Wake the Hollow Page 19

  I stop rocking the swing. “I don’t belong to you, Bram.”

  “I know. I know that. But sometimes, it feels like you do. Don’t take that the wrong way. We never got the chance to talk about this, but the night we lay in bed together was incredible. Kissing you was incredible. It felt meant to be. I’ve cared about you for so long, Mica.”

  I bite the inside of my lip. I agree it was wonderful, but maybe that was what I needed at the moment. “I know, and I don’t regret that night. You calmed me, if only for a short while.” Yes, we’ve known each other forever, but I don’t feel possessive of him like he does of me. I remember Lacy at the coffee shop, how she told me she was free of his obsession.

  “Are you there?” he asks.

  “I’m listening.”

  “I guess I hoped that you’d feel the same way about me. Does that make any sense?”

  “I understand, Bram. It’s okay. You’re a jealous baby, that’s all.” I grin.

  There’s a smile in his voice. “Fair enough. For whatever it’s worth—I’m really sorry.”

  I appreciate his apology, his deep voice in my ear, and if I concentrate, I can imagine his breath on my cheek. But is this Real Bram or Actor Bram? Regardless, I’m glad he called. “It’s good to hear your voice,” I tell him.

  “It’s killing me to hear yours. Where are you? I have to see you.”

  Dane’s warning creeps in again. Yes, yes, anyone belonging to an old Hollow family shouldn’t be trusted, I know. The Derants and Engers guarded that journal for sixty years, I know. If anyone has the right to sell it to a historical preservation society for a good chunk of cash, it’s them, not crazy Maria Burgos or her crazy daughter.

  Wrong. It's yours.

  I squeeze my eyelids tight, hoping it’ll cast away Mami’s voice. “Bram, don’t take this personally, but I can’t see you right now.”

  “You’re at Betty Anne’s, aren’t you?”

  My body stiffens. It’s not as though I own a car that can be identified in the driveway. Has he followed me, or just a lucky guess? Is he nearby as we speak? I scan the street for his black Accord. “Where are you now?”

  “At work, on a break. I know your mom was trying hard to prove some lineage that would make her and you the rightful owners of that journal. I know because she told Janice flat out when they were still on friendly terms. That’s how she got in to see it at the library, how she met Tanner, whose former student works at the lab. But listen to me… I. Don’t. Care. Where your family comes from doesn’t mean shit to me. It didn’t matter when we were kids, and it doesn’t matter now. You have to believe me.”

  “Stop. You’re making this harder.” I press my fingertips against my eyelids. In my one dream, Bram was angry, forceful, jealous. I know it was just a dream, but Betty Anne says dreams are full of insight. What am I supposed to believe?

  “Let’s meet tomorrow before HollowEve. It’s our last big rehearsal. I can pick you up wherever you are. Or I can meet you somewhere. Whatever you want.”

  I feel like a short rope in a tug-of-war. I shouldn’t meet him. Dane is right. The man knows his job and the players in this case. Then again, I’ve known Bram my whole life, and he’s never given me reason to doubt him. A quick hello and nothing more. “I have something to do at four, so afterwards would be fine.”

  “Six o’clock at the park?”

  “Kingsland?”

  The smile is back in his voice. “Is there any other?”

  ...

  The next day, I’m up early waiting for the keys to arrive. I carefully unfold my mother’s family tree, retrace all the names back through Cuba and Spain, and stare at photos of people I’ve never seen and yet known all my life, familiar strangers, a world just beyond this dimension. Whose spirit guide will I become when I die, I wonder? Whose job is it to decide that anyway?

  Carefully piling the photos into a neat stack, I pray that my life ends on a happy note so that I’ll never, ever have to go through the torment that Mary Shelley’s and Mami’s spirits are going through now.

  At three thirty, I make sure everything is carefully put away, the most important documents tucked behind an old art portfolio in the closet for safekeeping, and I head out to meet Dr. Tanner.

  I opt for the higher visibility of the main road in case the biker from the cemetery stalks me again. Even though the Headless Horseman forced him out a few days ago, I don’t want to be caught alone with him in the forest shortcut.

  Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe bustles as usual. The same familiar faces are there, along with tourists toting backpacks and poring over brochures of the area’s attractions. Jonathan is there too, wiping down a counter. I try to avoid him, but he sees me.

  He smiles awkwardly, probably knows all about my fight with Bram. Now, he’s in the awkward position of displaying diplomacy. “Hey, you,” he says as I approach him. “Haven’t seen you all week.”

  “Been busy.” I look around nervously. “Is Bram here?”

  “He doesn’t work today.” Jonathan props his elbows up on the counter. “Hey, I was rude to you the other day. I said some stuff about your dad, and it was totally uncalled for. I was having a shitty day, so…sorry about that.”

  Well. I force a smile. “It’s all right, John. I can empathize with shitty days.”

  “Truce?” He holds up his fisted knuckles.

  I bump them with my own, just to get him off my back. Because really, the other night at the manor, he showed his true colors, and I will never be friends with him again.

  The doorbells chime. I turn and see Dr. Tanner’s head peeking in. When his scan of the coffee shop stops at my face, he waves me outside to a bistro table. “I’ll see you later,” I tell Jonathan, heading outside.

  “Later.”

  “Hello, Micaela.” Dr. Tanner holds the door open for me.

  “Hi. It’s a little cold out here,” I say, hugging myself.

  “Sorry,” Dr. Tanner says, out of breath. “But it occurred to me that maybe we’d hear each other better outside.” He slides out a chair for me then sits on his own with a big huff, propping his portfolio carefully against the table.

  “Right,” I say, noticing two missed calls from Bram on my phone before shoving it into my bag.

  Dr. Tanner pulls out papers from his portfolio and lays them on the table. “I brought you the work you missed. I hope everything is okay.” He raises an eyebrow.

  “Not exactly.” I notice that half the locals in the coffee shop turn their heads now and then to peek at us through the window. Did not miss the nosiness of a small town at all. “I didn’t really come here to get make-up work. I have a few questions, and considering the buzz around town these days, I didn’t want to risk you turning me down.”

  His big chipmunk cheeks suck in a rush of air, which he then releases slowly. “I gathered as much. Miss Burgos, if I may say so…about that, I want you to know that you have my help in any respect. The families of this town are very protective of their history, but if you have anything that could help your case, or if this becomes a legal matter, I am here to assist you.” He bows his head gallantly.

  “I appreciate that,” I say. As much as I want to believe him, I have to wonder if his presence at the bank that day had anything to do with my case. I almost expect him to ask for half the reward money in exchange for helping me locate the missing journal. “But I didn’t come to speak to you about that, either.”

  “Oh?”

  I hold out my hand to a sparrow hopping near my feet on the brick-paved patio. Anything to avoid his straight-on gaze. The way he’s looking at me makes me a bit nervous when I’m already stressed over what I’m about to ask. Dr. Tanner moves his thick leg, and the bird flies off. “How do you know Dane?”

  He shrinks back, like it was the last thing he’d ever expect me to ask. “I taught a literature class on weekends at University of New Haven years ago. Mr. Boracich was in my class. This was before he went to graduate school at Harvard.”

  Be
fore he became an investigator, I see…

  Fair enough. Now the toughest question of them all. “And what about my mother? You knew her well, didn’t you?”

  Silence for a moment. He clears his throat. “Yes, I’ve been meaning to catch you after class, but there never seems to be a good time. I’m so terribly sorry for your loss.”

  “No, I don’t mean know her the way everybody knows her name when they hear it. I mean, you knew her, as in—you knew her.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  You have the right to know, my brain pesters me. “What I mean, at the risk of sounding way over-personal, is…” I pull my hair forward so it shields the side of my mouth from any lip-reading regulars of the coffee shop. “Were you and my mother having a…you know…”

  He waits for me to finish, but when I let him figure out the rest on his own, he sits back and sighs. “No, Miss Burgos, your mother and I were not having an affair. She was a great woman, very intelligent, persistent, honorable, but we were not involved in any romantic way.”

  For some reason, his words sit right with me. I want to sigh in relief. “I’m only asking because I have reason to believe otherwise.”

  “Don’t listen to everything you hear. This town likes to talk.”

  “I didn’t hear it from this town.”

  He holds up his hand. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “No,” I reply. “Not to be rude, but I only want answers.”

  “Understood.” He stares at the table for the right words. “Your mother and I, after meeting at Historic Hudson Library and years of collaborating on projects and sharing a passion for the same subject matter, became friends. Close friends,” he stresses. “But nothing else.”

  “You swear by it?”

  “I…” He chuckles. Something about my question resonates with him. “I swear by it.”

  “Then why would my father insinuate it?”

  “Because people believe whatever they want. Whatever makes sense to them. Whatever makes them feel happier about their own lives. But you should know better than anyone, Micaela, that things are not always what they seem.” His expression challenges me.

  “I understand that, but like the locals here, I’m also very loyal. To beliefs I’ve had for so long. Everything I’ve ever thought to be true has been challenged since I arrived here two weeks ago, Dr. Tanner. So I’m sorry if I seem a little untrusting.”

  Dr. Tanner purses his lips, does a little flourish with his hand. “Completely forgivable.”

  “Then would you mind explaining why you were at South River Bank in White Plains last week? It’s not exactly a local bank, mostly housing safe deposit boxes.”

  He peers at me through a surprised expression that softens the more he thinks about his answer. He scoots his seat closer to me and grabs his cane. “You have to understand something. Your mother and I were good friends, so yes, I was privy to the details of her life. But, make no mistake, Micaela, she was fearful.”

  Fearful? I absorb his words reluctantly.

  “I know you think the world of your father, and I would never do anything to change that, but as your mother’s friend, and because she is no longer here to present her side of things, I feel it’s my duty to let you know that your mother tried repeatedly to stay in contact with you.”

  “How so?”

  “Let’s just say she didn’t take kindly to threats.”

  Who does he mean? But my father’s not an aggressive man. He might have been a little overimaginative, maybe even oversensitive, but he wouldn’t have threatened her. I don’t think.

  “Your father assumed the worst, that we were more than friends, because we spent time together working on projects, Sunnyside events, etcetera. She insisted there was nothing going on, I told him there was nothing going on, but once a jealous man has it in his head that his wife has been cheating on him, there’s little anyone can do to convince him otherwise.”

  That I’ll buy. But how does this answer my question? “What about the bank?”

  “I was at the bank because Maria wasn’t hopeful she would ever see you again.”

  Stab my heart, why don’t you. I stare at him through watery swirls. The sunset’s sheen is breaking through the trees behind me, creating interesting shapes and patterns on Dr. Tanner’s face and jacket.

  “So she took things that mattered most to her,” he goes on, “things she didn’t want Jay ever touching, and locked them up in the box. She left Betty Anne with one key, in case you never made it back to Sleepy Hollow.” He sighs and folds his hands on his belly. “And she gave me the other key.”

  Dr. Tanner and Betty Anne have been guarding Mami’s prized belongings. In case something ever happened to me. Because Mami felt things could, or would, go wrong. She took care of me more than I thought.

  “Micaela…” Dr. Tanner reaches across the black bistro table, his hairy, burly arm a strange complement to the lacy ironwork, his hand patting mine. “After hearing the news about the reward money, I was there making sure the journal was still safe. For you. For whenever you went to find it.”

  I stare at him and try to process his words.

  But there was no journal at South River Bank the day I went with Bram.

  There was a medium-sized box, a big open space where more could have fit, but no journal. Unless…

  “Would you excuse me?” I rip my hand out from under his and sprint across the street with my backpack. I dodge cars blaring their horns, cut through the college campus, pass the lake and joggers, and burst out the west end, taking the shortest route back to my mother’s things and the woman Mami was fool enough to call a friend.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveler.”

  I pound the shortcut through the yellow birch trees, dark shadows mottling along the ground. It’s sunset, a breath away from darkness. I focus on reaching Maple Street as quickly as possible, but it’s not long before I hear voices fighting for attention inside my head, one of them familiar above my own choppy breath.

  Hurry...

  So stupid to leave everything! God, what was I thinking? No wonder she’s been so nice to me. The journal was in the safe deposit box. It had been right on top of my other things! But it wasn’t there when I took the rest. Now it’s gone.

  Bram calls me again, but I have no time to answer. I leap over branches, wincing in pain every time my knee absorbs the shock as my feet crunch over the blanket of leaves. The old wives know these woods are haunted, all the woods in Sleepy Hollow are haunted, but I get it now. Ghosts can’t hurt me. It’s real live people you should fear.

  The sickening click-click of a loose bike chain is all the motivation I need to hurry the hell up. He’s back. And somewhere behind me. If he maneuvers expertly in the cemetery, he’s going to maneuver all the more expertly in the flatter terrains of these woods.

  I cast a glance over my shoulder. Obscured by shadows in the fading light, my follower is back, a good forty feet behind me, wearing the hooded jacket again cinched tightly around his nose and upper cheeks, legs pumping pedals up and down. In his hand, a tight fist holds a wooden baseball bat.

  Horseman! Where the hell are you? Dane!

  Damn it! How great are these protectors that they’re not around when I need them most? I don’t need them, I remind myself, crouching as I run to pick up a branch, thick and heavy. I hurl it hard behind me. It lands far to the right. A young man’s voice cackles. It sounds like nobody I know, yet every guy in high school and college combined. I try again, this time running alongside the brook, picking up a heavy rock that can damage a skull if chucked just right.

  I fling it hard with all my strength. “Get away from me!” I yell, hoping at the very least that someone might hear me in these houses I’m running past. Glancing back, as my feet pound on, I see the rock as it hits my follower’s tire and bounces aside. The mountain bike wobbles b
ut regains its course.

  Faster…

  I pump my legs. No pain, no pain. I’m racing fast now, but my knee can’t be an issue right now. My irregular breaths beat in time with my pounding heart. Bike Guy gains speed. He’s about twenty feet away, but the exit of the woods is now within my sights.

  I pummel toward it, the opening in the wire fence like a magical portal to transport me to safety. But the closer I get to it, I notice the fence opening has been sewn shut with wire. Cold hard truth descends on me like a python on a cornered mouse.

  “No!” I slam into it, pounding with fuming fists. “NO!”

  I glance over my shoulder, gauging the number of seconds I have before my enemy reaches me, when I catch a glimpse of his wooden bat barreling straight toward my head.

  I duck, the whir of the spinning bat hissing as it flies over my head and then hits the metal grid behind me. It tumbles from the fence to my shoulder to the ground. I leap up, grab ahold of the thin metal wiring, and hoist myself over the top edge of the fence.

  Landing in a squat, I watch the biker skid to a stop, roll back, and lift his middle finger at me. Whatever, shit for brains. I want to spit obscenities, hurl my fury at him, then realize he’s just as capable of jumping fences as I am. My gaze locks on the only part of his face exposed by his cinched hood—his eyes—clear and jeering.

  A familiar neigh comes from behind me. I whip around to see a gray mist swirling out of nothingness and quickly become a massive, black horse and headless rider leaping over me. Cold wind whooshes over, blowing back my hair, as the apparition leaps over the chain link fence straight at my attacker. The biker fumbles with the handlebars but regains control of his bike just in time to ride off ahead of the horseman by a good ten feet.

  I would love to stand here and see how this chase ends, but the horseman didn’t show up just in time only for me to stand here. I run off for Betty Anne’s, reaching it a minute later, stumbling up the steps and slamming into the front door.