Chapter 20
My father still stands at the head of the semicircle, his dark robes shifting as he takes a step towards me. His eyes are clouded, something I’ve never seen before, filled with guilt and sorrow but also determination.
“Kat,” he says, his voice low. “You shouldn’t be here.” The flickering candlelight makes his expression even more severe.
“I don’t understand. You were about to kill Ichabod.” I shake my head. “What the hell is going on? And who the fuck are they?” I gesture wildly to the two men flanking my father. If I was whispering before, I’m shouting now.
They share uneasy glances and shift their weight. It feels like the whole world is tilting, like I’ve stepped into some nightmarish play where everyone knows their lines but me.
“Well,” Ichabod coughs, and uses his bound hands to point to the man on the left, “this is our honourable police chief, and that,” he indicates the other, “is the town priest.” He glowers at the two men.
“You need to understand, Kat,” my father says, “this is bigger than you think. Bigger than any one man. Than me. Or Ichabod.”
“No, no.” I’m shaking my head again. I don’t understand any of this. “You were going to kill him!”
The man with the knife, the priest, steps forward. He tucks the blade into the folds of his robes and bows his shaven head. “If we don’t act, the town will fall, Miss Van Tassel. You must listen.”
I don’t want to listen. I feel like screaming. I want to grab Ichabod and run. But the way my father is looking at me keeps me rooted to the spot — like he needs me to listen, like he needs me to understand.
“The Headless Horseman is real,” my father says. “He is not just a legend or a ghost story. He first appeared centuries ago and was bound, through blood and sacrifice, to stop him walking the earth. For generations, we have ensured he remains trapped. We exist to protect this town from him.”
I cast a look around at the two other men. “Who is we?”
“We don’t have a name. But we’re part of a society formed in the early 1800s, sworn to spend our lives protecting Sleepy Hollow and to keep the Horseman at bay.”
I don’t know what to think. “And you’re all in on this?” I ask the police chief incredulously.
He clasps his hands in front of him and nods. “Every leader in this town has been since our founding. We’re what’s left.” He glances at my father, who is clearly the head of this operation. “There were others,” he finishes solemnly.
My head is spinning. “So, what’s this? Why the sacrifice? What about the town murders?”
My father sighs. “The Horseman must have a sacrifice. Every year, a sacrifice is made to appease him. A life is given so that he remains bound. It’s the only way.”
I feel dizzy. The air in the room feels too thick and there’s a sickly, cloying scent coming from the burning candles. I swallow heavily.
“So every year, you kill someone and then just… cover it up?”
“No, no, you misunderstand.” My father raises his hands.
“Yes, we believe it took a human sacrifice to bind the Horseman in the first place. But over time, we came to realise how barbaric a practice it was. By the mid-1900s we — well, actually your great-grandfather — had implemented animal sacrifice instead. That was enough to keep the Horseman bound.”
“Oh, well, that’s all right then,” I mutter darkly.
“It’s a necessary evil,” the priest interjects. “Until this year, when everything went wrong.”
I’m afraid to ask, and thankfully, the police chief picks up the story. He shifts on his feet. “The doctor was one of our Order. We didn’t think he would ever… But he was reckless.”
The doctor was part of this? I’m starting to see where this is going.
My father’s expression darkens. “He tried to raise the Horseman to do his bidding.”
Ichabod moves uncomfortably at my feet, and from the corner of my eye I see him attempting to loosen the ties around his ankles. He’s working quietly, trying not to draw attention.
The priest nods grimly. “We don’t know what he was thinking, just that he wanted to use the Horseman’s power. He thought he could control him.”
“He miscalculated.” My father looks away. “And he was the first to die.”
“The Horseman killed him,” I say. It’s not a question, but my father nods.
“And once the Horseman had broken free, there was no controlling him, nothing we could do. He has been killing members of our Order, one by one.”
The doctor, then the lawyer. The mayor. They were all members of this secret society. All hunted down by the Horseman. It’s starting to make sense.
“And now the veil between our worlds is breaking down,” the priest continues.
“The more he kills, the more powerful he becomes. At first, only those he hunted, those of us in the Order could see him. But now as he slaughters us, he becomes corporeal. More real.” He folds his wrinkled hands together in prayer at the centre of his chest.
Ichabod has freed his ankles and now kneels beside me, looking too exhausted to stand.
“We’ve tried to contain the panic,” the police chief says. “In the beginning, we thought it best if everyone believed it was an accident, whilst we tried to get the Horseman back under control. But now, the town is changing…”
I think back. The morning I arrived had been clear and crisp, a perfect autumn day. But quite quickly, it had grown darker, the mist had settled in, the town had taken on an eerie atmosphere.
A realisation hits me.
“But then you tried to pin it all on Ichabod! And what, you thought by sacrificing him, you could get the Horseman back in his cage?”
The three men exchange an uncomfortable look, but it’s the priest that answers.
“The Horseman was first bound by human blood. The animal sacrifices were enough to hold him, but we believe that only another human sacrifice can bind him once more.”
I stare at my father. “Why did you choose Ichabod?” I’m shouting again. “You knew that we…” But I trail off, unable to put into words what we are, especially in front of Ichabod himself, my father and his two cult members.
My father’s expression hardens. “I had to think of the town, and of you.”
I scoff, unable to stop myself. All his talk of protecting me, and he tries to take away the one person who I had really connected with since arriving back in this godforsaken town.
Ichabod had understood me, had really seen me and had made my grief feel just that little bit smaller.
I didn’t have the words to describe what we are, but I had been excited to find out.
And my father had conspired to blame a spate of serial killings on him and then sacrifice him to the Headless Horseman. Dad of the year over there.
“Oh, so this is you caring for me?” The sarcasm bites from my tongue.
My father’s jaw tightens. “I do care. I warned you to stay away from Ichabod. He was a convenient solution. He doesn’t have any other family in Sleepy Hollow. This would have protected you and ensured the safety of the town.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. He sounds so cold, so detached. This is how he chooses to protect me?
I can barely comprehend it. My father, a secret society, ritual sacrifices? I don’t know him at all.
My head is spinning. I can’t think about it. I need to focus on one thing at a time.
“Well, you’re not sacrificing Ichabod.” I realise as the words leave my mouth how lame I must sound. “I don’t want you to sacrifice anyone. There must be another way.”
“There isn’t,” my father says simply.
“Haven’t enough people been killed already?” I protest. “I won’t let you kill anyone else.”
The priest steps forward, his hand going inside his robes for the knife. “The Horseman is coming,” he warns. “If we don’t act, he won’t stop until all of our Order is dead. After that, he will reach full strength and roam this world unbound. He’ll be free to take this town. He will take all of it.”
I square my shoulders, swallowing my fear. “We can find another way, one that doesn’t involve more murder.”
Ichabod is looking up at me, and the three men study me. I have no idea what my father is thinking.
The silence is broken by the police chief. “Then you’d better come up with something fast.”
The candles flicker, throwing light and shadows. Out in the night, I hear the distant sound of hoofbeats.