Chapter Text
He came to in a fit of discomfort, his aches and strains calling out for attention. Aside from the main focal hammering throb in his chest, numerous parts of his body told him of the activities he had just taken part in. A strained elbow, a jarred hip, bumps and bruises where he’d collided with carriage and forest floor…. But his brain was foggy and slow to remind him where he was and what had just happened. He groaned and opened his eyes to see two ashen faces, pinched with worry, hovering over him.
“Ichabod!” Katrina called softly. Her hand brushed his cheek with care. “Are you all right? Awake and let us take you home.”
“Oh!” As lucidity sunk in, he jerked up, trying to sit, but his body protested. Katrina and young Masbeth assisted him.
“I’ll gather the horses,” said young Masbeth, staggering to his feet. He looked dazed, and so did Katrina when Ichabod turned to her. What they had just been through - Ichabod stopped himself from looking toward the tree. They were all in shock. But also…
“Katrina,” Ichabod said, reaching for her. She put her arms around him, and it was the warmest safest feeling he’d ever felt. “It’s over now.” And as he said it, he realized he also felt it with great relief. Not just the defeat of a supernatural murderer. He had faced an internal demon as well. And here before him, an angel, a white witch, who had bolstered him tenfold. He couldn’t possibly explain what he’d done tonight, the fortification within him as he’d acted without thought. She had surely done that somehow. And he’d nearly lost her. “Katrina, I made a grave error today. I shall never forgive myself for leaving you.”
“But you came back again, and you saved me,” she said, pulling away to smile at him, and they helped each other to their feet.They swayed a moment, holding onto one another. She was disheveled and shaken, her hair limp and tangled with leaves and twigs, but she was also the most beautiful sight he’d ever beheld. “I shall forgive you if you make me a promise.”
“Anything!” Ichabod breathed.
Katrina leaned close, an expression both tender and intense breaking through the haunted exhausted pallor of her face. “Never leave me again.” Her eyes probed his. “I love you, Ichabod Crane.”
His heart flipped in his chest. “And I you, Katrina. I never want to spend another day without you. I couldn’t bear it when I left…” he turned at the sound of the horses, led by young Masbeth. “A nobler man than any I know,” declared Ichabod. “You defended Katrina’s honor, and protected her when I had given up hope. I don’t know how to make it up to you.”
“But you came back!” The boy protested, echoing Katrina’s words. “You saved us both. I tried to stop-” he glanced toward the tree but hurriedly looked away again with a shudder. “-her- but she frightened me so terribly, I couldn’t -”
“Morgan, you came for me when no one else would, in the face of that terror.” Katrina took his face in her hands and planted a kiss on his forehead. “I don’t know of anything braver than that.” That seemed to mollify young Masbeth a bit, but he quivered with fatigue and uncertainty as he finally forced his gaze toward the tree of the dead.
In a small voice, he asked “Is… can they get back out?”
Ichabod put his arms around the both of them as they all turned to face the scene of their strange horrific skirmish. The pale hand still curled out from the anguished trunk. “I don’t think so,” Ichabod said around a gulp of lingering dread.
“They have both completed their ends of the bargain,” Katrina explained in a low voice. “My step mother had promised her soul in exchange for his service. Now he has taken her with him, back to hell.”
Ichabod shivered and blinked back a small wave of dizziness. “Let us leave this place."
They climbed onto the horses and stuck close together as they made their way back toward the village.
It was a little past midnight. As they neared the edge of the forest, the flickering amber light from the flaming windmill faintly reached them, and the sound of the villager’s calling voices to haul buckets of water to quell the blaze and keep it from spreading. When they emerged onto the field, they could see the mill’s crumpled form, the fire crackling almost peacefully now the flour had been spent. The shadows of Sleepy Hollow’s citizens trudged back and forth from the mill to a cart filled with water pails. Two of them spied the trio and approached.
“Miss Katrina! We’re not sure what-”
“The hessian,” Ichabod explained. “We’ve finally conquered a ghost tonight, gentlemen. This,” he gestured toward the burning structure, “is the last of his destruction.”
The men looked at each other unassured. One muttered “thank god” even as the other wondered “how can you be certain?” Then they took in the state of the three riders. “You ought to take her home, constable. We could send for Mrs. Lancaster.”
“Thank you, Ruben, that won’t be necessary.” Katrina spoke up. “I’ll see her tomorrow, if I must, but for now, I only need my bed.”
“Yes miss. We’ve got this under control.” Ruben assured, then frowned deeply. “We’re very sorry, miss.”
Katrina gazed at the flames, her pale face washed in their warm glow. "My father loved that mill. He took such pride in…” her voice trailed off as she blinked back tears. She swallowed hard and clutched at Ichabod’s hand.
“You need rest,” he said. “Let them finish this. We will tell them everything tomorrow.”
They steered the horses toward the Van Tassel property. They quietly settled the horses into the barn, threw blankets over the poor beasts, gave them food and water, before making their way to the back of the house, into the kitchen. Katrina made a soothing tea to help them sleep, and she produced a strong smelling salve to apply to the great welt Ichabod had acquired on his chest. It ached deeply, he realized, as the excitement that overshadowed such things wore away, and the pain radiated across his shoulder and down his arm. He moved more gingerly with each passing moment, clenching his teeth. Katrina and Morgan insisted on helping him to bed, despite their own weariness.
“Please don’t mind me,” Ichabod pleaded once they had settled him under the covers. “I am quite comfortable. You deserve your beds. You deserve so much. I will do whatever is needed tomorrow. Please go rest.” He was moved by their shining eyes, their worry for him. And he was worried for them too. Their faces were gray and drawn, and he could see their bodies trembling as the fear and tension of the evening gave out to exhaust and shock.
“Good night, sir” Morgan squeezed Ichabod’s wrist and made his way to the door as Katrina bent over the bed.
“Sleep peacefully,” she whispered with a feather light kiss to Ichabod’s cheek. As if by magic, he immediately felt the weight of drowsiness pull his eyelids down. He watched Katrina and the light of her candle cross the room, as if through a haze. She took Morgan’s hand, and they closed the door softly behind them. A peaceful darkness wrapped Ichabod into a cloud of deep slumber.
He did not dream.
--‐-------------------------------------------------
He slowly woke the next morning, still quite sore, more so than the previous night. But he reveled in the feeling. Sore meant he was alive. And he actually felt rested. He blinked toward the window and wondered what time it was. Then he marveled that he could lie in a bed, recovering from a veritable death struggle. He had conquered a ghost! The thought made his mind reel. He’d nearly failed very badly, Katrina would have been killed, he might never have even known, gone back to his wretched solitary existence in New York City, and the witch would have had her way. The thought sent a nauseous wave of guilt through his stomach, and he lurched up to a sitting position despite the wrench of pain in his chest. Faintly, the sound of activity outside reached his ears, and he pushed himself to his feet with a groan. Shuffling to the window, he made out a cart or two as more villagers made their way out of Sleepy Hollow. They were done with this cursed town. He would have to explain to anyone left, the danger was now gone. But first…
He found a heavy robe draped over his chair and slippers underneath. He carefully pulled the robe on, the bruise on his chest impeding the mobility of his arm. But he had a duty now. A responsibility. More than just a constable’s duty to protect. Now there were people he truly cared about, and he needed to see to them in whatever way he could. He slipped his feet into the warm slippers and left the room. Down the stairs to the second floor and across the hall, he silently eased open Katrina’s door and peeked inside.
Katrina and Morgan were curled together in her bed. She gripped the boy tight in her arms, and they both slept so deeply, Ichabod held his own breath until he finally saw the slow gentle rise of each of their chests. They were still safe. But, his relief waned at the sight of the dark shadows that still smudged their eyes, the slight frowns tugging at the edges of their mouths. His heart ached for them.
Somehow, strangely, this terrifying experience had helped Ichabod come to terms with the hidden nightmare of his own past. He felt either that a weight had been lifted or that his head had been cleared of a dark shadow. Additionally, he had proven his theory of detection and reason leading to a true resolution. He would be able to present a successful report to the burgomaster.
But Katrina and Morgan’s trauma was fresh, their losses still so raw. They hadn’t even put poor Baltus into the ground yet. Ichabod vowed he would help them at any cost, would protect them from the lonely path he had been made to endure at a young age.
He shut the door and made his way down to the kitchen to start a fire, set the water to boil, and search the pantry for something suitable for breakfast.
The Reverend from Tarrytown arrived into Sleepy Hollow to deliver the morbid mass funeral service. He balked at the still fresh graves nearby, and now five more ready to be put to the earth as well. The congregation was barely thirty strong, but Ichabod took the opportunity, with Katrina’s support, to recount the previous night’s events to the mystified crowd. The murderous master and puppet were no longer a threat. The awful slaughter finally ceased, the victims of the cursed rampage could finally rest with justice served.
The townsfolk could barely react beyond relieved nods and tears. Their friends and neighbors were still dead, the town was half abandoned, some sagged with weariness from spending the night fighting the mill fire… no one could say whether the town could survive such a thorough tragedy.
Katrina stood calmly throughout the funeral, somber but composed even as the procession finally dispersed back toward their homes, but her face crumbled as they walked home. She gripped Ichabod’s arm and cried so gently, it was as remarkable as it was heartbreaking, as if she didn’t have the strength to properly sob or wail. Her eyes seemed to search the treeline, looking for something unknown to Ichabod. “I should like to tell you at length, sometime, about my father,” she finally said in a thick voice. “I want you to know who he was. For me, and for this town.”
Morgan softly spoke up from behind them. “He gave my mother a cittern, when she sang for Sunday services. It was her most prized possession. She especially loved to play for his parties. She told me of one that he insisted on dancing with every person in the room, man, woman, and child.”
With a sound that was both a laugh and a sob, Katrina wrapped her free arm about his shoulders and pulled him close. “One of my birthdays. He’d drunk too much, and my mother was so cross with him, but we’d had such a merry evening. Oh Morgan! We should tell stories of your parents too. Your father found me in the Van Garret apple orchard once, when I was small. I’d fallen and scraped my knee and was indulging in a bit of melodrama over it, but he just put me on his shoulders and carried me all the way home, singing Who Took the Goose and Stoney Creek Soup. I’d quite forgotten my silly old knee by the time he delivered me home.”
With watery bittersweet smiles, they fell thoughtfully quiet again. Ichabod felt a strange mix of pleasure and guilt. He relished learning more about these two that had come to mean so much to him in so short of time. But the circumstances that had brought them into his life… they should not have had to pay that kind of price.
“I should like-” Ichabod started, then cleared his throat. “I very much want to learn all I can about them. I’m very sorry I didn’t know your father better, Katrina, or yours at all, young Masbeth. But I would say to them, if I could, that I am deeply grateful to them, to be able to know you, and I will strive to be worthy of them for you…” He was sincere but also felt that slight blush of discomfort that came with declarations of endearment.
Katrina and Morgan gazed back at him, terribly touched in a way that humbled him further. He would have to work very hard, he felt, to earn those kinds of looks. They made his chest flutter pleasantly, despite the sore bruise there.