The Horror of our Love: A Twisted Tales Anthology

by Nikita Slater

It had two bedrooms, a cute little kitchen, a big family room with a painted wood stove, and a big terrace with a small greenhouse that I had grand plans for come springtime. I’d always had a green thumb.

  I kept the key and forwarded an application and most of the rest of my savings as a deposit.

  I tried to move on. I tried to pretend nothing had happened.

  But, I was depressed. I avoided social situations outside of work. I stopped going out with friends, stopped returning their calls and texts. I made excuses to avoid family gatherings.

  I was skittish, nervous, and depressed. And every time I undressed or took a shower, it was there. His mark. Every time I saw a baby around town, it tore at my heart. Every mention of Halloween or pumpkins made my heart race and my blood turn icy cold.

  July 25 rolled around. This was near to what I figured my due date would have been. I drove to the tulip tree site that day, parked, and stared at the stump. There was now a commemorative plaque about the tree being 300+ years old and having been steeped in the local history and then mysteriously being ripped from the earth by a suspected microburst weather event.

  Beside it, I saw new and lush vegetation. I knew how to identify plants with my very green thumb. There were no pumpkins yet, but this was definitely a pumpkin patch.

  The smashed pumpkin that night… the seeds shouldn’t have taken. The frost and subsequent winter coming soon after that night would’ve most likely stopped the process. But, evidently, logic meant nothing in Drowsy Hollow.

  I didn’t know why, but I knew that come October 31st, I’d want to come and see the pumpkins.

  Would facing another Halloween bring closure?

  Writing it down didn’t.

  Reading self-help books didn’t.

  What would? Would Halloween do it?

  Today was Halloween, one year from when my grip on reality steeped in logic slipped. I stopped by the site of the tulip tree, during my lunch hour, during sunlight when I’d hoped it would be safe.

  As suspected, a pumpkin patch was there. All the pumpkins had appeared to have been picked except one small, perfect, head-sized one. It was still attached to the vine and it sat on the stump.

  That whisper that had haunted my dreams for the past year echoed in my head.

  “I’ll be back for you, Isabella…”

  When? How?

  Why?

  A woman approached from the woods. She wasn’t much older than me and strangely, her approach didn’t startle me.

  “Hello,” she greeted.

  She had long, auburn hair and heavy eye make-up. She was shoeless and dressed like a gypsy. She carried what looked like a very old book. It was massive in dimensions and thickness, bound by leather, with writing that I couldn’t make out on the front. I didn’t know if she was extreme boho hippie, or if she was in costume for Halloween.

  She looked to the pumpkin. I lifted it protectively and pulled it to my chest. I didn’t really know why I did that.

  She gave me a small, strangely knowing smile.

  “I’m Erica.”

  I thought it was odd for her to introduce herself.

  “Hi.”

  “You’re lost,” she informed.

  “Nnooo. My car’s just---” I jerked my thumb behind me.

  She leaned forward, strange intensity rolling off her. “You’re feeling lost. But soon, you’ll be found.”

  I frowned. My thumb was still in mid-air.

  “Don’t question it when he finds you. Believe it. Believe that you’re getting something wonderful. He’s getting something wonderful. You’ve had untold pain this past year, but he’s had untold pain for over two centuries. It’s fate.” She shrugged. “I tried. Several of us tried. But, it was meant to happen this way. That’s why we haven’t been able to stop it. Don’t fight it. Don’t fight him. He needs you.”

  “I think you have me mistak---”

  “You’re his. Don’t be afraid. Life will be beautiful. You can both count it as a happily ever after. But don’t speak of it. Do not. Don’t confront it. Don’t dig into it. Don’t speak of it. Believe me. If you do, you’ll wish you hadn’t. Believe this. Heed this warning. Please. What was taken that night was taken by the man it belonged to. He didn’t steal it from you. You gave something precious to him. It was meant to be his.”

  I stared at her in disbelief.

  “Believe me. I beseech you. He’ll be as he was before… before he became what you saw. The transformation began that night. You felt the evidence of that. You gave him that.”

  I blinked at her.

  “Farewell, Isabella.”

  She gave me a wave, a meaningful look, turned, and then she walked away from me.

  I watched her walk down the country road, the road that was paved today, but that I feared would turn to dirt later tonight.

  I looked down at the pumpkin I was holding to my chest and bit on my lips. I looked back up and she was gone. Vanished. She must have disappeared in between some trees.

  It then dawned that I never told Erica that my name is Isabella.

  I stood there, ruminating on her words. They rang as real, they rang as matching my exact situation. But if they were true?

  “I’ll be back for you, Isabella…”

  The wind picked up and whipped my hair around. The sun had moved behind some clouds and it felt like rain was coming. I hurried back to my car, taking the pumpkin with me.

  If he was coming for me, I wanted no part of it. And something told me it was essential that I get out of there immediately.

  Much to the disappointment of my coworkers, my students, last year’s students, and Trina, I made an excuse and said I needed to leave the party early. I wanted to be home, in my apartment, behind locked doors when it got dark. Maybe I should’ve left town, gone to the airport and left the country.

  I said goodbye, feigning a headache, but a real headache began to materialize when I got outside, and dark clouds moved in. There was a loud crackle of thunder. The sky opened up with lightning, more thunder, and pouring rain. This wasn’t in the forecast today.

  I pulled my headband with the kitty cat ears off and stuffed it into my bag and yanked my hood up over my head. I rushed to my car and got inside. It wouldn’t start.

  It wouldn’t fucking start.

  And I started to bawl about it. Slam my hand on my steering wheel about it. Ask the sky WHY ME about it.

  I could’ve gone back inside and asked for a jump-start. I could’ve gone back inside and asked for a ride or talked to the guy that owned the cab. The tiny town had a cab company with one car. But, he was in there with the rest of the community, bobbing for apples.

  I grunted and found my umbrella in my backseat and decided to walk home. Six blocks. It would suck, but I just needed away from this area, away from my memories and all the cute little kids dressed like him, not to mention the haunting foreboding feeling engulfing me.

  I just needed to go home.

  I was in a long trench coat, black ballet flats, my kitty cat costume, which had consisted of a bodysuit and black tights, which hit me like a ton of bricks that morning as I clicked the snaps between my legs into place. I had kitty gloves, too, which were cocktail gloves that came to my elbows with paw prints on the fingertips. I kept those on and pulled my hood up. I would’ve been a sight, my black nose, my drawn-on whiskers, my cat’s eye make-up.

  It was a longish six block walk, and I felt the need to hurry, to get behind the locked door of my apartment as soon as possible. My umbrella flipped inside out four times on the walk before I gave up and just dragged it along, letting the rain soak me through to the bone.

  When I got into my apartment and locked the door, I didn’t feel the least bit of safety and relief I’d hoped for.

  Chapter 10

  PRIVATE HOLLOWAY

  He was at her door. It was time. It was finally time. It had to be. No instruction had come after the clock had struck the minute before twelve, so this meant he had his instructions
.

  Claim what was his.

  “Don’t look back, Holden Holloway. Don’t question. Don’t talk about it. Any of it. Try very hard to not even ponder it.”

  He’d spent one year inside his chains when they suddenly withered to a gust of ash. And then he dressed in the garments they’d left for him and walked out of the woods to town. To her. His feet knew just where to take him.

  He’d waited out the past year in extreme suffering. He’d done nothing but wait and suffer. The witches spoke to him the morning they’d magicked him away from where he’d slept with her in his arms. They did this moments after he’d awoken, after he’d woken still with a face, a neck, with a mouth that had done wickedly beautiful things to her body, a mouth that could say her beautiful name.

  The witches chained him and surrounded the circle where they contained him with magic to keep him there while one by one, they arrived and five of them spoke to him, reasoned with him, gave him the news that it would be one more year before they could complete the spell that had been cast by the ambitious young witch who couldn’t arrive in time to keep the gate shut, but who had cast a remote spell to save the life of whoever entered.

  They explained what he’d been doing for over two hundred years, though that wasn’t entirely necessary, as the memories had been coming, like razor blades dipped in acid being scored across his skin. He’d gained awareness of being around for some time, without a head, yet filled with hate.

  They explained why he’d been what he’d been for all these years.

  They explained all they and their ancestors had done to try to keep him from causing pain, that their efforts to simply send him to a place where his soul could rest had been fruitless, but that Isabella Krane appeared to be the answer.

  They explained what could happen next if their calculations were accurate and despite his awareness and in spite of his horror at the realizations of what he’d done, not only to Isabella that night, but what he’d done after his death, they kept him chained for fear he’d revert to what he’d been. The witch’s spell may have only kept it at bay temporarily. His built-up hunger for Isabella, if not handled carefully, could be something too dark, too difficult to tame.

  But, it wasn’t witchcraft that made Isabella Krane the person who entered.

  Holden Holloway did not know what it was that made Isabella Krane, a descendent of Archibald Krane (his arch nemesis and murderer) enter the hunting grounds. The witches spoke of fate, of the fact that sometimes things were inexplicable. He wanted to believe. He wanted to believe that his imprisonment would be worthwhile.

  He had to wait in that circle for one year, until the witches could attempt the final spell at the site where the tree had fallen, and hope that their magic was enough. They spoke of advanced equations to calculate spells, of having to decode the original spell to determine which loopholes might work to move forward.

  Their calculations were accurate, because here he was.

  Prior to the release of the chains, which he was waiting for, he knew the alternative was to continue to be trapped in their circle, possibly indefinitely.

  Things were in place. Restitution had been paid, set aside long ago, sought out from (Sergeant, who later became major) Major Krane, by the witch who made Holden a promise before his untimely death. He would be able to provide for his Isabella. He would make up for their beginning. He would find a way to erase her pain, the pain he knew he had inflicted.

  The fortune-teller had promised, the witches explained, and because of her firm promise, she had bound herself to that promise, which had kept Holden in limbo for two hundred plus years. The limbo was bathed in rage. The limbo, a place of blackness and desperation. The limbo contained carnage.

  Holden was assured it was not his fault. Notations in the coven’s ledger written by the fortune teller, or more accurately, the witch, stated all the many lengths the woman had gone to in order to make things right.

  Now that things were going to be right, her soul could finally rest.

  He didn’t want to dwell, had been advised not to dwell, but it relentlessly tore away at him for the past year. The memories of the things his body had done. The things he was responsible for, despite the lack of a brain, of logic, of intent.

  He’d been an empty husk. Or, nearly empty. Perhaps empty of all things other than hate.

  The consciousness that came to him in the hours the night he met her was painful. It was all floating toward his consciousness throughout the night, from the moment she touched the face he suddenly had, maybe from the moment he laid eyes on her. He had memories of his stallion whispering to him when he’s spotted her on the path. That stallion told him things, directed his actions, and he couldn’t recall them at this time. Perhaps that was because it was the beginning of his swim toward consciousness. Perhaps it was for the best that some of those memories were murky.

  He did remember how good she felt, how right, how absolutely perfect. He remembered her magical touch, the pure wonder she’d displayed as she touched his face, the concern for his plight. That touch? It would be his again, beginning tonight and forevermore.

  He didn’t know why they could never speak of the evil, of the past two hundred years, of the things he’d done to claim her that night, but he didn’t care as long as he could spend the next fifty to eighty years with her as his. The witches told of prices that had to be paid for their magic, and locking away the details on the matter was a price he was willing to pay.

  The doorknob glowed when his fingers touched it. A key appeared in the lock. Temporary magic. He would not have magic after this night. After this night, he would be a mere mortal. He owned this building, though. And other property besides. Now living, as he was when he died, as a twenty-eight-year-old man.

  Holden Holloway, farmer.

  He would purchase the land surrounding the former tulip tree, the place where the magic had been planted. This was the land that held that cabin where their child was conceived.

  The deal for the sale of this land was told to him to be already in-motion, through Holloway Holdings, the company that was set up for him. He would raise cattle and grow fruits and vegetables, just as he’d done before enlisting, before his untimely death. Isabella could help. Or she could continue to teach, if she wished. He would build them a new home. He would give her the child they had to give up.

  Yes, their child.

  He had the knowledge of her pain around all of that, while in chains, feeling her emotion, via a link one of the witches had set up between them. A gift? A curse? Both.

  But, that child’s spirit was not gone. It was merely in limbo as was Holden’s, protected by those witches. Their son would be mortal, safe, built perhaps from an insatiable and unhinged hunger, but he would be nurtured by the two of them, together, into someone worthy of the woman who would bear him.

  He unlocked the door and watched the glow of the knob fade. He pocketed the key. His clothing felt strange. The witches called the trousers denim. Jeans. His coat was made of a black animal hide and felt familiar, as did the boots he wore. He had a large satchel in his hand that the witches had left, containing more clothing and government identification as well as the strange cards that they’d explained to him as giving him access to his wealth. A lot had been explained. How easy or difficult it would be to put into practice was something that remained a mystery. Perhaps Isabella could help. The witches assured him she would.

  All Holden knew was that he had to get to her. He had to get to her and find a way to convince her that she was his without discussing any of the past. It was a rule. He did not know why it was a rule, but with all he’d learned, all he’d remembered while in those chains, he would not trifle with the witches’ rules.

  He climbed a narrow staircase and found another door. He turned the knob and opened it into a large space filled with flower drawings on the walls, with polished gleaming wood floors, with a stove that wasn’t on, yet the space was warm.

  The stove was pain
ted shiny orange and covered in autumn-themed trinkets. A small round table with white chairs had fabric cushions covered in pinecones and acorns. The table had a peculiar horn-shaped woven basket in the center with painted replicas of fruit, corn, pinecones, and sunflowers that did not look remotely real.

  There was cozy furniture arranged around the stove covered in cushions. There was a fluffed rug made of some material he’d never seen but resembled a fat fluffy cat he’d had as a child. He gazed at it with an arched brow. He put the satchel in his grip down beside the upholstered bench that faced the orange stove. The room had electronics on the wall. The witches had told him about television, radio, and computers, kitchen appliances that cooked food without the need to build a fire, that kept food cold to preserve it. They’d shown him many such things, regularly leaving films to play for him on those square panes, to teach him about the present day. He preferred that they left music playing. He found it more soothing. Not all of it. Some of it seemed to be just grating noise that pained his ears.

  He heard a sound from another room. This room had several doors and a short hallway with more doors in it. The space also had many windows that would illuminate the space well during the day. Now, the rain simply trailed down the glass as it poured down outside, with a relentless rhythm.

  In front of the long, upholstered bench was a short table. It was round, made of dark glass and shiny metal. In the center of it sat a pumpkin. He knew the pumpkin’s significance.

  The youngest of the witches, called Erica, had told him earlier that his Isabella had taken it home, that it was born from that night.

  He put his hand on it and felt something soothing move through him. This would be alright. Everything would be alight. It had to be. He would make it be.

  He took a deep breath. Underneath the pumpkin sat a book with a white cover and a painting of a man with no head atop a black horse. The man held a pumpkin in his grip.

  The Headless Horseman of Drowsy Hollow