“Killing a witch, let alone two witches and a minion, is no easy task,” Reiter said. “And you are too good to let that darkness consume you.”
“Perhaps I was,” I said. “But I have you now, and you have me. And I do not want you to suffer.”
Reiter was silent for a moment before he nodded against my chest. “All right. We will try.”
“That is all I ask,” I replied, leaning back into his comforting embrace.
Chapter Eight
IfKatrinawascomingafter me, she was not making much of an effort. I supposed that knowing that the curse would end me whether she wasted time hunting me or not made her unconcerned about my movements. However, it seemed that her powers over Sleepy Hollow were not as strong without having my full soul to draw upon. The winter was unusually harsh that year, and multiple animals had died. I could hear grumbles of it from the townspeople. The blame was entirely directed at me for not dying on Halloween. My body still had not been found, so they did not know if I was alive or dead, but most assumed I had been chased to some deep part of the woods that they dared not venture to, and my grave was there amongst the shadows.
“The townspeople are used to the glen being a strange gathering place for all manner of spirits and spooks,” Reiter had told me. “The land itself is uneasy and wild. There are voices upon the air, and all manner of otherworldly sightings.” He made sure that he was one of those sightings, being glimpsed once in a while through the trees on one of his rides, or as he slipped away from the village. No one ever came after him if they did see him. I believe the fear of the Headless Horseman was strong enough that none dared to risk his wrath.
Every few days, my heart would surge in agony that would drop me into darkness, and smaller reverberations would make me double over to catch my breath. I had no mirror, save for the windows of the church, but I could tell that the stripping of my soul was taking a toll on me. My strength would ebb and flow, and I could see a ghoulish gauntness in my eyes and cheeks when I caught a glimpse of my own reflection. I tried not to think too hard about what that might mean as the months marched on.
I had the winter and spring to plan. I was going to search the Van Tassel house, every building, every nook and cranny, until I found Reiter’s skull. But I had to sneak around the property when I knew Katrina and Brom would not be there. The summer months would afford me plenty of opportunities. The nice weather and longer hours of sun meant that the villagers were often out late, shops were open, dinner parties were had. I became adept at sneaking through the woods to listen to the townspeople talk and had a pretty good idea when Katrina would be away from the manor. Baltus rarely left the Van Tassel property, but his movements were quite predictable. He was a man of schedule, so his routes walking the grounds, talking to the various servants, and doing his paperwork were easy to determine.
I decided to search the outer buildings first, before trying to slip inside the house where there were always servants bustling around. That made me think that perhaps Katrina would have hidden the skull outside of the house as well so that no one stumbled upon it while cleaning. Once summer came, and there was no mud or snow to reveal my footprints, I began my search of the Van Tassel property.
I would search later in the afternoon so I had a few good hours of light to see by before I would sneak back to the woods after sundown, where Reiter would meet me on the back of Daredevil. He was silent as a shadow, and more than once I had the life nearly scared out of me by him materializing nearby. Then we’d swiftly ride back to the hallowed grounds and cross the bridge so we were safe from the villagers or any witches that might be on the lookout for us. I knew Reiter did not like me outside the safety of the church, but I felt I could not simply sit on my hands and wait for my inevitable end. I had to at least attempt to help him and the rest of the townsfolk, even if my very soul was at risk every time I left the eastern area.
My search of the first few barns on the Van Tassel property were unsuccessful beyond scaring a coop full of chickens and nearly being kicked in the head by one of the horses. But during my second visit, while I crouched in the hay loft as two of the lads from the town came in to do some work, I overheard a conversation that lifted my spirits.
“I think there’s something going on with Miss Katrina,” the one I knew as Philip said. “She ain’t lookin’ as bright as she usually is.”
“The winter was hard on all of us, but she’s looking a little rough earlier than usual,” agreed Pieter.
“She gets so drawn after the harvest,” Philip said. “But after the party, she perks right up again.”
“Every part of her,” Pieter chuckled, and they slapped each other jovially upon the shoulder.
When I brought up this conversation to Reiter, he seemed thoughtful, as if searching his memories. “I know that ensuring a bountiful harvest takes a lot of her strength, both magically and physically,” he said. “I assume this past winter was harder than usual on the town because she did not have your full soul to draw from. I wonder if, by the time of the harvest party, she has used up most of her magic?”
I recalled how Katrina had looked a little sickly at the last harvest party, even though she was still a beauty. Presumably she had had the previous victim’s full soul at her disposal and yet still had seemed quite drained. “That is certainly as good a guess as any,” I said. My own knowledge of magic and witchcraft was limited, but I would imagine that cursing someone’s soul would take quite a bit of magic. “If she is not at her peak on Halloween, might that be the best time to strike?”
“She will have the entire village assembled,” Reiter said doubtfully.
“You told me that if there are no outsiders, one of the villagers is chosen,” I said. “If they knew the truth, that Katrina was selecting from amongst them to die, might they turn on her?”
“It is possible,” Reiter said, though I could hear the uncertainty in his voice. “That would be quite the gamble.”
“This entire thing is a gamble,” I pointed out. “One that we will lose if we do nothing.”
Reiter sighed and held me close. “You are right about that.” So it was decided. We would wait until Halloween and the harvest party, in the hopes that Katrina’s power would be depleted, giving us our best chance to strike her a fatal blow.
My third visit to the Van Tassel property left me with two more outbuildings to search. The first yielded nothing of value. The second was their root cellar, and I had nearly despaired of finding what I was looking for when, toward the back, I found a single wooden trap door, covered by a large pile of baskets. I moved them cautiously, heart in my ears as I reached down to pull at the creaking wood. I was glad for my thin frame as I slipped down into the darkness, finding a ladder there that went downward a few steps.
I had a lantern with me, and I lit it now with a shaking hand. I half-expected to find Katrina flying out of the shadows at me, or some dreadful manner of spook or goblin, but the musty hole held no living horrors, save for a few spiders who scuttled away from my light.
I swiveled around in the small space. It was not much larger than a priest’s confessional, with nothing inside it at all, until my eyes landed on a wooden door, hidden in shadow, at the back. I crept forward, checking the handle, expecting to find it locked. Instead, it gave under my touch, and the door swung silently inward. I lifted my lantern high to throw its feeble light as far as I could, and then nearly dropped it as I clapped my hand to my mouth and nose to contain a scream of fright.
I nearly made a dash out of there, but this was what I had come for. I steeled my nerves and entered the low-ceilinged room. It was made from earth like the root cellar, but crevices had been carved into the wall like shelves. And inset into these shelves were skulls. Dozens of them, the light of my lantern flickering over their empty eyes and glinting teeth.
I looked around the room in despair. There were dozens, possibly even a hundred or more, skulls of various sizes and degradation. A few I could see were children, their adult teeth still imbedded inside of their oral cavities. I drew in a shuddering breath, clapping my hand to my mouth to keep from making any other noise. Every which way I turned, my frail lantern beam caught more and more rows of grinning mouths, empty sockets, and shining foreheads. I felt as if I had stepped into a crypt, and all of the skulls would perhaps turn to gape at me and begin to whisper my name in hideous tones.
How could I possibly tell which one was Reiter’s skull? I could eliminate the children and a few of the smaller skulls that looked like they might be female or more petite men, but beyond that, there was little to distinguish them. A few were missing teeth here or there, or had what looked like healed injuries in a few places. I knew that Reiter had very nice teeth overall except for the top right front tooth that was twisted at an angle. That was what I looked for as I studied each one in turn, trying to envision whose face might have covered each of these canvases of bone.
I wondered if the skulls were placed on the shelves in any particular order and started to work my way around, trying to find the berth that held the oldest-looking ones. It was not a great plan, but it was the only one I had at the moment. I was looking at two skulls of similar nature, twisting my lantern this way and that to see if I could find anything that might distinguish them, when a flash of something bright caught the corner of my eye. I held up my lantern to look. It took me a moment before I found the source, because it was on the ground rather than on a shelf.
