Ichabod Crane's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Ichabod Crane came to Sleepy Hollow to build a schoolhouse. He rode in on a cargo wagon, bundled sacks and crates jostling at his back. The pay was good, and the farmhouse waiting for him was warm. He meant to teach the children their letters and their prayers until they grew into pious, learned folk. But every man in the last town had warned him about these woods. Crane told himself the warnings were nonsense. His hands still gripped his knees too tight. Two oak trees leaned over the road ahead. Their branches met and tangled into a low arch of red and gold leaves. The wagon slowed as it passed under them. The light dimmed. The driver said nothing. Crane watched dead leaves spin down and told himself the chill was only the season. Then laughter came from the trees. It was high and thin and wet, like something laughing through a mouth full of water. Crane's whole body went stiff. He searched the branches and saw no bird, no boy, no cause. The driver kept his eyes on the road and snapped the reins harder. "Did you hear that?" Crane asked. The driver did not answer. The laughter came again, closer, as if it rode along beside the wheels. Crane pressed his back to the crates. He mouthed a prayer, but the words shook loose from his lips. The horse broke into a trot without being asked. The trees fell away. The wagon rolled into open country, and the laughter stopped all at once. Crane sat gasping in the sudden quiet. A tattered wooden sign stood at the roadside, its carved letters worn by weather. Town of Sleepy Hollow. He had arrived. Ahead stood the village he had come to serve. Cobblestones. Plain houses. Beyond them rose a weathered two-story schoolhouse with a bell in its gable. His schoolhouse. Crane's heart lifted at the sight of it. This was the work he had crossed the country to do. But a woman stood in the road before the wagon, and she did not move. She wore a Puritan cap and a dark dress, and a black cat sat at her feet. Her face was tight with fear. One hand stretched out and pointed down the road behind Crane, back toward the oaks. "You heard him," she said. Her voice was low. "The ones who hear him in the trees, he comes for." "Heard who?" Crane climbed down, his legs unsteady on the stones. "The rider with no head." She did not blink. "He laughs first. Then he rides." The cat hissed and bolted. The woman pulled her shawl tight and hurried off between the houses, leaving Crane alone in the road. Crane stood before the schoolhouse he had dreamed of filling with children. He had reached Sleepy Hollow alive. But the laughter still rang in his ears, and now he knew its name.