The Lady From Sleepy Hollow

Prologue

"Mary? Where are you?"

"Coming!" I call with a cracked voice from upstairs in my quarters. Today is a sad day for all of the townspeople of Sleepy Hollow. Both Peter Van Garrett and his son, Dirk, who was to be my betrothed, and a widow, Emily Winship, have died within a fortnight.

Died by the very hand of the Hessian.

The Headless Horseman.

And today, we hold their burial.

I do my best to hold my tears back, for I had loved Dirk deeply. But not necessarily in the very way he loved me. I loved him like I would an older brother, only marrying him as a best friend for my father.

Dirk was so protective and gentle, like I had believed an older brother would be, and also since I have no other siblings besides my immensely-adored younger sister Katrina Van Tassel.

We both are seemingly-deemed as the town's most beautiful bachelorettes, Katrina and I. Strongly-built Brom Van Brunt has been asking for Katrina's hand for months now, but she isn't ready to marry yet, being merely nineteen years of age.

Actually, I was to be married this coming weekend, had there not been this tragic death of my betrothed. I sigh with a heavy heart as Katrina finishes pinning my long golden hair back.

"I don't want to come to the burial," I whisper to my sister. She looks at me sadly in the reflection of my vanity mirror.

"I understand. But stepmother wouldn't hear it," she replies as she backs away. She takes my hand, pulls me out of the chair I sit in, and we both make our way down the stairs. My stepmother, Lady Van Tassel, smiles up at me sadly.

"Oh, Mary," she sighs when my shoes click onto the hardwood floor at the end of the stairs. I glance at her and flash a fake smile, holding back my sorrows.

She gives me a small hug and we all proceed out the door. My father Baltus Van Tassel awaits our arrival at the carriage. He smiles at me sadly and says, "Are you feeling all right, my dear?"

I nod to him in reply and step into the carriage, sitting by the window. I don't look at my loving family, staring instead at the haunting wilderness beyond the glass pane.

I let a tear escape in its desperate need to flee from me to express my sorrow. Katrina must've noticed, for she takes a hand of mine in hers as the carriage motions onward.

The travel to the cemetery in the main part of town takes only a few minutes time, and we arrive to the graveyard where many deliver to me gazes of sympathy and pity. Part of me welcomes their lent emotions, but the other part is resentful of it. I don't greet their eyes with mine, simply keeping my focus on the freshly made grave, marked with the tombstones of my husband-to-be and father-in-law-to-be.

As we walk toward the crowd, I glance at an approaching figure, seeing it was only Brom. He gives me a sad look and then walks past me to meet with Katrina. I glimpse at the two and Katrina was letting him comfort her.

She's lucky to have it.

My attention snaps to the grave again, hearing Reverend Steenwyck beginning with a small prayer. The crowd murmurs along with him, all except for me. I stare at the black soil, imagining the headless corpse that lies within an accursed wooden coffin. I think back on all of the memories that Dirk and I shared, and how we first met each other.

I will never see his kind smile again.

I clench my handkerchief, anger and sadness pushing me to the edge with grief. We have to put an end to these murders. Otherwise, no one will be left of Sleepy Hollow.

We have to stop the Headless Horseman.