Sleepy Hollow: Rise Headless and Ride

by Richard Gleaves

  He admired himself in the mirror. Valerie blew kisses.

  “…having a mingled air of fun and arrogance.”

  Next came a series of ridiculous bodybuilder poses. Eliza laughed. Valerie rolled her eyes. Even Jason had to chuckle, just a little.

  “From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, he had received the nickname of BROM BONES, by which he was universally known.”

  Hadewych turned, his hands outstretched, and bowed deeply. Valerie and Eliza applauded. He bowed again.

  “And that’s who I am. Or who I was. My people at least. The Van Brunts haven’t lived in Sleepy Hollow in ages. But neither have the Cranes, eh?”

  “What do you mean?” said Jason. “My family never lived here.”

  Hadewych put a hand on the back of Jason’s chair and knelt, looking him in the eye. He took a breath, but –

  “Not yet, Hadewych,” said Eliza. “Tonight. When we can discuss it properly.”

  He stood. Some silent agreement passed between the adults.

  “Fine,” said Hadewych. “Tonight. When you come to dinner.”

  “Hold on. Discuss what? Tell me now.”

  “Later, Jason.” Eliza’s voice had that undertow again.

  “We were – just doing – a reading,” said Valerie, changing the subject.

  On the coffee table lay an arrangement of tarot cards.

  “You interrupted us,” said Eliza. “It was just getting interesting.”

  “Would you – like me – to do a – reading – for you?” Valerie gathered the cards into her hand.

  “No,” said Hadewych, “not yet.” It came out as a command. Valerie jumped, then continued reshuffling. “Jason doesn’t look like the tarot card sort,” he added.

  “I’m not. I don’t believe in that stuff.”

  “Good for you,” said Hadewych. “It’s too early for all that anyway.”

  Disappointment crinkled Valerie’s face. “Early is – when you do it. I don’t – read for people – at night.”

  “The energies,” nodded Eliza with enthusiasm, “are much better in the day. Besides, I’m The Sun. That’s my significator.” She beamed like the sun, too.

  “Most people – are court cards. Eliza is – special. Powerful.”

  “The sun is one of the Major Arcana,” said Eliza.

  Jason had heard enough.

  “What’s going on?” He was yelling. He couldn’t help himself. Eliza’s face told him he had crossed a line. Charley, hearing the noise, yipped somewhere in the house. “Can someone tell me one thing I can understand?”

  Eliza began to speak, but Hadewych held up a hand.

  “How much do you know, Jason?” he said. “What has Eliza told you?”

  “She’s told me nothing.”

  “Nothing?” He turned to the old lady, shaking his head.

  “He might have said no,” said Eliza. She pouted.

  “No to what?” Jason felt his face reddening.

  “Jason…” Eliza’s voice was measured out in teaspoons. “I couldn’t explain before. I had to wait for Hadewych and Valerie to arrive. Now that they’re here, I think we’re ready to put some things to you.”

  “Okay. Let’s hear it.”

  She surveyed him and sighed. “Go put some clothes on.”

  Jason glanced down at himself, realizing that while their guests were sleek and stylish, he stood barefoot, un-showered, wearing knockabout shorts with holes in them. His T-shirt bore an image of a piñata and the words “I’d Hit That!”

  He cringed.

  Eliza wore a navy cardigan sweater over a blouse. She wore makeup, and her hair was neatly brushed. A fine silver necklace glittered, but who had done the clasp? Who had helped with the buttons? These people, probably Valerie, had dressed her.

  “Jason? Go get dressed. You look like an urchin.”

  He sighed and turned to go.

  Just as his foot hit the first stair, Hadewych said “We’ll still be here.”

  And in the pit of his stomach he knew they would be.

  #

  Brom. Brom. Brom.

  The name drummed in his head, diminishing, leaving a dull ache. He showered and shaved, changed into a button-down shirt, a pair of slacks, and shoes that bit his feet. He overdid it a little, dressing to armor himself.

  “How did you guess?” Hadewych was standing in the door.

  “Excuse me? This is my room. Could you knock?”

  “Apologies.” Hadewych closed the door, rapped twice. “May I come in?”

  Jason wanted to say no.

  “Fine.”

  Hadewych re-entered.

  “How did you guess my ancestor?”

  “Like you said. I read The Legend. Just a few nights ago. I recognized your last name.” He glanced at the Sketch-Book, which lay on his dresser.

  “Oh, how wonderful. She bought it after all. May I?” Jason nodded. Hadewych flipped the pages. “I’ve never held an original Sketch-Book. Could never afford one. And here it is. Absalom Crane’s own copy, too.” He set it down, reluctantly.

  “What do you want?”

  “To apologize. I know this must all seem odd to you. Do you miss your friends back in Augusta?”

  “Sure.”

  “And here you’re moved into a new house, with no explanation of why. I am sorry for that. I didn’t mean for Eliza to tell you nothing. I asked her to wait and allow me to make an appeal on behalf of the group.”

  “What group?”

  “Valerie, Eliza and myself. And, I suppose, all our families, living and dead. Yours and mine. And Valerie’s in a way. We have a proposal for you, and I hope you will find it as exciting as we do.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Not yet.” He studied Jason. “You’re thinking, ‘Who the hell is this guy?’”

  “Yup.”

  “‘How does he know my grandmother?’”

  “How do you?”

  Hadewych took Jason’s coat from its hook behind the door, handed it to him.

  “Let’s go for coffee. My treat.”

  Jason hesitated, but Hadewych seemed different, somehow. More relaxed. More sincere. Almost like… a friend.

  “All right. But I want some answers.”

  “No problem. Come on. The ladies are doing their reading, and I’d hate to interfere with Valerie’s energies.”

  He rolled his eyes and laughed because, of course, the supernatural is the most ridiculous thing in the world.

  #

  Leaves hit their backs as they walked. A wind whipped from the north. They walked down the hill toward Broadway.

  “Do you like the town?” said Hadewych.

  “It’s nice enough. But you’re supposed to be answering my questions.”

  “Try me.”

  “How do you know my grandmother?”

  “We’re family.”

  “We are?”

  “Distantly. Through my ex-wife. She was the daughter of Martha Pyncheon Bridge. Martha’s uncle was your great-grandfather. That makes you my son’s… something something cousin. We’ll have to look that one up.”

  “I trust you,” said Jason, though he didn’t.

  “Just a happy coincidence. Eliza puts great stock in such things.”

  “She shouldn’t. If you go back far enough…”

  “Everybody’s related to everybody. I know. And I’d be a monkey’s uncle.” Hadewych chortled.

  They reached Broadway. Jason turned left, away from Philipsburg Manor. Hadewych steered him back to the right.

  “I know a place,” he said.

  He led Jason to a small bistro. The door set tiny bells to chime as they entered. The place shivered with smells: coffee, hot chocolate and croissants.

  “This,” he said, extending his arm towards a woman in an apron, “is Jennifer. She makes the best scones and is, tragically, spoken for.” He kissed the woman’s hand. She was plump, in her fifties. She had left one curler to dangle at the back of her head this mor
ning.

  “If it’s a tragedy to you, this is the first I’ve heard of it.” She swatted at him with a menu. “Why didn’t you speak up twenty years ago? Lady-killer.”

  Jason sat. Jennifer put a glass of water in front of him.

  “And who is this fine gentleman?”

  “This,” said Hadewych, joining, “is my son’s great-grandfather’s great-great nephew.”

  “That’s a lot of greats,” she said.

  “I’ll try to live up to it,” Jason murmured.

  “Any great great great whatever of Hadewych is great by me.”

  She giggled at her own wit.

  “I’ll be back for your orders.”

  Hadewych swatted her rear end with a menu as she left.

  He made small talk, about the bistro, the specials, what was good (the Benedict) or not-so (the hanger steak). When their orders came (coffee for both, eggs for Jason, a scone for himself), he got down to business.

  “I met your grandmother about, oh, a year ago. Valerie and I have a mutual interest in old families, particularly old families related to The Legend, for obvious reasons. Valerie’s lived in Tarrytown for years, though her family’s up near Boston. Now, don’t worry, I don’t believe all that nonsense about a Headless Horseman. Valerie’s the superstitious one. But the Van Brunts are definitely the family in Irving’s story. Hermanus Van Brunt and his wife Agathe were farmers in the village, back in… seventeen-eighty or so. This was during the revolution. Hermanus grabbed title to lands left by a Tory family who’d been tarred and feathered and shipped back to Britain. Do you know your history?”

  “Sure. Tory. Loyal to the king. Benjamin Franklin broke with his own son who was a Tory.”

  “Smart boy. Traitors to the cause. And that was serious business. The British marched straight through here during the war. Chased George Washington off Manhattan and out to New Jersey. And after they were kicked out again a lot of Tories were kicked out with them. Anyway, the Van Brunts took over some farmland north of Tarrytown. They had a son Abraham…

  Brom Brom. Brom.

  “…and, of course, their son Abraham married a wealthy heiress.”

  “Katrina Van Tassel.”

  “Yes. All that is true. It’s public record, just like The Legend says. I have papers from my mother written in Brom’s hand. He was powerful around here. With Katrina’s money he became the biggest stone merchant in the state. He died in… eighteen-fifty. After him it’s Dylan Van Brunt his son, Joseph the grandson, then Cornelius, then…”

  “Sorry. Genealogy is… not my thing.”

  “No? It wasn’t mine once either. But when your parents die… and you’re young… it’s practically the only way I could be close to my family.”

  “I guess I understand that,” said Jason. He stared at his eggs.

  “I wish I’d known them. My mother left behind quite a few documents written by Abraham Van Brunt. Brom. In Dutch, mostly.”

  “Why was Eliza doing research on the Van Brunts?”

  “She wasn’t. She was looking into the Cranes. That’s what made us such fast friends.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “We do go back a ways. Your family and mine.”

  “More coffee?” Jennifer appeared at Jason’s elbow. Hadewych nodded and she poured.

  “Still not getting it,” said Jason.

  But he did. With a flash of certainty, just as he had known that this man was the descendant of Brom Brom Brom.

  Hadewych turned to the waitress, and Jason knew what he would say.

  “My lady, may I present…”

  He raised his coffee cup, proclaiming:

  “… the last descendant of Ichabod Crane.”

  7 the house that shouted

  Of course. Here it is, Jason thought. They think they’ve made some big genealogy discovery. This is the surprise.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” said Hadewych.

  “Sure.”

  Don’t encourage him.

  Jason picked at his scrambled eggs. He reached for the pepper. He kept his face blank.

  “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  Next came the salt. Jason decided the eggs were a little runny and bland. The coffee was good, though. Jennifer was making a fresh pot. She’d rolled her eyes at Hadewych’s pronouncement. She thought he was joking. He wasn’t.

  “Jason. This is important.” Hadewych’s face flushed a little pink. “We can prove the lineage. We have every document, going back two centuries. There’s no mistake.”

  “Got it. That’s cool, I guess.”

  “You guess? I’m telling you Ichabod Crane was a real person, and you are his descendant.”

  “So what?” Jason said.

  Hadewych’s mouth fell open a little.

  “So what if I am?” Jason said. “I mean, so? I don’t see how it affects my life.”

  “Oh, you don’t?”

  “No. Not in the slightest. As far as I’m concerned my ancestor could have been Scrooge McDuck. I don’t have tail feathers, so what does it matter?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “What does it matter? Is this why you had me dragged here?”

  “Partly.”

  “And what’s the other part?”

  Hadewych hesitated. “There’s a letter I want you to read,” he said.

  “What letter?”

  “I’ll show you tonight.”

  “What letter? What? Has the Sleepy Hollow Brigade invited me to open a shopping mall? What?”

  Hadewych frowned.

  “Oh, hell,” Jason huffed, standing. “You people have got her convinced this is some mystical voodoo thing.” He whipped his coat on. Hadewych remained seated, unconcerned, crumbling his scone. “I’m going home,” Jason said. “No. We’re going home. We’re moving back to Maine where we belong.”

  “No. You’re not.”

  “Watch us. No. Stay the hell away from us.”

  “She won’t do it,” said Hadewych. “Eliza is committed to the project.”

  Project?

  Jason leaned in, his nose less than an inch from Hadewych’s face.

  “Okay. Listen. I love my grandmother, sir. She loves me. And I’m not about to see her get played by a couple of con artists from the psychic hotline. So whatever you’ve told her, whatever you’ve got her believing in, it’s over. Goodbye.”

  Jason threw a five-dollar bill on the table.

  “That’s for Jennifer. You’re buying the eggs,” he said, and walked to the door.

  “You won’t be able to go.” Hadewych said. “You won’t ever leave.”

  Jason turned. He’d pulled the door wide. The little bells danced as he did.

  “And why not?”

  Hadewych pushed his chair back from the table. He straightened his tie, turning to face Jason. He spread his arms, palms up in a gesture that encompassed the bistro, the street, the entire town. His voice possessed the confidence of a party boss who knows the fix is in, and his eyes brimmed with laughter.

  “Because Sleepy Hollow owns you.”

  #

  The Mercedes wasn’t in the drive of 417 Gory Brook, and a baby blue post-it fluttered on the door.

  Jason –

  Will pick you up at seven. Look nice.

  Eliza and Co.

  The “Co.” was Valerie. The note was not in Eliza’s handwriting, which was a cramped scrawl. Valerie’s penmanship was as feminine and intelligible as her voice was not.

  Look nice. Hmph. He wadded it.

  Jason spun on his heels and marched back down the hill. But where would he go? He wouldn’t find Hadewych at the bistro, he knew. He probably called Valerie’s cell the moment Jason stormed out; the silver Mercedes might be in front of the bistro right now. Jason hadn’t seen it pass on the way back. Maybe they left down a side street…

  He was wandering, wishing he’d dressed more warmly.

  He passed a colonial-style house, decorated for Halloween, the cemetery of plast
ic tombstones in the yard flatly banal in the early afternoon sun. Plastic zombie hands clawed up through the Kentucky bluegrass. A skeleton stretched its bones on a garden bench. It held a cigar, and wore glasses with black cardboard moustache and eyebrows attached. The bleached bones of Groucho Marx, Jason guessed.

  He sat on the ground and pulled off a dress shoe, rubbing his leather-bitten foot.

  The last descendant of Ichabod Crane.

  He pushed his hair out of his eyes.

  The idea didn’t bother him. It was kind of cool, actually. He remembered picturing himself as Ichabod only a few days before, riding a horse into Tarrytown. If people found out they might make fun of him, true, but it would be gentle joshing, like Debbie Flight and Fireman Mike calling him Ichabod. Nothing malicious. The locals might love to put a modern Ichabod on their tourist brochures. Jason had been on the cover of the Kennebec Journal once, two years before. He’d posed with his copy of Giant-Size X-Men #1 for an article about comic collecting. This even won him some approval at school, mostly from other nerds, but still.

  Descending from Ichabod was fine, though weirdly, inescapably odd.

  What bothered him was that Hadewych and Valerie might be taking advantage of Eliza. She was a tough old lady, blunt as a hammer, but like so many honest people she expected everyone else to be honest. She had a tendency to be taken in. She was… what’s the word? Credulous. Two of her husbands were fortune hunters, eager to plunder her checking accounts. One skulked away in September of ’74, never to return; the other one Eliza beat to tears with a frozen lasagna in August of ’82.

  She bought priceless emeralds off cable channels, indignant when she received green glass; her stockbroker ran up twenty thousand in commissions because Eliza “didn’t want to be nosy.” She believed in ancient aliens, nodded when politicians spoke, played the lottery and invited Mormons in for coffee. Jason, to his shame, could fib her into anything. He tried not to, but he was sixteen; and she was so cussedly gullible sometimes. Still, you never wanted to get caught in a lie. Oh, no. Not by Eliza Merrick.

  What had these people told her? Hadewych had said, “Eliza is committed to the project.” That didn’t sound good. That sounded involved, vaguely epic. He mentioned a letter, too. What letter? Who sent a letter?