We each take up our positions outside of the salt circle, waiting. My palms sweat where I hold the packet of matches.
The house is silent. None of us speak. But the silence doesn’t feel empty, it feels charged.
I check my phone for the time. When the sun set, we had turned off the ballroom lights, so only the flickering candles making up the ritual circle remain.
Meredith is clutching some dried sage that she found in the kitchen. My father stands beside her, as if carved from stone. Ichabod is tense at my side. I can’t even begin to think about what he must be feeling, lying in wait to face the Horseman, to protect the man who tried to sacrifice him. His fingers twitch and reach for mine.
Then we hear it.
The distant thunder of hooves.
The Horseman is here.
Outside, a low, guttural snort.
Without warning, the French doors fly open, snapping back on their hinges. An icy blast sweeps through the room, rattling the windowpanes, and glass shatters. The candle flames dance violently and threaten to snuff out. The unnatural cold sweeps through the room, chilling me to my core.
And there he is. The Headless Horseman. Nightmarish, silhouetted against the moon behind him.
His broad shoulders rise and fall with each heavy breath his horse takes. One hand is wrapped tightly around the reins, and the other holds that monstrous sword.
The stallion, just as terrifying, paces back and forth on the patio just outside the ballroom. It snorts, breath misting in the cool air.
I don’t understand. Why isn’t he charging?
The Horseman pulls the reins and the great horse stomps. He turns, and I can sense him searching for my father — considering. Slowly, the horse steps over the threshold, over the shattered glass and into Van Tassel Manor.
Meredith whimpers and my father steps forward, careful to stay outside the salt circle.
“We don’t have to do this,” he yells. “You can all run.”
But his words have triggered something within the Horseman. He pulls his steed around once more, and it steps towards my father. I see his gloved hand begin to raise the sword.
“Katrina, now!” Ichabod shouts.
The Horseman crosses the salt line. My fingers fumble with the matches, lighting one and throwing it down into the circle. The second the flame makes contact, the herbs catch, sending an acrid smoke twisting upwards. The flames snake their way around the salt line, meeting and completing the circle. I hold my breath. The candles flare, their flames turning a deep, unnatural red. The air inside the circle seems to shimmer and distort, like heat rising from the pavement.
The dark horse rears up, hooves kicking wildly. The Horseman tugs on the reins, trying in vain to turn the horse around, to back away. But the magic holds. They are trapped.
Relief floods through me.
The Horseman leans forward menacingly, his horse grunting and stamping. But the salt line holds. The beast paces inside his cage, the Horseman swinging his sword at the invisible walls of his prison. But the circle stands.
Ichabod sags next to me. “It actually worked.”
Meredith nods, but she looks tense. “What now?”
My father doesn’t look any more relaxed now than he had before. He’s staring up at the Horseman with a pale face, his hands clenched at his sides.
“We figure out how we can end this,” I say.
“But how long do we have?” Meredith’s voice is barely above a whisper.
Inside his prison, the Horseman twists this way and that, clearly looking for a way to break down the defences. The horse, agitated, stomps hard enough to send hairline cracks racing through the stone floor.
“We need to think of something fast,” I say, not wanting to admit that Poppy couldn’t be sure how long the trap would last. I’m hoping it stays secure through the night, and that at least gives us one more day to find something useful, something more permanent.
The monstrous black stallion snorts again and tosses his great head.
