Naturally, everyone is staring at us.
“You fellas all right?”one of the officers asks us.
“Never been better,” we both say in unison, patting our pockets and making sure the gems are hidden.
“Are you sure?”he asks with a squint.“Because you seem tobe burned, and I think your shoulder is about to fall off, and you both just ran back into a burning building, so I’m thinking mentally you aren’t very sound either.”
Brom and I look at each other, quickly remembering we’re dealing with the world outside witchcraft.
“You’re right, we should go get this all checked out,” I tell him with a firm nod.“Where’s our school nurse?Josephine?Might as well have them check you over too, Kat.”
Kat comes over and I put my good arm around her as Josephine leads us away from the cathedral and around the corner and out of the prying eyes of the police, just as I see Martha running toward us with the healing poultice.
“I’ll tell you what, I’ll be glad to leave this place,” Josephine says under her breath, then looks to us.“Are the three of you going to stick around Sleepy Hollow?”
I laugh.“After we’re healed, we’re going to get on our horses and ride out of here and never ever return.”
“Farewell to Sleepy Hollow,” Kat says.“May you never look back.”
And isn’t that a fact.
37
Brom
Last night when I made the bargain with the horseman, I wasn’t sure if he was truly going to go through with it.It is one thing to assume a handshake is binding between two morally upstanding individuals and another when you expect an evil spirit to actually uphold the deal.
But as I found out, the Hessian wasn’t an evil spirit at all.He was just a soldier who had died a long time ago in a horrific manner and had wanted peace ever since.Peace he could never find, roaming the veil in search of something—someone—that would ease his plight, never realizing that acceptance was the only escape.
And so the coven used him, used his tortured spirit and made him their puppet to do their bidding.He’s been used to retrieve wayward souls such as myself, he’s been used to murder and enact revenge.All has been done for the cruelty of the coven, never for his own gains.
When you’ve been controlled by someone for so long, you forget what freedom even looks like.
When the horseman found himself bound to me, he saw something in me, similar to how I found something in him.He was attached to my humanity.I was attached to his monstrous side.I liked the power he gave me.He liked the love I received.
We saw freedom in each other.
We each gave what the other needed.
And with Kat’s and Crane’s energy inside me, the bond among us unbreakable, I had the upper edge in our symbiotic relationship.Three is more powerful than one.
So I told the Hessian that if he came into my body and gave me strength, I would go into his and control the both of us.I would ensure that a sacrifice would be made so that I would be free of him and he would be free of me.
I would give him the noble, final death he so desperately craved.
Still, I wasn’t sure it would work.Even when I was operating the horseman and myself at the same time, I wasn’t sure if I would lose myself to his strength and power.Swinging that ax and that sword with ease was the closest I’d ever felt to being a god.
But then when I saw Kat taken by Goruun and saw Crane pierced by the spider’s leg, and I already started to feel the Hessian’s power slip away as he sank toward death, I realized that it didn’t matter if I felt like a god or felt like the devil; none of that compared to the love that I felt for them.
They were everything to me.
My true power.
And worth every sacrifice.
I was going to do all I could to live, because I wasn’t about to leave them behind.
Ironically, the Hessian ended up saving my life as his final deed.
