The Cursed Hollow (Return to Sleepy Hollow Book 1)

by Candace Wondrak

  Okay, I’d come here mainly to ask him about the bridge and what happened yesterday at the house, but this…this was way more than I signed up for. “What are you talking about? What truth?”

  He leaned on his wide desk, glancing at me. Looking at me as if…as if he knew me. Like he cared about me. Like I was no stranger to him. The intense expression on his face made me feel…something, but I wasn’t sure what. Maybe because I was growing more weirded out by the second.

  “They’re real,” he said.

  He didn’t have to explain, because my mind flashed back. On the bridge, the white, milky sky, the horse and its headless rider, the woman with razor-sharp teeth and hair that looked like a spider web.

  “Ghosts,” I whispered.

  “Not ghosts, spirits. A ghost is a remnant of someone who was once alive. What we have in Sleepy Hollow is an abundance of spirits,” Crane said, bending down as he started going through his drawers. “Spirits who want to cross the veil and leave the otherworld for good. Spirits who’ll do anything to get what they want—and that’s to be here, with us, in the world of the living.”

  “So they’re dead?” Fuck. I had no idea why I was even entertaining this. It was madness. It was crazy…wasn’t it?

  “They are the undead, those who can never die,” Crane said, finding whatever it was he was looking for. Something small, round, metallic. He held it in his hand, fingers curling around it as he took a step closer to me. I was too shocked at all of this to move. “Once they cross the veil and step foot in our world, they are near invincible. We have nothing to fight them, only ancient tricks that are really only as good as the castor.”

  Spells. The man was talking about spells.

  What?

  Crane’s emerald eyes fell to the floor between us, to the wooden floorboards that I knew were original to the house’s design, newly buffed and refinished. “The veil has been growing weaker for the last twenty-four years. Your father’s research proved it.”

  “Twenty-four?” I echoed. “I’m—” I stopped from saying it: I was twenty-four.

  “Yes,” Crane whispered. “From the day you were born, the veil has been weakening. Your father didn’t find this out until a few years ago, which I think is why he didn’t fight for you. He didn’t want you to come here, not until we figured out how to re-strengthen it. It hurt him to not talk to you, but…”

  This was crazy. This was insane. Everything Crane was telling me was impossible.

  Wasn’t it?

  He shook his head, his eyes closing momentarily. “Someone has to know, or at least suspect of what you are.”

  “What?” It seemed to be about the only word I could say, the only one that would formulate on my tongue. My return to Sleepy Hollow was just a series of whats.

  “Kat,” he spoke my name gently, “I truly don’t think your father died of natural causes. I believe someone or something killed him, knowing it would bring you back.” Crane’s hand lifted, and he offered me the small metal object he’d dug out of his desk.

  I took it, his accusation reeling in my brain. He thought my dad was murdered? By a person? Or by a spirit? The craziness of this whole thing expanded with each passing minute, intensifying and exploding into something I didn’t think I could handle. My fingers rubbed across the smooth face of the round metal object. No bigger than my palm, it was a small thing, and I knew just by staring at it that it was old.

  Hundreds of years old.

  A sense of deja vu swept over me, and I felt a strange recognition as I brought it to my face, feeling as if I’d gazed upon it before. Which was nuts, because I hadn’t. I had never seen this thing before, and yet I knew just how to open it. Twist the small button on top to unlock the latch holding it closed. It popped open, and I stared down at a yellowed picture.

  A picture of me.

  Not of me today, but of many, many years ago. She was a stranger, yet she wore my face. Her hair was curled and pinned to her head, a dress clad on her torso; it was all I could see, but it was enough.

  Katrina Van Tassel.

  I didn’t just look slightly like her; I looked exactly like her. A mirror image. A doppelganger. She was me, and I was her.

  “You are Katrina Van Tassel,” Crane’s voice broke into my thoughts, and I met his stare, not knowing what to do or what to say. “You are the missing piece to this puzzle.” He slowly reached for me, his hand closing around mine, forcing the locket shut. He didn’t pull his hand off mine, letting it linger, the smoothness of his hand about the only thing keeping me sane.

  “But…” Another one-word response. I could say no more. “How?”

  “Fate, magic?” Crane offered. “Sleepy Hollow doesn’t follow the rules of nature. Things are different here.” His fingers ran across mine, sending tiny jolts of electricity up my arm. My body was responding to his, and I didn’t know why. It was all too much. “You belong here, Kat,” he whispered, taking the locket from me and returning it to its place in his desk.

  I shook my head. Over and over I shook my head, as if denying it would make it untrue, as if telling him no would make my mind forget about that picture. Our faces weren’t just similar; they were the exact same. I didn’t simply look like all the paintings of Katrina in town…because those paints were of me.

  “No,” I whispered. This was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have come here. My dad, murdered? Spirits, real and undead? The veil and the otherworld—not words I wanted in my vocabulary.

  No. I was done with this conversation.

  I turned on my heel and hurried out, practically falling down the steps as I went toward the front door, wanting to leave this house and never return. Crane was clumsy in following me, calling out for me to stop, but I didn’t hear him. I blocked his voice out on purpose, not wanting to hear him say any more.

  Reaching the front door, I yanked it open, taking a single step out.

  And then, again, the world turned different. The blue sky morphed into one of ash and grey, no ball of sun anywhere. The colors of the world were a little brighter, off just a hair. But that wasn’t what stopped me cold.

  That honor belonged to the black horse and its rider, who stood at the base of the driveway. The horse pawed at the concrete ground, its hooves echoing in the air, its maroon eyes glaring at me, even from so far away. And the rider…the Headless Horseman stared at me, too. Or he would be, if he had a head with eyes.

  He looked like he was about to heave himself off his demonic steed, but I didn’t wait to watch. I stumbled back, tripping over my own feet as I went backward into the house, slamming the door closed.

  Crane’s arms were around me, his hands holding me upright. I blinked over and over, my vision sluggish in returning to me, and I was back in the real world, staring at the closed door with Crane as my support and tears in my eyes. I wiped them away before he could see them—and noticed they weren’t normal tears.

  They were tears of blood.

  “Oh, Lord,” Crane’s voice fell on my ears, a welcome sound. “You’re like him, only worse. Philip could only hear them, he couldn’t see them.”

  He helped me to the nearest seat in a sitting room of sorts, carefully setting me down on the couch, kneeling before me. I met his stare, my heart still beating wildly in my chest from what I saw.

  “What did you see?” Crane whispered, lightly touching my hair, tucking the stray tendrils behind an ear. A gesture that was far too intimate, considering we were strangers to each other, but I didn’t stop him or push him away.

  All I could stare at were my fingertips, which were stained a dark red from wiping away the bloody tears. “I saw him,” I said, being as purposefully vague about it as I could. I didn’t want to say it out loud. If I said it out loud, it might make it more real.

  This…this was all so much more real than I ever thought it could be. It would take a strongly delusional person to claim this was fake and that none of it was real.

  “Him?” Crane asked. “Him who?”

 
; I closed my eyes, wishing I could take a time machine back to the day before I’d learned all of this stuff was actually real. My dad wasn’t crazy. He was obsessed, but at least the object of his obsession was real. “The Headless Horseman.”

  “Oh no,” he muttered. “You crossed the bridge at midnight, didn’t you?”

  I nodded. Such a trivial thing, but it was something that was so ingrained in everyone who lived here, even the children. I didn’t think it was a real warning.

  “He’s after you now,” Crane added, standing, looking extra tall from where I sat.

  “After me?” I echoed, my voice cracking.

  “Your father never saw him, but at least he was smart enough to keep away from the bridge—”

  I didn’t take kindly to Crane calling me stupid. “Yeah? Well I didn’t think any of this was real until I crossed that bridge and saw him! How was I supposed to know all of the legends were real? How was I supposed to know I look exactly like Katrina Van Tassel? My dad never told me any of this stuff.” My eyes grew watery, and I buried my face in my hands, not wanting to cry in front of Crane. The bloody tears were one thing, but breaking down completely?

  I didn’t know why I cared about him seeing me cry, but I did.

  Crane quieted for a long while, almost as if he’d never seen anyone start to break down before. I felt a warm hand pat my shoulder as he said, “There, there.”

  There, there? That’s what comforting skill he had? I managed to chuckle, turning my head up to the high ceiling as I muttered a low, “Oh, fuck me.” Crane looked shocked I resorted to such crassness, so I added, “Bet the old Katrina didn’t swear like that.”

  “The original Katrina was also in a love triangle between Ichabod Crane and Abraham Van Brunt,” Crane said, frowning to himself. “She also couldn’t see spirits…so maybe we can use this to our advantage. I doubt they’ll suspect your father passed his propensity for them down to you.” He began to pace the room, and I watched him walk back and forth with watery eyes.

  “I’m not staying here,” I told him. “I’m leaving after the funeral and I empty the house.”

  Crane’s long legs abruptly stopped, and the look he gave me right then and there made me want to take it back. “You would forsake all of your father’s work because you’re frightened?”

  “From what it sounds like, my dad didn’t want me here anyway. Being here, won’t it just make the veil crack more?”

  “Weaken,” Crane corrected me, and I rolled my eyes. “The veil is weakening, not cracking. But you know what a key can do when used correctly, don’t you?” He held a finger in the air, an ah-ha moment dawning on him. “The same key can both open a door and lock it. You—” He turned his finger toward me, and I resisted my urge to slap it away. “—are the key. You’ve always been the key.”

  “Great,” I said, standing. Crane was easily over six foot, and when I stood, I stood staring at his chest. “Find out how to lock it up in the next week, and I’ll help. If not, I’m gone.” If I don’t die first, that is…

  Crane moved in front of me, and I found it odd how a man could be both clumsy and smooth at the same time. “You can’t leave.” I was done telling people I wasn’t sticking around after I handled arrangements for my dad, and I was about to tell Crane off when he said, “I mean you can’t leave this house, not with the Headless Horseman after you. He’ll follow you and either drive you mad or kill you.”

  He wanted me to stay here, in this house, with him? I wanted to laugh, but given everything I’d just learned, I couldn’t.

  “I’m not afraid of the Headless Horseman,” I said, a blatant lie neither of us believed.

  “If you’re not afraid of him, you should at least be afraid of the spirit who killed your father. They’ll be after you, too.” Crane took off his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose as he squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, his hand dropping to his side, he whispered, “I know I’m not the easiest person to be around, and I know I might come off as a little unstable and strange, but believe me when I say you should not return to that house. You shouldn’t leave my house until we figure out how to at least get the Horseman off your back. My house has wards, the best wards money can buy.”

  Seemed like a load of bullshit. “And my dad’s house doesn’t?”

  “He wouldn’t let me do his house. He liked the spirits and interacting with them. Not all of them are bad, but…” Crane trailed off, slowly putting his glasses back on. “It’s always the few that ruin it for the many, and the ones that are bad are viciously vile. Beyond deadly.”

  “I’m not going to stay here,” I told him, and I wasn’t. Nothing he could say or do would make me change my mind. As scary as it was, I was going to go back to that house and continue going through all of my dad’s shit and pray that his lawyer finally returned my call. I turned to leave, but Crane grabbed my hand.

  He didn’t hold onto it long, but even after he dropped it like a hot potato, I still felt the aftereffects of it. His hands were so smooth, yet they could be firm, too. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to see you get hurt, or worse. If you came back to Sleepy Hollow only to be killed by the Headless Horseman, I—”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said, hoping that by stating it I would start to believe it. “Tell you what. If you happen to find anything…stop by. I’ll let you in, no frying pan this time.”

  “At least let me drive you home.” Crane heaved a sigh, and the sound fell over me like honey. The longer I spent around him, the more I was starting to like his odd quirks and his overly eager way of saying everything, which was bad. I shouldn’t like him, and I definitely shouldn’t still have feelings for Bones.

  Fuck it all to hell.

  I was just like my namesake, wasn’t I? Meant to waffle between two men until one of them claimed me as theirs. Yuck.

  Chapter Six

  It was near impossible for me to do any more work that day. I paced through the house for a long time before saying screw it all and getting ready for the date. It wasn’t like I could call up Bones and tell him I’d changed my mind.

  Well, technically I could, but I’d feel really shitty about it. Plus, going out on the town—as much of a town Sleepy Hollow was—would help me get my mind off of everything I learned today. Surely the Headless Horseman would leave me alone, at least for a little while. Give a woman a break, you know?

  I was fucking Katrina Van Tassel. I was able to see spirits in the otherworld sometimes. Oh, and who could forget the Headless Horseman was after me because I made the stupid mistake of crossing that bridge at midnight? Totally my own fault, there. And let’s throw in the whole my-dad-might’ve-been-murdered thing, because that was kind of a biggie.

  Yeah, so far today had been a doozy, and it wasn’t over yet.

  I did the best I could do with my hair, considering I didn’t bring a curler or any hair spray, and changed into a nicer shirt. I kept on the jeans, sliding a pair of ankle-high boots on under them.

  Bones pulled up in front of the house right at six, on time to the minute. I knew because I was sitting in the living room, wondering just how my life had gotten to this crazy point. It was honest-to-god crazy how fast my life had been turned upside-down. Everything I thought I knew, everything I always shook my head at as I was growing up…it was all real.

  Did everyone else know about it all? Did Bones? Bones thought I should stay away from Crane…was it because he didn’t want me involved in any of that, or because Bones was like I was a few days ago, ignorant of how Sleepy Hollow truly was?

  It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to bring up any of that stuff while on the date. I was going to try to enjoy myself, to get those things out of my head and have a good time. I needed a good time, otherwise I might just go as nutzoid as my dad.

  I met Bones near his car. His real car, not his squad car. It was red and sporty, and I instantly liked it. He was leaning on the hood, his thumbs jammed into his pockets as he watched me approach, grinning boyishly.
“I’d say you look good, but you always look good, Kat,” he said, flashing me his straight, pearly white teeth.

  I always looked good? Screw that. He looked good. He wore a plaid shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows in the kind of way that made me weak at the knees. Something about rolled-up sleeves drove me crazy. Like he was ready to throw down if needed, get wild and rough and dirty and…

  Not a train of thought I should be having while staring at him like I’d never seen a finer man.

  Had I, though? Out of pure curiosity, had I ever seen a finer man? Didn’t think so.

  “You don’t look half bad yourself,” I muttered, hating instantly how I was trying to play it cool. There was no cool with me. It was just different levels of awkwardness, apparently.

  Once we were in the car, Bones brought us to one of the nicer restaurants in town. You know, the kind where the waiters wear black vests and white shirts? The kind where they charge you five bucks for a glass of water? Yeah, that kind. Needless to say, I did my best to steer clear of this particular restaurant growing up. It wasn’t a place for kids. It was made for adults to have serious conversations over expensive dinners and late lunches.

  Not real lunches, though. Lunch was a poor man’s meal, I guess.

  The waiter sat us outside, and once he took our order, he was off. I stared at Bones over the white tablecloth, watching as he picked at the bottom of his shirt. He’d left the top few buttons undone, allowing me to see the edges of his sculpted chest. It wasn’t too hard to imagine myself running a hand down it, breaking open a few more buttons along the way. Bones was as smoking as a man could get. So hot he was practically on fire.

  “You know,” I broke the table’s silence after we got our drinks, “for someone who wanted to take me on a date, you’re awfully quiet.” I sipped my drink—just water. I didn’t want to get any alcohol because if I’d learned anything after today, I had to be alert and aware of my surroundings at all times. Never knew when the Headless Horseman might make an appearance, not to mention whatever other spirits were in this town, having fully crossed the veil.