The next night, Brom went out to Sleepy Hollow’s only tavern—which was run by a cousin of my father’s—to enjoy a rare night with his old gang. I relished the thought of a quiet evening to myself, and once Anneke was fed and settled into her cradle, I sat with a book of poetry, candles blazing on the small table beside me as the daylight faded away.
While normally I was swept away by such poetry, for some reason it was failing to hold my interest. My eyes kept wandering away from the page and roaming about the room.
I attributed my lack of focus to pure weariness, and decided to go early to bed. I had just closed the book and set it on my lap when a single candle in an iron holder snagged my attention. Suddenly I was staring into the flame, letting it envelop me as it had that night with Charlotte.
I heard the piercing whinny of a horse, again from a distance. I saw the shadow of a man running amongst the trees, heard the panting of his breath. No, there were two men running, for there were two sets of footsteps, and two sets of winded lungs—or was one the horse? I could not tell. One man was chasing the other, and I heard the latter scream, a sharp cry and shout for help, and my heart constricted at the sound of his voice. Ichabod. Then, ahead of me, I could see a glimpse of the clearing, where the Hessian had supposedly met his end.
Then, as abruptly as it had before, the vision winked out, and I seemed to fall, panting and sweating, back into my chair in the parlor.
I struggled to catch my breath as I stared hard at the candle flame, wishing it to give up more of its secrets, much as those secrets frightened me. I had seen something, but not enough. I had not seen how it ended.
Yet who was to say it was anything but my own tired, overactive imagination? What truth could there be in a vision in a candle flame? I am so tired that I am dreaming while I am awake, I admonished myself. Surely, if I could see visions, they would show me something useful, would they not?
Blowing out the rest of the candles—and shivering in spite of myself—I picked up the single candle to carry it upstairs and made for my bed. I felt no small amount of relief when I was finally settled beneath the covers and was able to blow out that candle, as well.
Given my vision, or imagining, or whatever it was, it should have come as no surprise that I fell right into a nightmare.
I was running through the woods at night, only barely able to discern the black outline of the trees against the dark night sky. Branches tore at my hair, my skin, my skirts, but I kept running.
I heard my name, echoing out amongst the trees. I could not tell what direction it came from, but it was Ichabod’s voice. Yet all around his voice it seemed as though there was a second one, darker, more sinister, a somehow deafening whisper.
“Katrina! Katrina! Katrina! Katrina!”
I kept running, though whether I was running toward the voices or away from them I could not tell. Suddenly I heard the whinny of a horse and the pounding of hooves on the path behind me. Still running, I twisted my head to look behind me, and thought I could make out the shape of a figure on horseback riding straight toward me. In the darkness all I could see for certain was the fiery face of a jack-o’-lantern.
I screamed.
“Katrina,” a voice mumbled. “Katrina, wake up.”
I shot bolt upright in bed, panting and coated in sweat. Beside me, Brom had pulled himself into a half-sitting position. “You were screaming in your sleep,” he slurred, having yet to sleep off the drink he’d consumed with his friends. I didn’t know what time it was nor when he had come in; I hadn’t heard him, that much was certain.
“I … I was?” I asked, my breath still coming heavily.
He groaned and fell back against his pillow. “Yes. And muttering and calling out words.”
I froze at this. I had not been calling Ichabod’s name, had I? “I … I am sorry to have awoken you,” I said. I pushed the coverlet aside and got out of bed. I could hear Nox outside our bedchamber, whining and scratching on the door. “I may as well go and check on Anneke, now that I am awake.”
Brom made an indistinct noise of assent and fell back to sleep.
Nox leapt up and placed his paws on my shoulders as I emerged, enthusiastically licking my face. With him following, I padded to the nursery next door. I was glad to see my scream had not awoken Anneke, but as I stepped into the room she began to stir. I lifted her from her cradle and sat in the chair beside it, pulling down the shoulder of my shift to bare my breast. She suckled eagerly, and nearly as soon as she finished was asleep again.
I rose, placing her back in the cradle. Feeding the baby had calmed me somewhat, but it would be some time before I was able to sleep again. Restless and still damp with sweat in the summer heat, I went downstairs, planning to step outside for a bit of fresh air. At this hour there would be no one about to see me dressed in only my shift.
I stepped out onto the stoop, stretching my arms in the cool night air and taking several long, deep breaths.
It was the light I noticed first, off in the distance, and I realized my eyes had been trained on it for several seconds before I truly registered it. I blinked several times to clear my vision, thinking it might be some trick of my eyes.
But no, in the woods that ringed the end of our lane, I saw orange light bobbing amongst the trees. I took a few steps closer, trying to make out what I was seeing, and slowly its shape seemed to solidify out of the darkness. Was it a … a pumpkin? A flaming pumpkin? It was high enough up that it would have been carried by …
Swallowing my scream, I ran inside, bolting the door behind me. I hurried to check that the back door was locked as well before hastening back upstairs, huddling beneath the covers beside a snoring Brom. I tried to block the sight of that flaming pumpkin moving through the darkness from my mind; tried not to think what it meant in light of my latest vision and latest nightmare; tried not to think that if a supernatural rider were after me, the bolts on my doors would not keep him out.
I barely slept the rest of the night; only in fitful increments of just minutes before snapping awake again, my fear preventing any true rest. As the sun rose and the light filtered in, I began to hear Nancy downstairs, lighting the kitchen fire. I climbed out of bed—Brom still dead to the world—and went downstairs again.
I went right to the front door and opened it, peering into the woods.
I saw nothing.