Page 74 of Hollow

With a heavy sigh, I mount Snowdrop and guide her toward them.

“Good morning,” Brom says, as if last night never happened, as if the last four years never happened. And yet, seeing him wearing a black suit and coat astride that magnificent black stallion, I can’t help the butterflies in my stomach, especially when the corners of his mouth lift just a little, bringing the slightest bit of light to that stony gaze.

“Good morning,” I say with a nod, my smile matching his, though perhaps a little less forthcoming. Especially with my mother staring at us like we’re two prized cows on the auction block.

“Well, you better not be late for class,” she says, a smile plastered on her face. “Are you both in the same one this morning?”

Brom shakes his head. “History, if you can believe it.”

“Energy manipulation,” I say.

She looks crestfallen at that. “Oh, well, I hope—”

“Excuse me, Ms. Van Tassel?” a deep Bostonian accent rings out from across the lane. The three of us look over to see Constable Wesley Kirkbride riding up on his horse, a grim expression on his face.

It’s not every day that the police want to have a word with you. I immediately get a sour taste in my mouth.

“Yes?” she says with a wary expression. “What can I do for you?”

The constable pulls his horse to a halt right in front of us and nods at both me and Brom before facing my mother. “I’m investigating an incident that happened around midnight last night. Do you know of your whereabouts at that time?”

“I was asleep,” she says. She looks to the two of us. “I’m sure we all were.”

He looks at Brom. “And you?”

“I was asleep,” he says. “You can ask my parents.”

He sighs. “I believe you, boy.” He runs his hand over his face before straightening up, a look of weary horror on his face. “I’ve never seen anything like this in all my life, even up in the cities.”

“What happened?” Brom asks.

The constable stares for a moment, gauging us, then shrugs. “You’re going to hear about it sooner or later. This will make news all over the state, maybe the country.”

My stomach drops, ice filling my veins with dread. “What?” I whisper.

“A Sleepy Hollow man was murdered last night.”

My mother and I gasp in unison.

“Where?” Brom asks.

“Meeks farm. Found in the middle of the cornfield. All the stalks around the scene trampled like someone running from a horse.”

“Meeks?” I repeat, my heart going cold in my chest. “Who was murdered?”

“Joshua Meeks. Had his head chopped clean off him.”

The world seems to fall out from under me, and I lean forward, clutching Snowdrop’s mane. My mother proclaims her shock, and the constable describes the scene further, but I’m not even listening.

Joshua Meeks. The man I had an affair with last summer. Always had a smile for me, kind green eyes, hair like the sun. A man with gentle hands who made me discover things about myself, what I liked and what I wanted, who helped me come into being a proper woman.

He was dead. His head sliced off in a cornfield after being hunted by a man on a horse.

Why him? Why Joshua?

And why after I happened to tell Brom about it?

The sour pit in my stomach gets bigger. I look over at Brom, and he meets my gaze.