Chad chuckled. “The conditions to be right.”
“Aren’t the conditions already right?” She huffed. “They were right to create the crossing to get me here, weren’t they?”
“It’s complicated,” Jerome said. “The conditions were right in Springfield, but now we’re in Sleepy Hollow. We have to wait for them to be righthere.”
“But time doesn’t pass while we’re here. So how can?—”
“I said it’s complicated,”he said more intensely.
“Ssh.” Chad held up a hand. “It’s coming. Get ready.”
A rush of breeze stirred up the muted autumn leaves on the ground, and Esmie shivered. She hadn’t realized how much she missed the simple sound of a breeze… but she also dreaded the storm to come. The crossing was no joke. Her fingers tightened on the pommel.
“Don’t worry, Esmie.” Chad wrapped an arm around her middle. “I’ve got you.”
“I know.”
But she held on tightly, just the same.
8
She opened her eyes, well aware she’d squinted them closed during the worst of the hullabaloo in the portal, when she heard the crackling of fire behind her. That sound could only mean one thing. She turned around and looked at Chad, and, yup.
Jack o’lantern face. Body like a bundle of sticks in an oversized sack.
They were back in the Now.
He helped her down off the horse just as gently as he would in his other form, but instead of pulling away when she touched down, she took his bony hand in hers and pulled him down to her. When he was close enough, she kissed his pumpkin cheek. He pulled back in surprise.
“What was that for?” His voice was hollow and awful in this form.
“A promise.” She let go of his hand. “I’ll meet you here at midnight tonight. I’ll be by my foolhardy self. I’ll have whatever answers I can find.” She lifted her chin. “I’ll get us all out of this. I promise.”
Before he could say anything else, she went to Aaron’s horse, touched his equally bony hand, and tugged gently until he leaned down. She kissed his round cheek, too.
“I promise.”
“I believe you, Esmie.”
Finally, she went to Jerome. “You, too, buster.”
“A kiss from a pretty girl? Sign me up.”
Rolling her eyes, mourning his rich Keith David tones, she gave him an equally chaste peck on the faded orange skin of his round cheek and patted his bony arm.
“I promise. I’ll be back here at midnight.”
“I know you will.” He surprised her by touching a gloved finger lightly to her cheek. “I’d bet my Supreme Court nomination on it.”
She grinned crookedly, then backed away, and they turned their horses and ran off into the night. She heard the crossing but didn’t see it. Probably for the best. She didn’t want to see them go.
Alone. In a strange state halfway across the country from anything or anyone she knew. Her phone battery was down to fifty-eight percent, and she didn’t have a charger. She had her emergency credit card in her ankle wallet, but it had less than three hundred dollars’ worth of credit left on it. Not enough to get back home easily.
But she could get something to eat and drink, and the library wouldn’t charge her anything to look at plat maps. She might have to pay to get into a local museum if she had to for such old maps. She had a sneaking suspicion Sleepy Hollow might have gone the way of Salem, Massachusetts—touristy and expensive. She hoped not, but she wouldn’t know until she stepped into town.
In ripped leggings and a dirty hoodie with a face that had gone a round or two with a cheese grater. Ugh. This just kept getting better and better.
Nothing for it but to head toward the urban center. She pulled out her phone, brought up the local library, and asked for directions. Then, she followed the blue line out of the scrubby woods toward the dimly lit streets of town. It wouldn’t be dawn for hours yet, so she had plenty of time to trudge along.
