Chapter 11
Chad held Esmie tight as Thunder raced back to the abandoned church.
Once they broke from their group hug, the Horsemen were on fire to get back to the churchyard and start digging, and Esmie wasn’t about to deny them even a single moment of future freedom.
She only suggested they stop somewhere for a few picks and shovels, as she doubted swords dug well.
Now, she and Chad leaned low over the pommel as the horse galloped like a flying shadow, Jerome and Aaron close behind, silent with the weight of the moment upon them.
This was it. The end of their curse. Esmie cuddled the skull close, her disgust of the thing mostly gone.
Only a panicky protectiveness remained. Nothing must happen to it until she could give it to the Hessian.
It was the most precious object in the known universe.
The fence neared, and Chad swerved to guide them through the broken-down gate. Then, finally, the corner of the church jutted out of the ground, and the horses pawed and snorted from their run, jetting steam and prancing.
“Where’s the Hessian’s grave?” Esmie asked as Chad let her down.
“This way,” he said, dropping to the ground beside her and untying the shovel he’d lashed to the saddle. “It’s just off to the side here.”
Jerome joined them, his stride impatient, a pick and shovel over his shoulder. Aaron jogged to catch up, a pick hooked around the back of his neck. No more words. They were ready to work.
She didn’t offer to help. They had far more strength than she.
They’d be done in record time. She stood aside and let them dig, throwing aside huge clots of ground.
Time didn’t pass, the sunless light didn’t change, the wind didn’t blow.
They didn’t tire or sweat. She didn’t get bored. She watched too intently for boredom.
Eventually, the rotten wood of the casket’s lid was revealed.
It fell apart as they tried to lift it, but that didn’t matter.
Not anymore. It had held together long enough.
The Headless Horsemen climbed one at a time out of the grave, then stood around her, touching her lightly.
After a quiet moment, Chad took her hand.
She nodded. Without a word, he gripped gently under her arms and eased her down into the grave while she clung carefully to the skull.
As soon as her feet touched the sides of the coffin, the bones began to tremble and shake. A voice as hollow and empty as the guys’ in the Now spoke from the air around her.
“Who dares disturb the slumber of the Headless Horseman?”
Every single novel and movie she’d ever experienced reared its head inside her mind, and she adjusted her manner of speech to respond in kind.
“One who would return that which was lost to you.” She held the skull out in front of her as if he could see it better that way. “One who seeks to right the wrong done to you.”
The bones in the coffin jittered madly. “Where did you find that?”
“Under a stone cross by a river. It’s been waiting for you all this time.”
A hand wavered up from the rotted boards below, trembling and strengthless. She wanted to back away, but she somehow held her ground.
“What will you have of me, my lady?”
Her eyebrows rose. He sounded so bitter. Not relieved at all. Gentling her tone, she named her price.
“Your rest, good sir.”
The wavering hand stilled.
“All I ask is that you release these men before you go to your rest. They have suffered enough for a youthful transgression. Let them go, sir, and be at peace, and you shall be whole again.”
The hand returned to the boards, and then—oh, horror—the headless skeleton slowly, shakily sat up.
She backed away, almost falling into the coffin as she tried to balance on the rotted, slippery edges of the sides.
One hand balanced against the dirt walls of the grave as the other clutched the skull to her chest.
“For two hundred years,” that awful, hollow voice intoned, “there was no rest. No sleep. Only wakeful watching, always watching. Then, these past decades, was the bliss of sleep.” The Hessian sighed a lonely note, like the wind over the mouth of a bottle.
“I would sleep forever, my lady. It will be as you wish. They are released. Let me sleep.”
Hands shaking, she bent to perch the head on the delicate column of vertebrae before her.
As she did, the skeleton dropped back to the boards, inanimate once again.
The ground rumbled around her, and the sides of the grave began to collapse.
She squawked, but the dirt somehow fell under her feet, even as it filled in the coffin and rose ever higher.
“Guys? Guys! Help!”
But no hands reached down for her, so she surfed her way over the groundswell up and out of the grave until it leveled out and the sad, dispirited grass filled back in over it, as if it had never been disturbed. She looked down, eyes wide. It was over.
It was over?
“Guys?”
She turned to look at them, and realized it was morning. It was morning. They were back in the Now, and—
Three strangers stood in front of her in the bright light of a crisp autumn morning in street clothes.
Well, Eighties street clothes—brightly-colored t-shirts tucked into high-waisted, stone-washed jeans tight-rolled over high-top shoes.
Jerome’s tightly-curled black hair stood up from his scalp with straight sides, but was tilted at the top.
A diamond earring winked brightly in the morning sun from his left ear.
Chad had a blonde surfer bro ‘do and a pukka shell necklace.
Aaron looked a little like a stout Uncle Jesse from Full House with his longish dark hair parted in the middle.
She couldn’t help it. She stared, overwhelmed.
“Esmie? You okay?”
It was Aaron, of course, but… it wasn’t Aaron. It was his voice, but… where was the black Horseman get-up? The gloves and boots and cape? The horse, Rain? Something even seemed to have gone out of his voice, though she couldn’t put her finger on what.
Jerome, however, felt no compunctions and strode over, picked her up around the waist, and swung her around in circles, the high grass slapping at her legs.
“Esmie, you foxy bitch, you did it! You actually fucking did it!” He kissed her cheek, still spinning. “I can’t believe you faced down The. Headless. Horseman. And you fucking won!”
Chad took him by the shoulder, not roughly but enough to stop the spinning. “She sure did. And she didn’t ask for anything for herself. Amazing.”
She stared mutely up at him, at this stranger with the familiar but subtly wrong voice. He had ocean blue eyes, and his hair fell over his forehead. Who was he? She looked at Jerome, searching his amber eyes for anything she recognized. At Aaron, whose eyes were a startling green.
“Oh, honey,” Jerome said, seeing her dismay and how overwhelmed she was. “It’s still us. We’re still the Three Annoying Amigos.”
Abruptly, tears sprung to her eyes, and she sniffled. “I never saw that movie.”
“Esmie, please don’t,” Aaron pleaded, reaching for her.
And she was engulfed in another group hug, this time by three simple humans with heads that leaned down over and around hers, and she didn’t know why she was crying, she really didn’t, but the emotion poured up and out of her like the water out of the natural spring fountain.
It had been a rough few days, she supposed.
She was in the middle of a field in New York state with no way to get home, and these were, for all intents and purposes, three strangers, though they’d been through hell together, and she didn’t know what happened next.
“I don’t know what to do now,” she said, sniffling and trying to wipe her nose on her hoodie sleeve.
Huffing, Chad rubbed her back. “Let me worry about that.”
She wanted to wail. Instead, she tried to speak very calmly and almost made it.
“You don’t understand. I don’t have very much money left on my credit card, and we have to get back to Missouri, and we don’t have magic, non-tiring horses anymore.
And you guys look like rejects from a Back to the Future convention.
And there might actually be a missing investigation going on for me now that I’ve been gone more than twenty-four Now hours. ”
Jerome snorted and pulled back a little bit, though he kept his hand on the small of her back and Aaron’s waist. Aaron chuckled, his arms around his friends’ shoulders. Chad only stood up, his arm around her waist, his hand on Aaron’s shoulder, his forearm dangling down Aaron’s back.
“What? This is important,” she insisted.
“Esmie, please don’t worry.” He smiled down at her, his blue eyes twinkling as brightly as the diamond ring in Jerome’s ear. “My family is loaded. And I’m an only child they love very much.”
Jerome smirked. “How else did you think he planned to retire as a writer?”
She stared. Then, her eyes narrowed. “What if they think you’re dead?”
He shrugged. “They won’t. And even if they do, they won’t when they see me.” He finally let her go, then held out his hand. “Can I borrow your phone?”
She grunted. “What, you think they still have the same phone number after thirty-eight years?”
He rolled his eyes. “No. I was gonna Google them. Like I said. They’re rich.” He smirked to match Jerome’s best. “Trust me. Google will know them.”
Finally, oh finally, she began to smile hesitantly as she dutifully handed over her phone. Maybe it would be okay. Maybe these really were the guys she’d been in the Between with.
Maybe things would actually, for once in her life, really be okay.
Besides, she told herself as she watched him type his family name into the search bar. He was kind of hot with a head.
Actually, now that she actually looked at them, they all were.
Huh. Who knew? The Headless Horsemen were hot.
Blushing, Esmie looked away.