Ichabod, hit square in the forehead, departed from his horse, his body falling off the side and narrowly avoiding a gruesome fate from the thing's hooves as it bucked and kicked before fleeing into the trees and out of sight. Ichabod, momentarily senseless, flailed aimlessly, his pursuer closing in and rearing up, its horse kicking into the air and screaming.
Ichabod popped to his feet, nimble as the man was, and took several long steps backwards, before becoming frozen by the moonlit visage of the rider in the graveyard. Still, there were nerves left to startle, because he jumped at the first words the goblin had spoken:
"Give me back my head."
Ichabod's eyes darted across the ground until they found the source of the voice, and he finally let out a blood-curdling scream. The air filled with the ghost's heinous laughter, sufficient to chase Ichabod away, him joining his horse in the listless trunks of the harsh, black forest.
If he recognized the voice, it didn't much matter.
And if he recognized the face on the head, half-lit as it was in the moonlight, that didn't much matter either.
At that point, Ichabod was so out of his wits, familiarity would have only put him further off-balance, as his brain knew there were dots to connect and then failed to connect them. In the end, he'd likely realize the prank, and be thoroughly ashamed of himself, even if he didn't understand how the prank worked.
Brom Bones, in the guise of the Galloping Hessian of Sleepy Hollow, modulated his laugh down, just a bit. He shushed Daredevil, his horse, and rubbed at its shoulders in a loving, paternal fashion. It was something of a chore to find and retrieve his head, which he had, in fact, thrown at Ichabod. He had trusted Daredevil for most of the chasing, but for the accuracy of the throw, it was necessary to have eyes to see. He pulled open the shirt at his chest, giving those eyes a better view of his head, and scoffed.
Of course, a large purple bruise had formed on the forehead, and it was likely to have a concussion as well. He had expected as much, but was still disappointed. He would have to make a new head and reconstitute the matter in his own time — which meant he wouldn't be presentable, tonight, to visit his love, Katrina.
He massaged the stump of his neck, opening his esophagus. He pulled a flask from his belt, and poured some of it, carefully, over what once was his head. It didn't take long to soften and sag, and when he could squeeze it into a pulp in his gloved hands, he began to pour it into his own throat.
He strolled the graveyard for his own pleasure, chest bared and searching about for a proper replacement for his head. He found a patch of small gourds, growing by the creek, one of which had been thoroughly smashed by Ichabod's horse's hooves. He waited the moments it took him to melt down the head until it was just a skull, which he then placed carefully into a satchel. Leaning down, he picked a gourd and placed it atop his neck, lifting up his hood before going back towards the road. As much as he loved playing the part of the apparition, he wished more strongly to get home unaccosted, and this should be just the thing to trick anyone not passing too close this night.
He left the scene in high spirits. Ichabod Crane was put out, then driven out.
Brom let one moment pass, in dedication to the poor sod. A moment of silence for the lanky, gangly man, who had much more of a chance than some might have expected.
But he'd played nice, and this marriage was simply too important. He raised his pumpkin head, kicked his spurs into Daredevil's flanks, and rode into the night.
In the silence of the abandoned scene, there returned the sounds of cricket songs and croaking frogs. The stark white walls of the old church upon the hill reflected moonlight generously across the knoll, so that each of the tombstone's ever-resting residents could be blanketed even in the midnight hours by God's gracious light, should there be any to speak of.
But it is here, in the absence of commotion and the placid light, that an imposing figure stands. Its curvature follows the shadow of an elm tree, such that when it steps into the light, it is as if it has apparated from nothing, and its pallid complexion is enough to convince one of its ability to disappear just as suddenly. It rides upon a steed made up of the shadow of their origin, unable to be given depth by even the church's light. So silent as to not disturb even the shyest mice that dart between the graves, it walks towards the squashed squash, and leans deeply to stare at the thing.
It returns to its seat proper, and the steed and it — if they are separable at all — turn towards the path running up the hill, past the church, and back to Sleepy Hollow.
There is merriment in the barn where Brom and his gang convene. Though Brom has some difficulties in imbibing, they are nonetheless a drunken bunch, celebrating in their ways the successful playing of Ichabod Crane.
"Look at this pumpkin-headed fool!" one of his hooligans calls, then reaching over and giving the stem a yank and pulling Brom a bit off-balance. His name is Frans Molen, though the boys often call him Franny and tease him for his girlish figure, and Brom is upon him at once, grabbing and lifting him and tossing him into the hay for his impudence.
The hooligans, Franny included, laugh and cheer. Brom looks at them, his shirt open for his eyes to see, though the primitive things have difficulty making out details. Brom is thankful for his inability to speak, so he has fewer chances to mistake people's names. Nonetheless, he levels a strong, calloused finger at them, daring them to cast further judgment.
One takes up the call, quipping that he rather likes this new look. "You were so dour and pale — at least now you have some color in your complexion!"
"Though it seems he's made it up by growing something of a gut, the drunkard!"
He chooses the first as his target, and they make a game of the chase. They tumble over haybales, duck in and out of stalls — once, the chased nearly knocks over their bottle of local wine, which Brom, ever the gentleman, stops to steady.
"Get him, Horseman!"
"Chase out that pretender, Ichabod!"
And so Brom assumes the role once more, pretending even to gallop atop a horse, holding his hands in front of him as if holding the reins. His victim puts on a nasal affect, and pretends to be scared. Of course, Brom replays the act of throwing the head, but this time the gourd misses.
"Aha! I see you for what you are, Brom! An air-headed freak! And soon, Katrina too shall know, and against all odds, she'll pick a scarecrow like me before picking a monster like you!"
The jest bites, and he subdues the play-Ichabod in a fit. "Uncle, uncle!" his victim yells, and he stands back up. He and the hooligan, who he's now identified as Herman de Groot, an excellent equestrian with an even more excellent horse who he often races on their long rides.
He and Herman bow, concluding the play, and Brom makes an effort to sit down instead of collapsing. His breathing is more limited now, and the gourd he replaces on his neck-stump helps none. The chases are more taxing than he wants to let them realize.
"It's a shame that such a wonderful performance was given only to that coward," Franny woefully remarks.
"Ah, but he was the perfect audience!"
"I only wish I could have been there to see his face — and yours, for that matter."
Brom pats his conspicuously large belly.
"Don't be thick! The old face, I mean."
"Your best trick, and you saved it for the only person who wouldn't appreciate it. I think that's a damnable shame."
Brom inclines his "head" as way of acknowledgment, but then raises it, and indicates it. He picks it off, and tosses it high in the air, catching it and spinning it on his finger. With the spin, his index drills into it, until the gourd is stuck on all the way up to the first knuckle. He feigns shock, and then waves his hand as if trying to shake it off. He runs in a circle, a headless chicken, his exposed esophagus whistling with his wet breath, the gang drowning out the noise with their guffaws.
"Yes yes, Brom, but this was more than your parlor tricks," one unimpressed voice comes through.
"It really is — I'll admit, even with his impressive stunts, I would never think Brom could take off his head!"
But Brom lingers on the first voice, which, even with his limited hearing, could be none other than his younger brother, Hans Van Brunt.
He's happy to have no face, so there is no need to mask his grimacing soul. It's true, he thinks, this wasn't of my usual tricks. He's aware of his brother's cutting stare, even if he swaggers over to the wall, places the gourd there, and uses his boot to press it against the wall and pull it off. He affixes it back upon his neck, and swivels around. Someone reaches over, and adjusts the placement of the head.
"This side feels more like a face," they say.
There are murmured agreements. Brom looks at them — up close, it's easy to make out the figure of Adrian Lodders, or Laddy Lodders as they tended to call him. Though he is shorter than Brom, he challenges Brom's figure nonetheless, being wide and built for it. His voice, though, carried less of the festivities in it, and even as he quipped, his tone seemed dull and dark.
Brom gives him as good a look as he can, and he thinks he sees Adrian flinch as he puts the face of the gourd close to his.
"Fit enough for a groom, though?" his brother chimes in again. Brom jerks towards his brother, a fire in his belly.
"Fit to marry a squash like Katrina!" Herman calls.
Brom pounces towards the latter, using the fire from the former.
In truth, he doesn't get into many brawls with his brother. He wrestles Herman to the ground, and the hooligans cheer.
Laddy watches without comment. Hans' cheers feel canned. He's too conscious of the upcoming wedding, and he dearly misses Katrina. He wishes he could see her now, but the head growing in his belly is stubbornly refusing to come into shape, and he's playing at being out on a long journey and bender with his gang. He stands up, and finds someone's cup, wresting it out of their hand and lifting his gourd to pour a quick gulp down his open throat before handing it back.
He raises a hand and moves his finger in a circle, calling for everyone to be rounded up.
"What's the job?" asks Harrie Von Hoff, their most bookish companion.
By way of response, Brom flares his collar, hunches, and waggles his hands.
The boys need no further instruction. They are to facilitate another haunting — Brom is making the best of his circumstances, and having a slew of hauntings will put the idea of the Headless Horseman at the top of the county's collective mind when they come to assess Ichabod's disappearance.
They mount their horses, trusting the steeds to be less sloshed than they, and ride into the night, Brom in the lead with his hood covering his frightening lack of countenance.
In truth, he's glad not to have a head, if only so he can't blush at his lack. He feels Hans' eyes on the back of his — well. He knows what he's thinking, and he kicks himself for thinking it too. If Hans were in his shoes, he knows he would have regrown his own head by now. No, Hans, though he reserves and savors his demonstrations, is far more adept at Brom's famous "parlor tricks." In fact, Brom knows as well as Hans does that he's far above them, and that if Hans showed the full extent of his abilities, all of the gang would be stunned into the same cold stares of Laddy Lodders at best, and sent screaming and convinced of the devil's presence among them at worst. But this, such a trick as removing and regrowing his own head, was at the top of Brom's abilities, despite all his best efforts.
As they torment another solo rider of the night's byways, his performance as a ghoul is enhanced by his spectral existence as his brother's shadow. Truly, if he weren't the eldest… well. Hans and he both know which of them would be better to make Katrina their wife.
The wedding of Katrina Van Tassel and Abraham Von Brunt was a sight to behold and would be the talk of the countryside for months to come. The pairing of the families was as natural as the yellowing maple leaves that made a bed at the feet of everyone present. Beneath an uncharacteristically open blue sky that autumn, Katrina and Brom gave their vows, and when they kissed there wasn't time to blink before the Brunts and Tassels erupted into cheering and merriment.
And then the bride and groom hurried off, to mount Daredevil and ride to who-knows-where. While they consummated, the families celebrated, and Sleepy Hollow betrayed its name by becoming the center of a great and thunderous ruckus! Men and women of all stripes forewent their duties to join on the holiday, and the classes and races passionately danced together in an ecstatic release of their places in the world.
Von Brunts met with Van Trussels, and their families coiled together like intertwined snakes. They shared meals, made merry, and when the night wore on, they played with fire, and the credulous townfolk swore that once or twice they saw monsters at the edges of the firelight.
But Brom and his beautiful wife Katrina could only imagine the wonders of the wedding as they made away to their honeymoon — a small trickling waterfall Katrina had sweet youthful memories of, a hidden place of hers that she had never shown anyone. She wanted the honeymoon to mean something, and here it meant something, a part of her life she would open up to her other half and no other.
When the path became too narrow, Brom dismounted Daredevil and sent him on his way — their bond was such that he could let Daredevil out into the woods and the steed would come in a flash at Brom's call. He idly wondered, sometimes, what Daredevil did all by himself, but the wondering was short-lived — he was sure the thing got up to horse-like nonsense, and he didn't bother himself with knowing the habits of those small-minded children of God's.
So as Daredevil strode into the forest, he wasn't much distracted, and kept his eyes true to Katrina's hidden path. The sun was setting, and the woods were dark enough Brom was ready to catch Katrina should she fall, but her footing was sure as ever. In fact, to his own embarrassment, it was he who stumbled, and Katrina's soft hands caught his arm to steady him. He smiled, but was secretly ashamed.
"Only a few moments more," she assured, "it's close."
Indeed, he could hear the trickle of water, and they'd been walking upstream of a trilling creek the majority of the way.
"I would come here to think," Katrina was saying, "when I could think of nothing else."
Brom had only been half-listening, his mind thoroughly attentive to his own loins, and his loins thoroughly attentive to her stride. She'd changed out of her dress, because she wanted it pristine and clean forever, but she had forbade him from looking, and the moment had stirred in him something that he couldn't get rid of.
It was the third time he reached out to graze her, that she turned around and stopped abruptly. He froze.
They stared at each other some time, and she had trouble maintaining his gaze. He, on the other hand, was confident as ever, and stared at her with a smile that spoke honestly of his hunger. She eventually broke her gaze, and his smile widened.
"Please," she said, in a low voice, "I know you're eager, my love. But this is important."
He stood a bit straighter, and put on a more serious expression.
"Of course, dear. It's nearly the most important thing in the world."
She smiled bashfully, and briefly, but took a moment to respond.
"So, I need something from you, first."
What more? he thought, with the slightest edge of indignance, we have already said our vows, I've courted you… "Of course, darling, what do you need?"
She met his eyes again.
"I need you to tell me. What ever did happen to Ichabod?"
He full-belly laughed, but shut up when he saw that it wasn't contagious. Instead, he wistfully shook his head. "Nothing. The poor sod is somewhere jumping at shadows and reciting proverbs at idiots, no doubt."
"I rather liked the 'poor sod.'"
He pursed his lips. "I know. In a way, I liked him too."
"And yet every time people spoke of him at our wedding —"
"An aggravating habit they had today —"
"— you seemed to laugh, just like you did, like you knew something no one else did. They think he died, Brom —"
"The people of this town think a lot of nonsensical things, Katty. They believe in goblins that give their cattle heart attacks and fairies that whisk their children away —"
"And you're above that, then?"
"I —!" he hesitated. He had shown her some magic, some silly things — disappearing fingers, boggling his eyes, impossible slights of hand… but he had yet to tell her the real root of all these things, yet to give her a sense of the extent of it. But, in the ruse, he'd admitted to believing in magic, at least. He felt he had good reason to know exactly what was and wasn't horseradish, and that the people of Sleepy Hollow were full of it, but to reveal exactly how he knew wasn't something he was yet willing to do. "I'm a practitioner of magic, dear. I have a strong grasp on what is and isn't real, and I'm just saying that the people of this town are incredibly… superstitious. I'd wager that for every ten tall tales they tell, one of them has a kernel of truth, and the whole truth of it isn't even a fraction of what they think is so incredible and horrific."
"Fine, then let me be specific. There's talk it was —"
"A ghost."
"The galloping Hessian. The headless horseman."
"I know, I know."
"But you don't believe it."
He took a deep breath, annoyed at the waning light, making it progressively harder to read Katrina's face.
"Dear, if we don't get to the waterfall soon, there won't be light enough to see it by!"
She didn't budge, and he grumbled. Then he brightened, artificially, to make the news land a little bit softer.
"Of course I don't believe it," he started. "It was I who chased Ichabod that night."
"I knew it!" she yelped. "You had too much humor about it, you were too sure —"
"Sure, let it be said, that he's entirely unharmed. He's simply been turned away, that's all."
"I knew it. I knew I was marrying a scoundrel."
"You did know it," he intoned. "Does it come as such a surprise."
She paused. "No, it doesn't," she murmured, in a sweeter tone. Then she spoke up: "But I needed you to say it, do you understand? From here on, I need to know everything in your heart, in your mind, and in your soul."
"Of course," he whispered, fierce. "Of course."
"That was an awful thing you did."
"Dear, I was only finishing what you'd started!"
"I'd only put him out, and Lord knows I did not want to, but I didn't mean to drive him away!"
"It was a matter of the heart! Two men who love the same woman can not live too close to one another, either one will die of heartbreak or they'll kill the other. In either case, it's a very unpleasant business, and each scenario ends in death. I was simply… getting ahead of that eventuality. Seeing as my family and your family live here, and Ichabod is an itinerant sort…"
"He was a sweet man and an incredible dancer — I wished you two would be friends."
He shook his head. "That's not how men work. I do not know of the realm of women, but two men in love with the same lady will be at each other's throats until one or the other dies. I thought it best to be expedient about it — I wanted him out before the wedding, for seeing one's love wed to another is surely the scene that will curdle their heart and let the flame of love birth a different kind of heat."
Katrina laughed. Brom smiled.
"You say such ridiculous things sometimes."
He only shrugged, and lay out his hands in a gesture that said: I can't control who I am.
"But… tell me, I know you said, but you…?"
Brom quirked an eyebrow.
"You didn't…?"
"No, no. For one, Ichabod couldn't take a beating — I'm not sure I could land a good punch on him that wouldn't snap something."
Katrina laughed again.
"For another," Brom continued, "he isn't the sort to need such a lesson. A good prank was enough to scare him off — he's of a fickle, frightened sort."
"Oh, he is," Katrina hummed, and Brom thought he caught affection in the tone, and bristled.
"Enough of Ichabod Crane," he snipped, a bit more sharply than intended. "We can hardly see the waterfall now, but I'd still like to hear it at least."
"You'll see it in the morning, and it will be all the more beautiful for it," she said, turning around and leading the way once more. Thinking, she reached a hand backwards, and Brom took it. "Follow closely, move slowly."
The trees above opened up to show a sky with the first glimmering beads of starlight. A short rocky cliff was barely visible, but the water trickling down it was alight with the subtle reflections of the stars and moon. The last bits of orange in the sky seemed to disappear as they started a fire in the firepit Katrina told Brom she made herself.
He gazed at Katrina's figure in the half-light, her sleek physique and tender arms. She gazed back at him, and he yearned to take her as his own — to make her, officially, Katrina Von Brunt. He stalked towards her, and she played at resistance, but her laugh was alight with desire when he finally grasped her.
"Let us put aside old flames," he said, "and kindle a new one."
She turned as red as the fire, but her eyes drove into his with just as much hunger.
On a rug Brom had brought, they made love. Brom, ever the rascal, was quite good at it to begin, but Katrina did her due diligence as a woman of class and resisted him at every turn, such that he necessarily had to hold and restrain her. He relished in the act — in a way, every prank on Ichabod, every romantic gesture towards Katrina, had been a protracted version of this. The claim, the ownership — he planted his flag at her deepest point, her inner sanctum, and none could ever, from this moment on, deny him his right to her.
She breathed in him, and she thought of their merging into a single being, a harmonious new thing that would guide her life and his such that they were an organism that ate the same food, breathed the same air, walked the same path and thought the same thoughts — a being that would go to heaven or hell together.
And all was beautiful in each of their eyes, where in Katrina's she saw above and over her an intersex being, inheriting her feminine qualities as she inherited his masculinity, and in Brom's eyes he saw below himself a woman, who would tend to him, support him, and do right by him.
It was perhaps looking into Brom's eyes that so startled Katrina — that for a moment she noticed that the windows to his soul were open in a way they had never been before, and she did not like what she saw. She began to push against him with more earnest effort, but he did not yield, and without his cooperation, there was nothing a woman of her frame could do to truly displace him.
For himself, the the pushback swelled him. He became fiercer, more determined — he smiled, he breathed heavily, he thrust and he grabbed. She squirmed, and with a growing upset, her moaning became something else, louder, sharper, more desperate.
She loves it, Brom thought to himself, in the moment before Katrina yelped.
He pulled back and away. "What's wrong?"
"I — I heard something," she lied, "I thought I heard something."
Brom tuned his ear to the woods. He heard the crackle of the fire, the fiddling of crickets and the croaking of frogs. He looks around him. The firelight illuminated the clearing but made little sense of shapes between the trees. Brom remained undeterred, sure of his wits.
"Are you used to the woods at night?" he asks.
"I — yes, of course —"
"They make all kinds of queer noises. I'm sure you heard a deer, or an owl. They're harmless."
"No, I…"
She looked so bothered, Brom softened his tone.
"Dear, what's wrong?"
The warmth of his tone seemed to calm her by a mechanism unknown to him. He watched her breathing steady, and her eyes rest again.
"I… I guess this is all so new to me… I didn't know how to handle the intensity."
"Oh, darling…" He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, and she smiles. "You're right. You're even more delicate than I had anticipated."
She tittered.
"I will be gentler."
That seemed to put her at ease. She loosened, and relaxed. He rejoined her, and he was gentler. He held himself back, wary now of scaring her off, and she met him in the middle, more enthusiastic this time — as much as she was able to show it, being mostly motionless, allowing of him, employing the passivity taught to woman-folk.
And this time, Katrina saw in Brom's eyes only kindness and desire for her, a desire she reciprocated, and she loved him and she loved his loving of her. She told herself that what she'd seen the first time was a phantom of a fear she'd had, and that this, the Brom she had known, was the real Brom, her honeysuckle, the thorns for her rose.
It was in this interplay, where her ears were full of the rush of her own blood, their shared body, the rhythm of intercourse, that somehow, somewhere, there came a chill, a darkness — a fleeting but overpowering sense of being prey.
She gave Brom such a look as to stop him stone-still without the need for a single noise. There, frozen in position, they each listened.
There was the fire.
The animals.
A rustle of something somewhere.
Nothing out of place.
Until, Brom heard a low noise. His hairs stood on end. Something steady, approaching. He rose, grabbed a nearby stick, and watched, vigilant.
Katrina could hardly breathe.
As the noise approached, so soft Katrina couldn't convince herself she really heard it — but she couldn't convince herself she couldn't, either — Brom beat his chest three times.
"Who comes to crash my honeymoon?" he bellowed. His show did nothing to calm Katrina — she felt her fear validated by his demeanor. There really was something out there — at their most vulnerable, when God should be watching them closest of all, something was approaching.
"Show yourself!!"
The sound stopped. Brom and Katrina both heard almost nothing but their own heartbeats in their ears. It felt like the entire forest has stopped making noise, and even the fire had curled up in fear, the glow meek and its embers dim.
"Show yourself!!" Brom repeated.
In response, something between the trees nickered, low.
At once, Brom laughed. Katrina stares at him, bewildered.
"It's Daredevil!" he said. "He felt left out."
She sighed heavily in relief. "Dear Lord, I thought I was going to die!"
Brom laughed again. "Come out, you idiot! Did it get cold? Come by the fire."
There came no response, and Katrina shivered.
"It is cold, Brom. Your heat was all that was keeping me warm."
"Of course," he said, turning back towards her, "let me ensconce you, and shield you from all that the world would chill you with."
"Oh, Brom…"
As he walked back towards her, bothered by another interruption, he takes note of the horse's strange behavior, standing at the edge of the light, just out of sight. It must be jealous, or lonely, he thought.
As he took back his position above her, he allowed himself a fantasy. He pictured that it was Ichabod Crane atop that barely-broken horse he had borrowed, watching from the shadows, as his love became a Von Brunt.
This image pleased him as he reinserted himself into Katrina, and a wide smile had crept across his face, devious and playful.
Ah well, Brom thought, viciously enjoying the warmth of his woman, let him watch.
It watched.
The table was set, and the room smelled strongly of spices. Brom smiled wide as the faceless servant came towards him, holding in its many arms the pungent dishes that filled Brom's nose with the feelings of home. The Von Brunt homestead was an elegant place, and though he usually found himself off somewhere spending the night with a woman, his gang, or otherwise indisposed in a hotel and too far from home to return, he sometimes yearned strongly for his own familiar bedding and would rush to House Von Brunt to attend to the few private matters of his heart. Of course, he would sometimes find his brother home as well, much to his chagrin, but that could not be helped, and usually it would spirit him off again, even if Hans followed, just so he wouldn't have his most comfortable moments sullied by prying eyes.
As he served himself the pickled red cabbage, the servant breathed through its skin, in a way he was sure could be less noisy and intrusive, but he didn't feel he had the standing to make comments on his parents' handiwork. He made no motion to thank or acknowledge it as it pointedly moved to serve his brother last.
"You've impregnated her, I take it?" his father asked, never one to mince words.
Brom laughed. "Mrs. Von Brunt will be round as a pumpkin come Summer, you can count on that."
"Good," father Von Brunt said, all smiles and good humor. "A child will do well to cement the ties between us and the Van Tassels. A new Abraham, for our family line, and a melding of our fair fleshes."
Brom deliberately chewed, nervous at the assumption it would be an Abraham. Truth be told, Brom had no way of knowing the sex of the child — as much time as he had spent in brothels across the country training his technique, he hadn't the heart to go through with the routine suggested by his parents and followed dutifully by his brother. He might, if he had more confidence in his own ability, but after the first and second whores turned up girls, and he made to reconstitute his flesh made in their wombs and scour their witness from the records of the earth, he felt sick to his stomach at the prospect of doing it again. He slept with and practiced on plenty more women, but everything became theory — he never followed up, and he made sure they didn't become pregnant.
"A toast? To kin and skin," Hans cut in.
Brom finished chewing in time to raise his glass and join in the cheer. "To kin and skin!"
They clinked cups, and Brom laughed loud, hiding beneath it a fear that he may have to keep his child's birth private, and change the sex of their spawn himself.
"Speaking of, should I sire a daughter as well?"
"After two sons, perhaps," his mother replied, indicating himself and Hans. "If they don't show true promise, that is."
"Make as many sons as your wife can carry, and keep the ones worth keeping. Sire daughters only if none show promise — you know this."
"Of course, but only — Katrina will be a new initiate to the family, and I wonder that maybe she would feel more comfortable with a female presence in the house."
"A daughter for her sake, then?"
"Yes."
"Hmm…" the patriarch leaned back in his chair, as Brom served himself the pork from the servant's third go around the table. "Perhaps have twins next, one male and one female. I see no harm in it. It could work well as an experiment, even."
Brom's stomach swam with the idea of promising to make twins. "Of course," he said with a grin.
"You really like this woman," his mother observed with a carefully neutral tone.
He breathed deeply. "I do," he said. "I love her."
The silence is palpable. Plates clink with utensils, though softly, the Von Brunts being experts in table manners.
Brom side-eyes Hans to see him smiling to himself, though Brom can guess the thought.
"Mm," the father says, "a spectacular mutton, the cumin astounds." He manages to say it without any amount of gratitude or recognition for the cook — a spidery mass of limbs and eyes perched on its stand by the door to the kitchen like a grotesque bird.
"Doesn't it just?" Hans answers him.
"Is it your love for the girl that keeps her from this table?" matriarch Von Brunt asks without looking up from her food, in complete disregard for other conversation.
Brom is stunned. "No, not at all —"
"Then what makes you so hesitant to bring Mrs. Brom Von Brunt to the Von Brunt home?"
"It's nothing like that. I'm just afraid for her heart is all. She's a frail, delicate thing, you understand — Sleepy Hollow is just that, and it has done nothing to prepare her for the things we know to be right and true but that the outside world thinks of as abhorrent and vicious. She has lived a sheltered, easy life."
"Have you not shown her who you are?"
The implication stings, but he smiles and keeps his voice strong. "She still flinches at the slightest things. Whenever my body bends beyond where the average person's would break, she retreats. I've tried to make it all good fun for her, but she has shown no sign of warming up to the ideas."
"He's kept it to party tricks for her sake, Mother. Nothing that would truly push her understanding of the world."
Brom glanced at his brother, his expression of mild amusement unchanged, willing Hans to feel the venom in his heart. Hans returned the expression, but it was more genuine.
"She's weak," their mother put simply.
"Frail and delicate, I remember him saying," the father chimed in.
"Perhaps she was not a good fit for the Von Brunts?" she makes it a question.
"If I may," Brom says, his restraint slipping, "the Van Tassels are an incredible asset to us, and they have but one daughter. She will fit the Von Brunts, because she must."
"I agree," father Von Brunt added, cheerily. "I suggest you make her fit. To do so, how did you put it… you may have to bend her body beyond where the average person would break, yes?"
Brom's blood runs cold. He is momentarily speechless.
"And if the body does not hold, you may have to make a new Mrs. Brom Von Brunt," Hans added, gesturing with pork speared on his fork. "Nothing you can't handle, I'm sure."
"If I may," Brom says again, this time the anger clear in his voice, and he lets it ring, taking a moment before continuing the sentence. The parents cease their eating, fork and knife held still in their hands. Hans finishes his bite, and wipes his fingers, careless for the change in tone. "She is mine. My quarry, my claim. She is mine to do with as I please. While our children will bear the precious blood of the Von Brunts — and may I add that she is incredible material to mold and create with, that her blood will mix well with the Von Brunts, accentuate our beauty and form — she and she alone is of Van Tassel blood. I saw her. I wanted her. I want her as she is, and it is my right to have her as she is. Worry not for the upbringing of our spawn. I will teach them our craft, and they will walk and talk like Von Brunts, but with the beauty and grace of their mother."
"And frailty?" Hans tittered.
"I will twist every hint of weakness out of them with the doggedness of a dachshund hunting rabbit — I will dig for it, I will find it, and I will crush it between my teeth. Do not worry about that — or would you like a demonstration?"
Hans laughed, and put up his hands in surrender.
"But she will be as I want her. You understand?"
Brom breathed deeply, and stared at his mother. She returned the gaze, and said nothing. His eyes passed to his father, who smiled.
"I see," his mother said. "You were right, then. It is not love. My apologies for the misunderstanding."
"Of course, Mother, I know you mean well."
"It is a shame, though — I want to see her!" the father chuckled.
"You will see her. She won't be kept from the Von Brunt home forever, I only wish to… preserve her."
"You have nine months, then," Mr. Von Brunt stated firmly, and with a little bit of mischief in his eyes. "If you haven't found a way by then, you most certainly won't be able to after!"
The table laughed, and Brom forced a smile and a polite chuckle. "She is a curious girl, but she respects my authority, as any good wife should. She'll ask questions. I'll dole out answers, slowly, steadily. She will come to understand."
"I'm glad to hear it. She may be your claim, of course — but she is my daughter-in-law."
Brom's guts curdled. "I know," is all he said.
Brom was saddling Daredevil when Hans approached. "Not staying the night, then?"
"No. I know the tavern my companions are drinking at tonight — we discussed it, should I want to strike up with those buffoons and cause some havoc. I think I'll meet them, and have some good drink."
"Ah, was our drink not good enough for you?"
Brom gave Hans a smile less convincing than the one he showed his parents. "It was plenty good, but there are bonds of blood and bonds of the bosom."
"You spend a lot of time strengthening the latter and neglecting the former."
"I bring you around, don't I?"
He mounted, and sat tall on his steed. "Do you want to come along? You're welcome to join us."
"I don't think you've properly noticed that you're entering a new phase of life, Abraham. Where will your escapades take you, when you have your son?"
"Is there something else you'd like to say to me, dear brother? Or will you do nothing but insinuate all night? I haven't the time for it, dear brother."
They paused. Brom was just about to ride off, when Hans looked up towards the treeline. "Fine, then. I don't think you have what it takes to make Katrina a Von Brunt. Come nine months she will crumble, if she doesn't get around to it sooner due to your negligence, cavorting as you are on a night so soon after your wedding. You're scared."
"Fear is respect, Hans. If you do not fear the womb that birthed you as I do, I have gravely underestimated your ignorance."
"You're scared because you think you'll fail."
"What gives you the right to say that?"
Hans put up his hands. "You asked me to be honest. Besides, I am trying to help."
"Like hell you are. You're jealous, Hans. You know you have no prospects for a wife like this — there is only one powerful family in Sleepy Hollow and I've secured it. You will have to look far afield for any quarry as worthy. You resent that I have a beautiful wife so close to home — you resent that I get first pick."
"I resent you for more than that, brother." Hans spat. "I resent that you squander your opportunity. If you can not make Katrina a Von Brunt, you may not retain the title yourself."
"And why should that concern you?"
"I could make her a Von Brunt."
The wind blew cold. Brom pulled his hat down closer to his brow.
Brom kicked Daredevil and pulled the reins, steering the horse towards Hans at a walk. When he was right next to Hans, he stopped.
He whispered: "You will never lay a finger on my wife. If you so much as look at her with a glint in your eye, you won't be a Von Brunt any more than you'll be a puddle of viscera and fluid. Do you understand me?"
"Your threats are empty, Brom — you couldn't beat me in a fight for the same reason —"
The hammer on Brom's revolver clicked.
Hans laughed. "Touchy tonight! Alright, have your fun, then. Come to me if you find yourself running out of time."
Hans stepped back towards the house, and Brom watched him go — all the way to the door and inside.
Brom spat onto the hard dirt, its thwack as it struck loud and clear. His gritted teeth were bared, and in the light of the full moon they glowed — his grip on the reins was white-knuckle tight, and he wanted nothing in that moment more than to watch the Von Brunt household burn with all its prying eyes and groping hands within.
My quarry, my claim, he thought to himself, as he turned back towards the road.
Only to stumble and stutter. Daredevil came to an abrupt stop as he hauled back on the reins.
He squinted into the night, but still wasn't sure of what he was seeing.
"Hello? Who goes there?" he called. There was no response.
He started Daredevil forward again, at a slow walk. The horse snorted, and he rubbed its neck gently. Did you see that, too? he thought.
He regained some confidence as he walked out the black-iron gate of the Von Brunt estate, and set Daredevil to a mild canter, intent on enjoying the chilly autumn air and the smell of maples.
He yelled in surprise, Daredevil rearing up and whinnying loud. With his horse out of his control, they trotted sideways from the road, until he pulled hard enough to make Daredevil stop again. He turned around, eyes wide, and stared into the dappled light of the thick foliage, only to make out the figure he thought he had imagined before, standing on the road, slumped in its saddle, the horse so dark as to be the shadows itself, only the gleam of its eye making sense of its twisted, phantasmal shape.
"Who are you? What business do you have here!?" Brom yelled, trying and failing to pull Daredevil, normally a brave steed, back onto the road.
The figure remained still — and its outline was just as difficult a task to decipher as its steed's, though in a different fashion. The same blue-gray as all the surrounding ground the moonlight touched, the long rifle on its back could have been a hanging branch, the scabbard falling at its horse's side a discarded stick, and its whole torso merely a patch of lit ground, the two medals on its breast river stones, the folds of its clothes breaching roots… but no. Daredevil has spied the figure too, and as he stared, it was not entirely motionless. It shifted, and swayed, as if it and its horse were on their last legs, moments from collapse. And yet it remained.
With Daredevil calmer, Brom's hand went to his belt, fingering the grip of his pistol. "Speak!" he commanded.
"With what mouth should I speak?"
The voice was placeless, sounding as if it had exclusively come on the wind — despite the distance, it was as if the figure had whispered it directly into Brom's ear. He shivered.
"Face me!" he commanded again, Daredevil slowly approaching the figure, snorting in discomfort.
"With what face should I greet you?"
The voice was distinctly German, and just like its source, it sounded on the verge of death, its throat dry and its strength all but gone.
As Daredevil reclaimed the road, the change in perspective was enough to dispel the image of the figure, its components returned to the moonlit forest tapestry. Brom hurriedly scanned the environment, now with pistol in hand, pointed towards the sky.
"Show yourself!"
And there in the middle of the road, from the direction of the Von Brunt estate, did the figure approach. Despite the size of its steed, the footsteps were utterly silent. The rider was so hunched as to be entirely blind to its surroundings, but the horse seemed to stare with piercing eyes into Brom's soul itself.
"What self do I have to show?"
"Who are you? I have a mind to put a bullet between your eyes if you don't cease with your senseless riddles."
The thing raised itself up, and where upon its shoulders a head should rest, instead Brom could see straight through to the fat, bulbous moon that was now framed upon its neck, the craters on that rock just as vague an implication of a face as the rest of it was an implication of itself made of shadow and grasses and tricks of the light.
At this, Brom laughed, long and loud.
He lowered his gun to his side, and stared at the thing with a renewed confidence and a knowing grin. "The Headless Horseman, is it?" It did not reply. He turned Daredevil sideways to the rider, and gave it an appraising look. "You went further in your costume than I. Hans, is it? Proving you can do one better than my prank?"
"I am not he."
They stood in silence a moment, and Brom's face fell slightly. He believed it. "Then who are you?"
"I regret that I have no name to give. The people of this place call me the Galloping Hessian."
"Right," he said with a scowl. "And what business do you have here?"
"You."
The horseman began to approach, at which Brom raised his gun and pointed directly at it. "Come any closer and I'll shoot."
It called his bluff, and did not slow in its approach. He winced — was this bout of tomfoolery worth calling attention from his family, so close by? He kicked Daredevil, who did not need to be told twice to walk away from the approaching thing.
Once it was just two arms-lengths away, it stopped, and drew its long saber from its body, which, more than any other part of it, could not but be a sword — no trick of the light, no illuminated patch of ground, no convenient shadow. No, what was levelled at Brom, pointing directly to the base of his neck, was a gleaming white sword.
"You. Have. My. Head."
Each word was drawn out, and it poured the only strength it had into the anger and righteousness of that statement. Brom's heartrate quickened, but in another moment, he laughed. The thing did not flinch, did not retreat. As unnatural as the gesture was, he looked directly into the moon — right where the things eyes would be, if it had eyes to look into.
"Specter, if that's really what you are, you have been mistaken. You must have seen my chase of the mouse Ichabod Crane, in which I impersonated you to scare him off. You are right — I was holding a head, and I was impersonating you. I tossed your head, as it were, and hit him on his. But it wasn't your head. It was my head, and I reclaimed it. It's been dissolved and reconstituted, but the head on my shoulders is neither my previous head, nor is it yours. It's a new thing, molded and sculpted in my credible image. Surely, ghost, you can tell the difference between your own head and mine?"
"No," it held out. Brom's eyebrows shot up, aghast at the outright admittance, but it spoke on, and as it did so, it began to circle Brom, sword all the while pointed at his neck. He swallowed. "I am not mistaken. You have my head, and you will give it to me."
"I do not, and I will not. Our business is done."
"Do not be so quick to decide, Abraham Von Brunt. A hasty decision will reach a hasty conclusion, and the shortest path to my recompense is your death."
Brom barked a short laugh.
"I urge you to reconsider, because if you refuse a third time, I intend to have your head as compensation. I petition you a third time, Fourth Abraham of your Line, He of the Flowering Flesh, Abraham Ferdinand Von Brunt — return my head or I will take it from you."
"I urge you, thoughtless goblin of the brainless town, to scramble away before I shoot you and bring this sorry prank to an end. What right have you to threaten me so? I am the eldest son of the Von Brunts, the beloved brawler of New York, idol for the young, icon for the old, and lover of women the countryside over! I have planted my seed from here to Virginia! You are a dead and withering thing, while I dictate life! I ask you again, what right have you to threaten me? Speak, ghoul!"
"You pretended headlessness."
He laughed, with a bit of bewilderment. "I pretended nothing!"
"You refuse me?"
He once more pointed his pistol at the thing. "You will not have my head. Begone, or I shall get rid of you myself."
"So be it."
It made the first sound Brom could certainly source from its direction — that of its horse's scream as it reared up on its back legs, loud enough to rattle Brom and give Daredevil a shaking startle. As he tried to regain control of Daredevil, the thing rushed.
He wasted no time in dispensing a bullet into its chest, close enough it could not have missed, but for that moment and that moment alone, the shape of its charging figure riddled out into patches of moonlit ground and stark shadows of trees. The saber, somehow unwavering in the hand of nothing at all, sank into his side, all the way to the hilt. He coughed blood, but kicked Daredevil. "Go!" he shouted, and Daredevil went. The blade slid out of him and out of sight.
His vision blurred in the moonlit maples, the shadows somehow deeper and the lights dancing where they shouldn't. He heard another horse's gallop, but when he looked he could make out no figure, and he could believe that what he was hearing was Daredevil's footsteps carried back to him on the wind, but no, there it was, the glint of a blade, the white flash as the moon's face reflected, and though the dim surroundings were made of only grays and blues, he could swear that in that reflection he saw the dripping scarlet red of his blood, bright and garish, so that it left an afterimage that stuck in his eye wherever he looked, blood, blood, blood, painting the trees and the — he shook his head, wiping the image from his brain.
"Ride!" he yelled uselessly, Daredevil panting and ragged. The wind rushing in his ears whistled and raged, and he swore it sounded like a long, sustained scream, and the forest whipped by him with just as much violence — and it was entirely unfamiliar, not a recognized turn in the path, not a landmark stone or tree. And as he was staring intently forward, trying to get his bearings, he yelped and jerked the reins — the shadows grew four limbs, a lit root became a staring eye, and the gray patches of fallen leaves all came into frame as a headless figure. No sooner did he turn than the blade grazed his calf.
He shot again, but all he hit was dirt and all that sprayed were leaves into the air.
The path was lost. At once they were in the middle of an alien wood, unvisited by living souls, where every shadow twisted into the thin legs of a demon steed, and every light suggested the shoulder of a jacketed figure, every gleam in the darkness a staring eye, every shaft of light tinted red at the edges. The images danced around him, a stampede of fifty-legged Arabians, the dripping points of thirty spadroons, the moonlit patches made sashes and the boulders shouldered the rusted rifles.
"Have you reconsidered?" the wind whispered in his ear.
His eyes were wild, Daredevil grunting and prodding the earth, anxious as his master, spinning to find the exit and finding none.
"I plead with you, spirit!" Brom found himself yelling, "I would not covet a head like yours, so single-minded and
[After dinner, he is approached by his brother. They have a conversation, which illuminates some Neo-Sarkic principles, and how they are approaching the world. The brother, in fact, is nicer and more accommodating than Brom, who essentially takes his brother's helping hand as weakness and scolds him for it. With that he rides into the night on Daredevil, back towards the tavern he had left his crew at.
It's on this stretch of road that he is met with a strange presence, which he at first doesn't see more than he feels. He looks around, suspicious, and then, when sure, draws his flintlock, readies some magic, and commands: "Show yourself!"
It does, and he is met with the visage of the Galloping Hessian of Sleepy Hollow. He is surprised, but not altogether very frightened. He at first disbelieves the specter, asking it if it's a prank played on him by one of his mates. But its visage is too strange, and he can feel that his fleshcrafting magic (which we should demonstrate has distance before this scene) can get no grip on this guy. He begins to take it seriously, though he's never really believed in specters. He was agnostic to their existence.
"You have my head." (Make sure it has a German accent.)
Brom laughs, nervous but he doesn't show it. He realizes now that it must have seen him chasing Ichabod. "The head was my own, horseman. A trick I played on a thorn in my side."
The horseman chastises him for pretending at being the Headless Horseman. "You may be a horseman, but you are hardly headless." (Said much differently than this.) "You have my head. I need it, and you will give it to me."
He shouts that it is mistaken. "Begone, goblin!"
And at once, the thing charges at him. He levels his pistol, and fires — to no effect. The thing comes upon him, and somehow passes through him — yet he is still assuredly hit, and he barely keeps from falling off of Daredevil, who, though almost never startled, is scared and vocalizing. He kicks his spurs into its flanks and they're off into the woods. He looks back several times to see the thing chasing him, though every time it passes into shadow he loses sight of it, and every time it reappears it seems to have gained ground it couldn't have. In desperation, he fires at it several times.
It does something of pretending that the shots have worked, and he seems to have lost it. He hears before he sees the merriment of the tavern ahead of him. But before he can come into the clearing, the Horseman steps in front of him from a shadow that could not have housed it, and Daredevil rears up, kicking and bucking. He desperately holds on, but a shot rings out, and he feels himself punched off the side, over the top of his horse and down an embankment on the left of the trail. He tumbles quite clumsily down the hill, covering himself in dirt and mud. The world spins about him in such a way as to strip him of his senses, and when he's landed at last, he has trouble getting to his feet. In his daze, all the stark shadows around him morph into the shapes of horses, and every grazing light from the corner of his eye could be the headless figure. As his head spins, the Hessian speaks.
It petitions him for its head. It gives him some indication of its nature, as a guardian of "headlessness." It tells him it will visit him three times in the coming seasons, and ask again for its head.
"Let this embarrassment be a lesson. Each visitation, my lessons will be sharper, my patience thinner. And should the summer solstice come with no return of my head, then I will take yours from your neck as recompense, and your longest day will fall into your deepest, longest night."
With this it leaves him, and he regains his senses. He hears the tavern once more, and climbs the embankment up towards it. He's covered in mud, and there is no nearby creek to wash up. Besides, his horse has run off, and he has to make it on foot. He briefly dreads the shame of showing up and having to explain his circumstance, but the shame of not making his appointment with his gang is worse. So he swallows his pride, and steps inside.
They, predictably, jeer and make fun of him. They ask him what had happened, but before he can answer, they make up stories. He jokingly tells them the true story, hamming it up and playing it off. They play along with him, but at the end, they ask what really happened. He doubles down, hamming it up, asking them, "don't you believe in ghosts!?" They laugh, they make fun of him for being a little scaredy-cat.
His pride is pricked though, and that same gang-mate who was unnerved by his lack of head before seems to have taken the story more seriously than the others. When they depart, they ask with disbelief where his horse is, and didn't he put it up? "I told you, the Hessian scared it away!" The group seems to take that in with more seriousness this time. They ask him again what really happened. He sighs. "I don't know what happened. A loud noise, like a gunshot right next to us, rang out just as I was coming towards the tavern, there," he indicates from where. "He bucked and tossed me off." "With your iron grip?" He gives, "I felt pushed by something and was sure I was shot, but when I looked I had sustained no injury," (which isn't quite true, he healed it with Sarkic magic).
"You weren't lying," the spooked one says.
"Enough of your tall tales, man, where's your horse?"
"Look, I don't believe in specters either. Maybe this town and its superstitions have gotten to me, but I'm telling you exactly what happened. Daredevil was already on edge for reasons unknown, and a shot rang out and I was pushed."
"And you didn't think to pursue the assailant and reclaim your horse?"
"I saw Daredevil run off," he lies, "he can hold his own. He'll be back, as soon as he's reclaimed his wits."
His gang mount their horses, and there's a pause as none offer to give him a ride. He rankles, as asking is weak. The spooked one offers a hand, and he uses it to pull up onto the saddle.
Now, another attempts to lighten the mood, chastising Brom for falling victim to such a juvenile prank. "Do you think it's Ichabod, come back to haunt you?"
Brom barks a one-note laugh. The mood does not come up. They ride off, the moon high above, a chill in the air (ooh remember to note his fur hat), and if there's some killer way to indicate the moon as the Horseman's head, then that would be incredible, though maybe that's such a good image it should be saved for another time.
Otherwise, we could end on a line about Brom's head. Something like, "his head bigger than his heart," or, discussing the discomfort of his collar around his neck, scratching at the irritation where his head had come off the first time.]
But also!!
[ Write an ending where Brom dies in the first encounter with the Headless Horseman.]