I am no Daniel, to interpret the dreams of kings, but I have had a dream that either confirms my madness or strengthens my inkling of the infernal link between my life and that of the Hessian. I dreamed of Katrina. My love. Yesterday I was led to her gravestone, here in Sleepy Hollow, and learned of her agonized end on the stake. The devastation this caused me is beyond words and I could not write of it then. Now I know I do not have to, for events perhaps yet more tragic have revealed her death to be a ruse perpetrated by parties yet unknown.
I say I dreamed of her, but it would be more accurate to say that she came to me in a dream. The same falcon that led me to her stone drew me through the world of this dream into a mirror world, a trackless forest wilderness where my wife appeared and revealed to me that the Hessian—the Horseman—and I were magically linked by the intermingling of our blood on the battlefield. She had prevented my death by working a spell that held me on the border between life and death. The Hessian’s body was chained and sunk in the Hudson, and we remained in our deathless suspension until he returned and I was awakened by the bond of blood. I am the First Witness, she said … but to what, I do not know—no, of course I do. Was I not just reading passages from Revelation?
And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.
Quite exhilarating, the prospect of breathing fire and smiting the earth, and so forth … yet all the same I would surrender those fanciful powers for the touch of Katrina’s hand, here in this world rather than in the diaphanous fantasy of a dream. Too, the passage goes on to speak of the circumstances of the Witnesses’ deaths, which makes being a Witness a somewhat equivocal blessing.
Still, if Witness I must be, then Witness I will be. Perhaps General Washington knew more then he was telling me when he made his remarks about the true stakes of the war in the colonies …
I have also learned that the light of the sun weakens the Horseman, but even that attenuation will not save us if he is able to recover his head. That is my next task, to convince Lieutenant Mills that we must take possession of it. What we do with it is another question. Shall we keep it, to ensure he does not recover it? Can it be destroyed? What would happen if it were to be destroyed? We must not act rashly.
I also must free Katrina from her forest prison.
A demon, the guardian of this realm or perhaps its henchman, interrupted us then, but I know where the Horseman’s head lies—beneath Katrina’s headstone. I also know that the man I saw on the way to the cave was one Reverend Knapp.
Either I have seen him before or the Knapp I knew in the years of the Revolution has engendered a doppelgänger. Knapp was an ally of General Washington’s subterfuges, and a stout opponent of the Crown. Confidant to the inner circle of revolutionaries, he was indispensable to our battle then. He may have recognized me as well, and wished to remain discreet—yet I must ascertain the truth of this matter without delay.
We have fought the Horseman—and at least for today, we have emerged victorious. He fell upon us as we dug up his head, and he was aided by a most unwelcome ally: the police officer Brooks, who seems to have returned from the dead. (This is apparently becoming quite a popular pastime here in Sleepy Hollow.) Only the rising sun forestalled a much gloomier conclusion to the night’s events. Katrina was right; the Horseman indeed abhors the light of day. This is a weapon we must not fail to use.
I believe I understand why this Reverend Knapp—who I am sad to say fell victim to the Hessian the night before last, before I could communicate with him and partake of what must have been an invaluable store of knowledge—left the Bible in my possession, for surely he must have? Katrina would not have had it, and would have been gone from this world before Washington’s own death. A mystery. One way or another, by some hand the Bible was placed on my breast, and now I have it to guide me. The Book of Revelation speaks of two Witnesses who will rise to the defense of humanity during the period of tribulation that heralds Judgment Day. If I am the First Witness, as Katrina said, who can the second be but Abigail Mills? She has expressed a kind of faith in me that leads me to believe we are bound together in a way—not the way the Hessian and I are bound, but by a higher, nobler purpose.
For Abigail has also seen the evil we are fighting—when she was a girl, with her sister. She unburdened herself about this to me, and I now understand more clearly how we are linked, bound together by our experiences. I was correct, after all, that a childhood trauma of inexplicable nature drove her to embrace the idea that only explainable things are real.
Perhaps I should attend this training in “profiling” myself. Would that I could travel at will. This world is as much wonder as terror, and I hope to see a great deal more of it. For now, though, I—and Abigail—must stop the Horseman. Now that we have his head, that unimaginable task seems to hover just on the distant border of possibility.