Wake the Hollow Page 16

  “He didn’t tell you that part, did he?” Bram shakes his head at me. “Half a million? For a diary. All because it’ll rewrite a famous biography and expose what should have been a high-profile relationship. I don’t know about you, but I think a poor student teacher could use that kind of money. What do you think?”

  Oh, God. A whole town, even treasure hunters from outside, vying for a chance to find a missing relic, not for preservation or to protect Irving’s good name but for cold, hard cash. What else would awaken a sleepy, run-down village like this one? I should’ve known.

  I have to get to my mother’s storage unit.

  Bram flings the iPad onto the couch with a huff. Then he runs his fingers along my cheek. “Don’t believe everything you hear. It’s fine if you don’t want to trust me anymore, but don’t think for a minute it’ll change what I feel for you…because it won’t.”

  With that, he grabs his keys and phone again and disappears from the apartment, leaving me alone with an article headline I can’t bear to look at and the burning realization that now, I have no one left to turn to.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “He who wins a thousand common hearts is therefore entitled to some renown; but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette, is indeed a hero.”

  I don’t wait for Bram to come back. I leave for the townhouse, hauling all my stuff across town like a backpacker through Europe. When I finally arrive, stepping up to the front door, I notice something stuck there. A yellow piece of paper. Water’s been cut. Next to it is one from the power and light. Isn’t this nice? I throw open the door and toss my shit inside. “Nina?”

  No answer. I head up the stairs, listening for the sounds of bitching someone out on the phone, but all is quiet. I turn the corner into her bedroom and stop cold. The foreboding feeling I had when Nina first left to visit her sister returns. The closet door is empty. All clothes and shoes—gone. I open a drawer in the honey wood dresser. Empty.

  I can’t say I blame her. I’m not happy with my dad, either.

  I feel terrible. Even though we weren’t close, we kept each other company. Now, with Nina and all of her belongings gone, there’s no reason to stay. At the bottom of the stairs, I find a note on the foyer table: Micaela, I don’t get paid enough for this. I’m sorry. I stare at the note a minute then crumple it up, throwing it hard at the stairs. It bounces off the carpet and rolls back down to the floor again.

  Furious, I call my dad for the fifty-millionth time. Of course, he doesn’t answer. “Hey, Dad. Still waiting for that call back. I could be dying here, and you’d never know.” I hang up.

  Now what? Back to Miami? Maybe I could live with Emily, and even if I can’t, I’d still be near her. Tempting.

  No way I can. My mother would never forgive me if I left again.

  ...

  When Dane’s car pulls up outside, I take a last look at the townhouse. It’s as empty as I feel. I close the door and lock it. Dane steps out of the car, grabs a bunch of bags from my hands, and sets them down on the porch. Without a word, he circles his arms around me. “I’m sorry,” he says, holding me tight. The sincere action releases my torrent of tears.

  “So much shit.” I sob.

  “I know. Shh. Give me all that. I’ll carry it. You sit in the car.”

  Plopping into the passenger seat and closing the door, I sit in the dark, embarrassed. When I called Dane, asking him to please come get me, I rambled about losing Coco, I complained about Nina abandoning me, and after a minute of hesitation, I even told him about my encounter with the horseman in the cemetery. He didn’t judge, didn’t ask if I thought it was an apparition or real—he just listened. Like a friend should.

  Once we leave the development, back on Maple Street, I point to the only house I can think of where staying won’t be a problem. “Halfway down on the left. Five doors from my old house. Where I met you.”

  As we slow past my mother’s house, I gaze at the darkened windows with a clenched stomach, scanning for rogue wisps of light or shadows. Dane stops in front of Betty Anne’s house. “Do you want me to come in with you?”

  “No, that’s okay. Thanks. I really appreciate your help moving my things.”

  “Not a problem. Call me if you need anything else. And listen, everything will sort itself out, okay?” He smiles sadly. Doesn’t lean in for another hug. Doesn’t push for a kiss on the cheek, nothing. It feels nice knowing I can trust him, that he doesn’t want anything from me except for me to feel safe.

  I close the door and face Betty Anne’s house, aglow with light, a glaring contrast to my own abandoned home. Orange and black paper lanterns swing in the breeze off her porch eaves. Before ringing the doorbell, I listen to sounds through her open window. Running water, silverware thudding against plastic plates, the faucet stopping. A feminine shadow moves through the house, and the main light suddenly flicks on, drowning out the paper lanterns’ feeble glow.

  The door opens. “You gonna stand here all night?” I raise an eyebrow. How did she know I was out here? I drag all my bags inside, while she stands there, shaking her gray head.

  Standing in her foyer, I ask, “How did you know I was out there?”

  “Honey… Like I know. Come to Vanessa’s room.” She leads me down the short hallway into her daughter’s old bedroom filled with photos, ballet trophies, elementary school behavior and academic certificates, and an old flat-screen TV.

  “I’m sorry for this,” I say. “I should’ve asked first before showing up.”

  “Sorry for what?” Betty Anne clears space on the dresser. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

  I force a small laugh. “Not a chance.”

  “Then there’s nothing to be sorry about. And even if you were, this is your second home.”

  “My only one now.”

  Her big round eyes pity me. She pats me on the back. “You stay as long as you like, Micaela Burgos. No worries. Got that?”

  I nod, my cheeks tightening into a forced smile. I wish I would’ve stayed with Betty Anne from the beginning, but my father seemed to want me as isolated as possible.

  She opens the closet and pulls out an extra blanket and pillow, placing it on the bed. “Rest for now, and we’ll talk tomorrow. You need me to wake you in time for school?”

  “No.” I laugh to myself. The trivialities of school seem another world away. “I can’t think about school right now.”

  “Whatever it is, hon, it’ll pass. It always does.” She backs out of the room. “Let me know if you need anything.”

  Seriously doubt this will pass, but… “Thank you, I will.”

  Once she leaves, I curl into a ball on the bed. If a year ago, someone had sat me down and told me that in the near future, I’d be lying in my mother’s neighbor’s daughter’s bed like a sack of bones, thinking it strange to be spending the night just five doors from my mom’s house with my old ability to hear and see ghosts on overdrive, I would’ve laughed my ass off.

  But nobody did. And I fall asleep with the lamp still on before having the chance to lament it.

  ...

  For once, sleep comes peacefully. From the moment I lay down to half the next day, I more than make up for all the sleep I’ve lost. I sit up to find myself warmly covered with blankets, though still in my clothes. A glass of orange juice sits on the nightstand along with a note—I’ll call the school and tell them you need a few days. Going to run some errands. Eat something.

  A few days? Try a few weeks.

  How nice would it be to wake up and find that the last week was only a dream—not a ghostly dream, just a regular, dissolved-in-the-morning dream. My sore knee reminds me that there’s no such thing. Carefully, I stand and go about trying to act normal, doing normal bathroom, hair-brushing things.

  I emerge and raid the fridge—yogurt, bread with butter, leftover rice with chicken, and garlic rolls that melt in my mouth after I warm them up in the microwave. I wash the whole thing down with the glass of OJ. Th
en I limp back to the bedroom and crawl into bed with my phone.

  Right now, it’s first hour, middle of Lit class. I wonder if Dane has told the students about the historical society’s reward money yet. I hope Bram has enough brain cells to stay away from Dane, not confront him or say anything stupid. I text Bram.

  Sorry about the other night. Pls give me some time. Pls don’t harass Mr. B. It’s all my fault.

  I watch the local news at ten a.m. and see that there is, in fact, a lot of commotion regarding the reward money and journal. Now that my knee is slightly better, I’ll visit the police department again, barge into an office if I have to, declare myself next of kin, ask for my mother’s keys.

  I will find the rest of the answers.

  Unless, of course, the answers find me first.

  ...

  It’s not the smell of cooking that wakes me in the evening, though after so few home-cooked meals this last month, it should rightfully stir my appetite. It’s the text from Bram.

  Went to school…doc T asked

  where u were…boracich was

  there at first then left… I don’t

  know what to tell you mica

  except I freakin love u… tell me

  where u r...

  Can’t do that right now. Sorry.

  The shutters over the window wheeze and slap against the panes. I peek through the slats. Something blustery is headed this way. The wind whistles against the glass, blowing leaves all over the front lawn. The paper lanterns bounce in protest. Are the last of the season’s leaves, at this very moment, raining to the ground in the cemetery, covering Coco where she lies dead? It killed me to leave her there, but what else could I do? Soon the leaves and snow will completely cover her.

  Ved-peace dish, the horseman had said. What does that even mean?

  Footsteps sound down the hall, then a knock. “Coming,” I call, hobbling to the door.

  Betty Anne stands there, kitchen towel hanging from her belt loop and spatula in one hand.

  “Hi.” I give her a sheepish grin. “Sorry I ate all your food. I was starving. I haven’t been sleeping lately, plus I had a really rough day yesterday. Not only that, but I—”

  “It means ‘piss off,’” Betty Anne cuts me off.

  I narrow my eyes at her.

  “Verpiss dich. It’s German for ‘piss off, get the hell out,’ that sort of thing.” Slowly, my mouth drops open. I rewind my memory twenty seconds and replay my every move. Did I speak aloud just a moment ago? “Where did you hear it?” Betty Anne asks.

  I cross my arms. “Never mind where I heard it. How did you know what I—”

  “You were at the cemetery?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  She turns and heads off. “Come eat something.”

  I follow Betty Anne to the kitchen and sit at the same flower-patterned, vinyl-covered dinette where I ate dinners as a kid. She stands by the stove, pressing a meat patty down so the juices jump and sizzle on the frying pan. Her face reflects internal torment.

  “So you can hear thoughts,” I say.

  “Don’t ask me how I do it, because I don’t know.”

  “You can hear everything going on in my head?”

  “Oh, goodness, no.” Betty Anne recoils. “If I could, I’d be in a loony house somewhere, yelling at people to make the voices stop. No, I just pick up little pieces…bits…of conversations, thoughts, words, fragments. Like radio waves.”

  I clear my throat. “That’s how I started, but since I arrived, it’s been getting worse.”

  Betty Anne nods. “Your mother could, too. Since she was little, but she didn’t develop better clairvoyance skills until she was older.” She lifts the beef patty and places it on a plate alongside a scoop of mashed potatoes. “That was one reason we became friends.”

  “She never told me that. In fact, she never told me a lot of things, and I’m really resenting it, like really, really resenting it, Betty Anne.”

  “Can I just say something? In her defense, there are lots of things parents don’t tell their kids. Deep down, we all want to be perfect in our children’s eyes. Especially with something like this. It’s not the sort of thing you go around telling people, not in a town where everybody’s already judging you. Believe me, no parent wants their child thinking they’re defective, but we are. We’re all defective.”

  I think about that a while. I get it, but she still kept too much from me. “It’s still frustrating. I don’t always understand what I’m hearing or seeing.”

  “And you won’t. The dead, they’ll come around once they know. They’ll want to tell you everything, but you can’t let them. It’s not fair to burden you like that. It’s hard enough making sense of your own thoughts, much less someone else’s.”

  “Why don’t you tune mine out?”

  “I can’t tune you out when I’m worried about you.” She sprinkles something on the plate, then sets it in front of me with a fork and napkin. “Your favorite.”

  Bunless burger with mashed potatoes and peas arranged in a happy face. I want to cry.

  “You know what I think?” Betty Anne sits across from me with a glass of water. “I think you and your mom probably communicated while you were apart without even realizing it.”

  I think she’s right. I remember times my mother would suddenly pop into my head during a particularly hard day at school, or during times when my dad was away and I didn’t see anyone all day but Nina. I thought I was just thinking of her in a normal way. But then…there was the note. I could see the words in my mind before I saw them on the paper. “I never wanted this ability. I didn’t ask for it. And it scares the crap out of me.”

  “You get used to it,” she says. “Once you realize most spirits are not out to hurt you. Most only want you to relay a message to a loved one, or they’re trying to warn you. Those are the ones with experience in the astral ways.”

  “That happened yesterday.” During my walk through the cemetery. “It was like my mom was trying to warn me that something bad was going to happen.”

  Betty Anne nods. “I always felt she was hiding something, but whatever it was, it’s your burden now.”

  “She’s not the only one who talks to me, though. I get other voices too.”

  “Forget the ghosts, Mica.” She leans back in her seat and sighs. “It’s real, live people you should fear.”

  I think of what happened to Coco. That was not the handiwork of a ghost. “Something else happened while I was out there…” Coco. I don’t say it. But I don’t have to. Betty Anne’s eyes scan mine. She looks down at her water then away. “And you haven’t been putting flowers on the wrong grave.” I stick a fork into the mashed potatoes but can’t eat. “I still don’t know how it happened. Why she was there. Who would want to kill her…”

  “And verpiss dich? You heard that in the cemetery too?”

  I nod.

  “Was he talking to you?”

  I shrug. “I don’t think so. There was someone else there. Someone on a bike.”

  She shrugs. “Ah. October in Sleepy Hollow. There’s always someone in the cemetery this time of year. Let me guess…sound of horse’s hooves and all?”

  I set down my fork. “Go ahead. Say it. You think I’m crazy.” I stare at her.

  But Betty Anne is just an old wife of Sleepy Hollow, and all the proverbial old wives of Sleepy Hollow know the truth about the valley’s unseen things—that they exist, that their energies are just as alive today as they were in the days of the Dutch settlers. I forgot, that’s all, and I’ve been remembering it since I first arrived on that late-night train.

  Her smile disappears into the smoothness of her cheeks. “Oh, you’re not crazy, hon.” She leans forward. “You’re home.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon, now came crowding upon his recollection.”

  I lie in bed, listening to the wind coo over the house, shutters wheezing in
and out, wondering if there will be any thunder to accompany this quiet lightning flashing behind my eyelids. Finally, the tranquil storm eventually lulls me to sleep.

  The soft aroma of flowers filters into the room. I’m no longer in bed. I’m under a half moon in a beautiful silvery garden with patches of shrubs, curving stone walkways, fragrant herbs, and tall swaying grasses. Cold wind caresses my memory with scents of roses and English lavender, my mother’s favorite. I feel like I know this place.

  I scan the garden for her familiar presence, finding only a mouse scurrying ahead of me. My wrapped arms fight off cold air. Twigs snap behind me. I whirl around and spot a house—a tiny, charming house under the stars that I’ve seen many times—one room, gray walls, red roof, a sole window above the wooden door.

  I might be able to place it in my memory if it weren’t for the weeping I hear. A woman’s sobbing, mumbling under her breath, sobbing again. I look around, fully expecting Mary’s spirit to accost me out of nowhere, beg me to follow, push and pull me where she wants me to go, but I don’t see her. The isolated weeping continues as another sound rises over the cries—a baby’s piercing wail.

  My bare feet crush a spot in the tall grass. The infant’s cries ebb then start again, ebb and then again…the smell of lavender is stronger now, almost too pungent. I’m overwhelmed with a maternal instinct to find the baby and protect it. I crouch on the ground and run my hands along the hard earth, feeling for a warm body, a basket, blanket, anything.

  “Shh, baby. It’s all right.”

  Twigs snap again. I raise my eyes just above the level of the grass. Someone is there, rounding the corner of the house. I wait with suspended breath, forcing myself perfectly still in the squatted position. Then I see him. I’d know him anywhere. Only he looks older, a future version of himself, a hybrid of a man my father’s age and the boy I grew up with, a powerful form hovering in the tall grass. Bram? Dad?