Hollowed: Return to Sleepy Hollow, the Complete Duology

by Candace Wondrak

  Soon enough we were out the door and getting in Crane’s car. A foreign model I didn’t even know the name of, but a vehicle you knew was expensive just by looking at it. It sat low to the ground, and had barely enough room for the seats inside it. No trunk space whatsoever, but I guess when you came from old money like Crane, you could always pay more to have things shipped to you, even food. I mean, who needed to go grocery shopping when other people could do it for you?

  If I ended up staying here, which seemed more likely as the days wore on and turned into weeks, I would never grow accustomed to such lavishness. Throwing money away was never my thing, especially after moving out and struggling to pay rent and my student loans. Yeah, life was just peachy.

  Crane cranked up some eighties music as we drove to my dad’s house. It was mine now, technically, and I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with it. Sell it and pay off my loans all in one go, maybe buy myself a new car, or keep it and live in it. That second option would only work if the spirit activity around here slowed to a crawl. Considering how special I was to this place, I highly doubted that would ever happen. Most likely, I’d be a permanent resident at Crane’s house if I stayed here.

  As the scenery flew by, I couldn’t help but wonder what my future held. Would a spirit get to me eventually? I wasn’t trained enough to have to worry about cutting open the veil or anything like that—although Crane did want to find a spell to strengthen it, to forever lock out the spirits from crossing over. I wouldn’t mind doing that, because a spell like that would make it much safer in Sleepy Hollow, for everyone. I did wonder what that particular spell would do to Wash, though.

  He wasn’t a spirit—he was so much more than that. He was a man with powers, magic in and of itself. If he started out as a spirit, or as a man…who knew? He was tangible now without needing to possess a human body, and I hoped he could remain here even if the veil was permanently closed.

  But perhaps it was too much to hope for. Perhaps it was far too much to ask. Maybe I was just trying to be greedy, wanting all three of them: Crane, Bones, and Wash. Having my own harem of men was never something on my bucket list, but now that I had two of them, how the hell was I supposed to deny the third in the trifecta? Wash was a part of this, calling out to my soul, whether I wanted to admit it or not.

  And I did admit it, so…yeah.

  When was the next time I was going to see Bones? Maybe I’d call him tonight, tell him to come over Crane’s. The sooner I got it out in the open with him the better…and also the sooner I could see if Wash felt it, too.

  I glanced at Wash in the back seat of the car. His stare rested on me, unsurprisingly. I settled into my seat with a smile on my face. This morning started off kind of wonky, but it wasn’t so bad now.

  Today might actually be a good day.

  Chapter Seven

  My dad’s house was mostly packed up by now. We went through his clothes and chose what was suitable for donation and what was too stained and old to donate. Needless to say, a lot of it went straight into the trash. My dad was not known for throwing things out when items or clothing had served their purpose. His entire house was pretty much a disaster zone when I first came to town.

  Today we were in the process of deciding which big furniture pieces would go to donation and which ones were too beat up and cheap to bother with. All the smaller stuff had already been packed and gotten rid of…except one room, my old room that I spent my summers in growing up.

  I knew what Crane had hoped to find while helping me go through the house. He’d kept everything in my dad’s study, every book and piece of paper, even the lamp. He was hoping to find my dad’s journal—which must be a hot commodity, because we assumed that’s what the spirit was looking for when it swept into the study. I had no idea if the spirit was able to grab it or if my dad hid it or what, but I knew Crane didn’t have it, and I knew he wanted it.

  That journal, he said, contained what we needed to strengthen the veil between earth and the otherworld. That journal was the missing piece. With it, we could finally do what they’d set out to do. Fulfill my destiny or whatever other mushy-gushy, Disney shit you wanted to say.

  Crane was continually disappointed, however, each and every time we went to the house and didn’t happen to stumble across it. Deep down, I knew the man hoped we’d have a miracle and discover it tucked in a hidden nook or cranny, but I knew better.

  The journal wasn’t here. Either someone else had it, that spirit who tossed my dad’s study had gotten it, or my dad had hidden it off the property because he was paranoid.

  I’d made fun of him my entire life, and only after coming here did I realize he had every right to be as paranoid as he was. Spirits were real, all that. And with everything my dad knew about Sleepy Hollow and its legends, he had to know I was the Katrina Van Tassel lookalike. Crane had told me it’s why he didn’t fight for me to keep coming to Sleepy Hollow once I got older, to protect me and shield me from the spirits who’d want to get me.

  Crane and I were in the process of disassembling my dad’s bed and lugging the pieces down the stairs. Crane, since he was Crane, had gloves on, as if he had to protect his hands from the manual labor. Me? I was fine with some bruises and some cuts, if they happened. I grew up running around the town with Bones, getting lost in the woods on a weekly basis in the summers. I was the type who rubbed dirt in their cuts, while Crane was the kind of person who needed to immediately rinse off a wound and put Neosporin on it.

  I paused after grabbing the headboard. Crane was busy using a tiny drill to take off the metal frame still attached to the baseboard, and I watched him with a small smile on my face. His light brown hair sat in a puff on his head, a few beads of sweat gathered on his brows. He might be a hoity-toity rich boy—now a hoity-toity man whom I couldn’t get enough of—but I adored him all the same.

  And, the strangest part of it? He loved me. Judging from what he said, Bones did, too.

  They loved me. They loved me and I…

  Oh, who the hell was I kidding? Of course I loved them. I loved them without hesitation. Fuck, I probably fell in love with them the first moment I saw them. I felt the pull to them before I realized what it was, that fate wanted a replay of the old tale. None of the feelings inside of me could be denied, and yet I’d tried for so long.

  Stupid. I was completely stupid.

  Wash…well, I wasn’t sure when I’d fallen for him. I knew I cared for him more than a friend, that’s for sure—I didn’t think you often wanted to climb your friends like trees and ride them from sunset to sunrise. Yeah, friends didn’t do that with each other.

  It was weird if I said I was attracted to Wash before he got his head back, wasn’t it? That’s probably not a line I should cross, so let me back away slowly.

  Crane noticed that my mind was elsewhere, and after he finished taking out the final screw, the base of the bed fell to the floor, now in pieces. I was the only reason the headboard still stood, my fingers curled around its tan wood. “What’s wrong?”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. What’s wrong seemed to be our motto here, we said it all the time to each other. Granted, most of the time there was something wrong, but this time, everything was actually okay—minus the whole blackout thing.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I told him. “I’m just thinking of what you said last night.”

  “Oh?” He ran the back of his arm along his forehead, catching the sweat beads pooling. “What in particular, may I ask?”

  With one hand holding up the headboard, I used my other to gesture for him to come closer. He carefully stepped over the metal frame of the bed, his green eyes curious behind his thin-rimmed glasses. I said nothing more as I tugged on his blazer and pulled him even closer, bringing my mouth to his in a kiss he clearly wasn’t expecting.

  “Love,” I whispered once our lips parted. “I was thinking that I love you, too.” I might’ve thought it before, but I never said it out loud. Saying it was…making it real, as stup
id as it sounded. Saying it out loud for anyone and everyone to hear made things so much more real to me.

  This was my life, these were my emotions, and I would not pretend they didn’t exist.

  Crane’s lips curled into a smile, his cheeks reddening somewhat. “I never would’ve dreamed we’d be here, especially after you nearly killed me with that frying pan,” he whispered, referencing our first encounter together. He might’ve known of me from my dad, but I didn’t know he existed until that day.

  What a day it was.

  I let out a laugh, playfully pushing him away from me. “I did not nearly kill you.”

  “You did,” he went on. “You nearly killed me—or at the very least almost beat me into a bloody pulp. You had murder in your eyes, Kat. Cold murder.”

  “That’s because you were a stranger in my dead dad’s house, Crane,” I muttered, still fighting off giggles. “What was I supposed to do? Welcome you with some warm cookies and milk?”

  Now it was Crane’s turn to become the giggly one. “That would’ve been preferable, actually.” He was lucky he stood just a bit too far from me now, otherwise I would’ve smacked him. Gently, of course, but still a smack.

  My eyes roam the room. My dad’s bedroom was nearly empty now, his closet doors hanging open and revealing a bare space. The nightstand and dresser were already outside. Crane had called the city and told them we needed a bulk pick up for trash, so they’d be out tomorrow to take care of it all.

  It’s a sad thing, having to pack up your parents’ things. I’d have to do it for my mom too, but I sincerely hoped I wouldn’t have to worry about that for a long time. This…this came too soon, and I felt too young to be doing this, not to mention guilty that I wrote him out of my life completely. At the end, my dad only had Crane in his life. No one else. How depressing was that?

  It depressed me, anyway.

  I did not see Wash anywhere in the room. Normally he helped us lug out the bigger stuff, but he was nowhere in sight. “Where’d Wash go?” I asked.

  Crane said, “I think he went across the hall.”

  Really? I wanted to roll my eyes, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t blame him for being drawn to that room, because it was mine, full of my stuff, even if I’d only used that stuff during my summers here. Beneath the dust of years gone by, it all smelled like me.

  “You got this?” I asked Crane, about to move away from the headboard. Once he came to my side to grab it, he gave me a nod, and I was off. I ran my hands down my pants, rubbing off the sweat I’d worked up.

  Okay, I’d mainly just stood there and looked pretty while Crane did most of the work, but I did help carry things outside. It wasn’t like I was totally useless here.

  In a moment, I found Crane was right; Wash was in my old bedroom, standing near my dresser, a deep line between his eyebrows, as if he was lost in thought. He hadn’t seen me yet. I watched in silence as he went to pick up one of the picture frames resting on top of the dresser. I knew, just by the shape of the frame—a big oval with a clear plastic kickstand behind it—which one it was.

  Bones and I at the local fair, our faces ridden with acne, our smiles dulled with braces. That photo was taken a few years before Bones became the sex idol he was now, the boy I crushed on so hard. Despite our unfortunate circumstances regarding our faces, we had fun that summer. We had fun every summer, really. This place…I didn’t think it was ever as bad as I thought it was. Here, today, I was self-aware enough to realize I had been fighting it.

  I didn’t want to enjoy Sleepy Hollow because that’s what my dad enjoyed and obsessed over. I didn’t want to have fun here or start to like any of the people, besides Bones, because that might’ve meant I would want to come here more often, and I couldn’t have that. I didn’t want to disappoint my mom, not after her divorce. She might be in a relationship now, but while I was growing up, I felt it was my duty to close myself off from this place.

  What a stupid thing to have done.

  I walked into the room, and Wash instantly saw me, quickly putting down the photograph. He put it down so fast while staring at me that he neglected to realize he set it down only half on the dresser. Needless to say, the picture frame tipped over, landing on the floor, which caused the big, mighty Horseman to jump as if it startled him.

  I let out a chuckle as I bent to pick it up. My thumb ran over the oval glass in the center, and I felt something tug at my heart. Regret. I regretted hating this town, especially this part of it, on principle. “Somehow it doesn’t surprise me that you’re in here,” I said, setting the picture back where it was. Didn’t know why it mattered so much where it was placed, since soon enough this room would be packed up, too.

  For some stupid reason, I’d saved this room for last.

  I met Wash’s dark eyes for only a moment before I wandered to my bed. At its base sat a small mound of stuffed animals, and I picked up a pink teddy bear, running a hand over its dyed fur, dusting it off a bit. “Bones won this for me at one of the festivals,” I spoke before bringing the bear to my chest. It was just as soft as I remembered.

  I hugged it for a moment before offering it to Wash, who studied the bear as if he thought it was dangerous. It was how he acted when he encountered something he wasn’t used to, which, as a man from before the Revolutionary War, was a lot of things. Cars, air conditioning, televisions…even cans of pop. Yeah, Crane’s house had seen a lot of ax-swinging and repairs since Wash joined us.

  Thankfully, he did not summon his otherworldly ax.

  Wash cocked his head, sluggishly reaching out to take the pink bear from me. He held it with rod-straight arms, studying it like it was the most complicated thing he’d ever seen. The look on his face made me grin.

  “You’re supposed to snuggle with it,” I told him, holding back laughter as I watched him slowly lift the bear to his chest and smash it against him like a wrestler choking someone out. Okay, clearly he needed instruction.

  I moved closer, running a hand down his muscled arm and ignoring the way his skin tensed under my fingertips. “Gently,” I instructed, watching as his grip on the bear loosened. “You want to cuddle with him, not rip his head off.” I ran a hand along the bit of the bear that wasn’t smothered by his muscles. “He’s supposed to help soothe you, not get you upset.”

  Wash’s grip on the bear loosened even more, and his chocolaty eyes lingered on the bear for a minute or two, his jaw setting. I was about to tell him that he was doing a good job—like he was some alien learning earth customs—but then he did something I wasn’t expecting.

  He threw the bear aside, landing it on my old bed, and then he reached for me, hugging me exactly how he should’ve been hugging the bear.

  It was a mirror to how I’d held onto him at the cemetery near my dad’s grave, but this time the one initiating it was him. Wash was the one who pulled me in, Wash was the one who wrapped his arms around me, first. He smelled like woods and nature, and I instantly lost myself in the musky scent.

  I buried my face against his chest, still not over how solid he was, how absolutely thick and powerful every inch of him was. Wash had the height and build, unlike most of the basketball players I’d seen. Every part of him screamed danger, and yet, here in his arms, I did not feel a single ounce of menace.

  This man would never hurt me, and for as long as I was able, I’d make sure to be his rock, to keep him from going on a rampage. He’d never hurt me, and by God I’d do my best to see that he never hurt anyone else, either.

  Wash’s chest rumbled, and I was about to ask him what’s wrong—our fucking group motto, definitely—but then what he did next stunned me into silence. Wash, the Headless Horseman who was not so headless anymore, spoke his first word.

  “I…”

  Okay, it wasn’t a long word, but it was a word all the same, and I moved my head off his chest to stare up at him, urging him to keep going.

  “I don’t…” Again he trailed off, but with the added word I was able to realize just how d
eep his voice was, how rough and scratchy it was. The kind of voice you could listen to on the radio, the kind that immediately made every woman from twenty to sixty weak at the knees. An old kind of voice, powerful and unique. “I want…”

  I’d be patient with him, because this was a big step. It just happened to be a big step while we were embracing, but a big step nonetheless. This was momentous. I couldn’t imagine how difficult it was for him to speak after being silent for so long.

  The last word he said took the air from my lungs: “You.”

  He wanted me, not the bear. He wanted to hug me, not the cute, pink stuffed animal. It wasn’t so much of a realization, or a confession, because deep down, it was something I already knew. It was impossible not to know, with how Wash acted around me, how he was basically my bodyguard even though I never asked him to be. He stuck by me because he wanted to be near me, not because he had to.

  Everything about this was a want, and it made my lower gut warm in all the right places.

  I lost myself in his pitch-black gaze, in the squareness of his jaw and the way his thick eyelashes framed his eyes. I lost myself so much that I nearly had a heart attack when I heard a bump in the wall, coming from the hallway.

  “Don’t worry,” Crane’s voice came from the hall, “I have it all under control—” It sounded as if he was struggling, and not a moment later there was a crash, a dozen or so bumps as something sounded as if it fell down the stairs.

  I pulled myself off of Wash, and the man’s arms were measured in letting me go. Wash obviously didn’t want the moment to end, but I had to make sure it wasn’t Crane himself who took a tumble. For a man who acted so regal and refined, he could be a bit clumsy sometimes.

  Crane stood at the top of the stairs, looking a bit sheepish. “Turned out,” he said, working to pull off his gloves, “I didn’t have it under control.”