horseman,” said Zef. “Right? Jason’s been telling the truth all along. He’s been saying—why aren’t you more freaked out? It’s—”

  “Hey,” said Jessica. She took Zef in her arms and pressed his face to her shoulder. Her eyes met Usher’s and he nodded slightly. Jessica put a hand on either side of Zef’s head. She felt the warmth of his flushed skin on her cold hands. She stepped into his thoughts, just a little, and felt him grow calm, his breathing synchronizing with her own. “Now, you’re going to forget about seeing the Horseman, okay?”

  Zef nodded.

  “You don’t know what you saw. It’s all a blur.”

  Zef nodded again. “It’s all a blur.”

  “Good. That’s good. You did real good tonight. How did you know to come save me?”

  “I just knew. It popped into my head. I knew you were in trouble and where to find you.” Jessica glanced at Usher and smiled. She returned to Zef, speaking slowly. “You’ve been very brave. Where’s cousin Jason now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Usher turned to Red. “Keys?” Red handed him a set of car keys. “Zef, you know my sedan, yes? I want you to find Jason and get him out of here. Quick like a bunny before the police come.”

  Zef nodded. “Quick like a bunny before the police come. Okay.”

  “Are we good?” said Jessica. Usher nodded. She released Zef.

  Zef blinked and took the keys. “You know, I should find Jason and go. Before the police come.”

  “That’s a smart idea,” said Usher. “They don’t need to talk to you. You didn’t see anything anyway, did you?”

  Zef shrugged. “No. Sorry. It’s all really blurry.”

  “Good deal. Better get going.”

  Zef nodded. “Quick like a bunny,” he said, and ran from the greenhouse.

  Jessica pulled her emerald coat around her body and turned up the collar.

  “Well done,” said Usher.

  “Did you hear what he said? He ‘just knew.’”

  “He’s a Pyncheon.”

  “He knew I was in danger. My son still loves me. God knows why.”

  “You are his mother.”

  She shook her head. “I’m just the bitch who walked out on him. I don’t deserve it.”

  “Sir,” said Red. “Local police?”

  “Right. Get everyone into the upstairs hall. And lock them in.” Red nodded and marched out. Usher ran a thumb across Jessica’s lapel. “I need you.”

  She gave a wicked grin. “I know you do.”

  He tapped his temple. “Can you manage all of them?”

  “How many guests would I have to wipe?”

  “A couple dozen. Staff, too.”

  She sighed. “I’m going to have a headache tomorrow.”

  “Do it for me?”

  “Fine. But I’ll want a few favors.”

  “I deal in nothing but favors. You know, I could have used a telepath these past ten years.”

  “Is that why you’ve been stalking my son?

  “I don’t stalk, I recruit. Where have you been, anyway?”

  “Around.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Trying to forget Sleepy Hollow.”

  “Any success?”

  “No. I can’t wipe my own memories, unfortunately.”

  Usher knelt and searched for something. “Look what I found.” He produced a pair of emerald high heels.

  “Thank God. I was ready to strip a corpse.”

  “Did Cinderella lose her shoes?”

  “Ha ha.” She held out a foot.

  He slid the shoe on. “A perfect fit. Welcome back, Jessica.”

  Jason reached through the broken window of the Mercedes and fetched his backpack from the rear seat. It made him sick to see Eliza’s car in this condition. All the windows were blown out, and a nasty scratch screamed along one side. He slung the backpack over one shoulder.

  The fallen electrical cable had finally died; it lay like a question mark in the snow. Acrid smoke drifted from two car fires. He saw a spot of blood on a drift nearby. Where was everyone?

  The vision of Agathe flashed brightly: “Rise Headless and Ride!” He flinched from the memory of his failure. He’d come so close. He’d almost taken the Treasure from Hadewych. Now the bastard had escaped and would undoubtedly hide the thing again. And more carefully this time. He ran his hand over the hood of the Mercedes. At least he’d survived. Thanks to Eliza.

  “Are you here?” he whispered.

  A voice answered, elderly and feminine. “Help me,” it whispered.

  Jason followed the sound.

  “Help… me…”

  He found a woman leaning against the side of a blue Bentley. Her leg was broken, turned at an unnatural angle. She looked about seventy. Her face had known the tender care of a plastic surgeon, from the cat’s-eye tilt of her eye sockets down to her massive collagen lips.

  “I’ll get help.” Jason rose, but stopped, struck by a thought. Could he heal this woman? With his Gift? Maybe. But if she saw him do it, he might accidentally curse her. If only she were unconscious! He couldn’t risk killing her just to heal her leg. And he’d never healed a person before anyway. What if he screwed it up? What if he… fixed her broken leg but undid all her plastic surgery in the process?

  “We’ll take her,” said a voice, and Jason was relieved to see two of Usher’s men approaching. They laid a tablecloth on the ground next to the woman. She cried out as they lifted her onto it and carried her off. Jason would have followed but he fell into a coughing fit. He sank against the hood of the car and coughed until he thought he would fall over and die.

  Zef had searched the building but had found no sign of Jason. He went out again, holding the heavy door for two of Usher’s men, who were carrying an old woman in. Once outside, he swept a handful of snow from a retaining wall and pushed it into his mouth. The ammonia burns still hurt. He shook his head. He had come so close to killing himself tonight. So close. He might have been lying among the dead right now. What had happened tonight? It was so blurry. He couldn’t remember much of anything that had happened after… when?

  The greenhouse.

  Tears filled his eyes. The greenhouse. The greenhouse. Kate knew his secret. She’d tell everyone. His life was over. Suicide didn’t seem like such a bad idea after all. For a moment he wished he had been killed. Or that she had. He hated himself for even thinking that. He
was a monster. The snow melted down the back of his throat and froze his heart.

  He heard someone coughing and followed the sound. At last he saw Jason, having some sort of fit across the hood of a Bentley. Hatred rose in Zef and he knew what he had to do. He took out his phone and dialed.

  “Yeah?” came a familiar voice. Zef could hear drunken laughter in the background.

  “Hey, you piece of shit,” Zef said merrily. “It’s me. I need a favor.”

  He explained what he wanted. After he’d hung up, things made sense again.

  Zef crept up behind Jason and tugged his backpack. Jason whirled, hand pressed to his mouth to stifle a cough. Zef thumbed the key ring and the headlights of Usher’s sedan flashed.

  “Let’s go,” Zef said, pulling Jason’s elbow.

  “Where?”

  “Come on. Quick like a bunny.”

  They climbed into the sedan and Zef started the engine. Things are so simple, he thought as he pulled out of the parking lot. You’re the victim here. You were set up.

  “Zef, where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  He pulled onto the drive and sped off, putting Stone Barns in the rearview.

  Suicide? How could you have even considered hurting yourself like that? You don’t need to hurt yourself.

  You need to hurt Jason.

  One single ghost remained behind at Stone Barns: the vile spirit of Edward Keep, a former groundskeeper who had blown his brains out in nineteen-eleven. Edward’s bones had been mortared up inside the walls of the building by a former property owner who had wished to avoid a scandal as the land changed hands. The ghost had long haunted the halls, roaming the grounds at night, surprising staff by slamming doors with such violence that they mistook the sound for a gunshot echoing against the stone.

  The banquet director had never believed in Edward Keep’s existence. He had belittled the poor busboys who refused to work late, who begged not to be left alone on site after midnight. He had laughed at the story of the Stone Barns haunting. But now he would believe, oh yes. The man was beginning to believe in many things. And to believe is to be cursed.

  They had magic powers, the banquet director thought as he stepped through the smoldering wreckage of the party tent. Edward Keep heard the thought, but he knew the banquet director still felt doubt. The man was still not convinced. So Edward Keep waited. The man would believe. Belief would come any moment now.

  The fire had found nowhere to go. It had licked the walls of the courtyard, sending black streaks up the stone. It had found the Christmas tree, had charred it to cinders, and had died. The plastic of the tent had melted into tattered black shapes that hung above like a swarm of sleeping vampire bats. The enormous antique countdown clock had survived—though a layer of soot dusted its metal mass. Broken ornaments and broken dishware and broken crystal and broken tables littered the ground. A charred cello lay on its side among a smear of cake and footprints.

  They had magic powers, the man thought again. He’d seen the old woman grow claws, another man duck into one shadow and emerge from another. I can’t believe it.

  But he had to believe it. He’d seen it with his own eyes.

  Edward felt the man’s doubt giving way to certainty. The moment came. The man did believe it. He’d passed a point of no return. The banquet director knew witches now. He had fallen under the shadow of the Great Curse. Down the centuries it howled, demanding death. And the bones of Edward Keep were on hand to fulfill its summons. The ghost slammed the door to the main building—one last time—and the banquet director whirled.

  “Who’s there?”

  Edward found a hexagonal bolt at the end of a length of steel cable and twisted it. The banquet director heard the squeaking sound and approached, staring incredulously as the bolt turned by itself once, twice, a third time. The cable lurched. The banquet director turned and ran, but as he passed the foot of the stage he caught one polished dress shoe on a microphone cable and fell to the ground. The ghost of Edward Keep gave the bolt one last turn. The bolt fell away, and the cable spooled out with the hiss of a feral cat.

  The man on the floor had just enough time to scream before he was crushed to death beneath the iron mass of the great antique clock.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “The Two Ghosts”

  Hadewych had no idea where the hell he was.

  He’d climbed the stone wall at the property line and had dashed madly into the woods, his arms wrapped around the reliquary in its burlap bag. The ground tipped steeply and he could barely keep his balance, careening down the backside of the Pocantico Hills through thick, shabby undergrowth, trying not to tumble over some log and break his neck.

  Would the police search these woods? No. Maybe. Probably. He couldn’t be sure. Nowhere felt safe. No matter how far he ran it wouldn’t be far enough. A branch caught him in the temple. He ducked and hurried on, preceded down the hill by a growing avalanche of snow and dead leaves. He had to get rid of the Treasure. Hide it, destroy it even. As he ran, he could feel the severed head shifting inside the lantern, back and forth like the beating of a heart.

  How he’d longed to possess it. The Horseman’s Treasure, his birthright as a Van Brunt, the foundation of their fortunes. He had dreamed of possessing it, of using it, of being master of it. The idea had sounded so simple. He would sit at fireside, drinking brandy, while his enemies died, one by one, far off and distant. No blame would ever fall on him, nor any guilt.

  That would be the best thing about the Treasure, yes? That he would never have to see what he had done. He’d never have to slice a throat himself, or pull a trigger and witness the splatter. He wouldn’t have to twist a garrote or look his victim in the eye as they drowned. It would all be so clean and remote. Like a drone strike in some far-off land—a missile fired from miles away to explode, to shred flesh, yet no more tangible than a blip on a radar screen. No more damning than a video game.

  His foot twisted in a snow bank and he fell, losing his balance on slick stones. The reliquary tumbled out of his arms and lay exposed in the moonlight.

  You’re a fool, Hadewych. You should never have opened the tomb.

  He gathered the thing into his arms. He couldn’t find the burlap bag in the darkness. No matter. He held cold metal now as he ran. He should have foreseen the possibility of losing control. He should have ordered the attack when fewer potential victims were around. But he’d had no choice! Jessica wouldn’t have stayed in the Hollow more than one night. He had succeeded in luring her to town but she would have been out of the Horseman’s range again by tomorrow.

  Then you should have called it off.

  Tonight had been no remote drone strike, had it? He’d seen those people die. He’d seen his ex-wife’s fear, his son’s. Paul Usher had been injured. He had been such a good friend. For so long. Oh, how had he complicated things for Paul?

  All I ever wanted was to be one of them. Ever since I was little and my Oma spun tales of the Gifted and their magic, just as she’d spun the tale of the Horseman’s Treasure. They do exist. I can feel it. I just wanted to belong.

  Hadewych could feel that hidden world, that world of secret knowledge and power. It was real, just as his grandmother had said. He was sure of it. But he would never be on the inside. They would never share their secrets with him. He was just a pretender, a fraud, a wannabe. A former janitor with delusions of grandeur.

  A murderer.

  The trees broke to either side. He stood at the edge of a frost-tipped reservoir. Swan Lake. That was its name. Like the ballet.

  He didn’t know which direction to turn. He saw a white circle hanging in the gloom and approached it. A life preserver, hanging on the side of a dock. A flat-bottomed skiff floated at the water’s edge, half on land, half in the water. He climbed in, held the reliquary between his knees, and pushed out. He shivered as he rowed, wanting to take his hands from the oars and cup his ears. Good. He deserved frostbite. He could have killed Zef. He near
ly had.

  He heard Valerie’s voice saying, “The Treasure is an evil thing.” But it was not the voice he knew, not a guttural rasp pressed through a valve. It was the soft and feminine tone she’d sometimes achieved when curled up next to him, her lips a mere inch from his ear. “It’s evil, Hadewych. Nothing good can come of it. You’ve doomed yourself. I pity you.”

  “I pity myself,” Hadewych murmured.

  He stopped rowing. The skiff swam lazily across the surface of the lake. He would do the right thing, finally. He would be a good man from now on. The past was the past. He couldn’t change his actions, but he could renounce them. He imagined joining the church, taking vows, practicing good works, leading a life of penitence and contrition. Anything to undo what he had done.

  He raised the reliquary over his head. The skiff rocked, and ripples broke the reflection of the moon.

  “It’s over,” he said and, with a cry, threw the reliquary into the air. It struck the surface and sent up a plume of black and silver. But it did not sink immediately. It bobbed, buoyed by the air inside. Hadewych pressed it down with an oar. The lake found the vents and glutted the thing. Drown, you bastard, Hadewych thought, and in his mind he could see the red face choking on dark water. Drown. The reliquary tipped… drown… and sank like a stone.

  Hadewych trembled but his heart felt light. The evidence was destroyed. He was free of it. And he would be a better man now. He would. He took up the oars and began to row.

  Something struck the side of the skiff. Hadewych peered into the water and saw a pale shape there—a log of birch?

  No.

  It was an arm. An arm with a diamond bracelet. A seaweed mass of hair fell aside, and the dead woman screamed up at him silently.

  Hadewych screamed aloud.

  He pushed the corpse away with the tip of one oar and fumbled desperately to steady the skiff. But another corpse rose and turned in the water. A dead man’s face appeared and disappeared, rolling over to sleep on his stomach. Hadewych screamed in earnest now. The boat rocked. He pulled, tried to move away, but every movement of his oars churned up more faces, more hands, more ripped flesh. All those who had fled the party at midnight—at the pumpkin hour. All those who had run into the woods. They floated now, on the surface of Swan Lake, locking hands and arms—synchronized swimmers performing their ballet of death for an audience of one.