There is always hope… there is always help… Jason thought.
He searched the faces of the dead.
There is always hope… there is always help…
There were hundreds of them. From every era. Faces of the old and the young. A little girl with ribbons in her hair. Debbie Flight. Franklin Octavius Darley. Justin Piebald. They stared at him with malice. Every one of them.
There is always hope… there is always help…
There is always hope… there is always…
He found it. He found two eyes in the crowd, eyes that looked at him with love and fear mingled. Old eyes. Clear eyes. With no cataracts. His breath caught. Eliza stood among the slaves of the Horseman, her mouth covered with a ghostly strap of iron, her hands bound, helpless. A chain hung around her neck.
“No,” Jason whispered. “No…”
Charley barked with recognition, struggling to go to her.
Jason and his grandmother stared at each other. The woman who had taught him that life was worth living, that he must seize every moment and make the most of his time on earth. The woman who had taught him how to deal with death, who had comforted him in the night—all hair-curlers and pink quilting—when he woke from his nightmares. He could feel her sending what strength she could but she was powerless to help him.
The ghosts parted for the Horseman. The fireworks intensified even more, filling the sky, throwing the shadow of the girders and the car and the Horseman as he raised the hatchet of William Crane.
I’m about to die, Jason thought.
He would die now, as the Horseman had died, hacked to pieces, his head severed and thrown into the waters below. The Nightmare of the Bridge.
“No. I won’t,” said Jason. “I refuse.”
His eyes found Eliza’s again.
“I’ll go like my parents,” he whispered.
Her old eyes sparkled with spectral tears. She nodded. She understood.
Jason glared defiantly at the Horseman.
He spun the wheel and dove to the passenger side.
The car lurched towards the water.
He would go like his mom and dad. Over the dam, over the cliff, off the Million Dollar Highway. It was his choice. His death. Come, join your parents at the end of the world… The front left tire slipped off the sign that read:
SUICIDE IS NEVER THE ANSWER
And the Mercedes went over the rail.
The Horseman rushed forward but Jason was falling away, weightless, his eyes closed and smiling, plummeting through space with Charley nestled in his arms.
Joey didn’t see the Mercedes fall. His view of the Tappan Zee was blocked by the last ecstasies of the fireworks. The sparks fizzled from the night sky, replaced by cold, stationary stars. Joey trembled. He’d never experienced anything like that before. All his senses were heightened, invigorated. He felt heroic, larger than life.
He clapped and whooped.
He heard other appreciative whoops coming from the distance, from the crowd at Kingsland Point Park.
He frowned, listening.
No. Those are screams.
Joey ducked through the gate and ran along the walkway, buffeted by strong winds. A furnace-red glow hung in the sky over the park. Black stripes of tree limbs slashed through the glare. The park was on fire! Joey jumped down onto the tiny beach and staggered across. He could already feel the heat. He climbed the stump and wagon wheel and heaved himself over the railing. All the trees were ablaze, brighter than the fireworks had been. A wall of fire, unnaturally high, rippled across the dry grass, cutting off escape for a small clutch of people who had taken refuge on Kidd’s Rock. Joey could make out the silhouette of a crying child and several cringing adults, hands raised to ward away the flames.
Joey pressed his lips together. This was his chance to do something good with his Gift. To be a hero. To show Jason and all the others how it should be. What was the worst that could happen? It was pitch black where he stood, the glare of the fire was overwhelming everything, the smoke heavy and thick and traveling in his direction. No one would see him do it. He could save these people and be a hero. A real-life superhero.
He reached out with his Gift, trying to find dirt. He felt the grassy dry earth beneath him, shot through with tree roots and stones. What if he used that? But—he might throw stones or burning grass at the people he was trying to save, might rip up trees, tip them over into the fire. He didn’t really know what he was doing. He had no idea of his limits or his reach.
He remembered the dirt pile where he’d been sitting during the fireworks. He closed his eyes and tried to touch it with his mind, but the pile was too far away.
He balled his fists, searching for useable dirt. He had to smother the fire before someone—
The child screamed and a woman called for help.
Before someone really got hurt!
Joey bit his lip and thought.
Yes.
He turned back the way he came, stretched out his hands and tried to mentally feel the sand of the tiny beach he’d crossed. He felt it. He felt the waves lapping at it, cold water touching it, the way the grains stuck together. That was good. Wet was good. Wet sand was… it was heavy though. He screwed up his face. He couldn’t seem to… he couldn’t gather it. He couldn’t get his mind around it. He thought of sand castles and pictured a little plastic scoop. No. Not enough. He pictured a fat plastic pail, dropping to his knees in the surf, laughing, digging the rim into the sand, lifting it, lifting it up and… and… throwing it!
With a great slurp, a wave of wet sand shot into the night sky, blocking out moon and stars, arcing over Joey’s head. He thought for a moment that it would land on him, smother him, but it passed over. He stood beneath the curl of it for just a moment, like a surfer catching a wave. He spun with both fists raised and brought them down as if to strike the fire with his palms.
The sand crashed onto the grass, shaking the ground, spilling across the flames, eating them, pushing the smoke ahead. The sand broke against trees and a few of them groaned and bent. The smothering wet wave killed the last embers and the fire died, plunging the park into darkness.
Joey had been holding his breath. He let it out in a long whoosh. He realized that both his legs were buried to the ankles in wet sand. He pulled his shoes out one at a time, stepping up a few inches onto the new sandbar he’d made, feeling like he stood on a pedestal twenty feet high. He put his fists on his hips.
And that’s how it’s done. Captain Gravedigger to the rescue!
Joey had never felt so proud of himself. He was a hero, not just somebody’s sidekick. He had saved people’s lives. And no one had been hurt. Not at all. Despite all of Jason’s silly warnings.
Easy peasy.
A man approached, one of the people he’d saved. Joey didn’t worry that the man would recognize him, since he stood safely in pitch darkness.
“How did you do that?” the man stammered.
Joey was prepared to say something Batman-like, to whirl and escape with his secret identity intact…
But the Hudson River towns time their firework displays to each other.
The Nyack fireworks began, directly across the river and, like the flashlight of a homeowner surprising a burglar, the light of the display lit Joey’s face. Joey saw himself reflected in the eyeglasses of the man in front of him… in the eyeglasses of…
“Joey? That was you?”
…in the eyeglasses of Jim Osorio, his father, who he had now cursed.
Valerie was drowning. She had no air. No breath. Only the furnace. She was the cauldron over the flame. She was the witch in the oven. The Hansel and Gretel witch burning alive. Burning. Burning. Her face had grown strangely cold. She crawled across the floor of her living room. She crawled on her hands and knees, dragging the wet duvet, losing it, giving up her protection, pulling herself along by her fingernails, climbing the ladder of her hardwood floor rung by rung. She heard a crash behind her. Her grand piano had collapsed. Th
e strings made a ghostly wail, like souls in perdition.
Valerie could not wail. She could not call for help. She had no air. Not even to cough. She felt herself turning blue. Her eyes rolling in her head. She had to get to the front door. She had to break open the front door. But she knew she didn’t have the power. Those locks were too strong. She’d had them custom made. She lay her cheek on the wood. Firelight glinted on the metal of those locks. Those seven locks. What had she told herself at Easter? My door to the world is… is… and no one will ever… ever…
She pictured her father’s smiling face, how she’d made all the windows fly up with her Gift—Oh, to do that again. But her windows had steel shutters now.
Never mind…
I’ll be with him.
Her fingers went to her throat. Not to her valve—she had no last words—but searching for the seashell on its leather thread. It wasn’t there. No. She would not die without it. She wouldn’t die with—her mother—with just this valve. She would die with her father. She knew where the shell was. On top of the gun safe, high above her, swallowed by black smoke. She rose to her knees. She wasn’t afraid anymore. She had nothing to lose. Why had she wasted so much time being afraid? What had it gotten her?
Fear is the Great Curse.
She stood, holding her breath as best she could, blinking through watery, painful eyes, and staggered to the safe. She found the shell and her father’s picture there. She cut her hand on the heat-shattered glass and a drop of blood trickled across his image. She pressed the shell to her breast and collapsed. Her shoulder hit the wood, her head bounced. She collapsed into coughing and delirium. The flames closed in. Her last sight would be of the front door and its locks. The locks that she’d hoped would keep her safe. The ones that now—
With a clap of noise and a whoosh of air, the locks bent and broke. The wood splintered and Valerie’s front door groaned and fell, knocked off its hinges. The figure of a man stood in the doorway. He had kicked her locks in. He lowered his foot, closed the distance in three steps, and his arms closed on her, came under her shoulders, under her legs, lifting her but keeping her as low to the ground as possible, carrying her out of that room, out of the oven, out of her personal hell, and across the threshold into a cool summer night. Once free of the smoke, he lifted her high so that she could press her cheek to his chest and put her arms around his neck.
She caught a glimpse of Jessica, sitting on the ground, Zef’s arms around her. She was coughing, and she would live too.
“I’ve got you,” said the man, gently. “Easy. I’ve got you.”
Valerie raised her head to greet the angel who had saved her, recognizing the blond hair, blue eyes, and smiling, smoke-dusted face of Fireman Mike.
The Mercedes didn’t strike the water. The water struck the Mercedes. The water rushed up at Jason and Charley like a black tsunami, impossible to escape. Jason twisted, taking the brunt of the impact himself. The car recoiled, bobbed, but didn’t sink immediately. Jason pushed his hair out of his eyes.
I’m alive. I’m alive. There’s a chance. Go. Go. Go!
The dog squealed.
Jason raised her to the open drivers side window, the side facing the stars. “Swim, baby, swim.” He pushed the dog through the window, saw her paddle past the windshield and slip away. He was more concerned for her than for himself. None of this was her fault. The already-splintered passenger window sprayed cold water against Jason’s back. The cracks were spreading. A black hand crept through the window above. Brom! Brom! The water’s bleeding in…
Jason had no choice. He couldn’t climb out against that current. The water struck his chest. The car rolled. He took three deep breaths and closed his eyes as the Hudson climbed in with him. It was like the Nightmare. It was night and he was drowning. The car went completely under, falling fast. The water grew colder, blacker. Finally the pressure equalized and he pushed off, desperately trying to wriggle through the window.
But his leg was pinned, just as in the Nightmare.
He thrashed. His shoe was tangled in the steering wheel. A bubble of air escaped his lungs. He pulled his foot out of his sneaker. He felt the Mercedes fall away, felt the magnetic pull of its suction. He kicked against the undertow but he was still falling. Falling with his grandmother’s car, into oblivion. Some weight still tugged at him. Was he snagged on something? Still? Or was it—
Oh.
The bar of gold.
He reached into his pocket and his hand closed on the bar, heavy as an anchor. He pulled it out, but… even though it was dragging him down he… he couldn’t let it go. How could he? Was he supposed to just… just… open his hand and let fifty thousand dollars drop into darkness? He couldn’t. But… he had to… He had to. He pressed his lips together. It was… just a hunk of metal. Not worth his life.
Money is never worth a life.
He opened his hand. The bar fell away with a flash of yellow, to lie in the silt at the bottom of the Hudson, forever, alongside the silver car.
Life is worth so much more, Jason thought, turning in the water. His legs kicked. It’s worth living, dammit. He kicked off his other shoe and swam for the stars. They did not come closer, though he reached and thrashed, as if trying to climb into the sky. So many stars, so far away. Think of what’s up there. The whole universe. Think! There are a hundred billion stars in our galaxy. And our galaxy is one of billions! There are supernovas and nebulae and, oh, I bet there are a hell of a lot of aliens.
“But the stars are only reflections of the sun,” said Bill Ferrer, skeptically.
No, they’re not, Jason thought. They’re not. They’re not. They’re not! He was out of air. Water was in his lungs. His body was heavy, his clothes a suit of armor. Come on Crane, put your damn size-seventeen flippers to good use. Everybody’s counting on you. This can’t be the end. It can’t be. Reach for those stars. Reach… reach…
He kicked and kicked and begged for air and…
Reach…!!
…Jason broke through the surface. He spat river water. He coughed. He blinked. He was alive and the stars were dazzling.
He saw an island of black fur some distance away: Charley paddling, her tongue out, as if enjoying the swim. A fat plastic water-cooler jug floated past. Jason clutched it gratefully, using it as a life preserver.
A cracking sound caught his attention. The V-shaped support girders of the Tappan Zee Bridge were snapping open, like a row of wishbones pulled by opposite shores. The bridge was breaking. Like Ichabod’s bridge.
SIE STERBEN AN DER BRÜCKE!!
A figure stood at the rail. A figure without a head. It wore a red Sleepy Hollow Horsemen shirt and held something in its hand, raised high.
The object caught fire.
Jason kicked frantically, trying to swim away, but the Horseman threw his missile with deadly star-quarterback accuracy.
Jason cried out in terror.
The blazing, severed head of Vernon McCaffrey grew larger and larger, its dead face spinning end over end.
It struck Jason in the skull with a clap of thunder…
CRACK!
…he saw fireworks, and all the stars went dark.
EPILOGUE
Streams of water arced through the air, meeting the smoke still rising from Valerie’s house. The worst was over. The blaze had been defeated by an excellent public water system and the valor of Pocantico Hook and Ladder Number One. The place was gutted. Just a shell. She’d lost everything and she didn’t really care. Valerie sat alongside the fire truck, beneath the logo of the Horseman throwing his flaming pumpkin. She shivered under her brown blanket. Was this shock? It was the feeling you get just after a thunderclap, when your whole body trembles that the world is so wild, nature so impersonal, so all-powerful. It was the feeling an ant gets after a giant tramps past. The feeling of “almost.” The realization that the ice storm or the flipping car or the falling piano might have—could have—almost did just kill you.
The feeling of surv
ival.
Her hand closed on her father’s seashell. It might be her only possession, unless the books in the safe had survived. She felt liberated. A clean break with her old life. She watched the walls of her house crumple and felt for a moment that she wanted to set them on fire again, burn every last board until nothing remained but ash.
Fireman Mike knelt alongside her and offered a bottle of water. She took it gratefully.
“Sure I can’t interest you in an ambulance?”
She shook her head and engaged her valve. “I’m okay.”
He slipped to the ground and sat cross-legged. He’d stripped off his protective gear. He wore a navy blue t-shirt with comically oversized red suspenders. His face and hands were black with soot, like a chimneysweep at the end of a long day.
“I know when somebody’s okay,” he said. “People are okay when they start blubbering and let it out. When they start dialing State Farm or screaming at their husbands for letting the insurance lapse. You’re not okay yet.”
“Leave me alone,” she said.
“Nope. Not gonna do that. I’m going to sit right here until you let the paramedics take you or I’m convinced you’re okay.”
“I already told you—”
A tiny cinder, red-tipped, fell like a snowflake just as she inhaled. It whipped into her valve and lodged in her lungs. She coughed uncontrollably, scrabbling with her valve, her fingers cramped and clumsy.
“I got it,” said Mike. “Shh. I got it.” He held her still and undid her valve, drawing it and the interior length of tube from the hole in her throat. The plastic pipe dripped grey mucous. Valerie felt a hot flush of shame and embarrassment, covering her face and turning away.
“No. No,” Mike said. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” He uncapped the water bottle and cleaned the pipe out, casually, as if doing the dishes. “I’ve known a lot of good men with valves like these. It’s no big deal. Take a deep breath.”
Sleepy Hollow: Bridge of Bones Page 59