“Definitely.”
“If it’s not too personal, are you, um, seeing anyone? And if you are, do you have to go to a bigger place to visit?”
He grinned. “Yes. And no, because he lives here, too.”
“That’s good. And that must’ve sounded weird, asking you that.”
“Nah,” he said, reassuring. “Are you from a small town?”
“Yes. In Connecticut. But I’m at UConn now.”
“Which definitely opens up the dating pool. It did for Katie when she moved away. I just got lucky.” He switched out the bowl of snacks with one that was full.
“Oh?” Abby tried not to sound too interested in Katie’s dating life.
“Yeah. Binghamton has a much better scene than here. Obviously.”
“That makes sense.”
“She’s not currently seeing anyone that I know of,” he said as he poured a beer. “Plus, she’s picky. How about you?” He looked over at her.
“I don’t really have time to, uh, do that.” Katie wasn’t currently seeing anyone?
“Why not? There’s probably a great scene at UConn.”
“Grad school keeps me busy. Not much time.” She fiddled with the bar napkin.
“Maybe you should re-think your schedule. Have some fun.” He finished with the beer and let it sit under the tap.
“Hmm,” she said, noncommittal.
“A cute thing like you would have lots of options,” he said with a grin.
“Um.” At the moment, there was only one option she’d like to explore.
“Do you know what you’d like?” Gary asked.
Besides Katie? “Veggie burger and fries.” She’d probably end up knowing what this restaurant served by heart by the time she went back to Connecticut. Abby handed the menu back, relieved about the change in subject. As Gary went to the cash register, she thought about the night before, when Katie’s arm wrapped around her waist in the glen, and her lips had been really close to Abby’s ear. That didn’t feel like friend zone. Tonight, however, did.
Maybe the atmosphere in the glen had skewed her perceptions and Katie was just being nice. But at least Abby knew Katie was single. So if something did happen, there wouldn’t be weird drama. But ultimately, why did it matter? She wasn’t here for that, after all. She took her tablet out of her bag along with her keyboard. She needed to flesh out her notes while things were still fresh.
LEGENDS
“Ichabod,” said a woman’s voice from the forest. “Where are you?”
Abby struggled once again with movement, worked to take a step but she couldn’t. Nor could she cry out.
“Ichabod.” A woman emerged from the surrounding trees, wrapped in a dark cloak. “There you are,” she said, and she smiled in the moonlight. Katrina?
Abby looked around for Ichabod, but there was no one else in the glen. The woman closed the space between them and her hand cupped Abby’s cheek, the touch like fire on her skin. “My love, you must go.”
The woman definitely looked like Katrina van Tassel from the painting. “I’m not Ichabod,” Abby tried to say but no words came out. And then she felt a familiar vibration beneath her feet, like a drum. “The horseman,” she tried to say, but the woman didn’t heed her.
“Go,” Katrina said. “Before anyone sees.”
Abby struggled against the forces that kept her moored to this spot, and finally, with a mighty effort, she managed a step and then another. Katrina had disappeared and finally Abby was able to run and she did, through the forest, dodging trees whose branches seemed to reach for her, creaking and straining to contain her. She heard the pounding all around her, and then she burst out of the forest onto a hard-packed road, where she stumbled but caught herself.
“This way.”
Abby whirled toward the voice and froze, confronted by a great black horse a few feet away. The rider on its back was neither headless nor a man. Instead, the woman in the dark cloak gazed down at her. “This way,” she said again, and she spurred the horse in the opposite direction and as Abby watched, Katrina’s frame morphed into a broad-shouldered headless form that drew a sword before the horse leapt into the air and disappeared, like it had jumped through a rip in the night.
“Go, Ichabod. Before they see.”
Katrina stood behind her now. “My love, it’s the only way. Hurry.”
And Abby started to run, like the horseman was after her, and she plunged back into the forest—
—and snapped awake, sweating and shaking.
“Dammit,” she muttered as she sat up in bed. Clearly, she’d allowed herself too much immersion in her subject. And Gary’s story at the pub hadn’t helped, either. She turned the light on next to the bed and got up to go to the bathroom. Afterward, she looked out the window at the quiet street below. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just like last night.
She got back into bed and again watched a movie on her tablet. By the time it was over, she was able to go back to sleep and this time, she imagined the feel of Katie’s arms around her and Katie’s lips on her neck.
Like the previous day, Abby made it to the historical society a half-hour before it opened. She called Lu on her cell, and Lu came and opened the door for her.
“Coffee’s up. Come on back. It’s just me today, though Katie might stop by.”
Abby tried to ignore the thrill she got that Katie could stop by later, but she was not successful. If Katie didn’t, she’d see her later, which gave her even more thrills. She followed Lu into the break room, where Lu poured her a cup of coffee and motioned at the box of donuts. Abby selected a chocolate one and took a bite before she poured half-and-half into her coffee.
“Katie tells me you two came up with several interesting theories about Ichabod’s disappearance.”
“Maybe. They’re just theories.” Small towns, Abby thought. News travels fast.
“But plausible. And if nothing else, they make great fodder for story-telling.” Lu bit into a donut and chewed, a thoughtful expression on her face. “I was a little disappointed that neither of my kids got bitten by the history bug. And actually surprised when it was apparent that Katie was the one who enjoyed it as much as I do. Out of all my nieces and nephews, she wasn’t the one I figured would be interested.”
“Katie’s your niece?” Abby stared at her.
Lu smiled. “She doesn’t generally tell people right off. Katie tends to be a little private at first. Her mother is one of my sisters.”
“So you’re a Van Tassel, too.”
“Yes, though my last name is different. And yes, local history is also family history for me, which might be why I’ve grown so fond of it and this place.”
“A sense of place is important in every story.” Abby finished the donut. “How long has that road been in the glen?”
“You mean the dirt road that takes you through it?”
Abby nodded.
“In its current form, since the 1970s. It was graded over an even older road that wasn’t much more than a couple of wagon wheel tracks. Basically, that route through the glen has been in continuous use for decades. Probably centuries.” The phone rang from the front counter.
“Be right back. What box do you want?”
“Eight.”
“Meet you in the reading room.”
Abby finished her coffee and headed to the reading room, where she waited for Lu to bring up the box she’d requested.
“Here you go,” Lu said as she placed it on the table. “Remember, we’re closing early today.”
“Yep. But you’ll probably have to remind me again.”
Lu laughed and left Abby to the history of Sleepy Hollow.
This time Abby went slowly through the first half of the box, reading through each document carefully. Elizabeth remained a fixture in Katrina’s letters to Johanna and sometime
s in other letters, but in those, Katrina didn’t use the same language. Instead, Elizabeth was a “friend” or “acquaintance.” In letters to Johanna, however, Elizabeth was “dear” and, in one instance, “my heart.”
“Oh, yeah,” Abby said to the document. “You were totally hooking up with Liz.” She opened another folder but didn’t start reading. Instead, she thought about her dream the night before. The woman in the dream had been Katrina, she was sure, because she resembled the portrait. No surprise, then, that her brain had conjured that image up. But why the hell had the dream Katrina called her Ichabod?
She puzzled over that, even though dreams weren’t supposed to make sense. Most likely, because she was a Crane and had been trying to piece together what had happened to her long-dead relative, her brain had simply put her in Ichabod’s place in the dream scenario. After all, she didn’t have a clear image of what he had looked like. Just snippets of descriptions from Katrina’s letters. Plus, she had gotten pretty involved in their history.
It was just the power of suggestion. She started reading through more of Katrina’s correspondence to Johanna. Katrina described a recent horseback trip she’d taken to a neighboring village in the summer of 1800. Katrina had talked about her horseback excursions in other letters, and not only to Johanna. Clearly, Katrina was a skilled rider, since she—Abby stopped reading and stared, unseeing, at the bookshelves. Skilled rider. Katrina.
The night Ichabod disappeared, villagers reported sightings of the horseman. “Right there,” Abby whispered. “It was right there the whole time.” She went back through her notes for the past three boxes. She’d recorded each time Katrina mentioned a horseback ride. Which was fairly often and included long trips, sometimes with descriptions of the feats Katrina engaged in while riding.
It would have been easy for Katrina to dress as the horseman and ride around the glen. She’d been born and raised there and she rode around it all the time. She probably could do it with her vision obscured in a costume designed to make it look like a rider didn’t have a head.
“A diversion,” Abby said to her notes. She wanted to jump up and down at this possibility, but she restrained herself. It made sense. In order to ensure that Ichabod disappeared without anyone noticing, Katrina made an appearance as the horseman. That alone would be enough to keep attention off one guy slipping out of the glen in the dark. She reached for her phone, wanting to text Katie this new idea, but she stopped before she picked it up. Friend zone. She stared at her phone. But they talked all the time about the legend. So why shouldn’t she text her this latest theory? She pulled her hand back. Whatever. She’d see Katie later that evening.
Instead, Abby imagined Katrina getting her outfit ready, preparing to ride that night. The horse didn’t necessarily have to be big and black. It could have been a dark color and that would have been enough to make people think that the Hessian rode again. In her dream from the previous night, Katrina had been on a big, black horse, at least for a moment. Weird, what the subconscious did. Katie had even said that the festival rider was sometimes a woman. She’d said something about how it worked out, because it was all about the illusion.
That’s what Katrina did that night over two centuries ago. She created an illusion to help Ichabod disappear. And Elizabeth was in on it somehow. Finally. This might be a breakthrough in the parts of the legend that had remained hidden to her until this point. Abby wished again that Johanna had kept a really intimate journal and that it was available to researchers. Maybe Lu would find it filed away somewhere. Abby went through another folder. About halfway through, she stopped, struck by another thought. If Katrina was attracted to Ichabod—and her correspondence to Johanna suggested she was—how could she strike up a relationship with Elizabeth so soon after he left? Unless Katrina was doing them both. Abby giggled at the thought of Katrina as an eighteenth-century player.
Lu appeared at the door. “Fifteen minutes before closing.”
Abby looked up, surprised. “Thanks. Glad you reminded me.”
“I have to have reminders, too, when I’m researching. See you in a bit.” She retreated and Abby started putting the files carefully away. When she’d packed the box, she saved her notes and shut down her laptop. A few minutes later she placed the box on the front counter along with her open laptop bag for checking. Lu took the box back to storage and Abby saw that she already had her own bags ready to go.
“Katie tells me she’s taking you to the glen tonight,” Lu said upon her return.
Abby stifled a laugh because it sounded like something a parent might say to a teenager who had a date. “Yes. She, uh, said that she knows some spots where we’ll be able to see the horseman.” She remembered the car with the fogged-up windows from the other night and felt heat on her neck. That would be embarrassing, if Lu caught her blushing. Fortunately, Lu was busy putting some things away under the counter.
“She loves the festival,” Lu said. “Has ever since the first time I took her when she was barely able to walk.” She put her jacket on and placed her bags by the front door. Abby waited for her as Lu set the alarm.
“Is it true that women sometimes ride as the horseman?” She asked outside while Lu locked up.
“Probably.” Lu picked up her bags and started walking. “Nobody knows who the rider is year to year, though we all have our guesses. It adds to the fun, not knowing, so nobody tries too hard to find out. Do you ride?”
“No. Never learned.” Abby matched her pace to Lu’s. Lots of people were out this afternoon. A group of kids across the street laughed and shouted and one chased the others, moaning.
“Katie rode, when she was younger. She enjoyed it, but never wanted to have a horse. Too much work and she enjoyed other sports more.”
“So I guess the people who ride in the festival probably have horses. That would narrow down the identities, wouldn’t it?”
Lu chuckled. “Maybe. Rumor is that some of the riders come from other communities nearby, which, if true, helps with the mystery. But around here, probably half the population has a horse.”
“So you’re saying it would probably be a dead end if I went around trying to find out about the secret horseman society for my dissertation.”
Lu laughed. “Yes, it probably would.”
A group of teenagers rode past in a station wagon, whooping and honking.
“It gets a little exciting around here on festival day,” Lu said, still smiling.
“I can tell.”
“Here’s my turn. Have fun tonight. Hopefully, you’ll see a few things and you can tell me all about them on Monday.”
“Yeah. See you then.” Abby continued walking, enjoying the anticipation percolating beneath the laughter and shouts of kids and teens, already in costume. Local businesses were giving out candy and she smiled, glad that she was here to celebrate, and especially glad that she’d be doing that with Katie. A secret crush was still kind of fun, she decided, even if she was relegated to the friend zone.
In the meantime, she had some time to organize the day’s materials and think further about her latest theory.
“This is pretty good,” Abby conceded after her first bite of the burger.
“Told you.” Katie licked ketchup off her lip, and Abby tore her gaze away. Friend zone, she reminded herself.
They’d managed to score a place to sit on the low wall that surrounded the commemorative obelisk dedicated to the town’s founders. The Van Tassel and Van Brunt names featured prominently. Weird but cool, how a descendant of both families over two hundred years later was sitting here in the town they founded.
“I have a new theory,” Abby said between bites, surreptitiously admiring how good Katie looked in jeans. She had a gray SUNY-Binghamton T-shirt on under her dark blue fleece jacket.
“Spill it.”
“Katrina masqueraded as the horseman the night Ichabod disappeared.”
“It kind of makes sense, right?”
“Totally. If they were trying to get Ichabod out of Sleepy Hollow for whatever reasons, create a diversion like that.” She fell silent for a few moments. “And Katrina rode all the time. Shit, it was right there in her letters. All along.”
“I thought the same thing.” Abby took another bite and watched as a kid dressed like Ironman ran past, chased by another one dressed as The Hulk. The street and sidewalks were packed with people wandering among the vendors selling food and local craft products. It made her a little claustrophobic, but at least the vibe was focused on fun.
“I love that,” Katie said. “I think that’s my favorite theory so far.”
“It’s just a theory, but the circumstantial evidence lends itself to it.”
Katie laughed. “Why, yes, Dr. Crane, it does.”
Abby smiled. “Not a doctor yet.”
“Fine. Master Crane—wait. Or would it be Mistress?”
“That sounds kinky.”
Katie’s eyebrows shot up. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
Abby almost spit out her iced tea. She laughed and coughed at the same time, and Katie handed her a napkin.
“But we still don’t know what the deal is with Elizabeth,” Katie said.
“Besides the fact that she was hot n’ heavy with Katrina?”
“Exactly. We don’t know where she came from or where she went after Katrina died.”
Abby finished her burger and put the wrapper in the bag it came in. “And it’s weird, how Katrina was all into Ichabod and then she wasn’t.”
“Because he probably didn’t die.” Katie finished her burger, as well, and added her wrapper to the bag.
“So he’s still alive and Katrina knows it, then Elizabeth shows up and Katrina was all, ‘hottie’ so she was doing them both?”
The Secret of Sleepy Hollow Page 7
