32

The Disappearance of Ichabod Crane

I was awoken the next morning by Nancy’s clucks of disapproval. She was shaking the wrinkles out of my gown. “What on earth possessed you to leave this beautiful dress crumpled up on the floor like rubbish?” she demanded. “You just disappeared last night, and couldn’t even wait for me to help you undress, I see. Why, this might be ruined!”

“I have every faith in your pressing and laundering abilities,” I mumbled.

Nancy straightened up and gave me her full attention, hands on her hips. “What’s the matter with you?” she asked, eyes narrowing on me suspiciously.

“Nothing,” I said automatically, like a surly child.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “Seems like something is troubling you.”

“Nancy, I’ve said all of ten words to you,” I said irritably. “Why does that lead you to believe something is troubling me?”

She sat on the edge of the bed beside me. “Because I know my girl,” she said, her tone suddenly soft, softer than I’d heard it in years. “And I know when something is troubling her.”

Tears sprang to my eyes, and before I could stop it I was weeping all over again.

“Oh, child.” Nancy reached out her arms, and I fell into them. She rubbed my back and murmured soothing noises in my ear until I finally stopped crying. Then she helped me to get up and dress without inquiring further.

*   *   *

Once downstairs, I did not know what to do with myself. At some point, Charlotte would come with a message from Ichabod, or perhaps take me to an arranged meeting place. Until then, all I could do was wait.

Wait. The very last thing I felt able to do.

Unable to sit still, I wrapped myself in a cloak to ward off the chill and walked down to the river. I wandered along the bank, trying unsuccessfully to quiet my thoughts. Eventually I changed direction, making my way into the woods, just in case Ichabod was waiting at our spot by the stream. I did not truly expect him to be there, but even so, upon arriving the little clearing looked gray and cold and depressingly empty. I gave it no more than a glance before I turned and, shivering, headed back home.

The day soon trickled into afternoon, and still there was no sign of Ichabod nor Charlotte. At about three o’clock, I could bear it no longer and pulled on my cloak again. “Mother,” I called, “I am walking to the village to see Charlotte.”

“Have a nice time, dear,” my mother said absently. She had not sought me out all morning, leading me to believe my father had not told her of Ichabod’s proposal the night before. Depending on what transpired today, perhaps I could tell her myself and enlist her as an ally. She would likely be inclined to agree with my father initially, but no doubt I could bring her around, once she saw that Ichabod and I truly loved each other.

I had Henry saddle Starlight, and soon I was off, riding furiously for the village, Nox happily running alongside. When I arrived, I knocked loudly and urgently, and Charlotte answered almost immediately. “Katrina,” she said, sounding unsurprised to see me. She let Nox and me in and closed the door behind us. “I was just about to come see you.”

My heart leapt at her words. “You were? Ichabod has sent a message, then?”

Her forehead creased in a frown. “You don’t know?”

Just as quickly as it had come, my elation was banished by the look on her face. “Know what? How could I know anything?”

“I thought someone might have come from the village to speak to your father, but I was just on my way to tell you in any case.” She sighed and shook her head.

“Tell me what? For God’s sake, Charlotte—”

“Mr. Crane,” she said. “He is … he seems to be missing.”

My body began to shake as if drenched in icy water as her words sank in, as they penetrated through my very skin and added weight to my bones.

“He … what?” I whispered. I did not feel capable of speaking louder. I reached down to pat Nox, as though reassuring myself that he, at least, was still there.

She took my hand and drew me down to the daybed, sitting beside me. “Apparently he did not return to the farm where he was lodging last night,” she said quickly, as though to get the telling over with. “At first Meneer Van Ripper and his wife thought nothing of it, thinking he had elected to stay the night at your house rather than make the ride at too late an hour.”

Oh, how I wished that he had. How I wished I had convinced him to do just that, in spite of everything.

“But then he never appeared at the schoolhouse for morning lessons, and some of the children went to seek him. Someone remembered seeing him leave the Van Tassel house last night, so a search party has been launched.” She paused. “I thought that perhaps someone would have come to enlist your father’s help, that you may have known already.”

“No,” I whispered. “No one came. And what … what of his horse? What of Gunpowder?”

Charlotte shook her head. “There has been no trace of him, either. But surely that is a good sign, yes? He may have merely ridden off somewhere for a time.” She squeezed my hand tightly. “I am sure there is a reasonable explanation.”

“And … the search party,” I asked through my constricted throat. “Have they found … anything? Any trace of him?”

Charlotte frowned. “I have not heard.”

“Where are they?”

“I believe the plan was to inspect the road and its immediate surroundings between the Van Ripper farmhouse and yours,” she said.

I rose quickly. “We must join them. We must … I must know what they have found. Or what they will yet find.”

Charlotte did not say a word to either agree or dissuade me; she simply plucked her cloak from the peg on the wall, and followed Nox and me out of the cottage.

“I did not see anything amiss on my way here, so let us go this way and see what we find,” I said, striding toward the Van Ripper farm, which was half a mile or so past the church.

Charlotte hurried to keep up. “You did not know to be looking for anything on your way here, and so perhaps did not notice something that—”

“One step at a time,” I snapped at her. Instantly I regretted my sharpness. I sighed. “I’m sorry. I just…”

“It is all right,” Charlotte said, her tone even. “Let us go this way.”

We headed up the Albany Post Road, and it did not take long before our efforts bore fruit.

As we approached the church, we could see a group of people gathered on the bridge over the river than ran past it, the one that had fed the mill pond of old Mr. Phillips’s mill. They all gathered at the railing of the rickety old bridge, talking and pointing at something in the water.

My knees buckled as black began to crowd the edges of my vision. I clutched Charlotte’s arm to keep myself upright. On my other side, Nox pressed against me, as if knowing that I needed steadying. “Charlotte … what … what are they looking at?” I gasped. “Is it … do you think … do you think they found a … a body?”

Charlotte slid an arm firmly around my waist and led me to the edge of the crowd. “Wait here,” she murmured. “I will go see. Courage, Katrina.” She slipped through the crowd until she reached the railing of the bridge.

Upon her quick return, I tried desperately to read the grim expression on her face. She drew me back a few paces from the crowd. “It is not a body,” she said in a low voice. I felt faint again, this time with relief. “It is…” she shook her head, looking somewhat puzzled.

“What?” I demanded.

“It is … shards of a hollowed-out pumpkin,” she said. “Littered on the bank. And…” She hesitated.

“What? Charlotte, for God’s sake, what is it?”

“A man’s hat, caught in some branches at the edge of the river,” she said. “It … it looked like Ichabod’s.”

I felt as though I had been shot. I would have crumpled to the ground entirely if Charlotte had not held me up, with a strength belied by her slender frame. “It may not be his,” she said quickly. “But everyone seems to think so.”

“Let me see,” I said, shoving her away, my resolve giving me new strength. I pushed into the crowd and to the railing.

I clutched the rail of the bridge, white-knuckled, for support. It was indeed Ichabod’s hat; I was certain of it. Yet its presence in the stream was innocent enough, was it not? It may well have flown off his head as he rode over the bridge. It may mean nothing at all. Most likely it meant nothing at all.

The broken pumpkin was less easily explained. Or was it? Perhaps someone had tossed a pumpkin in the stream for whatever unknown reason. It need not mean anything at all.

The murmurings of the villagers began to break through my fog. “Aye, ’tis his hat, all right,” one farmer spoke up. “I’ve seen it upon his head meself.”

“You saw the tracks in the dirt along the road there,” Mevrouw Maarten said to Mevrouw Douw, and pointed. Hoof prints dotted the muddy ground of the road behind us, imprinted with such force that the horse must have been moving at great speed. Horses, I realized, taking in the number of prints.

“Indeed,” Mevrouw Douw said. “We all waste our time here. ’Tis plain for anyone to see that the Headless Horseman has carried him off.”

I whirled to face her. “What did you say?” I demanded.

Mevrouw Douw cackled. “Don’t tell me that you tell all the stories but don’t believe them, young Miss Van Tassel,” she said.

“But the Horseman is … he is just a story,” I protested feebly.

“You are a fool if you believe that,” she said. “And young Mr. Crane ought to have paid more heed to the stories, as well, it seems.”

I spun away from her and pushed my way back to where Charlotte stood. All around me, the whispers circled. Carried off by the Horseman, aye … He must have been … The Galloping Hessian has struck again … The Horseman has taken him, no doubt … Poor Mr. Crane.

“Charlotte,” I gasped. “It cannot be true. It … cannot be real.”

“I shouldn’t think so,” she said, hesitation in her voice.

“You don’t believe it, do you?”

“No,” she said, though she didn’t sound entirely convinced. “Do you?”

“No,” I replied, the same note of uncertainty in my own response.

She gestured upstream, to where some men had set out along the bank. “They are searching the stream,” she said. “In case…” She trailed off and bit her lip.

“In case they find a body,” I finished. “We will stay until they finish searching.”

Charlotte did not reply; she merely gripped my hand with her own, and we settled in to wait.

*   *   *

They did not find a body, and once the search had ended Charlotte took me back to her cottage, allowing for no protest. By then I was shivering uncontrollably, both from the cold and my own unbearable anxiety.

“Tea, I think,” Charlotte said. She steered me to the daybed and disappeared into the kitchen to boil some water. I sat, huddled within my cloak until my shivering began to subside. Nox laid himself on my feet, and I took some small reassurance from his warmth and proximity.

“I know how dire this seems, Katrina,” Charlotte said, after putting the kettle on. “But you must try to think objectively. There is a perfectly logical explanation for all of this. His hat might have flown off his head; the pumpkin likely means nothing; and his disappearance may be perfectly explainable, even understandable. Perhaps he has ridden off somewhere to try to clear his head after last night. He might have gone to see his cousin Giles. He may well have been in need of a friendly face and a sympathetic ear after last night. Or perhaps he is even now trying to make a plan for the two of you and wishes to finalize some arrangements before returning for you.”

The rational part of my mind knew that she might well be right, but I waved her words aside even so. “Perhaps, but above all, he must know that I need to speak to him. He must. After everything. And we are running out of time. He knows that.”

Charlotte’s brow creased in confusion. “What do you mean? Katrina, there is plenty of time. Your father has not yet promised you to anyone else.”

I groaned. She still did not know I was with child. I glanced around the cottage. “Where is your mother?” I asked, my voice low.

“Out, seeing one of the village women. She’s been out all day. Katrina, you’ve gone quite pale. What is it?”

I took a deep breath. “We are running out of time because I … I am with child.”

Charlotte gasped, one hand coming up to cover her mouth. “Oh, Katrina,” she whispered. “Are you sure?”

“I have only missed one course so far, but yes, I am sure.”

“One course need not mean anything, though,” she reasoned.

“I am sure,” I repeated. “I have never missed one before, but even more so than that, I … I am just sure. I can’t explain it.”

Charlotte nodded quickly, acknowledging what she of all people understood. “And so you needed to obtain your father’s permission and marry quickly,” she said, “so when the child is born, no one is the wiser about when it was conceived.”

“Yes.”

Charlotte sat back against her chair, her face ashen now as she comprehended the full extent of my predicament.

“And so Ichabod, knowing this,” I continued, “knows we do not have time to lose. Whatever we are going to do, we must do it now.”

“So you told him about the child, then.”

“Yes, right before he spoke to my father. I deliberated about telling him, but I decided that, whatever might happen, he had a right to know.”

Charlotte considered this for a long moment—too long. “Yes, I suppose that is true,” she said at last. “But surely you can afford another day, if that is what he needs.”

“He should know me better than that!” I exploded. “He should know that I need him with me, to reassure myself. He promised he would send word, and he has not. He is not even in Sleepy Hollow, that much seems certain. What am I to make of that?”

Charlotte had no answer to that, nor did I expect one. Instead she rose and returned with two mugs of tea. “But how did you come to be with child?” she asked once she sat down again.

I shot her an exasperated look. “Surely I do not need to explain it to you.”

“That is not what I mean,” she snapped. “Were you not taking the herbs I gave you?”

“Yes, I was, but one night I forgot,” I retorted. “And do not think you can possibly reproach me more than I have reproached myself, Charlotte. This is a complication that I did not need.”

Charlotte rubbed her forehead. “Let us not argue, Katrina,” she said at last, though I could still hear traces of irritation in her voice. “That is something else neither of us needs at this point.”

“Yes,” I said shortly.

We were both silent as we sipped our tea, as neither of us trusted ourselves not to further the argument. The tea was spiced with cinnamon and cloves, and the more I drank, the more relaxed I felt. I glanced up at Charlotte in question.

“Skullcap,” she said, before I could ask. “It will help calm your nerves.”

Wordlessly I took another sip. It was a long time before I spoke. “Where is he, Charlotte?” Even to myself, my voice sounded like a tiny, broken thing.

“You must not fret so, not when we do not have enough information,” Charlotte said. “If he has gone to see his cousin, no doubt he is riding back now, and will find all the fuss in the village to be quite ridiculous.”

“Do you really think so?” I asked, desperately wanting to believe her.

“It seems most likely,” Charlotte said, getting to her feet. “But we can write to Mr. Carpenter, just to be sure.” She glanced at the clock. “Of course, at this hour, by the time we write and send the letter, we likely won’t receive a response until tomorrow, but at least it would give us something to do. Some way of being sure, if perhaps Ichabod has decided to stay another day.”

He would not stay away another day, I objected silently, for he knows that I need him. “I suppose you are right,” I said, willing to go along with her plan—Charlotte was just trying to help, after all. And there was a chance, of course, that she was exactly right. Or so I tried to tell the leaden dread in my stomach.

Charlotte got a sheet of paper and pen, and I jotted a quick note to Giles Carpenter. “How will we send it to him?” I asked as I sealed it. “I do not know his direction.”

“I have it,” Charlotte said. “He left it for me after the duel—he asked that I write to him to let him know how Ichabod fared.”

I was not so lost in my own fear and uncertainty that I did not detect the faint flush in Charlotte’s cheeks, and the way her voice rose just slightly to a higher register. “Oh?” I said, raising my eyebrows. “He did, did he? And did you write to him?”

“I did as he asked,” she said primly. “I let him know his cousin was quite well and would make a full recovery.”

“I see.” When she did not elaborate, I left it at that. If there was more to the story, Charlotte would tell me in time. Or I would drag it out of her at some other, more convenient moment.

The letter written and addressed, Charlotte and I took it to the inn, where we found a willing messenger. “Am I to wait for a reply, miss?” he asked me as I handed him a few coins.

“Yes,” I said. “Do not leave without one.”

“Very good, miss. I’ll likely wait until morning to take the road back.” He grinned widely. “There’s a lass in White Plains I’ve been meaning to call on, anyway.”

I rolled my eyes at this as we bade him farewell. He could do as he pleased, so long as he brought me my reply in the morning.

After returning to Charlotte’s cottage to collect Nox and Starlight, I rode home, before it grew too dark. Yet I found I almost could not bear the thought of what awaited me: a full night of uncertainty, of having no idea where Ichabod was, or why he was there and not with me.

I arrived home in time to dine with my parents, and sat woodenly through the meal, hardly saying anything. Neither commented on my silence; no doubt my father, at least, thought I was still angry about his refusal of Ichabod’s suit.

After supper I pleaded a headache and went to my room, where I allowed Nancy to undress me and see me to bed. Practically as soon as I lay down, I rose again and went to the window, looking out over the river. When I finally got into bed, I buried my face into Nox’s fur and wept. He whined and craned his neck around to lick my face, and though it did nothing to fix all that was wrong, it afforded me a small measure of comfort.