Murmurs and nods greeted this gentle prompt, and the group, Esmie included, followed the faux Merel Vinke back into the house through the back kitchens and over into a side room that had been turned into the gift shop.
“Here we are. Thank you for being such a lovely crowd. Have a beautiful day, and if you’re ever back this way, please remember us and come back to see us. Thank you.”
With that, Esmie guessed she’d been patient long enough and turned for the bookshelf. As was perhaps inevitable, theWashington Irving biography andThe Legend of Sleepy Hollowwere prominently displayed, but after a moment’s perusal, she foundThe Diary of Merel Vinkeand took it to the sales desk. It was $14.95, and this little trip was putting a severe dent in her emergency funds, but needs must. And she needed this.
Then, she took her purchase to the farmer’s market, bought a sandwich, an apple crisp pastry, and an apple cider, and found a picnic table as far away from anyone else as she could get. There, she opened the book and began to read. The handwriting was indeed spidery and elegant, but the photocopies were of excellent quality, crisp and clear.
She flipped through the years until 1790, then slowed down through the summer until she finally reached October 13th, 1790. She bent over the table, eyes scanning the page intently. She murmured softly to herself as she slowly deciphered the flowy script.
“The most wonderfully strange thing happened this day. The battle rages on, of course, but Father says I can do nothing about that. He’s wrong. A soldier’s horse stumbled out of the woods today. I know it is a soldier’s horse because it was shot full of holes. The poor beast was half dead when I saw him, but he allowed me to lead him to the barn, where I bathed him and applied salve to the wounds and bandaged the worst ones that still bled. He drank water until he was sick, then drank still more. Then, he slept.
“I hesitate to add this part.” Esmie leaned closer to the page, as if she could absorb the text through osmosis. “It is the most ghastly thing. A horrid object was attached to the saddle. I cannot say what it was. Just know that it was unspeakable. I have hidden this awful thing in the most holy place I know so its horror cannot affect us.
“I shall check the horse’s wounds in the morning—” She cut herself off and reread the earlier bits. “The most ghastly thing.That has to be the head. It was attached to the saddle. No one who didn’t know it was the Horseman’s horse would even know….” She looked up from the book, a headache starting behind her eyes from the strain of reading the spidery text. “All this time. Unbelievable. But where is the most holy place?”
She took a bite of her apple crisp pastry, then paused in her chewing. She knew. Of course she knew.
Just like she knew it would be impossible to inspect there, let alone possibly dig, if necessary, in the Now. Dammit.
So much for showing up in the Between with the head in hand.
Grumbling, she ate her pastry and drank her cider. She had a lot of time to kill before she had to be foolhardy and alone in the midnight hour by the abandoned church in the wood.
9
Esmie read Merel’s diary twice, just to be absolutely sure she wasn’t missing anything obvious, grabbed another sandwich from the farmer’s market and drank her Gatorade, then ordered an Uber to deliver her to the Dollar General on the edge of town, less than two miles from where she needed to be. She’d walk the rest of the way.
Taking her time, she strolled through the dark with her phone’s flashlight shining the way. Moonlight glowed through the lattice of tree branches overhead, creating intricate patterns on the asphalt at her feet. She looked up and saw the occasional twinkle of stars through the trees and smiled softly. It was a lovely night, cool and crisp, but not cold enough to need a full-on coat. She did have her gloves on, but she wasn’t truly cold. A playful breeze occasionally lifted the leaves from the pavement and danced them around her feet. Beautiful.
And she was alone in the dark. The conditions would be right.
Smiling wider, she quickened her step, looking for the old wooden rail fence she’d climbed through which bordered the field around the old church. She missed the guys. She couldn’twait to tell them she knew where the Horseman’s head was and watch their reactions. Almost forty years of curse could end tonight, and she’d be there to see it, to celebrate it with them.
And to end her own curse, too, of course. She needed to get back to her own life.
Ah, there was the fence. She squeezed between the two rails, then hurried across the overgrown field, holding one hand out to touch the tops of the high grass growing all around. It tickled her gloveless palm, and she caught herself thinking the guys might be able to feel this sensation again tonight. They couldn’t in their Now state because they were just bones under their gloves, and they wouldn’t likely in their Between state because the grass in the Between was… subpar. Not dead, but not lively like this.
Her light picked out the crumbled corner where the church used to stand, and she turned to sit on it, then checked her phone. 11:47 PM. Not bad, but she’d hoped to be later. She had to kill time now, and it was too dark to read the diary again. Even with her phone’s light and a nearly full battery, the script was too flowy to decipher without good, strong, full light.
Sitting there quietly, she thought about the diary, about the head, about how amazing it was that the Horseman’s horse had somehow made it all the way from the battlefield to the Vinke estate at all, let alone with the head all but stapled to his saddle with shrapnel. Then, her mind slipped a little to Chad’s strong arm holding her tight against him while they rode through the tumult of the crossing again to bring her back to the Now. How she’d felt so secure, so safe, even as she’d felt the muscle turn to bone against her as they passed between moments.
Weird thing to think about right now, though. Shaking her head, she looked at her phone. 11:52 PM. Ugh. She hated waiting. Jerome would have about a thousand snarky things to say about how much he hated waiting for anything. Or he’d have a movie reference about it from some old Eighties movie she’dnever heard of. She grinned. She could definitely do with a laugh right about now.
Or a sweet comment from Aaron about how well she’d done to find the head’s actual hiding place when she’d gone into the Now with nothing more than an inkling about plat maps. She couldn’t wait to kiss his pumpkin cheek and hear him be proud of her. She didn’t get that from anyone but Tavia and her mom. Her T.A. professor certainly didn’t bother doling out compliments. Nor did her bosses.
Sighing, she looked at her phone again. 11:58. Nearly there. She just had to be patient for two more minutes. Less than two minutes. She glanced up at the sky just as a wisp of cloud wafted over the moon, veiling it slightly. That checked a box, too. Almost midnight. She was alone. Cloud across the moon. She was foolhardy enough to be pining for the company of a bunch of undead headless guys who’d shanghai-ed her into the Between and halfway across the country.
Check, check, check, check.
In the distance, she saw a flicker, and her heartbeat kicked up. Was that--?
Another flicker, dancing in the dark. Not green. Not fireflies. Surely, it was?—
Yes, it was! There was the third flicker, and she heard the laughter, deep but hollow, like skulls falling down an empty well, and she shot to her feet and ran toward them as the lights started weaving around each other. Horse hooves. She heard horse hooves pounding deep in the ground.
“I’m here!” she called into the night, turning on her phone’s flashlight and waving it crazily. “I’m here, guys! I came back, like I promised!”
The laughter turned into whoops and hollers, the weaving of the lights clarifying into delicate flames being tossed back and forth. Jack o’lantern heads, she knew, and she laughedbreathlessly as she ran, waving her phone and doing little leaps in the tall grass.
