Chapter 7
The group sat in a much clearer area, huddled in a little circle, surrounded by the grazing horses.
Esmie had her light on and aimed at the book as she sat next to Chad, leaning against his side while he skimmed pages in the journal.
She caught the occasional phrase, but the writing really was too old-fashioned and elegant for her to decipher at a glance.
Chad, of course, seemed to have little trouble.
Finally, after a seeming eternity of him silently reading, he began to read out loud.
“O, horror of horrors, his unholy beast rose up from its grievous wounds, the Hessian’s stricken head caught upon a bit of shrapnel on its saddle, and ran away with the dreadful prize, and good riddance. The Hessian shall never again rise to this world. God be praised.
“We could not, however, in all good conscience, deny the fallen enemy a Christian burial. Perhaps in this holy rest, his unholy spirit shall find peace and leave our good land as quiet as it was before he came.”
Esmie sat silent for a moment, absorbing the short tale, her mind working at it, translating the fancy, old-fashioned language into modern English. The Hessian was defeated, but the head caught on some shrapnel on the horse’s saddle. Jesus. What a mess.
“So….” She winced, then tried again. “So the horse… ran away with the head? Am I hearing that right?”
They all turned to look at the horses grazing on substandard grass around them.
“Lightning,” Jerome said, suddenly serious, “have you been holding out on me all these decades? Where is the Horseman’s head?”
Aaron tsked. “Rain would never. He would have taken us to the head if he knew.”
She blinked, sidetracked for a moment. “Thunder? Lightning? Rain? I’m sensing a theme, here, but I don’t—”
“The Three Storms.” Jerome waited. She didn’t get it. “Big Trouble in Little China.” He waited again. She still didn’t get it. “Girl—”
“Not the time, Jer.” Chad put a hand to his non-existent chin and rubbed the air.
“If the horse ran away with the head, how will we ever find it? The horse could have gone anywhere. Literally anywhere, in any direction. The next entry is about the next Sunday’s sermon about bringing in the sheaves, for god’s sake. I can keep scanning ahead, but—”
Esmie sighed. “I guess… keep looking? There has to be something else. It feels like we’re still missing something.”
Sighing, Chad went back to turning pages as she held the light steady. After a few minutes of quiet, Aaron suddenly sat up with a loud, “I know!” that startled everyone to the point that Chad ripped out a page.
“Dammit, A!”
“Sorry! But I know what we need! A map!” He sounded as excited as a little kid.
“A plat map, to be specific. We need to know who owned the nearest house to that property. That’s where the horse would have run to, right?
The nearest source of food and water.” He reached back and stroked his horse’s nose.
“That’s where you would’ve gone, right, Rain? ”
“Well, if he wasn’t a supernatural creature that travels between realms,” Jerome said, but he sounded intrigued. “What the hell is a plat map? And how do you know what one is?”
Aaron huffed, sounding sheepish. “My MBA is good for something, I guess. Business holdings are sometimes property holdings, and plat maps delineate property holdings.”
“Aaron,” Esmie said, grinning ear to ear, “if you had a face, I would kiss you right now. That is brilliant. Now, where do they keep plat maps? City hall?”
He shrugged, but he fidgeted with the tattered edge of his cape as he did so, and she sensed he would be blushing if he could. It would probably be adorable.
“Maybe current ones, but I’m guessing old ones—especially this old—would be at the library. Maybe even at a museum.”
Esmie stood up and pointed in a general direction. “To the library!”
“One problem with that,” Chad said, though he sounded amused as he, too, rose to his feet.
“What?” she said, her excitement undimmed.
“The crossing was just after midnight. The library is closed. We would have to break in, and the damage would be visible when time moves forward again. Unless you know how to pick locks.”
Now, her excitement dimmed. “Oh. Damn.” Her pointing hand fell. “Then what do we do?”
He stepped closer and put his hands on her shoulders. “Not we, Esmie. You. You’ll have to do this part on your own.” He sighed. “And we’ll have to trust you.”
She frowned. “What?”
Jerome grunted. “Yeah, what?”
Chad sighed. “We’ll have to cross you back to the Now.
You’ll go to the library, find the plat map and the nearest house, and…
come back here.” His hands tightened on her shoulders, not painfully but enough that she knew he was struggling.
“We can only cross back over if the conditions are right—a foolhardy soul alone in the dark. So you have to come back here, Esmie. Alone. We have to trust you to do it.”
Or they would never be free. Trust wasn’t a strong enough word.
If they crossed her over right now, she could go to the nearest police station, say she’d been kidnapped and driven here by a bunch of crazy guys, and be sent back to Springfield in no time flat.
Sure, it would be a pain to deal with all the legal mumbo jumbo, but she could do it to get out of here scot free. She should do it.
To get back to her poor Mom. To Tavia. To her students and her scholarships and her job and her future.
But they would never be free. They would always be the Headless Horsemen, cursed to roam the spaces between moments, to take the lives of those out wandering alone in the dark.
She didn’t want that for them. She liked them too much.
Sighing, she nodded, looking up at where his eyes should be. Even the flaming jack o’lantern eyes would be nice right now.
“I’ll be back. I promise.”
His right thumb rubbed back and forth for a second before he let go entirely.
Then, absurdly, he reached out his right hand.
Smiling crookedly, she took it and they shook twice, firmly.
She turned and there was Aaron, right hand out.
She shook again, twice, more gently but heartfelt.
Then, Jerome—two quick shakes with a fist bump at the end.
“Okay, then,” she said, her voice soft. “Let’s do this.”
They went to the horses, and she climbed on first, scooting forward so Chad could climb up behind her. Unfortunately, once they were mounted, they simply stood around for a moment, the horses’ tails swishing, an occasional hoof stomping.
After a long, long minute, Esmie whispered, “What are we waiting for?”
Chad chuckled. “The conditions to be right.”
“Aren’t the conditions already right?” She huffed. “They were right to create the crossing to get me here, weren’t they?”
“It’s complicated,” Jerome said. “The conditions were right in Springfield, but now we’re in Sleepy Hollow. We have to wait for them to be right here.”
“But time doesn’t pass while we’re here. So how can—”
“I said it’s complicated,” he said more intensely.
“Ssh.” Chad held up a hand. “It’s coming. Get ready.”
A rush of breeze stirred up the muted autumn leaves on the ground, and Esmie shivered. She hadn’t realized how much she missed the simple sound of a breeze… but she also dreaded the storm to come. The crossing was no joke. Her fingers tightened on the pommel.
“Don’t worry, Esmie.” Chad wrapped an arm around her middle. “I’ve got you.”
“I know.”
But she held on tightly, just the same.