“Mom!” Buddy shouted, trying to wriggle out of Vince’s grasp. “I want my mom!”
“Shut up! We’ve got to get out of here!”
Buddy fought as Vince half-dragged him down the street, behind some bushes, and put a hand over his mouth. A big hand that smelled of pepper.
Vince whispered in buddy’s ear. “Be quiet! It’ll hear us!”
Buddy bit Vince’s hand. “Get off me!” Vince let go.
Buddy ran. He heard a man’s scream and turned to look. Something white and transparent moved across the shadows. A ghost? Had he seen a ghost?
“Hey, kid!” Vince whispered, beckoning. Buddy spun away, running as fast as his skeleton legs could carry him, blindly downhill, between his house and the Adams’ house, down to the banks of Fremont Pond.
“I want… my mom…” he said, collapsing at water’s edge. “I want my mom and dad…”
His father was dead. No. That wasn’t really true. It couldn’t be. It was just part of the story. That wasn’t his father, just some actor. An actor in a prosthetic, or maybe green-screened from the neck up. Just a chapter in a scary story. Not real. Not real at all.
The screams of insects were loud and high. Buddy’s own head floated in the waters of Fremont Pond, the stars drifting behind. A tear fell from his cheek and struck the surface, making the stars tremble. The waters were as deep as intergalactic space. This was an old stone quarry, he remembered.
You must never swim here.
And he never had.
He was a good boy.
He heard a faint rustling sound. A horse stood on the far side of the pond, tied to a wooden rail. Buddy rose and approached it, sneakers slipping in the mud, threatening to toss his little skeleton body into the drink. This was a dream. A scary dream. He wasn’t out here by the pond. No. He was in bed. So it didn’t matter what he did. He’d wake up in just a second. Or the credits would roll and Daddy would turn the lights on.
He heard gunshots in the distance, the sound of sirens.
He neared the horse. He liked horses. Horses were good. He could ride away on this horse. Ride away on its back. Go far away—not to Transylvania, no. Not anymore. He’d ride this horse to… to…
“Daddy,” he whispered. His left hand curled into his chest as if to wrap around his father’s bicep, as if he could press his face to his father’s shoulder. Tell me when the scary part is over.
The horse saw him coming. It stamped hooves and moaned slightly.
“It’s okay. It’s okay.”
Buddy reached out a hand. To calm the thing. To reassure it. Everything would be okay. Someone strong would come and take the reins and make everything all right.
“Good boy,” Buddy said, touching the animal’s sleek black snout. “Who’s a good boy?”
The horse clacked its teeth. It stepped from the shadows, to stand beneath a moon pregnant with monstrous light. It widened its ghastly eye and hissed at him.
It was dead, rotted, and buzzing with a thousand flies.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
“Ashes to Ashes”
Word of the murders spread outward in sudden streaks and splashes. It reached the next of kin first, then friends and family of the deceased. Then the funeral directors found out. The news spread to Jennifer at the Horseman Restaurant, from her to the brunch crowd, from the brunch crowd to their social media accounts. News spread to the ladies of the Philipsburg Manor Gift Shop, to the men of the Pocantico Hook and Ladder Number One. It spread to Sunnyside and Lyndhurst and Sleepy Hollow High. It reached Mr. Smolenski and Mrs. Thorstenson, and Joey, and Kate, and Zef and Hadewych. The word spread across the town like a blotch of rot, darkening faces, ruining moods, bringing tears and exclamations of disgust. On and on it spread, in widening circles of shock, then panic. By noon, word had reached reporters at NY1 in Manhattan and a camera crew had climbed into a van, headed for Westchester.
The townsfolk converged on Peabody Park, the stretch of grass between Broadway and Fremont Pond. Some were gawkers, some had friends in Sleepy Hollow Manor. All were curious. All were scared.
Police cautioned them back. Soon the townsfolk were milling on Broadway¸ holding up traffic, talking to each other. Gossip and speculation began to spread, like fertilizer urging the grey rot to grow wild and spread further, which it did. Speculations abounded about serial killers and devil-worshipers. The elder Tarrytowners nodded at these tales. They remembered the Summer of Sam, back in the seventies. A summer of mysterious gunshot murders just to the south, in Yonkers, how the Satanists had been killing dogs and cats in Untermeyer Park, in the old aqueduct, how the police found a cave with pentagrams and upside-down crosses (and drug paraphernalia, of course) down there.
People talked about their nice town, how shocked they were. They tucked flowers and photographs between the bars of the south gate of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, laid wreaths at the northern side of the Headless Horseman Bridge, and tied ribbons to the iron fencing of the graveyard. Sprays of carnations and memorial candles appeared on the steps of the Old Dutch Church, and by their lights men and women and boys and girls spun their tales. Some spread rumors of a Monster. Some spoke of ghost sightings. One word hung heavily on everyone’s lips. A word first spoken by Buddy Rittermeyer who gasped it to his mother. Mrs. Rittermeyer had whispered it into a cell phone. David Martinez had written it in his report. The word galloped outward from the site of the murders. It galloped from beating heart to beating heart until it found a reporter and became a New York Post headline:
BEHEADED!
“Agathe!” Hadewych threw wide the attic door. “What have you done!?” He turned circles in the room, shaking, chewing his nails. “I demand that you answer me!” He went to the attic window. Fireflies streamed down Beekman Avenue. The candlelight vigil for the dead. Eight people, found headless in Fremont Pond. “I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it,” Hadewych said to his reflection in the window. The attic door clapped shut. He turned, saw the shadow of his head lying on the floor in an octagonal puddle of moonlight.
A spectral voice began to whisper, almost inaudibly. “Brom… Brom…”
He felt the room grow colder.
“Agathe…” he whispered. “You said you would help me…”
“I HAVE HELPED YOU!”
He whirled and found the ice-blue form of her at his side. He drew back involuntarily, shrinking away. “Why did you do it?” he said, helpless and scared.
“Because you wouldn’t.”
“Of course I wouldn’t!”
“You’re afraid to take what you desire.”
“I didn’t desire anything! Why would you kill those people?”
She smiled, a toothless void. He could see through the hollow of her mouth, see the rafters behind her. He stepped back and hung his head, cringing.
“You desired it. I was with you. I am always with you.” She neared as if to caress him. He pulled away, shrinking with the fall of the roofline. “Not in the daylight, of course. But I am with you when you dream. When you lay awake in my room and hatch your plots, I am there. When you whisper in the dark, I hear.” Hadewych crouched, held up a hand to ward her off. She looked at him with love. “Whatever you desire, I would see it come to pass. You are my family. My blood.” Her voice sharpened. “You are a Van Brunt.” Her eyes blazed. “Get up.” Hadewych bent to one knee, grimacing. “I said get up, Dylan.”
“I’m not… I’m not Dylan.”
She looked puzzled. “Brom?”
“I’m not Brom either. I’m Hadewych.” He scrambled away, seized the doorknob. It wouldn’t open. He felt like a man trapped in a cage. No. In a tomb. Trapped in a tomb with a mad ghost—or else he was the mad thing. Buried alive, scratching at the stone screaming to be let out. He spun, gesturing frantically. “Why? Why?”
“Affluent jackass,” Agathe said. But the voice was Hadewych’s own. His words coming from her mouth. “I don’t jump when you call.”
“What?”
She went on, her imit
ation eerily perfect. “This is my land, not yours. How dare you build here? How much did Agathe sacrifice for this land? How many lives? Not just her own but her sons… did you sacrifice?”
Hadewych recognized his own private thoughts—on New Year’s Day, when he’d visited Fremont Pond, site of the quarry. The man in the SUV—the man whose driveway he had blocked—the man with a pretty wife and son… the mailbox that had read… Rittermeyer.
“Maybe you’ll get a little visit from the Horseman tonight.” Agathe rubbed her skeletal hands together. “Let’s see you smile then, Tubby. Let’s see you smile when your head’s rolling in the snow. Would you like that, huh? Huh? Would you?”
“I didn’t mean it!” Hadewych said.
“Of course you did,” said Agathe, her own voice returning. “But you were weak. I am not weak. That’s why you need me.”
“I don’t need you. I want no part of it.” He struggled with the door. “I want out. Let me out. Please.”
“Hadewych…”
“Please just open this door.”
“I remember your name. Hadewych Van Brunt…”
“Don’t get any closer.”
“You can’t escape your blood. You can’t escape your name. You swore an oath.”
“What oath?”
“You swore an oath to me. On the stone.” Her voice became his again. “I will have it back. All of it, whatever it takes. I swear it. I swear it, Dylan. I swear it, Mama. I swear it… Agathe.”
The door opened and Hadewych half-ran half-fell down the attic stairs. He looked back but Agathe was gone. What was he going to do? He would run. He scrambled into his room, kicking trash aside. He threw his closet door open. He grabbed armfuls of clothes and tossed them onto the bed.
He stopped.
But it would look suspicious, he thought. Better to wait, just until things calmed down. And what would he live on if he ran away? Jason would discover the secret accounts. The accounts he’d been siphoning money into. It wasn’t much, just a few million, but… They would be found and closed. The court would come looking for him. Piebald was already asking too many questions. He’d been ringing and ringing. Hadewych had canceled the May meeting, had put it off for a few weeks, but if he disappeared entirely… a full accounting would be performed, the theft discovered…
He ran his hands through his hair. What about his plans? How could he kill Jason with all these new complications? How could he not? No. He had to think. Maybe he could kill the boy. Maybe he could put the money back in Eliza’s accounts. Yes, then he would run away, taking Zef and Jessica—and the Treasure—and be far away with a verifiable alibi when he summoned the Horseman to kill Jason. The Pyncheon fortune would come to Jessica and they would be a rich happy family and they’d never look back on this place… on this horrible haunted place…
He fished in his dresser and found the black velvet box. He opened the lid and ran his fingers along the golden rim of Jessica’s wedding ring. He would put it on her hand again and they would leave everything else in the past. He gazed into the dresser mirror. He looked old. He smiled, a big broad Hadewych smile. His eyes went wide. He leaned forward and blinked. No. His teeth were still there. That had only been his imagination.
He found Zef downstairs, watching the news. Hadewych put his arm around his son and kissed the top of his head. Zef tensed.
“Have I told you how much you mean to me?” Hadewych whispered.
“Get off, Dad.”
Hadewych tightened his grip. “Everything I’ve done has been for you. For your future. For you and your children and their children. You know that, right?”
“Sure,” said Zef. “I’m trying to watch this.”
It was Mayor Nielsen’s news conference, announcing the curfew.
“Turn that off,” said Hadewych, reaching for the remote.
“No. It’s important.” Zef turned the volume up.
Hadewych sat on the hearth of the fireplace, feeling oddly fragile, as if he might crack against the stone.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said the mayor. “Detective Martinez has an announcement.”
David Martinez stepped up to the podium. He wore his blue uniform with the black Headless Horseman logo on its shoulder. The camera zoomed in on him. The town logo, the Headless Horseman in white, hung over his head.
“There’s been another killing,” Martinez said.
The microphone caught the sound of gasps and high-speed shutters. Martinez raised a sheet of paper. “The victim is male, aged 54. He was found this morning at approximately nine a.m. in the parking lot of number 17 North Washington Street.”
Hadewych felt as if the roof were sloping downward, as if the entire world were closing in to crush him. He knew that address.
“The victim has been identified as…”
“Justin Piebald,” Hadewych whispered.
“Justin Piebald, Attorney-at-Law.”
“Was he beheaded?” blurted a reporter. The room fell silent.
“The details are not being released in deference to the wishes of the family, but…” Martinez hesitated. “The deceased was found in a condition similar to the prior victims. That’s all we can say at this stage.” Voices rose in tumult. Hands went up. Martinez scowled. “I will tell you more when we know more.”
“Have they found your son?” a man asked.
Martinez gripped the podium. “We have not found my son. It’s our belief that he may also be a victim. Please pray for our family and for all the families affected by these events. Thank you.”
Zef turned the TV off. He sat in silence, staring at the blank screen. He turned to Hadewych.
“Isn’t Piebald… Jason’s court liaison?”
“I think so,” said Hadewych, not trusting his voice.
Zef’s eyes were clear and dry. They held confusion and… suspicion. “I read the letter, Daddy.”
“What letter?”
“The Dylan letter. You never told me you had it translated.”
“Of course not. It’s just family gossip.”
“Jason’s been telling the truth, hasn’t he?”
Hadewych raised his voice. “Jason is a disturbed young man.”
“He’s actually pretty decent.”
“If you like queers.”
“Don’t use that word.”
“Okay. Fags.”
“I’m serious. That word either. I’m sick of hearing it.”
Hadewych stood. Something had changed. He didn’t like it. “Sounds like Jason’s turned you against me.”
“Don’t walk off.”
Hadewych snapped his fingers and opened his palm. “Do you still have the letter?”
“Yes.”
“Then go get it.”
“Why?”
“So I can explain it to you.”
Zef frowned but rose, went into his bedroom and returned with the sheets of parchment in their plastic sleeves.
Hadewych took them. “This thing is all lies.”
“It sounded real enough. Don’t tell me it’s not real. You’ve got Dylan’s fire power. Mom is a telepath. This shit is true. It’s all true. There’s a real Headless Horseman, right?”
Hadewych felt helpless. He couldn’t find himself. He searched for his bag of tricks—his endless bag of tricks, like the one Felix the Cat owned in the old cartoon. Hadewych had lost his bag of tricks, somehow, staring in the eyes of his son.
Zef touched Hadewych’s elbow. “Tell me. The Horseman’s real. Right?”
“That’s nonsense.”
Zef’s eyes glistened suddenly. He glanced at the back door, then turned to Hadewych, his voice small and worried. “Did you kill the old lady?”
“What? No!” Hadewych reached for Zef. The fear of being caught had overwhelmed Hadewych’s love, popped open the old black bag of tricks and lies. “I could never do that! I loved that old woman. So did Valerie. Eliza was a dear, dear friend to us.”
Zef pulled away. “And why is it that Valerie can’t
stand the sight of you anymore? What was all that business with the sword being in the coffin? Jason said you took the Horseman’s Treasure.” He pointed at the TV. “Are you behind all this?”
“No,” said Hadewych, firmly.
“Tell me the truth.”
“I am telling you the truth!”
“Did you send the Horseman after Piebald?”
“I was as surprised as you were. Justin was a friend.”
“Oh, come on! You have no friends! I know you. I know you better than Mom does, better than Valerie ever did, better than anyone else on the planet. I walk around in your shadow. Every day. I see how you are with people. You can turn it on when you want to but you’re no one’s friend, really. You use people. You used Valerie to keep from having to go find a job. You use me to clean your toilet and make you look like father of the year. Oh, you brag on me, but when we’re alone it’s all ‘bad Zef,’ ‘what’s wrong with you, Zef? Work harder. Work faster. More more more.’ I work so damned hard every day to be what you want. But you… you don’t do a damn thing to be what I want.”
Hadewych paced during this, growing weary of it. He sat at the breakfast table, tearing a napkin to pieces. “And what is it that you want?”
“Just… be my dad.”
“I am your dad.”
“No. You’re my father.”
“And what, pray tell, is the difference?” Hadewych felt a stab of panic. His son was so handsome, so smart, such a fine young man. Why was he losing him?
Zef stared at the ceiling. “A father… raises his son. A dad just… loves him.” Zef shook his head. “No. That’s not it. It’s—”
“Of course I love you.”
“Then don’t lie to me.” Zef took a chair next to Hadewych. “Look me in the eye.” He took Hadewych’s hand. Hadewych felt fear. Not fear as he’d felt upstairs with Agathe, not fear for himself. Fear of himself. He knew what Zef would ask and how he would respond. Zef took a deep breath. “If you love me, tell me the truth. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe you. Just look me in the eye. Are you behind any of these murders?”
Sleepy Hollow: Bridge of Bones Page 49