Hollowed: Return to Sleepy Hollow, the Complete Duology

by Candace Wondrak

  The Headless Horseman’s chest rose and fell with another breath, and I was once again struck by how impressive he was. Even without his head, even while I stood on the step before him, he was still taller than me. How tall would he be with his head? Six and a half feet? Taller? My head spun even though it shouldn’t. I shouldn’t care how tall he would be with his head. He was a murderous spirit who…who I should have no feelings for.

  I opened my mouth to say something more, but the Horseman stunned me by sluggishly lifting a hand, bringing it to my face. He was going to touch me, brush his fingertips against my cheek, and yet he stopped himself short. One more inch was all he had to close, but instead he withdrew his outstretched hand, curling his leather-bound fingers into a fist as he let it drop to his side.

  I very nearly told him he could touch me, but a strange, new feeling started to spiral around me, originating in my gut and slowly growing until it enveloped me completely. The otherworld grew even fuzzier around me, and soon the image of the Horseman standing in front of me faded away.

  I woke up on the floor in Crane’s living room, inhaling a giant breath as I looked all around. The colors were normal, the sky outside a crisp blue outside. No more otherworld; no more Horseman. And, wonderfully enough, no temporary blindness accompanied with tears of blood. I was a bit nauseous, but I’d take nausea over bloody tears any day.

  Crane was kneeling by my side in an instant; Bones was nowhere in the room. I set a hand on my head, watching as Crane’s green eyes studied me. “How are you feeling?” he asked. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I’m okay,” I said, swallowing down my urge to vomit. “And it’s a good thing I did do it, because the Horseman was there, and he nearly killed Bones.” Crane helped me get to my feet. “Speaking of Bones, where is he?”

  “Ah, yes,” Crane’s voice took on the typical uneasiness, “he said he felt like being sick, so I directed him to the bathroom.” He said nothing else, even though I could tell there was something else on his mind.

  I crossed my arms before my chest, demanding, “What?” I didn’t like the look he had.

  “While in the otherworld, did you and Brom—”

  I let out a short laugh. “That, Crane, is none of your business.”

  And it wasn’t. It wasn’t as if I pledged myself to Crane and only Crane when we had sex. Nope. I was still a free woman, able to sleep with whoever I wanted whenever I wanted, whether I had a weird connection to him or not. I had the same connection with Bones, anyway. Me and connections in Sleepy Hollow were a dime a dozen, apparently.

  It was but a few moments—and a whole pot of tea later—that Bones joined us in the living room, looking only a little pale. I didn’t touch the tea before me, but Bones grabbed a glass, drinking the whole thing before he slammed it onto the coffee table, startling both Crane and me. “Now what?” he asked, looking between us.

  Outside, the world descended into night. Crane had closed the curtains behind us, turned on the lamps on the end tables adorning the room. It created an eerie atmosphere, and yet I felt comfortable in it. Crane sat on a chair opposite me, while Bones refused to sit at all. I couldn’t blame him for being freaked out. When I learned about this stuff, it wasn’t pretty.

  “Frankly, I don’t know,” Crane muttered, running a slim hand down his face. “The only thing I can think of to do is to try to create a warding charm to keep the spirits away from you,” he told me. Glancing to Bones, he said, “But as for what we do about the veil, about the spirits going after Kat, I’m afraid I don’t rightly know.”

  “The Horseman,” I said, earning stares from the both of them. Neither man looked too happy with me bringing him up. “He has to be connected to this. I mean, he has to have been here the longest. He’s haunted tons of people.”

  “And probably killed more than that,” Bones muttered, a muscle in his jaw tensing.

  Crane heaved a sigh. “As much as I am loath to agree with Brom, I think he’s right. The Headless Horseman is a killer. There’s no telling that he’s connected to the spirits, or if you help him get his head, there’s no telling that he’ll simply vanish. He might decide to wreak havoc on the entire town instead of merely that bridge.”

  I knew where they were coming from, and I knew how crazy I sounded, but I just couldn’t help the fact that I felt as if the Horseman was connected to all of this…connected to me. Was it only because I walked over the bridge at midnight, or was it some divine plan, like the whole Ichabod versus Abraham thing?

  Never thought I’d be stuck in one of those cheesy star-crossed lovers books. Then again, until recently, I never thought spirits were real. Things changed fast, and I regretted spending my childhood thinking my dad was crazy. If my mom had known my dad wasn’t nuts, would she have stayed with him? Would they still have gotten divorced? I didn’t know, but it did make me wonder.

  Still, I knew it was pointless to argue with Crane and Bones about the Horseman. There was no way they could understand how I felt about him, the bizarre mishmash of feelings inside me. It wasn’t like I could make them feel what I did.

  “She was able to stop him, though,” Bones told Crane, sounding, surprisingly, amicable. “He was intent on killing me, but when she told him to stop, he did.” It took him a while to add, “He might want to hurt others, but I don’t think he’ll hurt Kat.”

  “The spirits know who’s close to her,” Crane said, rubbing his chin. “They’ll try to go after anyone they think is a link to her, including you or I, if they can get their claws into us, weaken us until we’re easy to possess.”

  Bones stared at him for a long minute. “Great. Spirits trying to possess me. Can’t wait for that.”

  “They’ll go for the easier targets first, but…” Crane glanced at me. “I don’t know who else you know here in Sleepy Hollow, so I have no ideas on who they’ll seek to go after next. We have a few days before the same spirit that possessed your father’s lawyer returns, but there’s no telling how many other spirits have crossed over and are waiting for their time to strike.”

  Right, so basically I was never safe, no matter where I was, unless I was in this house. Who the hell knew how many spirit eyes were on me, peering through windows and peeping through door cracks. If I left this house, I wouldn’t be safe. It was only a matter of time before one of them snatched me and…did whatever it wanted with me.

  Bones frowned to himself, crossing his arms, his muscles bulging with the movement.

  Crane took another sip of his tea, reclining in his chair. “I don’t know what their endgame is, but we can only assume it has something to do with opening the veil completely, which, I shouldn’t have to explain, is a very terrible thing. Imagine countless amounts of spirits, roaming the streets of Sleepy Hollow at all hours, every day. So many spirits that they break through the confines of city limits and start to take over the entire state.”

  I knew where he was going with this. State by state until the whole country was overrun by spirits. Then the continent, then the hemisphere, and lastly the whole world. The veil could not afford to be broken.

  “And,” Crane added, “usually rituals revolving around something so large as shattering the veil between the earth and the otherworld involve a sacrifice. Blood, or life.” To me, he said, “I wouldn’t doubt that the spirits would kill you, if they knew doing so would open the veil.”

  Oh, great. So I only stared my death in the face? No biggie. No problem at all. I could totally handle it; I mean, I’d handled problems like that before, right?

  No, no I haven’t. I’d never faced anything so important before, but I knew the one flaw in Crane’s plan. The spirits might kill me, if they knew it would open the veil. The spirits might try to kill me…unless another spirit got to me first and possessed me. The white-haired spirit from the otherworld came to mind. She wanted me, and she was only kept at such a distance because of the Headless Horseman.

  Holy shit. This was one confusing mess. I needed a nap. Or,
you know, a full eight hours.

  “Well,” Bones started, glancing at me, “just keep me in the loop. Now that I know, I…” He shook his head. “I don’t want to be blindsided by any of this again.” He noted the darkness outside, past the curtains. “It’s getting late. I should go. I have work tomorrow, unlike some rich kids.” Back to throwing barbs at Crane.

  Before Crane could say anything in response, I got up, moving toward him. “Let me walk you out,” I offered, to which Bones simply nodded.

  I went with Bones to the giant front door, stepping outside with him but not going down the steps. The night air brushed against my skin, cooling me down. Truth be told, I was still a little hot and bothered from our earlier encounter in the otherworld, and as I stood there beside him, I couldn’t help but wonder why we were always interrupted.

  I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but Bones beat me to it. He stepped closer to me, digging his hands in his pockets as he said, “About what I did before, what I said…I’m sorry. I had no idea any of this was real. If I would’ve known—”

  I blinked. He was apologizing for freaking out at me earlier? I mean, yeah, I’d been kind of pissed at him after the cemetery incident, but I didn’t think it needed an apology. “It’s okay.”

  “No,” he said. “It’s not okay. I shouldn’t have stormed off like that, left you to fend for yourself with Crane. I feel like the world’s biggest asshole.”

  “You’re not.”

  “I feel like one—”

  I leaned toward him, running a hand down his arm, stopping him from saying anything else. “You’re not,” I whispered, hoping he believed me. I didn’t need Bones, the freaking town hero, to think he was a bad guy. Everyone had their good and bad moments. I didn’t hate him for freaking the flip out when I’d brought up the Headless Horseman after going blind and crying a few bloody tears. He had every right to freak out. “You, Bones, are one of the best guys I know.”

  Dimples appeared on his cheeks, and a slow smile spread on his lips. Lips looking so very kissable right now, but I held back, not wanting Crane to see. “You keep flattering me like that, and my ego just might get as big as Crane’s.”

  A laugh escaped me before I could stifle it. “Crane’s ego is not that big,” I said. A man with a huge ego wouldn’t have acted so embarrassed after I’d come onto him that morning.

  Bones stared at me like I was stupid. “Kat, you have to see it.”

  “See what?”

  “The way he acts around you is…” He shrugged. “Just different than how he acts around everyone else. He’s putting on a show for you. He wants you to like him.”

  “Are you saying Irving Crane is fluffing up to impress me?”

  “I’m saying he’s trying to. Whether he’s actually doing any impressing, that’s on you.”

  I gave him a coy smile. “Stop worrying about Crane. Worry about the spirits instead. Actually, worry about anything else besides Crane. Let me handle him.” Crane might be putting on airs around me, but in a way, I found it kind of sweet. No guy had ever tried to impress me before, or maybe I just never noticed. As long as Crane wasn’t an ass deep down, I didn’t care what he acted like.

  “Fine,” Bones said. He leaned his head down, but he didn’t close the distance between us entirely. I could feel his hot breath on my face, and I warmed in other, lower places, wishing our time hadn’t been cut short. “But know that sooner or later, I’m going to have you all to myself, because I’m tired of the interruptions.”

  His forwardness stunned me into silence, and he responded by smirking, placing a gentle kiss on my forehead, and leaving. I watched as he strolled to his car, dumbfounded and more than a little turned on.

  Damn it, Bones. Now I have to go inside and pretend to not be a horny little freak. Thanks a lot.

  When I returned to Crane, I found him gingerly sipping his tea. The expression his regal face wore was not one of friendliness, although when he spotted me, the hard expression softened. “Ah, you’re back. I was just starting to think that you’d decided to go off with him—”

  I resisted my urge to glare at him. I did, however, say, “Whatever rivalry you and Bones have going on? It needs to stop. I don’t want to hear it. You don’t like him, he doesn’t like you. Blah, blah, blah. I get it. You’ve killed the horse and are now beating it over and over again.”

  “I don’t think we’ve gone that far,” Crane said dryly.

  “I do, so stop. Please.”

  Crane let out a sigh. “For you, I suppose I can hold my disdain for Brom inside.”

  Honestly, after I’d slept with him, it was the absolute least Crane could do.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The days wore on. Bones swung by Crane’s house any chance he got, on his lunch breaks, after work, on his days off, all to see where we were at and give us updates on the investigation into Mike’s death. Though I was the only suspect, they had no other leads, no evidence linking me to the murder weapon or anything. Bones was doing his best to help the department steer clear of me, but I knew it would take time. Mike’s case was one that would remain forever open, I would say.

  Crane and I spent our time researching. I never left his house, because he swore to me he was having some kind of moveable ward created for me—again, the best money could buy, whatever that meant. He ordered some clothes for me online, too. I personally thought it would’ve just been easier to make a short trip to my dad’s house, but then again, it wasn’t like Crane didn’t have money to spare.

  It was one particular afternoon when we were in the kitchen, taking a break to eat, when I asked him, “Why can’t you do the wards yourself?” I had an empty plate before me, having devoured the sandwich Crane made me.

  Yes, I made him cook for me. The man bent over backward for me anytime I wanted, so what was I supposed to do? Cook for myself? Fuck that. Food always tasted better when someone else made it for you. Fact.

  “Your father and I discovered that we were able to do many things,” Crane started, his eyes glancing at me from behind their glasses. Today he wore a striped polo, cleanly pressed pants as was his usual style. Dorky, but still somehow attractive to me. The complete opposite of Bones. “There are, however, some things that remain solely in the hands of women.”

  I gave him a come on look. “Sexist, much?”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Crane quickly said, his cheeks turning pink. It was adorable. I loved it when his pale cheeks flared up in embarrassment—it was also surprisingly easy to do, considering we’d had sex before. I mean, there should be no more embarrassment between us, right? “I simply meant that, as a whole, women are more attuned to nature…usually.”

  If he wasn’t careful how he progressed from here, he might get a slap on the face.

  “Witches,” Crane spoke, noting the annoyance on my face. “I’m talking about witches, not anything against women, or whatever it is you’re fuming about. Men simply cannot be witches.”

  “But you can be wizards,” I muttered.

  “This isn’t Harry Potter. Men have some power, but nowhere near the level witches do if they’ve been trained from birth.”

  Hey—I was a woman, and since I was a woman, I had a brilliant idea. “Why don’t I make the wards?”

  Crane gave me an unimpressed glance, though his gaze lingered on me longer than it should. “Have you been trained from birth in witchcraft? Do you have your own book of shadows? No? How about this: would you trust the wards you haphazardly create?”

  Hmm. Okay, he had a point there.

  “Fine,” I mumbled, pushing the empty plate away from me. “But I am going stir crazy in this house.”

  “The spirits are staying away from you though, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then suck it up.”

  Crane’s retort made me laugh. The way he spoke, telling me to suck it up was not something I ever thought I’d hear from him. The bastard. I was long past the point of caring for him more
than I should; same with Bones.

  And the Headless fucking Horseman? Yeah, let’s not even go there. The headless guy was in my dreams more often than he wasn’t, which was just weird. No more battlefields with dead bodies though, so I guess that was a plus.

  After Crane cleaned up the plates, we returned to his massive library room. I asked him, “What’s a book of shadows?”

  “It can be a book, or even a journal that’s passed down from witch to witch. They typically contain every spell a witch’s ancestors could cast, and maybe even a few they never could. From my readings, I’ve ascertained that spells are fickle. They might come to you, but you might not have enough power to cast them,” Crane rattled off, a bucket of useless information.

  Who needed a TV when you had him?

  Stupid. You always needed a TV, or at least I did. I loved TV. Couldn’t get enough of it. In fact, if I was at home, if I wasn’t stuck at work, I’d be watching TV right now. TV was mindless entertainment, and I loved it. I had the feeling I’d love it even more after I figured out the mystery surrounding this cursed Hollow. The things I enjoyed back then would mean more to me after dealing with all this shit.

  “How do you know so much?” I mumbled.

  “Kat, my dear, I’ve spent almost the entirety of my thirty years learning everything I could, especially about this place. Sleepy Hollow is…unlike any other place I’ve been to, and I’ve been to a lot. My parents liked to travel—they never felt as connected to this town as I do. It’s why they live in Florida now, and not here.”

  My gaze fell, and I stared at my own two feet. “Do you think, since things are different here, we’re all actors in a play? Like we’re meant to have a redo of what happened before.”

  Crane watched me, his mouth thinning. “Do you mean what happened between the original Katrina and her two suitors?” After I nodded once, he eventually added, “I don’t know. I guess that depends on you, because it’s more than obvious Brom and I are following in the footsteps of our namesakes.”