The next morning I woke with the half-sluggish, half-overexcited feeling that came from tossing and turning most of the night. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to pull the covers up and go back to sleep or jump out of bed and run in circles. After a few moments watching a small brown spider make its way across the ceiling I decided to get up. I didn’t really like spiders (though I’d never tell Brom this), and the thought of spending the day in my room with even a small one was unappealing.
I dressed in my breeches and jacket, knowing Katrina would scowl at me but beyond caring at the moment. Something had shifted between us the previous day, the balance of power tilting more in my direction. She was still unquestionably queen of the household, but I’d realized I didn’t have to submit to her every whim.
My pant legs seemed a little too short as I buckled my belt. I was sure they had fit better the day before. My legs sprouted overnight sometimes and I’d wake in the morning with aching muscles and a sense that I’d turned into Jack’s beanstalk. Every day I was taller than the other children in the Hollow, even some that were older than me.
Katrina had only indulged my desire for boys’ clothing while I was young. Brom had said, “What’s the harm?” and she’d been forced to give in, because Brom hadn’t been willing to argue about it. She’d probably thought that I would grow out of the impulse before it was considered indecent.
Well, I hadn’t grown out of the impulse and I was never going to. I was sure of that. However, after yesterday’s argument, I didn’t think Katrina would be inclined to indulge me any longer. I might actually have to learn how to sew just so I could make and mend my own pants. Katrina should be pleased if I took pains at some womanly art, at least.
As I dressed I tried to work out a plan of campaign for the day. I needed to do something constructive, but I wasn’t sure what that might be. Talking to Brom was at the top of the list. I needed to know more about Cristoffel—and more importantly, about my father. It meant admitting that I’d eavesdropped at the door, but I hoped Brom would overlook that. The only two people I knew of who could tell me about Bendix were Brom and Katrina, and Katrina never revealed anything to me if she could help it.
Beyond speaking to Brom, I wasn’t certain. Should I try to find out more about the sheep killer? I shivered, but then I stiffened my spine. I might have broken down the day before, but I was Brom Bones’ heir. I knew what to expect now, and I wouldn’t be frightened again.
My mind sheared away from the Horseman. That wasn’t someone I wanted to consider at the moment.
I went down to the dining room, still thinking. Brom and Katrina would surely want me to stay out of the affair, but I felt responsible, somehow, to Cristoffel. I hadn’t liked him in life but I kept remembering how sad and pathetic his body had looked, tossed like litter in the forest. Someone needed to care about him. Brom would care about finding the killer, I knew. But he wouldn’t be thinking of Cristoffel while he did it. He’d be thinking of the Hollow, of the other people in town, of preventing another tragedy. Now that someone (something?) had attacked one of our sheep as well, Brom would take the business personally.
And there’s Bendix, too. Don’t forget about your father.
Brom was already at breakfast, shoveling in his usual mountain of food. Covered platters were set out on the table. Katrina was conferring with Lotte about dinner. There were a few bread crumbs on Katrina’s plate and nothing else. I was sure my grandmother, always concerned about retaining her girlish figure, had eaten nothing more than one slice of toast.
I sat down, feeling unusually constrained. I couldn’t bring up yesterday’s events in front of Katrina, who would be furious if she knew I’d been in the woods near Cristoffel’s body. I certainly couldn’t discuss the matter while Lotte was in the room. Katrina would consider it personal business, and we never discussed personal business in front of the servants.
Katrina glared at me as I sat down, but she didn’t say anything about my attire. I attributed her restraint to Lotte’s presence. Lotte gave me a small wink.
I looked down at my empty plate, my cheeks reddening. Lotte meant well. Of course she did. But that wink meant that everyone in the household knew about Brom carrying me inside the night before like a little baby. I hadn’t really considered the servants. I found it troubling that people in the household might have gossiped about me with one another, might have whispered about my trembling and shaking.
Brom tapped the back of my hand. I looked up.
“It’s all right, Ben,” he said, and smiled.
As usual, Brom seemed to know what I was thinking and feeling. He didn’t seem disgusted by my display from the previous night, either.
I lifted the covers off the platters, piling food high on my plate. My heart felt lighter than it had been since Sander and I played Sleepy Hollow Boys in the woods. That seemed an age ago instead of the previous morning.
Lotte returned to the kitchen. Katrina immediately transferred her gaze to the quantity of food on my plate. She opened her mouth and I resigned myself to an ear blistering, but Brom gave her a look I couldn’t read. She subsided, her lips pressed together so tightly that they turned white.
I knew she’d only keep her feelings in check while Brom was present, so I copied my grandfather’s example and shoveled food into my mouth as quickly as possible. If I was lucky I could follow Brom out when he left to do his regular rounds of the farm. Then I’d have my chance to talk to him and to escape Katrina’s beady eye at the same time.
I’d only managed about half my food when Brom pushed his own empty plate away and stood.
“I’m off, my loves,” he said.
“Where are you going? Can I come, too?” I asked. Lotte would let me filch something from the larder later if I was hungry. I didn’t need my breakfast. It was far more important that I speak to Brom.
“Not today,” he said. “I have to go into the village.”
Brom and Katrina shared one of their secret looks, the ones that spoke complete conversations in a glance. Whatever Brom was about, he didn’t want me knowing about it. Or at least Katrina didn’t want me knowing about it. That meant it probably had something to do with Cristoffel, or maybe even Bendix. If I hurried, I could follow Brom into the village.
I shoved a few more quick bites into my mouth, nearly choking on a sausage. Even if I couldn’t go with Brom, I still wanted to leave the dining room at the same time. It was not in my best interest to be the only one left in a room with Katrina.
Brom kissed Katrina goodbye, and there seemed to be an unusual tenderness between them that day. Katrina laid her hand on Brom’s cheek as he pulled away and he paused, the two of them lost in each other’s eyes.
Revolting, I thought. They’re so old. When will they stop acting like newlyweds?
Though really, I supposed they weren’t that old. Brom was only fifty-two, and Katrina fifty. Like most people in the Hollow, they’d married very young—
Katrina had just turned eighteen at the time—and my own parents had done the same.
That means Katrina probably thinks you’re going to get married in four years, I thought, and shuddered.
Brom finally pulled away from Katrina and clapped his hand on my shoulder. “I’ll see you later, my Ben.”
“I’m going out, too,” I said, washing my food down with some hastily gulped tea.
“Where are you going?” they asked in unison.
It was normal for Katrina to ask, so that she could tell me not to do whatever I planned to do. But Brom was another story. He never bothered to check where I was going or who I was going with, and he never seemed to think anything I was up to was in the least troublesome. I must have really worried him, acting the way I had the day before.
“Oh, just out to find Sander,” I lied.
I had zero intention of finding Sander, because though I had no concrete plans yet, I was sure that whatever I came up with would make Sander feel uncomfortable or worried. Sander was a natural worrier, and he had a bad habit of telling his mother things that ought to stay secret between us.
“You don’t understand, Ben,” Sander would say. “She looks at me and it’s like I have to tell her, like she can see the truth inside me, and if I don’t let it out, she’ll be even angrier.”
“That’s a trick,” I would say back. “All mothers do that—and grandmothers, too. Katrina tries it on me all the time.”
I’d learned how to withstand Katrina’s stare. I was sure Sander could learn to withstand his mother, too, if he wanted. He just didn’t seem to try hard enough.
Anyway, I had no inclination to tell Sander about the dead sheep or the strange silhouette in the field. Those were things for me and Brom.
(or about the Horseman)
My brain slid away from the Horseman again. I wasn’t ready to think about him yet. Even when I was ready, I didn’t know if I wanted to share him with Sander. Whatever had happened the night before—that was between the Horseman and me.
(it’s always been between the Horseman and you)
“Listen, Ben,” Brom said. “I don’t want you playing in the woods. The farm or the village, but not the woods.”
“She shouldn’t be in the woods in any case,” Katrina said. “It’s hardly a fit place for a young lady. I don’t think you should be going out with Sander today. You have lessons that you never completed yesterday.”
I gazed up at Brom in mute appeal. Nothing sounded worse at the moment than a day trapped in the parlor, plunking my fingers over the piano or learning how to make tiny, precise stitches.
“Oh, I think Ben’s all right to go out with Sander, my love,” he said, understanding my silent cry for help. “I just don’t want them playing in the woods. Only for now, all right?”
I nodded. I didn’t plan on playing in the woods.
“Promise?” Brom said, sticking out his hand for me to shake.
“I promise not to play in the woods,” I said, letting his huge hand engulf mine.
“Take care of my Ben, all right?” he said.
He sounded unusually serious, which gave me a little spurt of guilt. I wasn’t lying, not really. I’d promised not to play in the woods, and I had no intention of playing out there. Investigating, though—that was another matter altogether. Brom hadn’t made me promise not to investigate, and my investigations might take me into the woods, but that wouldn’t be my fault if so.
“Can I walk with you into the village?” I asked.
“I’m going on horseback,” he said. “You can ride with me.”
I wouldn’t be able to talk to Brom on the horse. But I didn’t have too many chances to ride with him anymore, because I was getting bigger and soon I wouldn’t be able to fit behind him on the saddle.
Katrina followed us out to the front of the house, and the groomsman was already waiting for Brom, holding Donar by his reins, so I had no chance to bring up Cristoffel.
Brom swung into the saddle and then put his hand down for me, heaving me up with one arm. I wrapped my arms around him and leaned my head against his back. There was no place on earth where I felt safer than when I was with Brom.
He kicked his heels and Donar took off at a gallop, because Brom generally considered any pace slower than that a waste of time. I held tight and listened to Donar’s hooves pounding into the dirt road that ran from the farm to the village.
Th-thump th-thump th-thump
Don’t think about the Horseman.
The woods lined the right side of the road, and the opposite side was all Van Brunt land for miles, the fields full of ripening crops ready to harvest. After our farm there were a few smaller farms, but they all faced the woods. The woods closed off the Hollow from one direction, so that anyone approaching the village had to either go around them or through them.
The forest had always been my playground, the place where I built my dreams. Today it seemed gray and ominous, a secret hive of creatures that should not be.
That strange being, the one that was bent over the sheep in the field—that had to have come from the woods.
I remembered the way it seemed to whisper my name, and I remembered, too, the time I’d stepped off the path and all those eerie voices had called to me.
Is this creature, whatever it is, something from the place beyond the trail in the woods? The place everyone from the Hollow fears?
Nobody from the Hollow ever went beyond that place where the track ended. That was the realm of beings that we didn’t want to disturb. If my idea was true, if the silhouette with the glowing eyes came from the deep woods, then why had it emerged now? Had someone disturbed it? Had someone disturbed the Horseman?
(Don’t think about the Horseman)
We passed the cemetery on the outskirts of the village, a small fat hill dotted with stone markers. My own father and mother were buried there. I wished Brom would ride a little slower so I could ask him about Bendix. Beside the cemetery stood the church, sturdily constructed out of brick and mortar to withstand the howling winters that blew into this country. And just a little beyond the church and cemetery was the brook, and the bridge, and the place where Ichabod Crane had tried and failed to outrun the Headless Horseman.
When we reached the village, Brom slowed to a canter. Sleepy Hollow proper was nothing more than a single lane lined on either side with buildings of various shapes and makes, though most of them were one-or two-story wooden constructs. Offices and storefronts populated the first floors, and generally the owners and their families lived above. Sometimes, in lieu of a second floor, there was an addition on the back part of the building for the family quarters.
Very little about Sleepy Hollow had changed since its founding. It was like the Hollow was caught inside a soap bubble, or maybe a spell—always the same, never growing or changing. There weren’t even that many visitors, generally—people sometimes passed through, but they rarely stayed. Any newcomer was like grit in the Hollow’s eye, and the people of the village would rub at it until the grit was removed.
That had happened to the crane schoolmaster, I gathered. He came to the Hollow and couldn’t find his place, and so he was removed.
By the Horseman.
(No, not by the Horseman, Brom said that the schoolmaster just left suddenly.)
Brom doesn’t believe in the Horseman. Brom didn’t hear him galloping last night.
Donar easily wended his way around the carts and people filling up the street. Brom halted in front of the notary’s office. For a moment I wondered why he’d done this, and then I remembered that I’d told Brom and Katrina I was going out to find Sander. My friend was likely upstairs, helping his mother with his younger sister or reading, one of his favorite pastimes.
Damn, I thought. I only used one of Brom’s favorite words in secret, because Katrina would wash my mouth with soap if she caught me cursing like that. Now I’ll have to ask Sander to come out and then find some way to shake him off. Although if I’m lucky he won’t want to come out at all. If he’s reading he might not want to.
I couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to be stuck inside with a book when there were trees to climb, but Sander always said that he went further inside a book then I ever did on my own feet.
“Thanks, Opa,” I said, sliding off Donar’s broad back and landing clumsily.
“I’ll see you at supper,” he said, and kicked Donar into a trot.
I half-considered following him to see where he went, but then decided there wasn’t a good way for me to do this without Brom noticing. Still, I might be able to get away without Sander finding out I’d ever been here.
I darted away from the notary, in the opposite direction Brom had gone. Nobody seemed to take any notice of me. I put my hands in my pockets and my head down, avoiding the gaze of any adults on the boarded walkway. I had a vague idea of returning to the place where Cristoffel’s body had been found. Perhaps there were some clues in the woods. Nobody from the search party had looked very hard when they’d found the boy’s body the previous day.
What clues do you think that a monster would leave behind? If it was the same thing that killed the sheep . . .
Brom had thought that a person killed Cristoffel, though. So I would proceed in an orderly and logical manner. First, I would check and see if there was any sign that a person had hurt Cristoffel. If there wasn’t, then I would search for signs that something inhuman had killed Cristoffel.
What if you encounter that creature?
“I’m Ben Van Brunt,” I said to myself. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
I nearly reached the edge of the village when I heard someone calling my name.
“Ben Van Brunt!”
A boy’s voice. I recognized it without turning around. Justus Smit.
I rolled my eyes and turned, expecting him to be surrounded by some of his little toadies. Sure enough, two other boys our age stood on either side of him. I didn’t know the other boys’ names. Since I didn’t attend the school in the village, I couldn’t always remember everyone by sight.
“What?” I asked, making my voice as bored as possible.
He stalked toward me, his intent clear. Justus Smit was dumb as a post but he was strong from helping his father at the blacksmith’s forge. Still, he was shorter than me, and slower, and he’d never managed to beat me in a fight yet.
“Your grandfather is spreading rumors about my father,” he said. “Saying that my father is a fool, that my dad has got it in for those stupid savages.”
“So?” I said.
I was sure that Brom wasn’t spreading rumors but rather the opposite—trying to halt the spread of any idiocy that Diederick Smit might be trying to push around.
“So he has no right to do that! Just because your family is the richest in town doesn’t give you the right to say and do whatever you want.”
I didn’t often think about the fact that we were rich, though I knew it was true. Brom tended to put most of the money he made back into the farm, and none of us dressed particularly fine.
I shrugged. I didn’t have time for Justus Smit’s petty disagreements at the moment. He was spoiling for a fight and I wasn’t in the mood.
“What do you want me to do about it?” I asked.
He didn’t say anything, just stood there with his hands curled up into fists. He was angry and didn’t know what to do with it, or what to say. I braced myself, ready for the blow that was coming, and watched the other two closely. Justus had probably told them to hold me down while he punched.
“Well?” I asked again.
Justus let out an incoherent yell and charged toward me like a bull. I darted out of the way and stuck out my foot so that he tripped and flew off the sidewalk into the dirt.
I jumped off the walk and onto his back, pinning his arms to his sides with my knees. I grabbed the back of his hair and pulled hard, bending his neck backward toward me. He cried out, half in pain and half humiliation. I knew there was nothing worse for someone like Justus than being beaten by me.
“I think you should take your little friends and find something else to do with your time,” I said.
“Bitch! Bitch!” Justus shouted. “Stupid Van Brunt bitch!”
I pushed his face down into the dirt. He shouldn’t be using a word like that at all, and certainly not to me. I was a little shocked that he even dared. There was a horse apple just under his chin and he got a good mouthful of it as I squashed his head down.
“What did you call me?” I asked, pushing his face into the ground even harder.
Justus made some garbled noises.
“Bente Van Brunt!” A woman’s voice, full of shock.
I looked up and saw Sarah van der Bijl, one of Katrina’s friends. Her blue eyes were wide and horrified. The other two boys had darted off the moment that I tripped Justus. Apparently they hadn’t accounted for the fact that I might fight back.
“You get off that boy this instant!” she said.
“No,” I said. I didn’t have to listen to Sarah van der Bijl. She would take this tale to Katrina, and Katrina would no doubt punish me, but I would submit to no authority but that of my own house. “He tried to attack me and now he has to pay.”
Justus bucked underneath me, like a horse trying to throw me off, but I kept my weight on him and leaned down toward his ear, whispering so Sarah van der Bijl, that interfering busybody, couldn’t hear.
“I hope this incident will help you reconsider taking your annoyance out on me in future,” I said. I thought that sounded very grown-up, and also slightly menacing.
I lifted Justus’ head out of the muck so I could hear his answer. “Goddamn bitch! I’ll get you for this!”
Sighing, I pushed his head back into the ground. “Apparently we’re going to have to continue until you learn your lesson properly. And until your language improves.”
“Bente!” Sarah said again.
I heard the rustle of her skirts as she approached, but I wasn’t concerned. She wasn’t anywhere near strong enough to pry me off Justus. I just wished she’d go away. I didn’t want to listen to her bleating at me. And the more she yelled, the more attention we would draw.
We were near the edge of the village, to be sure, and most of the people moving about were not nearby, but sooner or later one of them would notice. One of them might even go and fetch Brom.
Not that Brom will do anything about it, I thought with a smirk. Brom believed strongly that if you couldn’t defend yourself in a fight, that was your own problem. He’d never chastise me for preventing Justus from beating me.
Sarah moved to stand in front of me. “Let that boy go, Bente Van Brunt.”
“No matter how many times you say that name, I’m not going to listen to you,” I said. “He tried to jump me with two of his friends. Three boys on one me—does that seem fair to you?”
I gave her my most limpid look. The effect was somewhat spoiled by Justus wriggling around, trying to escape my grip. I dug my fingers harder into his hair and he howled.
“That’s not what it looks like to me,” she said. “It looks like you’re bullying this poor boy. I’ve told your grandmother time and again that she needs to take you in hand, but your grandfather lets you run wild like a savage. Well, why wouldn’t he? He acted just the same when he was a boy and so did your father, but you’re a girl and this isn’t proper behavior for a lady.”
I was only half-listening to her, having heard these remonstrations many times before from Katrina, but when she got to the “proper behavior for a lady” bit, I looked up.
“I’m not a lady. I will never be a lady. Now go away, Sarah van der Bijl. I have business to sort out with Master Smit.”
Sarah’s face purpled and I wrinkled my nose. She was going to start yelling.
So irritating, I thought. Grown-ups shouldn’t involve themselves with quarrels between children.
“I saw it,” a man said from behind me.
I twisted around. Schuler de Jaager, one of the oldest residents of the Hollow, stood a few feet away, his weight on the heavy wooden stick that he took everywhere. His gray hair was overlong and had a tendency to stick up in every direction, which lent him an air of dottiness even though his blue eyes were steady and clear. He looked like he was trying not to smile at us. Something about his appearance made me uneasy, though I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was.
“Saw what, Mynheer de Jaager?” Sarah snapped.
Schuler de Jaager walked closer and gestured at Justus Smit, who seemed momentarily resigned to his fate. He’d stopped bucking around, in any case. I didn’t relax, though. I knew that Justus was probably waiting for me to do that very thing, to lower my guard so he could turn the tables on me, and I wasn’t going to let him.
“That boy and his friends charged young Ben, here,” Schuler said. “He was only defending himself, although I do think Master Smit’s probably eaten enough horseshit for the day, don’t you think?”
Schuler gave me a look that reminded me much of Brom’s conspiratorial gaze. I thought about it for a moment, then nodded and jumped off Justus. I’d proved my point with Diederick Smit’s son. I backed away a foot or two so that Justus wouldn’t grab my ankle and knock me over. I had no particular desire for turnabout.
Justus lay still for a moment, seemingly stunned that he was allowed to go free. Sarah reached a handkerchief toward him, her manner so maternal that it made me sick. It wasn’t fair that she was using up all her sympathy on a brat like Justus.
“There, now, let me wipe your face . . .” she started, but Justus knocked her hand away and jumped to his feet. His face was basically covered in horse poop from the nose down.
“Get away from me, you old hag!” he shouted and ran past her, away from the village and toward the woods, bumping his shoulder against hers as he did. She fell on her bottom in the dirt.
Schuler reached a hand toward her, much in the same way she had done for Justus. “No good deed goes unpunished, eh, Sarah?”
She glared up at Schuler, who lifted her up with more strength than his fragile-looking frame implied.
“Thank you,” she muttered.
She gave me one last good glare—it was clear who she was blaming for the whole incident, no matter what Schuler said—and stalked back to the sidewalk, where she’d dropped a basket full of her shopping.
I felt a little awkward. I’d never spoken to Schuler de Jaager without Brom or Katrina around—it wasn’t a natural thing for children to sit and converse with older people they didn’t know. But he’d just defended me and I felt that ought to be acknowledged.
“Thanks,” I said to Schuler. “For sticking up for me with Mevrouw van der Bijl.”
“Oh, I’ve been looking out for three generations of Van Brunts. Most of the people of the Hollow aren’t that fond of spirited folk like you,” Schuler said. “You remind me of your father, and Brom, of course. Brom’s still got twice the spirit of your average citizen, no matter how old he gets.”
I felt the warm flush of pride that I always got from being related to Brom. There was just no one in the world like him. Then something Schuler said caught up to me.
“You knew my father?” I asked. It was rare that I heard from anyone who knew my parents other than Brom and Katrina. Sometimes it seemed there was a general agreement that no one besides my family would mention Bendix and Fenna except in the briefest of passing.
“Of course,” Schuler said. “I’ve known everyone that’s ever lived in Sleepy Hollow.”
“What was he like?” I asked.
“Bendix?” Schuler’s eyes crinkled, and some emotion flared deep in their depths, something I couldn’t read. “Like Brom, only in miniature—a scamp, always raising trouble everywhere he went. Even his marriage didn’t calm him—well, I suppose that’s the same as the way marriage to Katrina didn’t calm Brom any. Brom loved that boy more than anyone in the world.”
Schuler gave me a sideways glance, and then he said, “I expect you’re wondering about Bendix now, especially since the Kludde has begun attacking again.”
“The Kludde?” I asked.
“Yes. A Kludde killed that boy in the woods yesterday, same as it killed your father ten years ago.”