The Lady From Sleepy Hollow

Ichabod

I open the door to see Mary, clutching a shawl that's wrapped around her bare shoulders. She's dressed in her nightgown, and her eyes are darkened with exhaustion. Immediately, all anger I could've held against her fades, and I frown. "Mary, what's wrong? Why aren't you resting?"

"I tried to sleep, but I just keep getting a horrible nightmare. I just... I just needed to see you," Mary says, making her way into my room without any hesitation.

"I-Is... H-How are you feeling?" I murmur, closing the door behind me, staying beside the wall as she walks around my room.

"I could be better..." She turns and smiles softly at me. Her eyes shift from mine to the floor, before she elaborates, "I had a headache. A brutal one, at that. But... it's not as prominent, now. I think talking aloud helps."

I purse my lips in thought, listening intently to her. She sighs and turns toward the window above my desk. "Katrina visited me earlier this morning. In tears."

A tension rises between us, but she doesn't seem troubled by it as I find myself to become. Perhaps she has already made up her strong mind, and wants me to leave Sleepy Hollow like the rest of this damned town.

"She was spouting about how you blame father for the deaths and the Horseman."

My blood runs cold, causing a sharp ache in my heart to stab repeatedly behind my ribs. "I—"

"Now, I don't believe her accusations. It doesn't become you to think Father is behind this madness. But, if you do blame Father after all... I... I'm not angry with you for it." She turns to face me and leans against the desk, still clutching onto the shawl.

I am drawn to speechlessness by her statement. Still in my surprised state, I take a step toward her. "Why wouldn't you be... if I did? He's your father, and you'd have every right as Katrina does to feel the way she did."

"I'm not naïve like she is," Mary mutters in a forlorn, pitying voice. "If it's not what she wants to hear, she gets irrational in her behavior."

I take another couple steps toward her, and stop at the support beam in the room, leaning gently against it. "I see..."

"I know that you are doing everything you can for this case to be solved. And I have faith my father didn't do it. But, if you need to investigate him, perhaps you'll find the true answer to all of this," she murmurs. Her eyes are filled with an old wisdom beyond my belief, and a warmth chases away the coldness in my veins. We both stand there, as if frozen in time, silently reading each other like a fascinating book.

She takes a deep breath, and sighs in her exhale. "I, uh..."

I take a small step toward her, allowing her the space she needs. But a compelling sense of holding her is causing my feet to slowly approach her. She stares down at the floor, right at my shoes. "I'm, um..."

I remain silent, studying her acutely. "Deep down, I feel it isn't your father behind all this, Mary."

She lifts her eyes to mine, her expression unreadable. She holds fast, awaiting me to further explain. My feet step toward her in a slow, cautious approach.

"While the evidence leads to him, it just doesn't feel right." I take another step toward her. She glances at my feet, watching me closely.

"At this point, what could possibly feel right in the world?" Mary murmurs, turning away to look out the window.

As she does, I move myself to stand to the right of her small frame, placing my hands behind my back and straightening my posture. Pursing my lips, I tilt my head slightly in inclination to her, and say, "One thing that helps me when I feel... clouded, in my judgement, is to remind myself of what does feel 'right'."

Mary raises a brow. "What feels right to you, Constable?"

I purse my lips, studying a faraway spot on my desk in thought. "Well, as of now, it feels right for me to leave this case for good."

All color drains from the young lady's face. "'Leave'? What is making you desire to leave?!"

"The town council plans to hold a gathering—a meeting, if you will—to discuss the Hessian case, and ultimately to speak against me. Your father advised for my sake that I leave this place," I reply, a bitter dread coating my words.

Mary falls silent, a new, unfamiliar tension rising to meet the solemn haze in the room. I look down at her to study her expression, hoping to read whatever thoughts could be displayed for me to see. After another beat of silence to confirm her lack of response, I inquire, "What are you absolutely certain about?"

She half-heartedly scoffs. "Certain? Nothing, now. Well, I'm certain of one feeling I have. One that feels... 'right'."

Mary visibly shivers a little, shifting her weight from her right to her left. The trouble she feels radiates off of her like heat off of a fire. "What's this feeling you feel right of, if I may ask?"

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, her shoulders rising on the inhale. A beat passes. Two beats. Mary shakes her head and scoffs again. "It's far too absurd."

"What is?" I ask.

"It'll sound absurd, Constable. It's nonsense," she continues to say, sighing and looking down at my desk. My heartbeat picks up in a gentle thrumming, feeling anxious of what she has to say.

"What makes you say that this feeling is so absurd? If you are absolutely certain of this feeling, I doubt its absurdity," I assure quietly, turning toward her ever-so-slightly.

She returns my gaze with a curious twinkle. A small smirk tugs at the corner of her mouth, and she murmurs, "You... feel right to me."

If my heart could physically leap out of my chest, it would have thrown itself into Mary's hands in that instant. My hands drop from my professional posture, falling to my sides.

I barely comprehend the embarrassment that crosses her demeanor, which makes her subtle confidence fleet away. She sighs and clenches her jaw. "I knew it was absurd."

Mary begins to leave my side in an angry stride, but I gently grip her arm to stop her before she's out of my reach again. She freezes and glances back at me, tears faintly glimmering in her eyes.

We stay like that for a heartbeat of an instant. I open my mouth to speak, but my mind can't comprehend words. So I stare into her burning gaze, hoping she can read the reciprocation of emotions in my own eyes. Her expression doesn't change.

My heart begins to hammer inside me, against my ribs, and I shake my head. In a quick exhale, I admit, "It's not absurd."