Washington Irving got it wrong. I don’t know what secondhand version of Katrina Van Tassel’s story he heard, but it was all wrong. Oh, he got the names right: Ichabod Crane. Brom Bones. The Headless Horseman. But he left out the important parts of the story—the parts that matter most.
When I was a young woman, if you had told me that the man I loved and I, and the men who loved me, would one day be as much a part of Sleepy Hollow’s lore as the Horseman himself, I would have laughed. I had no concept, then, of how deeply my actions affected those around me. I was selfish. I could not see beyond my own life, my own struggles, beyond the tale I was trying so desperately to write for myself. But isn’t it so for everyone?
Charlotte knew, I think, even back then. In some corner of her mind, she recognized that our story would last and grow beyond us, taking on a life of its own. It is a story that forgot her entirely, forgot the enormous part she played in everything that happened, though often I think that that is how she wished it. She made sure her part would be forgotten.
The appeal of this legend should not surprise me. After all, why should the story—my story—not be one for the ages? It has everything that a grand, epic tale should have, even if the details have been lost: a romance between a handsome hero and a beautiful heroine, a jealous rival, loyal friendship, music, ghosts and demons, magic, and murder most foul.
I have let the wounds from that long-ago time heal, letting the ghosts die and lie in their graves. I had to. It was the only way I could go on.
And yet I will tell the tale all the same, because I would have the true story known at last. For all these years, the truth has been known only to two souls living. But I have kept it inside long enough. Now you, too, will know the truth.