It is said by some to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball …
– “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
When I got to Caspian’s mausoleum, he was inside reading a book by candlelight. I was so happy to see him that I couldn’t stop a huge smile from taking over my face. It would be even better when I could finally touch him.
“Got your note,” I said.
He put the book down onto the floor. “Hey, beautiful. How was school?”
I moved toward the wrought iron bench that sat against the wall nearest me. Shrugging off my book bag along the way, I replied, “It was fine.”
He came and sat next to me.
“They put us all on lockdown for half the day because a car backfired outside and someone thought it was shots being fired. But other than that, nothing exciting.”
I leaned forward and let my head hang down, hair cascading around my hands. Scrunching up my fingers, I gently massaged my scalp. “They reassigned Kristen’s locker to a new girl,” I said quietly. “Cyn.”
“How was she?” he asked.
“She was nice, I guess. But she thought Kristen was still alive because I mentioned it being her locker.”
“Awkward.”
“Yeah.”
Caspian got up for a minute, and when he returned, there was something behind his back. “Speaking of …”
He held out a drawing to me.
It was Kristen. A drawing of Kristen. In her favorite red corset shirt and hippie-style jeans.
“How did you …?” I said.
“I saw you guys in the cemetery last year. This is what she wore, right?”
I nodded and took the drawing from him, stroking the outline of her face. Cheekbones, jawline, eyes … Everything was right. Even in her black-and-white world, he had captured Kristen’s vivacity. It was there, in the slight tilt of her chin, the excited look in her eyes, the way she stood. Happy and ready to experience anything.
“It’s beautiful, Caspian,” I said. “Absolutely beautiful. It’s her. She’s here. Now she’s always here.”
And then I burst into tears. Huge, racking sobs that rolled and shuddered through my body.
“Hey,” Caspian said. “Hey, Astrid. It’s okay. Don’t …”
He moved closer, but he couldn’t hold me. Couldn’t put his arms around me, or move my hair back away from my face. Instead he just did the best thing he could. He let me cry.
“I can’t believe she’s really gone,” I said through my tears. “It was my first day … alone … and her locker …” I cried harder. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t be me without her. I don’t know who I am … or what I am. I’m empty. Just a shell.”
Caspian leaned in close to my ear. His voice was low and soft. I had to slow my breathing to catch what he was saying. “You’re not empty. You’re strong and smart and talented, Abbey. Kristen will always be with you, but she’s not who you are. You’re Abbey. Just Abbey. Without Kristen, yes, but that’s okay. That’s what makes you unique.”
I gripped the drawing and looked up at him. “Kiss me,” I said suddenly. Desperately. “Please. Please, somehow … just find a way to kiss me.”
Sorrow filled his eyes. And heartbreak echoed in his voice. “I’m sorry, love. I can’t.”
Sighing, I leaned back against the bench. Defeat made me weary. Every bone in my body was tired. This was so hard. … “I know,” I said softly.
We sat in silence for a while, in that close space with death surrounding us, until he said, “Tell me your best memory of her.”
But I couldn’t choose just one. So I talked until I couldn’t remember any more.
The next day was better. And worse. Caspian took me to a movie to try to cheer me up. Of course there wasn’t any popcorn sharing or make-out sessions during the boring parts, but for two hours I got to pretend to be almost normal.
It was all just a dream, though. A fantasy. Gone as soon as the credits rolled and the lights came on.
“I bet they don’t even realize how lucky they are,” I said under my breath, glancing back as we walked out of the theater and passed a particularly obnoxious girl who was swallowing her boyfriend’s tongue. “They have no idea how much they take for granted.”
We walked past another couple who looked like they were two seconds away from public nudity. “Get a room,” I growled.
The girl looked up at me and glared, which just made me madder. “Jealous?” she sneered.
Ignoring her, I kept walking. But I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.
“It’s not fair,” I said angrily to Caspian, not even realizing that my tone was growing louder. “They have everything. Right in front of them. But do they appreciate it? No. They just keep acting like they have the right to do whatever they want, while some of us don’t even have the chance to-”
Someone bumped into me.
“Sorry,” a voice said. A voice that I recognized.
I turned around. “Cyn?”
“Hey, Abbey.”
She had a funny look on her face. Like she’d just witnessed something horrible and didn’t know what to do about it. “Are you …,” she started. And then that funny look came back.
“Am I what?”
Caspian moved next to me.
“Were you talking to someone?” She looked around, clearly trying to find the person that I’d come with, and for just a moment her eyes rested where Caspian was standing, before returning to mine.
“No. I wasn’t talking to anyone. Maybe it was someone else?” I lied.
“Are you here alone?”
“Yeah.” Lie number two. “You?”
“Same.”
An awkward silence fell between us, and I didn’t want to think too much about what level of crazy she might be grouping me into. I started to shift my position, to change my stance so that it was clear I was leaving.
She moved too. “My movie’s gonna start. See you later.”
I nodded, and we parted ways. When we were clear of the theater, Caspian asked, “Was that the girl from school who took Kristen’s locker?”
“Yup. Just another person who probably thinks I’m crazy now. Wonderful.”
He gave me a supportive smile. “She doesn’t think that. And you’re not crazy.”
I smiled back at him, but I couldn’t agree. Because deep down I still wasn’t entirely sure.
It was later that night when I realized that the picture of Kristen that Caspian had drawn for me wasn’t lying down on my desk like I’d left it, but instead was standing up on my dresser.
“Did you do that?” I asked, pointing to the drawing.
“Do what?”
“Put the picture there. I left it lying down, by my computer. Not on the dresser.”
He glanced at it. “I didn’t touch it. Did you move it so you could see it better?”
“No.” I shook my head vehemently. “I left it lying down. By my monitor. Wait …” I remembered something different. “Maybe I left it on top of the printer.”
I looked back and forth between the two. Did I move it? Or had someone else? Someone like Vincent …
“I could have sworn I left it lying down,” I said. “I just can’t remember if it was on the printer or by the monitor. But I know it was lying down. Not standing up. And definitely not standing up on my dresser.”
I stared at it.
Am I going crazy? Did I leave the picture where it is now? Maybe Mom moved it …
Caspian interrupted me midthought. “Do you still want to read chapter five?”
“Yeah. Go ahead.” I shook my head. “It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”
He looked doubtful but grabbed Jane Eyre. I settled into bed and pulled the covers up. Lying down, or standing up, who cared where the picture was?
But I couldn’t stop the sense of foreboding that was creeping over me.
In the dream, tree limbs held me down, and I thrashed from side to side to get free. Another one reached for my hair and whipped it out of my face, tangling it in wild snarls. I opened my mouth to scream. Felt my vocal chords stretch. And then break.
I tried harder. Arms straining, chest heaving, I screamed and screamed with everything inside of me. But there was nothing left.
Suddenly the world tilted. Or rather, I was tilting. Being lifted straight up.
My arms were still held down at my sides, yet I was floating in midair. My feet barely touched the ground. I was a strange minuet, with tree limbs as my strings.
“Watch,” the forest whispered, all around me. “Learn.”
The scene before me cleared, a path appeared. There was a figure dressed in black, flashing in and out of the trees as he ran. His hair changed from white-blond to black, and then back again.
Even without seeing his face, I knew who it was. Vincent.
As if my thoughts had called his name, he turned and grinned at me. His face was a horrible mask of features carved from stone. White and dried-out as bits of bleached rock. Only his eyes were alive-dark, burning coals of twin fire sunk deep into their sockets.
He kept running. Didn’t break his stride, and I struggled to see who or what he was chasing. A gap in the trees revealed another figure, and shock came when I saw the black ball gown and dark, curly hair.
It was me.
He was chasing me.
My throat opened again, trying to force some sound out beyond the constricted airways, but the result was the same as before. Nothing.
Horror filled my veins, and I watched the other me slip back among the branches. Racing. Desperately racing for her life.
One last flash of color caught my eye before everything went dark.
A flame of red. Impossibly deep red hair.
“Abbey. Abbey, wake up.”
Caspian called my name, and I opened my eyes, still seeing the color red in front of me. I thrashed my arms. They were trapped at my sides, tangled in the sheets.
“Easy,” he said. “Easy. Are you okay? You were screaming in your sleep.”
I freed myself and sat up. Trying desperately to remember where I was, my eyes locked with his, and then it all clicked into place. A dream. Just a dream.
“I’m fine,” I said. “It was nothing.”
“It didn’t look like nothing. What happened?”
“I was being held down in a forest by some trees. And I think they were talking to me?” I shook my head. “I can’t remember. But I saw something red …” I glanced over at the picture of Kristen. My heart started to pound again, and my hands grew shaky.
I knew without a doubt that Vincent had been here. He had moved it just to mess with my head.
“What can I do?” Caspian said.
I didn’t know what he could do. I couldn’t explain what was happening to me.
“Do you want some water?” he asked. “A blanket?”
“Just give me a minute.” I tried to breathe deeply. Tried to make everything go back to normal. “Actually, I think I will take that water,” I said.
Caspian moved to get up.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
“I’ll get it.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind.”
“I know. But I want to stretch my legs.”
He nodded, and I got up slowly, limbs quivering like a fragile dandelion stem blowing in the wind. The bathroom felt like it was miles away, and my hand was still shaking as I turned on the light. Gripping the edges of the sink, I stared into the mirror, searching the eyes that looked back at me. There weren’t any answers there, though. Only a cool blue reflection.
I turned on the water and cupped my hands together, bringing the cold, crisp taste to my lips. My cheeks were deathly pale, but the water I splashed turned them bright pink. When my legs felt more stable, and my hands were calm, I ventured out of the bathroom. Caspian was waiting by the door for me.
“Maybe you should switch rooms,” he suggested.
“Why?”
“Because of what happened here. You never really dealt with it, Abbey. You just moved on.”
I sat down on the bed. “Isn’t that what people are supposed to do?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “All I know is that you came back to the place where you were attacked, and now you’re having nightmares. It sounds like a problem with a simple solution to me.”
“I know I’m sounding like a broken record here, but I’m fine. Really. Me having weird dreams is nothing new. It’s no big deal.”
He looked at me sternly. “I’m worried about you, Astrid. I only want what’s best.”
“I know you do. But if I give up my bedroom, then it’s like he’s won. I don’t want to give him that power over me.”
Caspian nodded. “I get it.”
I glanced around the room, feeling antsy and restless. It was early, only 5:19 a.m., but I didn’t want to go back to sleep. Spying my oversize sweatpants lying next to the bed, I got up and pulled them on right over the pajama bottoms I was wearing. My sneakers were there too, and I reached for them next.
“What are you doing?” Caspian asked.
“Going for a walk. Wanna come?”
“Of course. Call me crazy, but staying here as my girlfriend roams around outside in the dark while some crazed supernatural being stalks her isn’t my idea of a good time. Where are we going?”
I walked over to the window and cracked it open. “To the cemetery. I want to see Nikolas.”
The moon was almost full as we slipped through the side opening of the wrought iron cemetery gates, and it illuminated the grassy roads that covered the vast grounds in front of us. Once we got away from the main path, we headed for the woods that would lead us to Nikolas and Katy’s house.
It was a bit creepy walking through the dark forest where the foliage started to grow denser, the tree branches thicker. Springy ferns and wild moss pressed in on us from every angle, and I tried not to think about the dream I’d just had about Vincent.
“I wonder what would have happened if I’d never heard of ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,’” I mused out loud to Caspian, trying to distract myself as we walked toward their house. “The town I grew up in, the school I went to, the places I visited? It’s like all along, this was meant to be. My whole life was building up to this.”
“To what?”
“You. Me. Nikolas. Katy. I mean, who could have guessed that the legend would be real and I’d meet the characters from Washington Irving’s story?” I shook my head. “It’s funny. Good funny. Not bad funny.”
A small wooden bridge came into view, but I came to a stop before crossing it.
“What’s wrong?” Caspian asked.
“Do you think it’s too early? What if they’re sleeping?”
“Do they sleep?”
“I … don’t know.”
But I started walking again. I had the strongest urge to see Nikolas, to ask him if he knew what was going on with Vincent or the Revenants, and to try to make some sense out of things.
We crossed the bridge, and when the familiar stone walls and thatched roof of their storybook cottage came into view, I wanted to break into a run. It was like coming home after a long trip.
Wisteria grew in a massive vine of trailing purple flowers and green leaves over the stone chimney on the left of the wooden front door, and it looked like Katy had been busy filling the front yard with new plants.
“I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about whether or not Nikolas is sleeping,” Caspian said, and I turned back to face him.
“Why? How do you know?”
He pointed over my shoulder. “Because there he is.”
I turned around. Nikolas was coming from the back of the house. He lifted his hand in a wave, and I returned the gesture, closing the gap between us.
“Nikolas! It’s so good to see you!” I gave him a hug, thrilled that he was still here and still safe. I didn’t know what was going on with Vincent, but just knowing that Nikolas was okay made me feel so much better.
His weathered face broke into a smile as he beamed down at me. “How are you feeling? Any ill effects from the incident with Vincent?”
“Oh, no, everything’s fine. I had to wear a sling on my arm for a while, but now I’m as good as new.”
“I am glad to hear it,” Nikolas said. Then he nodded at Caspian. “I am also glad to see that things have improved for you since our last visit.”
“Me too,” Caspian said. “Hopefully we won’t be seeing our nasty friend again.”
Nikolas’s face darkened. “I am sorry I could not be there, Abbey. It pains me that I am bound to this place.”
“Your house?” I said absentmindedly. “I wouldn’t mind being bound here.”
“I am talking about the cemetery,” he replied. “Katy and I cannot leave it.”
I shifted my weight from foot to foot. “It’s fine. Everything was, um, handled.” I glanced down. Now that I was here, I didn’t know what I really wanted to say. What was I looking for?
Caspian must have realized what I was feeling, because he said, “Is Katy inside?”
“She is,” Nikolas replied.
“Then, I think I’m going to say hello,” he said.
I shot him a grateful smile. “Thanks,” I whispered.
He winked at me and then whispered back, “Just don’t leave me in there too long, okay?”
I nodded, and he went inside the house.
Scuffing my toe in the grass, I tried to sort out my thoughts. “So … what are you doing up so late?” I asked Nikolas. “Or early. I guess you could be up early?”
He chuckled. “A little of both. What about you? This is an early time for a visit.”
“Couldn’t sleep. I’ve been having bad dreams so I thought maybe a walk here would help.” I didn’t want to talk about the dreams, though, so I said, “What’s it like for you and Katy to sleep? Do you even sleep? Caspian said that it’s a strange, almost dark place for him. Is it the same for you?”
He nodded. “We rest, but our bodies don’t need sleep the same way they did when we were alive.”
“Does time move fast for you guys too? How different is it for you and Katy compared to Caspian? What’s a day for me can be a week, or even a month, for him if he falls into the dark place.”
“It has been so long since I was a part of the living world that I have simply forgotten what normal time is,” he said. “But yes, whole lifetimes can pass by in the blink of an eye.”
“I wish school would pass by in the blink of an eye,” I muttered.
Nikolas laughed. “Are you not happy at school?”
“No teenager is happy at school.” I sighed heavily. “It’s a painful experience.”
He smiled.
“Speaking of …” I hesitated, then blurted out, “Does it hurt? When you die … what does it feel like?”
He didn’t say anything, and I thought that this was it. I’d found the one thing that he would not answer. But then he surprised me.
“Dying was the easy part,” he said evenly. “One moment I was there with my horse, preparing for battle, and the next, I was sitting on the ground. My horse was gone and so was everything else around me. Much time must have passed.”
“It was that way for Caspian, too,” I murmured.
“I did not understand what had happened to me at first,” he said. “But eventually I learned. I thought I was trapped in purgatory as a specter, cursed to roam the land as punishment for my wicked deeds in life.”
“So the dying part didn’t actually hurt?”
“For me, no. It did not.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “That’s good to know. What about the Revenants? When they helped you and Katy to be completed, did it hurt?”
Now he looked uncomfortable.
“Abbey …” He started and then stopped, pausing long enough to look back over my shoulder, into the woods. “I know that you are looking for answers, but I cannot tell you everything.”
“Why not?” I asked. “You’ve been in my position before. You know what’s going to happen.”
“All I can say is that I do not know everything. It is different for each of us. And particularly now …”
“Now what?”
“Now that Vincent has interrupted the process, I am uncertain what will be done.”
His words took a minute to register. “Uncertain … Wait, do you mean that there’s a chance I won’t get to be with Caspian?” Panic filled me at the thought, and I reached out a desperate hand. “That’s not true, right?” I pleaded. “Tell me it’s not true!”
“I cannot say,” he replied. “It is not my place to make that decision.”
“But I need to know! I need to-”
The sound of a door opening interrupted us, and Caspian came out of the house. “I think it’s time to go,” he said. “Your parents might freak out if they wake up and find you’re not home.”
“Good point,” I said, then turned back to Nikolas. “I’m sorry if it sounded like I was getting upset with you. I’m just frustrated by … uncertainty.”
“It is understandable,” he said, patting my arm. “Come back to visit us again soon. We are always delighted to have your company.”
Realizing that I wasn’t going to be getting any more answers to my questions, I nodded. “I will. Bye, Nikolas.”
I turned toward the woods, and Caspian followed behind me.
Once we were far enough away from the cottage, he asked, “How did it go?”
How did it go? I don’t know. “Nikolas didn’t have any answers for me,” I said eventually.
“Answers about what?”
“Everything. Nothing. He wouldn’t say. How did things go for you?” I asked.
“Fantastic. Katy and I talked about knitting patterns. I now know the difference between a purl stitch and a cross-stitch.”
The expression on his face was so comical that I was glad to have something else to talk about on the way home. Now I was even more confused than when I’d first gotten here.