As dark began to fall that night, I went to find Nancy in her room, Anneke in tow. Brom was out drinking with friends, celebrating the harvest and the end of all their hard work. “Nancy, can you do me a favor?” I asked brightly.
She eyed me warily for a moment, and I knew she’d seen right through me. “Of course, Katrina,” she said. “What is it?”
I squeezed Anneke’s hand. “Will you put Anneke to bed for me tonight? I am off to visit with Charlotte.”
There was no reason at all for Nancy to doubt my explanation or to think anything of it whatsoever. Anneke enjoyed being put to bed by Nancy just as much as she did by me; Nancy, I knew from personal experience, was also an excellent teller of bedtime stories. Anneke, as if on cue, reached out for Nancy. “Nancy!” she cried.
Nancy smiled and rose from her chair, picking up Anneke. “A bath for you, angel, and then bed,” she said. She glanced up at me, searching my eyes and finding something she did not like. “Katrina…” She sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t do this.”
“I have to.” I gestured to my daughter. “For her as much as for me.”
“I don’t know that I believe that. You remember what I told you about the price to be paid?”
I nodded unwillingly.
“Don’t forget it. And if you must do this—if you really feel you must—then be careful.” She kissed Anneke on the top of her head. “This little one cannot lose you. And neither can I.”
Tears threatened behind my eyes, but I blinked them away. “I do not know what you think will happen, Nancy, but—”
“You are playing with forces outside your control,” she said. “Anything could happen.”
“I have to know, Nancy,” I said softly. “I have to know what happened to him.”
“And there may be some things you are better off not knowing, Katrina Van Tassel.”
Afterward, a part of me would always wonder if everything would have been better if I’d listened to her that night. “I’m sorry, Nancy. I know we disagree about this. But I will not turn back now. I cannot.”
Both she and Anneke regarded me in silence. “Be careful,” she said at last. “Please be careful.”
“I will,” I assured her. “I promise.” I gave Anneke a kiss on her forehead. “I shall leave Nox here as well,” I said, turning to leave. I went into the kitchen, swiftly packing a basket of the things I would need, and donned my cloak against the nighttime chill. Nox was waiting by the door, whining, as if he, too, knew where I was going and what I was going to do, and wished that I would not.
“It’ll be okay, boy,” I whispered. I bent down to kiss his head, then headed out into the eerie night.
I paused at the edge of the churchyard and looked up at the plain, brick-and-clapboard building. I said a silent prayer that I might be protected from evil that night, and might find what I sought and escape unscathed. Even then, I was not sure what I meant by unscathed. And I wondered if God or his angels would hear my prayers, if they granted the prayers of witches. For I was certainly as much of a witch as Charlotte, now.
What would Ichabod think of me if he could see me, dabbling in such arts as he had always feared and mistrusted? Would he even know me? Would he recognize who I had become?
Would he fear me?
But it did not matter. He was gone, and I had become who I needed to be in his absence. And tonight I would find out why.
I headed into the woods behind the churchyard, taking the same path Charlotte and I had that January day, one I had not walked since. I shivered in the nighttime air, remembering all those nights I had gone into the woods to meet Ichabod, and the things I had feared and fancied I’d seen and heard. I tried to clear my mind of all the things I’d written in the book now resting in the basket I carried: the Woman in White of Raven Rock; Major Andre’s ghost; the ghostly rower on the Hudson, and so many more. And, of course, the one story I still had yet to write down, the one that haunted my entire life: the legend of the Headless Horseman.
Yet the more I thought about the Horseman, the more my fear faded, and the more I almost—almost—wished he would appear. He might as well save me some time and show himself.
I made my way purposefully along the path; my feet somehow knowing the way despite having only walked there once. Is this where Ichabod rode that night? I wondered. Is Ichabod guiding me to the truth at last? Or is it someone—or something—else?
My ears stayed perked for the sound of hooves, for a horse’s whinny, and my eyes peered into the dark shadows for a glint of orange and flame through the branches. But there was nothing but the wind in the trees, scattering dry leaves as I walked.
When at last I stepped into the clearing, I could not resist a shiver.
The moon—nearly full—floated directly above the clearing, bathing the circle of grass and dirt in a silvery light. It created a spooky scene, with the pale glow casting the shadows of gnarled and bare tree branches against the ground like so many grasping and twisted claws, but I told myself to be glad of the moonlight. It would be easier to see as I went about my task.
I set my basket near the center of the clearing and gathered a bundle of dry twigs and leaves to use as kindling, then dragged over larger branches and logs. I began to sweat slightly beneath my midnight blue dress and cloak.
Fog started to creep in, blanketing the ground as I worked, a remnant of the unseasonably warm day. I shivered again, trying to ignore the feeling of foreboding as I returned to the center of the clearing, having gathered enough firewood.
I withdrew the flint and steel from my basket. I struck it once, twice, three times and got a spark, which quickly caught on the kindling. As the flames grew, I added a few larger branches, and then finally one of the logs.
I waited as the fire blazed higher and higher, shrugging my cloak off and letting it fall to the ground as the heat grew more intense. Next, I withdrew from my basket a bottle of red wine, a silver goblet, and the bottle of herbs I’d taken from the Jansens’ stillroom. Pulling out my book and opening it to the proper page, I consulted the recipe I’d hastily scribbled down, even though I had it well memorized by then. I poured the wine into the goblet, and then opened the herb bottle. Steeling my resolve, I dumped them all in, swirling the mixture in the goblet. I placed it near the edge of the fire to warm the wine before I drank it.
I glanced around the clearing warily, though what I was expecting to see, I wasn’t certain. What wasn’t I expecting to see, really? Any one of the ghosts that haunted Sleepy Hollow might well have appeared to me, from the Woman in White to Mother Hulda to the Headless Horseman to the devil himself. Yet there was nothing and no one there—that I could see—and so I turned my attention back to the task at hand.
I picked up the goblet and, closing my eyes, drank down the warmed contents in several large swallows. The wine hid much of the bitter taste of the herbs. Once I had consumed it all, I waited a few moments for the potion to take effect, then began the ritual.
Deep breaths, in and out, in and out. Calming my body, quieting my mind, slowing my heartbeat. Once I felt sufficiently calm, I opened my eyes again and gazed with focused intensity into the roaring fire.
“Show me,” I said, putting power and breath into my words, forcefully speaking what I had begun to think of as my incantation. “Show me the truth, O flames. Reveal to me the secrets and the truth I seek. Show me, once and for all, what has become of Ichabod Crane.”
I stared into the center of the fire, and almost at once it flared up and opened around me, becoming a dark mirror, a window, into which I could see.
It was different this time; everything was different, and I could not say if it was due to using a blazing fire as my divination tool, or the herbs and wine, or the combination of the two. But rather than seeing shadows and flashes of images, I saw everything, as though I were present on that night two years ago, bearing witness to it all.
Gunpowder galloped down the Albany Post Road, Ichabod astride him. I saw his face, at long last, and as he turned to look over his shoulder at something behind him, I almost cried out at the sight of him after so long. I was shocked to realize I had not remembered his face exactly as it was; his features were a bit sharper than in my memory, his ears bigger, his hair just a shade lighter. His eyes, though, I had not forgotten, for I saw them every day on my daughter’s face.
Yet then I shifted my attention to what Ichabod looked at so fearfully: a rider, astride a mammoth black horse, directly behind him. Chasing him. I struggled to hold back a gasp, so as not to break the vision, as I beheld the rider: for above the collar of his jacket, where his head should be, was nothing. On the pommel of his horse was a pumpkin, carved with a grimacing face.
It was the Headless Horseman, more real than he had ever appeared in any dream or nightmare I’d had in all my life. I was seeing him; Ichabod was seeing him, too.
Ichabod urged Gunpowder on, though it seemed the old horse was already running as fast as his legs would allow. They sped on, pursued by the ghostly rider, approaching the church and the bridge that spanned the stream near it. Ichabod leaned down closer to Gunpowder’s neck, urging him on ever faster, and his hooves made a hollow sound as they pounded against the wooden planks of the bridge. The Hessian’s horse let out a whinny, and it reared up. I watched the Horseman pick up the pumpkin and hurl it straight at Ichabod.
The pumpkin collided with his head, taking off his hat and nearly knocking him from his horse. Somehow he managed to keep his seat, even as his hat and the pumpkin went tumbling into the stream. Gunpowder, panicking, took off through the churchyard. Ichabod tried desperately to guide him back onto the road, but the Horseman followed close behind and Gunpowder, spooked, would only run forward, away, trying to escape.
They plunged onto the path through the woods behind the church. Some of what I now saw I had seen before. I heard the hoof beats, heard the whinny of the black horse.
Suddenly, the Headless Horseman’s coat shifted down. He now had a head. His blond hair glinted through the darkness as he leaned forward in his saddle, urging his horse on. As he moved into a shaft of moonlight, I saw his face, and the shock that tore through me was even greater than when I had seen what I thought was the Headless Horseman, for I had been expecting him.
I had not been expecting Brom.
Ichabod did not duck in time to avoid a low tree branch, and he was knocked clean out of his saddle. Gunpowder whinnied in surprise, yet without the burden of his rider he increased his pace, tearing onward through the trees and brush and out of sight.
On foot now, Ichabod ran, running for his life, looking somewhat dazed from the blow he’d suffered, and I wondered if he knew it was Brom Bones chasing him, or if he still thought it was the Headless Horseman, straight out of the legend I’d told him that day as we’d walked back from our sheltered spot by the stream.
As Ichabod ran on, the path through the trees narrowed, and the branches came down too low for a mounted rider. Brom pulled up his horse—whom I now recognized as Daredevil—who whinnied in surprise and protest, rearing up. For a second I thought that was it; that Brom, having had his fun and played his joke and scared off his rival, would cease and turn back. That this was the end; that Ichabod had simply been too desperately frightened to return to Sleepy Hollow.
Yet the terrifying scene was far from over. Brom leaped down from his own saddle and, leaving Daredevil waiting obediently on the path, started after his quarry on foot.
They ran along the path, in another scene I recognized from my very first vision: two men in shadow, one chasing the other through the trees, breathing heavily as they ran. Ichabod let out a wordless shout of fear and panic. The knot of anxiety in my chest was unbearable as they burst out into the clearing, the same one where I now sat in body, watching the scene in the flames.
Ichabod halted, whirling around, looking for another pathway out, and I wondered if he recognized the clearing from the tale I’d told him of the Horseman. Yet whether he did or not, his hesitation proved a grave error, for then Brom was upon him.
Brom seized him from behind, wrapping one beefy arm around his throat, trying to drag him to the ground. The force of Brom’s attack proved too much for Ichabod, who dropped to his knees, disturbing the fog that covered the ground. Yet once on the ground Brom’s hold must have loosened somewhat, for Ichabod was able to slip away and crawl toward the trees, back to the path, scrambling to get back on his feet. Brom was upon him again, tackling him and knocking him flat. Ichabod struggled, but Brom had hold of his jacket collar and arm, and dragged him to the edge of the clearing, flinging him up against a large tree. “What are you doing, Van Brunt?” Ichabod yelled, the sound of his voice a bullet piercing my heart. “Let me go! What in hell are you—”
Brom silenced him by striking him across the face, hard. It took everything in me not to cry out, not to break the vision, though a part of me wanted to end it here and not see what came next.
Brom hit him again, and Ichabod let out a groan of pain, blood now pouring from his nose. Brom punched him one last time and his lip split, more blood trickling out as he slumped against the tree trunk, no longer able to try to escape.
“How dare you,” Brom hissed, breathing heavily. “How dare you come here and take what belongs to me.”
Ichabod groaned. “No,” he denied sluggishly. “I don’t know…”
“Katrina,” Brom said. “Katrina. She was supposed to be mine, and you took her.”
Ichabod tried, with a shaky hand, to wipe the blood from his face. “I love her,” he said, his voice thick. “And she loves me.”
Even more enraged now, Brom reached to his side and, in a near blur, unsheathed a dagger that was strapped there, one I had not seen before. The sound that had haunted me, in both visions and dreams for two years, now rang out. I was vaguely aware of tears streaming down my face.
“No,” Ichabod protested, seeing the dagger and seeing what Brom surely meant to do. “No—”
Yet in one swift movement, Brom brought his arm back and plunged the dagger into Ichabod’s gut.
I screamed. I screamed so loudly it tore at my throat, and I did not know whether I would ever be able to speak again. I did not care. I could not care about anything else ever again.
Ichabod’s eyes snapped to mine, to where I stood watching the macabre, chilling scene play out. His beautiful, wide green eyes, just like his daughter’s, widened, and I knew he could see me. Somehow, that night, he had seen me. He opened his mouth, and blood poured from it. “Katrina…” he gasped.
This only incensed Brom further, however. He withdrew the dagger and plunged it in again, and then one more time, his head thrown back, as if even he could not bear to watch what he was doing.
I screamed again and again, the vision fading around me. The last thing I saw were Ichabod’s eyes, still locked on mine, go dark and empty as he breathed his last, blood still trickling from his mouth.
I was still screaming when the fire spit me back out. My voice echoed back to me from the surrounding trees, the fog. “Ichabod! No! No! No!” I collapsed to the ground, sobbing so hard I could not breathe, my hair dragging in the dirt. I screamed and cried and thought that I would never stop.
He is dead. Dead, and Brom killed him. Murdered him. I am married to the murderer of my true love, the father of my child.
And the last word he ever spoke was my name.
I could not bear it. I wanted to die as well, right where I lay, did not want to open my eyes to the sight of the clearing where Ichabod had died, did not want to wonder which tree had absorbed his blood. I prayed, begged, bargained, asking whatever spirits or goblins or demons that could hear me to come take my life right there, so I did not need to face the rest of my life with this truth I now carried within me, heavier than gold or lead or sin or death.
The sharp whinny of a horse shattered the silence like glass.
I sat up, thinking my wish was going to be answered. That the Headless Horseman was coming for me.
I sat up, screaming again as I saw a figure seated on the other side of the fire, opposite me.
But it was not the Headless Horseman.
It was Charlotte.