Once Anneke was again fast asleep, I went back into my bedroom to find Nancy waiting for me.
“What on God’s green earth is all the racket?” she demanded. “Where is Brom? What…” Her eyes widened as she caught sight of me, my eyes red, my expression devastated, and with dirt and mud still streaked on my face, in my hair, my clothing. She paled. “Good Lord, Katrina,” she whispered. “What has happened?”
I began shaking again. “He … he killed him. Brom killed him.”
“Who?” Nancy asked, though from the look on her face she already knew.
“Ichabod Crane,” I whispered.
She wordlessly vanished from the room, returned later with a basin of warm water. She propelled me to sit on the edge of the bed, and I did so obediently, like a child. She dipped a cloth into the water and began to clean my face, wiping away the dirt as I continued to weep.
Afterward, she put me in a clean shift and tucked me into bed as though I were as small as Anneke. “Sleep now,” she said, kissing me on the forehead. “Sleep. The world will look brighter in the morning.”
“The world is all darkness,” I whispered. If she heard me, she did not respond, only went silently out, closing the door behind her.
Nox, having finally been allowed into the room, jumped onto the bed and, after licking my face, curled up close beside me. It was the first night since Anneke had been born that he had not slept outside her door. He knew, in that strange and uncanny and wonderful way that dogs have, that I needed him more just then.
I wrapped my arms around his warm, furry body, unable to stop trembling. I would not be able to sleep that night.
Now that the noise outside of me had quieted, I could hear Charlotte’s voice inside my head, repeating over and over. Do you feel at peace? Do you feel at peace?
Peace was the last thing I felt. I recalled, too, Nancy saying to me, before I’d left—a different woman, a lifetime ago—there might be some things I would be better off not knowing. I had scoffed. I had not believed her. I had thought nothing could be worse than not knowing what had happened to Ichabod.
But this was worse. Much worse.
I could never escape this knowledge, never outrun it. I could never forget that the one man I ever loved had been murdered in cold blood because I loved him. Because he loved me.
He was dead because of me.
If Ichabod had never come to Sleepy Hollow, if we had never fallen in love … if I had denied him, denied my own feelings, refused to act upon them, as a well-brought up young lady ought, then he would still be alive. I had killed him as surely as if it had been my hand that plunged the dagger into his body.
To think there had been a time when I thought Ichabod leaving me was the worst thing that could have happened. What a fool I had been. What I wouldn’t have given for that to be the truth I now faced.
And I was bound for life to Ichabod’s murderer. Fitting, I suppose, since I was his murderer as well. Brom’s lust and ambition had brought us to this, and now we both had blood staining us, a veritable Lord and Lady Macbeth. I would go mad like her, unable to forget the blood on my hands; doomed to wander the halls crying, Out, spot!
But the desire for power was what was supposed to bring one to a bad end. Not love. Never love.
It was not fair. It was simply not fair.
I began to cry again, quietly.
For the first time in two years, I thought of Ichabod’s last words to me, what he said before he had left the farmhouse on All Hallows’ Eve night.
All will be well.
I began to sob harder. How wrong he had been. Nothing had been well since that moment, nor ever would be again.
Do you feel at peace?
To think, that I had ever thought such knowledge could bring me peace.
* * *
I must have slept at some point, if only because my body could no longer stay awake. When I awoke, sunlight was peeking through the curtains. It was much later than I usually rose. And there were a few brief, blissful moments in which I did not remember. But all too soon, my hideous new reality invaded my mind once again.
I got out of bed, moving like an old woman, my entire body hurting, and went next door to the nursery. But the crib was empty. Nancy must have gotten Anneke up and dressed and fed, so that I might sleep longer.
I was not about to squander such a gift. I went back to bed and pulled the covers over my head.
“Oh, Ichabod,” I whispered into my pillow, tears leaking from my eyes again. “I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am so sorry.”
And Charlotte. Charlotte had known, and never told me. Yet if there was one blessing the light of day had brought me, it was relief of my anger at her. She had wanted to protect me, she said. And well she might. It had been nice, in hindsight, to have been shielded from the knowledge that Ichabod was dead because of me.
From downstairs, I heard Anneke babble on, and Nancy’s approving voice in response.
A voice inside me whispered: You have your daughter to think of. Ichabod’s daughter. And if you would seek to atone, what better way than to care for her as best you can?
It couldn’t be that easy. I turned over and tried to go back to sleep.