The Horseman - By Lisa Kessler
"Hush a bye, don’t you cry, go to sleepy, little baby..." Her voice warbled as the aged tune left her thin lips. "For when you wake, you shall have all the pretty little horses."
Kelly blinked in the darkness, trapped in the space between dreams and reality. Her grandmother had been dead for over twenty years. But she could feel her grandmother’s gnarled fingers smoothing back her blond hair from her forehead. Her entire body tensed as she fought to free herself from the dream.
"I want a big black horse, Grandma. A stallion. I want to ride him so fast that no one can catch me."
Her grandmother laughed with a gleam in her dark eyes. "Of course you do, Sweetheart. It’s in our blood."
"Our blood, Grandma?"
Oh God Kelly, please wake up! She moaned into the clutches of her nightmare.
"Oh yes, Little One," her Grandmother whispered, leaning in closer as she tucked the covers up under her chin. "Every Hallows Eve he rides. His black stallion is always on the run. If you listen closely, you can hear his ghostly hoof beats echo through the woods as his search continues."
"Whose search Grandma?"
She folded her hands in her lap, while her lips curled into a conspirator’s smile. "The headless horseman, of course."
Kelly saw herself as a five year old child. Trapped in the memory she watched her younger self in the bed. The child’s eyes widened. "From Sleepy Hollow?"
Her grandmother shook her head. "He was never form Sleepy Hollow. That was a story. A legend. But all legends grew from the roots of truth, Little One. He came to this country in spirit when the rest of his family moved to America with dreams of freedom."
Kelly writhed in her bed trying to wake herself as the dream unfolded her long-buried memories.
"There was really a headless horseman?" Her tiny fingers gripped the edge of the blanket, ready to hide at any moment.
Her grandmother sighed. "There still is, Little One."
"W-Where?" Her blue eyes shifted from side to side in search of any sign of a headless monster.
"He will ride again tonight." She bent over to kiss Kelly’s forehead. "He comes for me this time."
Now Kelly was trembling. "I want my Mama."
"No need to be frightened, Little One. It is my time. He rides for us."
"I don’t want him to ride for me."
Her grandmother leaned in close surrounding her in the stale scent of moth balls and talcum powder. "You have no choice. He is your great-great-great grandfather. And he will come when the time is right." The moonlight glowed off of her paper-thin skin as she bent to kiss Kelly’s forehead. "Ich liebe dich, Little One."
"I love you too, Grandma," she whispered as a tear spilled
down her cheek. "Are you afraid?"
"No," she whispered. "I can hear his black stallion now. I am ready."
As she got up and tottered out of Kelly’s bedroom, the dream finally released her from its clutches. Kelly bolted out of bed in a cold sweat.
With wide eyes she reached for her lamp and clicked on the light. Nothing looked out of place. Relief oozed from her pores as she turned on the television. She hadn’t dreamed of her grandmother in over ten years. Why now?
The infomercial babbled on about some new collection of Mozart’s concertos, but Kelly wasn’t paying any attention. Since that late night bedtime story with her German grandmother, Kelly had researched the tale of the headless horseman.
She’d tracked down relatives of Johann Karl August Musäus, the original collector of the tale of the Headless Horseman. Washington Irving used the German folk tale and crafted the town of Sleepy Hollow, adding in the schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane. But the truth behind the legend took her all the way back to Germany.
She’d traced the tale back to a lover’s quarrel. There was to be a duel with pistols, but when her great great great grandfather started to walk his ten paces away from his opponent, the other man spun around, drawing his sword and trailing it right through her grandfather’s neck. According to the legend, his head cursed the man and he vowed to ride again.
Someone else heard his curse that morning, and as the story goes, and with the kiss of a demon, her grandfather’s black stallion was also granted eternal damnation to ride on All Hallows Eve. The horseman, eager to be whole again, could track his family blood and when their time was finished in this world. He came for them.
Kelly rubbed her forehead. Her grandmother did die that night she told her the story of the Horseman. Her mother told her that her grandmother passed away in her sleep, but now Kelly knew better. When she was older, she searched through old newspaper and police reports to discover that her grandmother’s body had been found decapitated.
Her head was never recovered.
For weeks after learning that information, Kelly had been plagued by nightmares, visions of her grandmother’s frail head atop an inhuman horseman’s body, her eyes showing him the world he’d lost.
But the dreams eventually faded.
So why did it haunt her tonight?
Then she heard it. Her hands trembled as she held the remote toward the television to shut it off. At first silence calmed her frayed nerves. It was all in her head. Her mind playing tricks on her because it was Halloween night.
Nothing more.
She held her breath. Far in the distance she heard it again. The clang of iron against pavement. Hoofbeats. Faster and faster.
It couldn’t be, she thought to herself. She clicked off her light and peered through the drapes toward the street. Nothing moved in the moonlight. She looked out further toward the forest of trees in the distance.
Something shifted.
She squinted, fighting to focus her vision. Maybe it was all in her head. But it looked like something was out there.
A black figure erupted from the trees, racing along the main street. Her pulse throbbed in her throat while her mind fought against what her eyes saw. A horse with read eyes galloped toward her. As he got closer, she could make out the shape of a rider.
Half of her wanted to run out and take pictures, while the other half wanted to sprint for her car. No way a horse could keep up with her Camaro.
He got closer until she realized she was watching instead of running. She didn’t have time to wait and see if he wore her grandmother’s head or someone else’s. Kelly snatched up her keys and hurried into the garage. She fired up the engine and backed out. Her tires peeled out as she gunned the accelerator. But in spite of her speed, every time she looked into the rearview mirror, the horseman was closer.
Her hands broke out in sweat.
He didn’t have a head.
His stallion raced through the night faster and faster. She couldn’t outrun him. And then in a flash he was in front of her. Kelly screamed and slammed on the brakes. Her car skidded to a halt right in front of the headless horseman.
He raised his hand, pointing at her. Kelly shook her head. "No. It can’t be my time. Not yet."
He unsheathed his sword and pointed at her again. Tears ran down her face as he dismounted his horse and walked over. There wasn’t time to jump out and run. Her pulse throbbed, and Kelly screeched when he punched his gloved hand right through her driver’s side window.
Then she woke up in her bed with the lamp still on.
A sigh of relief escaped her lips. It was all a dream. She reached over to get a drink and froze when she saw the long black horse hairs on her night stand.
Her grandmother’s voice echoed through the dark house. "Go to sleepy little baby. For when you wake, you shall have, all the pretty little horses."
The hoof beats were getting closer. The Horseman Comes.
THE END
(For Marvin we had "Always on the Run" "Hush a Bye was my lullabye and Mozart was the composer)