Chapter 3 #2
She stayed as silent as they fell, absorbing the story, poking at it mentally for holes.
Hell, the whole thing was full of holes.
None of it could be true, but… frankly, all of it had to be true if anything that had happened to her in the past few hours was real.
She’d been chased around a cemetery by Headless Horsemen.
She’d ridden through a portal to some sort of pocket dimension.
Their story was as likely as anything else.
“Whatever happened to the girl?” she asked, then immediately wished she hadn’t.
“No idea,” Chad said drily. “We must have lost track somehow.”
“I’m sorry. Stupid question. I know. My bad.”
She marinated on the tale for a while longer, then frowned and shook her head. “Okay. Okay, I can maybe understand all of that. Maybe.”
“Maybe?” Jerome demanded, incredulous.
“But why are you here?” She gestured with her hands at the ground they sat on. “Not here as in the Between but here as in Missouri. Why aren’t you still in Sleepy Hollow?”
Three sets of shoulders swiveled back and forth as the Horsemen looked at each other without eyes to actually do so. Jerome lifted his gloved hands.
“I don’t get it,” he finally said. “Why would we still be in Sleepy Hollow? Why wouldn’t we come back home?”
Aaron shrugged. “We’re cursed to never sleep, to always ride, but we weren’t cursed to do so there. I guess it never occurred to us not to come home.”
She huffed. “But… how will you ever find the Headless Horseman’s head in Missouri?”
Chad grunted. “What are you getting at?”
“You said the only way to end the curse is to give the Horseman back his head.”
“Which was blown apart by a cannonball,” Aaron reminded her.
She held up one finger. “As far as the story goes.” She shook her finger.
“But even the old guy telling the story in the story says he isn’t sure he believes the tale.
Maybe that’s not what happened.” At their combined silence and unnerving headless attention, she grunted.
“Look, there’s this awesome movie from like twenty-some years ago that told a different story.
Maybe what really happened is completely different, like the movie. ”
Aaron put his hands on his thighs. “What did the movie say happened?”
“Not important,” she said, brushing this off. “It can’t be true. I’m just saying both stories are probably fiction, so we should probably try to find the truth. And we can only do that in Sleepy Hollow, where the legend started.”
Chad’s shoulders swiveled toward her again. “Why would you help us? We scared you. Not on purpose, mind, but we definitely scared you.”
She rolled her eyes. “You did. Not even gonna pretend you didn’t. But you’re forgetting one very important fact.”
“What?” all three asked at the same time.
“Saving you three will set me free, too.” She looked around at them while they apparently looked around at each other again.
When they didn’t speak after their silent confab, she rolled her eyes yet again.
“If you’re not in the Between anymore, there’s no reason to keep me in the Between.
We all go our separate ways. Problem solved. ”
“Wait,” Jerome said, sounding confused, “is that… can that be—”
“Deal,” Chad said, holding out a gloved hand and sounding eager for the first time.
“Deal,” Aaron said, too, also holding out his hand. “I didn’t want to have to drag you here, anyway. If you’ll help us out, too, so much the better.”
“It can’t be that easy,” Jerome protested, crossing his arms. “There has to be a flaw in the logic.”
She was too busy shaking with the other two and marveling at how hand-like their actual hands were inside their gloves now to pay much mind to him griping.
She’d made a deal with two out of the three.
Surely, when she helped them free themselves, the sarcastic third Headless Horseman would go with the flow.
He didn’t seem like an actual jerk—just smart-mouthed.
“Good.” She clapped her hands on her thighs in preparation for standing up. “So… how do we get to Sleepy Hollow? We surely can’t ride horses there.”
“No other mode of transportation for Horsemen, unfortunately.” Aaron stood up and delicately offered her a hand.
She took it, since he’d been so gentlemanly.
“But they’re very fast, they never tire, and if we ride in the Between, we won’t actually take any time at all.
Maybe we’ll be back before anyone even knows you’re gone. ”
“I like the way you think.” She brushed at the seat of her bedraggled leggings and the front of her filthy hoodie. “But I don’t relish the idea of riding a horse all the way to New York.”
“It’s only twelve hundred miles or so,” Chad said, fluffing out his tattered cape. “And here, you won’t need bathroom breaks.”
She paused, eyes going wide. “Wait, seriously?”
Jerome grunted. “Seriously. One of the first things we noticed. Even before the fire thing.”
“Are you sure it’s not just because you guys are… kind of… undead?”
Aaron hesitated. “She does have a point. That might be a problem.”
“I guess we’ll find out.” Chad whistled, loud and piercing in the watercolor gloom. His horse strode over to him, and he gave it a loving stroke on the nose. “Are you riding with me?”
She weighed her options. Part of her was tempted to ride with Aaron.
He’d been such a gentleman, and he was a little smaller in stature, so he might not take up as much saddle as Chad, though a little stouter in girth.
Jerome was out for the moment because… sarcastic guy.
And not exactly small in stature—broad at the shoulders, though narrow at the hips.
But Chad held her securely through the chaos of the crossing, promised to keep her safe and did so. For all the squishing against the saddle horn, she admitted she felt safer with him than she would with Aaron just yet.
“Yeah,” she finally said, drawing it out a little. “Yeah, I guess. Thanks.”
He offered his hand, and she took it. As before, he helped her up and into the saddle, then climbed up behind her. The other two Horsemen mounted their giant steeds, and without a word, they were on their way.
To Sleepy Hollow.
Hopefully, to freedom. For all of them.