Joey rolled his eyes. “Oh, my God, he’s got it memorized.”
Jason scowled. “Shut up.”
Valerie nodded. “The dominant spirit. If the Horseman has risen, if he’s the strongest—then all the others—the minor spirits—the weaker ones—will obey him. They can’t be at rest—if he doesn’t let them be.”
“But the Horseman’s in the Old Burying Ground,” said Joey. “Everybody knows that. Down by the Church. That’s a separate cemetery, not part of us.”
“Is there a fence?”
“Between the two? No.” Joey frowned.
“Then it doesn’t matter. Ghosts respect borders. Not paperwork.”
“So,” said Jason. “He’s summoning the minor spirits. He’s… enslaving them.”
She nodded. “I think so.” She wandered among the graves, brushing dust away from the headstones, even though it made her cough. “It’s an awful thing—when the dominant spirit—is a dark one. It corrupts the ground. It keeps the souls here—from finding peace. A dark spirit will cave the ground in—over its own head. Things will stop growing. Twist and decay. Even the living won’t—find solace there. If you walk past a graveyard—and you fear it, you can be sure—that the dominant spirit—is a dark one.”
“This is not a dark cemetery,” said Joey, offended.
“It is now,” said Jason. “Can’t you feel it? Something’s changed.”
Valerie nodded. “He has risen. Something’s made him—stronger than he was.”
Joey’s hand wrapped around the owl talisman. “Okay, I think I’m done here.” He turned away.
“What’s the matter?” Jason said.
Joey didn’t answer. He tromped back toward section 77. Jason and Valerie followed. Jason slowed, favoring his ankle, and tugged on Valerie’s sleeve. “I have to ask.” His bows knit. “Eliza?”
Valerie put an arm around him. “She was a strong spirit. I doubt even the Horseman—could command her.”
“She’s in the annex. On the other side of the river. Will that keep her spirit safe?”
“I don’t know, Jason. I’m sorry, but I don’t.”
Joey was waiting by Valerie’s BMW, tapping his foot.
“What’s wrong?” said Jason.
“First you tell me it’s safe, then it’s not. Which is it? I have a decision to make. Do I quit or don’t I?”
“I say quit,” said Jason.
“I don’t want to.”
“Then stay.”
“I’m too scared to stay.”
“Look.” Jason took Joey’s elbow and pointed at the row of hemlock trees. “The Horseman’s taken all the ghosts into the forest, right? So, like Valerie said, there are no ghosts here. Just don’t work after dark anymore, keep the talisman on—” He turned to Valerie. “And he should be safe, yes?”
Her expression had darkened. “No. No one is safe. Not here, not in the Burying Ground. Not in the woods. If the Horseman’s on the march—I wouldn’t feel safe—anywhere in Sleepy Hollow. Not at night.” Her eyes trailed to the hills above the cemetery.
“That’s just great,” said Joey. He looked to Jason, to Valerie. He touched the talisman and appeared heartened by it. “Okay. I won’t quit. Not yet.” He sighed. “Thanks, Valerie. Can you give us a lift back to the office?”
They climbed into Valerie’s car. She started the engine and turned onto the gravel road, headed toward the administration building. “Do you boys have—Thanksgiving plans tonight? Why don’t you drive out to—White Plains with me? I’ll show you where I’m staying.”
“Thanks, but I’m having dinner with my folks,” said Joey.
“And I’m joining them,” said Jason, quickly. “The Osorios invited me.”
“Another time,” said Valerie, with disappointment.
The car fell silent.
I should have taken her up on it, Jason thought. She seems lonely now. Kind of lost. She was with Hadewych—and Zef—for ten years. She could probably use some company, especially on a holiday.
He glanced at Joey, who was looking puzzled.
They pulled into the parking lot behind the cemetery offices and got out. Valerie gestured, indicating a nearby path. “I want to make—one more visit. You know where. Come find me?”
Jason nodded. “Sure.”
She tossed her scarf over one shoulder and walked up the hill.
“What was that?” said Joey, once they were alone. “My parents didn’t invite you to Thanksgiving.”
“I know.”
“I asked them to but—”
“Your dad doesn’t like me now. I know. It’s cool.”
“So why’d you tell her that?”
“Because…” Jason hesitated. “Because I still don’t trust her.” He felt guilty for saying that but it was true. “She’s been good to me. She hired me my lawyer, tried to block Hadewych’s guardianship.”
“And failed.”
“She’s an ally. But she was also Hadewych’s lover. She was a major part of this. I just can’t let my guard down.”
And Jason knew of at least one thing she was hiding.
The paper clip.
He’d seen it, under her hand at the guardianship hearing. It had been spinning by itself. Did Valerie have a Gift as well?
“So is she a nut or isn’t she?” said Joey.
“She’s… something,” said Jason.
“You think she’s full of shit?” He pulled the talisman out, the silver coin balanced on the end of his thumb.
“Who knows? Maybe the Valerie Maule brand of hoo-hah and magical makey-up is true. She believes in it. It’s her thing. I thought she’d be helpful.”
Joey shrugged and buttoned his shirt over the talisman. “We’ll see, I guess. If I get buried alive some night by a gaggle of transparent girl scouts, well, at least we’ll know.” He raised a palm in farewell and left.
Jason climbed the hill and found Valerie standing at the gate of the Van Brunt tomb. At this hour the pathway into the hill lay in deep shadow. The spindly tree protruding from the stump above had shed the last of its brown needles. They lay clumped underfoot like hair in a barber shop.
“Have you looked for it?” Valerie said and her deep voice echoed back from the chamber beyond the rusted gate.
“He keeps his room locked,” Jason said. “It might be in there.”
“But you don’t think so.”
Jason shook his head. “He’d keep the Horseman’s Treasure somewhere safer. And he wouldn’t want Zef to find it.”
Valerie looked thoughtful. “Zef never believed—in what we were doing. He thought The Project was a joke.”
“Zef is a joke.”
“Zef is my son,” said Valerie scolding. “He was. For ten years. At least I thought he was.” She looked morose for a moment but shook it off. “Someplace safer, then. A deposit box?”
“I thought about that. McCaffrey said the Treasure was big, though. Big and gold.”
“He could have been lying. I never liked that funeral director.” Valerie rattled the gate and covered her valve when a plume of dust rose. “If we don’t get the Treasure back—which one of us—do you think he’ll kill first?”
“I think he’ll lay low. Since he knows we’re on to him.”
“He must be tempted. I’m surprised there haven’t been—more killings already. Have there been?”
“Not that I’ve heard about. There hasn’t been a Horseman attack since Halloween. And nobody’s died since… Eliza.”
“And those other two.”
“Darley and Debbie Flight? The Horseman didn’t get them. It was…” Jason gestured to the tomb. The bust of Agathe leered down from its niche, facing the door, one eye an obliterated circle of chalk. I’m watching you, boy…
“Who?” said Valerie.
Jason debated with himself for a moment, then pressed on. “It was the same person who did this—” he touched his throat, “—to you.”
Valerie looked puzzled and uncomfortable. “My
mother did this—to me.”
“I know. But… she wasn’t herself, was she?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean… there was someone else there. Using her, right? She was possessed.”
“How can you know that?” Fear began to edge her voice. “I never told—anyone but Hadewych.”
Jason didn’t know how to answer. He was perilously close to revealing his Gift. But he couldn’t tell her that he’d seen a vision at the broken bridge, that he’d found that black purse, had read it, had seen the attack for himself—Valerie’s mother stabbing her daughter in the neck with a set of car keys as she struggled in the water by—
A thought struck him.
That was so much like the Nightmare. The attack on Valerie happened on the same spot. Right next to the south pier of the bridge, a few feet downstream of it…
“What are you—saying here, Jason?”
“She was possessed, wasn’t she? You can tell me. That’s why you didn’t testify against her. You knew that it wasn’t her.”
Valerie leaned against the retaining wall and nodded. “They let her commit herself—instead of prison.”
“Where is she now?”
“The Kirkbride. In White Plains. But I don’t visit.”
Jason nodded. “You’re still scared of her.”
“I can’t help it. I can still see her face—her eyes. Blank. Nothing. And the Horseman could—possess her again. I’ve wanted to stop him—ever since. That’s why I don’t just—move back to Boston. Pay for a place—up there for her. That’s why the Project.”
“You thought if you found the Treasure you could end him.”
“I didn’t suspect—that Hadewych would… use the thing. I wasn’t thinking. The Horseman hurt me, Jason. You can’t know.” She wiped away a tear.
“He’s hurt me too.” His fingers strayed to the hatchet cut. “But—don’t be upset at what I’m going to tell you, okay? When your mom did what she did, it wasn’t the Horseman possessing her.” He pointed at the bust. “It was Agathe.”
“Agathe Van Brunt?”
“I’ve seen her spirit. In my house. Her house. She’s doing it. She killed Darley and Debbie Flight. She attacked you through your mother. It’s always been her. Remember what Brom wrote? In that letter you stole from Hadewych? ‘How much midnight blood has blackened the waters beneath my mother’s home?’”
Valerie was swaying. Her face had become ashen. She looked like she wanted to run but couldn’t tear her eyes away from the leering bust in its niche. “Why?” she cried. She kicked the gate. It clanked and an echo came back like ghosts dragging their chains.
“She’s feeding him. She’s spilling blood for him.”
“In the water.”
“Right. I think that’s why he’s stronger. That’s why he’s dominant again.”
“But why now? Why again—after all this time? Because we—opened this goddamned tomb?”
Jason shook his head. “It started up before that. Debbie was killed before we did the exhumation. Darley was killed even before that. He was killed—” Jason sighed. “On the same night I came to town. So I think—I think I started this up somehow. By moving here.”
Valerie looked thoughtful. “If she’s in that house, like you said, maybe you released her.”
“How?”
“Ghosts respect borders. Fences. Thresholds. You could have released her—just by opening up the house.”
“But we didn’t! The house was locked when we first arrived. The keys were in a lockbox on the front door. We didn’t get into the house until the next morning—after Darley was dead.”
“Did you do anything else—when you arrived? Think. It might give us a clue.”
“We pulled the RV into the driveway. We slept in the driveway that night. That was it.”
“Nothing else?”
Jason remembered. The bust of Agathe grinned at him. Agathe remembered too. The heavy antique key. The rusted door that had opened with a sound like… like an old woman’s laughter. Jason put his face in his hands. “Yeah. It was me.”
“What did you do?”
Jason pushed his hair out of his eyes. “I unlocked the cellar.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“The Magazine”
Zef waited until Hadewych was busy watching the Thanksgiving Day parade. He dimmed the burners beneath his giblet gravy, lifted a heavy key from its ring, and snuck out back. He unlocked the cellar door and opened it. The heavy iron groaned aside. The afternoon sun fell down the stairs and bloodied the north wall where a row of heavy rings hung from the stone. The floor made a basin, sloping to a drain at center. Zef hated the cellar, especially that drain. It made him think of a butcher shop he’d visited as a child. Of a scrap of hog skin he’d seen circling a floor drain like a rose petal in a glass of red wine. He shook off the image. He had to find a place to hide the magazine. Now, while Jason was out.
He slipped it from his jacket pocket.
It was the only dirty magazine he owned. The Internet had made it obsolete, of course, but his dad checked his browser history. Zef had used a great hiding spot at their old apartment, under the sink in his bathroom, rolled up inside an empty bottle of Clorox. Hadewych never cleaned—cleaning was Zef’s job—so the bottle went untouched and the magazine undiscovered. But Jason was tidy. The trick might backfire now. He didn’t want to throw the magazine away, either. The garbage men might find it and tell his dad. Besides, he’d had the thing since junior high. He was sentimental about it.
He’d shoplifted it when he was fourteen, from Ichabod’s Newsstand on Wildey Street. He’d been too paranoid to actually purchase it—afraid the old woman behind the counter might recognize him, tell a friend, and so on. He’d never shoplifted before. He knew that if he were caught the consequences would be dire. The magazine would be evidence. It would be produced in court before a judge and jury. The Tarrytown Caller would unmask him as an underage porn-pilfering pervert. His life would be ruined. He’d be an outcast, condemned to languish in some psychiatric hospital or to hang himself in a prison cell.
But he had wanted that magazine. And had hated himself for wanting it…
Zef had vacillated between cold feet and hot blood, pacing the periodical shelves, pretending to read The Economist or Working Mother, one eye on the plastic-wrapped porn. His chance came. A man buying cigarettes accidentally knocked the leave-a-penny dish from the sales counter. The cashier stooped to retrieve it. Zef chose blindly, grabbing a magazine at random. He tucked it into the back of his jeans, under his jacket, hoping it left no telltale lump.
He walked to the register as if to judgment, guilt-stricken, face flushed and ears ringing. He purchased a Snickers bar and a paperback thriller called The Wages of Sin. Seven-forty-nine plus tax. He pocketed his change, relaxing, but while making his getaway he backed into a pair of kids entering the store. Kids from school. Kids who knew his name.
The magazine came loose and slipped.
It would fall at their feet. They would pick it up. His secret shame would be discovered. He pressed his back against the doorjamb, making a great show of “no I insist after you,” and recovered. Thank God his flop sweat had glued the plastic wrap to the small of his back. He staggered out of Ichabod’s Newsstand and onto Wildey Street—red-faced and shaken but triumphant. On the way home he tossed The Wages of Sin into a trashcan…
He’d cherished the magazine, had fallen in and out of love with every model, and had kept it hidden ever afterwards—the way a serial killer might keep a token of his first victim—risking discovery and punishment but unable to let it go.
Now he had to decide. He would have to hide it or trash it. Jason couldn’t make good on his threat without proof and this was the only evidence in the house.
Zef searched for a hiding place.
Behind the water heater?
Inside the fuse box?
But what about plumbers or electricians? He needed to be sure.
He plun
ged deeper into darkness, to the backmost wall. He found an iron door there, heavy with rust. The door unnerved him. His father had spun many tales of the Gory Brook House, tales about hidden rooms and family mysteries, but Zef had never believed them. Where did this door lead? He tested the edge of the metal. It lay flush with the stone on all four sides. He gave up the idea. Even if he found a crevice how would he fetch the magazine out again? The door didn’t even have a handle.
He pressed his ear to the metal. He heard the sound of rushing water and…
Go into your closet…
What?
The voice was hoarse but feminine.
Go into your closet and pray.
Zef stumbled backwards, knocking over boxes. A chill wrapped its hands around his face like a ghost playing “Guess Who.” He turned and ran from the cellar but caught his foot on the top stair and went sprawling onto the lawn.
“Zef?” Hadewych called from above.
Zef heard the back door open. He’d dropped the magazine. It lay face up on the grass.
“Are you okay?” Hadewych appeared at the top of the stairs.
Zef rolled onto his back, hiding the magazine with his body.
“I’m fine! Fine.”
“Are you hurt?” Hadewych began to descend. “I thought you were cooking.”
“I’m fine. Leave me alone!”
“Need a hand?”
Zef panicked. He went on the offensive. “Am I two years old?”
“I’m only—”
“I hit my elbow. Let me sit here a second. I needed some air. Go stir the gravy if you want to help.”
Hadewych shrugged. He turned but paused at the door, frowning.
“Where’s Jason?” said Hadewych.
“I don’t know.”
“Mark my words. We’ll go to all the trouble of making a beautiful Thanksgiving meal and he won’t even deign to eat it.”
“Probably not. Little shit.”
“He doesn’t appreciate a thing we do for him.”
Hadewych shook his head and went inside. Zef lay on the magazine until the coast was clear. He sat up, lit a cigarette and smoked it, staring at the Hudson. He stuck the magazine into his armpit, locked the cellar, and climbed up to the house.
Hadewych stood bent over the stove, stirring the gravy. “I smell you. You know I don’t like you smoking,” he said.
Sleepy Hollow: Bridge of Bones Page 6
