Chapter 21
Crane
I can’t sleep.
Rain falls lightly against the windowpanes, and the candles I have lit in a row on the sill flicker slightly in a draft, a shield against the dark.
The clock on my desk ticks loudly as it has all night, counting down the hours and yet never seeming to move.
It was one in the morning, and then it was three in the morning, but now it is two in the morning, and I can’t tell if I’m awake or dreaming.
I dig my nails into my hand until it hurts.
I’m awake.
I am awake, too awake, my brain bouncing around from thought to thought to thought.
I think about Brom walking into my classroom this morning.
How it pained me more than I thought that he didn’t remember who I was—me, the man who opened his bed to a stranger for a few weeks, a stranger on the run.
Whatever Brom had been running from had brought him back here somehow, I was sure of it.
None of this makes any sense unless you involve witchcraft, but if the sisters brought him back here for some reason, then the question is why?
And why did he leave Sleepy Hollow in the first place?
When I can’t come up with any answers, I move on to Kat.
My favorite thought. Lovely, beautiful Kat, whose body and soul I feel preternaturally drawn to.
I feel like I’m just getting started with her, that I’m just about to plunge headfirst into the abyss for her, ready to drown in all she was offering.
But now I don’t know how to proceed. I want to proceed—I want her in all my dark and deviant ways—but with Brom stepping back into the picture, that surely complicates matters.
There’s no doubt this was the man who once brought her pleasure, just as he had for me, and perhaps even a man she was in love with.
Maybe still is. Will she even want me now that he’s back?
Will I be discarded? It wouldn’t be the first time.
And then I think about Sarah. I think about Kat’s strange witch of a mother and how different she is from the other sisters. She barely resembles them, doesn’t seem to have much love for them, seems separate from them in nearly every way.
Staying at the Van Tassel house overnight, I was bombarded by so many emotions, ones that seemed to belong to the house itself, a house with a soul.
I felt love. A strong love between a father and a daughter, so unlike the one I had with my own father.
But I also felt fear. I felt so much fear hidden in the dust that’s swept under the beds.
I felt the fear Kat’s father had of Sarah, something that didn’t surprise me considering Sarah’s cold and controlling demeanor, but also fear that belonged to Sarah.
Whether that fear is of Kat or of her sisters, I’m not sure.
But there is something off about the Van Tassels.
Something very, very off. And I’m not even sure Kat is aware of it.
My lids finally droop close, and my thoughts drift back to Brom’s dark eyes, to Kat’s blue ones, to the inhuman voice inside Brom that was ready to do one’s bidding.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
I open my eyes, sitting up straight.
It’s back.
Am I dreaming?
I dig my nails into my skin again, droplets of blood welling to the surface.
I’m not dreaming.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
I hold my breath and listen, shaking my hand, a splatter of blood falling to the bedcover.
Thump.
It’s right outside the door. I can feel it there, the energy seeping in. I can almost see it like black tar flowing underneath the doorframe, coming across the floor toward me. Wanting me. Craving me.
Knock.
I jump, my heart bucking wildly.
She’s here. She’s here.
Vivienne Henry is here, and she’s knocking on my door.
Knock.
“Oh Jesus,” I murmur, my words sounding far away, like I spoke them in another lifetime.
Knock.
I find myself getting to my feet, even though my knees are shaking. Every part of me is shaking with fear because she wants me, she wants me.
Maybe she wants all of us.
“Watch your head,” a voice whispers from the other side of the door, coarse and metallic and faint, barely even a whisper.
I am a dead man.
The doorknob begins to turn.
A slow creak of metal that echoes in the room.
A turn left.
A turn right.
A push forward.
The lock catches, stopping the door from opening.
Sweet Jesus.
I watch wide-eyed, breath shaking, expecting another try, another push, another chance for the creature to get inside.
But there’s nothing.
Silence.
Suddenly, the clock starts ticking again, the sound filling the air, making me realize that time had actually stopped. I glance at the clock. It’s 1:00 a.m. again.
I run to the bathroom and vomit, sickness rolling through me, the fear eating me alive without me even knowing I was its meal.
Then I splash water on my face from the basin.
I avoid looking in the mirror.
Something tells me to avoid looking in the mirror.
Quickly, I turn around and go back into my room. The only sound is the ticking clock. The doorknob doesn’t move. The feeling of something oozing under the door to eat me alive is gone.
But then…
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Off in the distance. Far down the hall.
I don’t know what possesses me, but I slide on my slippers, grab one of the candlesticks, and go to the door. I take a deep breath, and before I can change my mind, I unlock the door with my key and step out into the hallway.
Just in time to see the body disappear around the corner, those gray, dead feet dragging on the floor. I make a point of locking my door behind me and then start walking after the body, following the trail. There’s blood again, and I quickly touch some of it, pressing my wet fingers on my tongue.
It’s blood. It’s disgusting.
I spit it out and wipe my fingers on my pants and continue down the hall.
I should talk myself out of this. I should stop and go back to my room. Lock the door and go to sleep.
But I keep going. I round the corner and see the body going down the staircase.
I follow, my steps quick, and yet by the time I get to the main floor, where the classrooms are, she’s already far ahead of me. Down another hall.
I follow, walking faster now, the candle flame quivering as I go, and I pray it doesn’t go out. Without that light, I can’t go on in the dark. I haven’t mastered how to control fire yet; I don’t have that skill.
I whip around the corner, my breath heavy now, and a door is open near one of the classrooms, dead, lifeless feet being dragged inside.
It’s the custodian’s closet, or so I thought. I had never given it a second glance before, but now that I am looking through the door, I see that there isn’t a broom in sight. Instead, it opens to the top of a narrow stone staircase leading down.
Thump.
The thumps continue going down, down, down, and harder now. Wet smacks against stone.
A shiver rocks through me.
I reach back and push the door open as far as it will go, the hinges creaking ominously, then take off one of my slippers and place it at the corner so that the door can’t close on me and lock me in here. Then I put my bare foot on the first step, and I wait.
You don’t have to do this, I tell myself. The door could still close on you. You’ll be locked down here with that thing. No one may ever find you again.
Part of me is unbothered by that fact. Of never being found.
So I walk down and down and down, curiosity to be my demise.
The farther down the stairs I go, the more damp the air feels, bringing with it not just the smells of wet stone and earth but also something herbal. Sage and tarragon and the sharp bite of cut stems mixed with the rotten smell of sulfur and dead flowers.
I go down the stairs, the light dancing on the stone walls, and I feel I must go on forever, but eventually, my feet touch a dirt-packed floor.
Ahead of me is another hall, but this one is short and rounds at the end. I don’t hear the body anymore, and the dirt is undisturbed.
But I do hear something else. A faint wail that puts the fear of God in me better than my father ever could.
It’s an inhuman cry that’s suddenly swallowed up by silence, like the sound was cut in two, producing a strong silence so deafening that I can hear my own blood in my veins, the sticky sound of my cells turning over.
I press my fingers against my temple, trying to get it to stop. Tears run down my face, and I wipe them away to see bloodstained fingers. I want to tear my eyes right out of my head, press my thumbs straight into my sockets, and—
The silence stops. The air pressure in the hall adjusts, and I see light flicker where it curves around the corner.
I’m not alone here.
I never was.
I look down at my hands, and there isn’t a drop of blood to be found.
Hell.
I slowly walk down the hall toward the flickering light, unsure of what I’m about to see but knowing I’m unable to stop. I am compelled to discover what’s happening to me, compelled to find out the truth.
I round the bend and see that it ends with a large black iron door. The dirt at the foot of the door forms a right angle, meaning it must be opened and closed enough to pack down the dirt in front of it.
I press my hands against it and wince. The metal is hot to the touch.
Please. I hear a whisper, not out loud but in my head. Please, Professor Crane.
It belongs to a girl and a boy and so many different people. It’s raw and desperate, and I feel the fatalistic sorrow inside me as if it’s my own.
I see Marie’s face as she died, mouth stretched in an endless scream.
“Can I help you find something?” Leona Van Tassel’s voice comes through so loud that I yelp and jump around, the candle falling out of my hands and onto the dirt floor.
It’s snuffed out, but not before I see Leona standing behind me, wearing a face without skin.
Just round eggs for eyes and a row of sharp white teeth.
Then everything goes black, and I think I might die of a heart attack right here.
“Let me,” her voice rings through the darkness, and suddenly, there’s light again.
She’s holding the candle in her hands now, her fingertips black and dipped into the flame. Her face is normal again, and her expression is more bemused than angry.
“I’m sorry,” I manage to say, my teeth clacking together.
“Don’t be,” she says coolly, lifting her chin.
“You’re only in a very private part of the school that’s off-limits to anyone who isn’t part of the coven.
” She raises her brow, and I realize it’s one of the few times I’ve seen her without her cloak on her head.
“Are you interested in joining our coven, Ichabod?”
I can barely swallow. “I was following someone.” Like hell I would want to be part of your coven.
“Yes,” she says dryly. “Sister Sophie told me about your situation. You mustn’t let the students get the best of you. You’re their professor, after all. You have the higher ground.”
I stare into her eyes, the darkness in them growing as if her irises are spreading. “I’ll try to remember that,” I manage to say. “Still, don’t you think it’s strange that the students would lead me down here? Where are we, anyway?”
The corner of her lip twitches. “We are in the soul of the institute. We first broke ground here in 1710 and built the foundations of this very building. But when we were digging, we discovered this place right here had already existed, deep underground. Like it was waiting for us.”
I stare at her for a moment, processing that, before looking around at the walls. They aren’t stone or wood but packed dirt like the floor, covered in a thin veil of what could be oil. “What was it?”
She shrugs. “We don’t know,” she muses. “The town of Sleepy Hollow existed for only seventy years prior to the construction of the school. This is an old place, older than New Netherland, older than America, older than the natives, perhaps even older than what you call God. But it sustains us, and it will sustain you. You can feel it, can’t you, Ichabod?
The power here, how it moves like worms through the earth, feeding on your soul. ”
“On my soul?” I ask.
“Ah, I forget. Sometimes you wonder if you have one. Well, I’m here to inform you that you do.
And it is very, very sweet.” She grins. Once again, her teeth are a little sharper than they were before.
She waves a hand in front of my face. “You will eeepsim see dorec fly fantasm, Mr. Crane. Let vorus vim alone.”
Half her words don’t even make sense.
But it doesn’t matter. Because I’m losing my balance and falling to the left. I expect to have my shoulder slam into the sticky dirt wall, but it doesn’t. Instead, I keep falling and falling.
And falling.
—
I wake up in my bed. It’s a slow awakening as pieces of the night slowly slip out of my grasp. My head pounds like I have a drastic hangover.
My ears adjust to the ticking of the clock, and I look over in the dim morning light to see the time. Six forty-four. My alarm will go off in a minute.
Everything that happened is nearly lost. I remember I stayed up late, couldn’t sleep. I was thinking about Brom and Kat and Sarah, and then I was thinking about…Vivienne Henry? Of voices trapped behind walls? Of Sister Leona’s row of sharp teeth?
I rub my palm down my face. “What is happening to me?”
I take in a deep breath and try once more to grasp the fragments of the night, but they melt away like dreams. Were they dreams? Thoughts? Did the dead teacher make an appearance again?
I’ve got nothing. Nothing but questions and never any answers.
Some teacher I’ve turned out to be.