A pleasing land of drowsy head it was:

Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye...

[James Thomson, 'The Castle of Indolence', 1748]


Darkness.

Light.

Sound.

So very far away…

A strange, smothering heat…

Voices…no, a single voice –

Why is it so hard to hear?

– hushed and murmuring, ringing faintly in his ears; muffled and indistinct as if issuing from the end of a long, black tunnel…

"…remarkable. A wound like this should have killed him...but it needs no stitch, and there's hardly loss of blood…"

Him…Who…?

Shadows flitting by – their writhing shapes weird and twisted – dancing impishly on the back of his closed eyelids; swirling, melting dizzyingly into a dense grey haze –

– dragging him down…down:

A covered bridge, painted silver by moonlight, wreathed in hoary fog –

The sight of it fills him with a nameless dread; try as he might, he cannot place it, cannot shake the emotion's clammy grip –

A horse's ghostly neigh sounds suddenly in the distance, floating to him on the misty air –

Terror floods him, clutching at his heart with icy fingers:

The Horseman comes.

Desperate, he makes for the bridge –

But a peculiar lethargy clings to his limbs, as though they labour through water, and he advances so slowly…too slowly –

Behind him, the chilling ring of a sword drawn from its scabbard, loud in its appalling closeness –

(No…)

Though the safety of the bridge's mouth now looms before him he cannot flee, his legs paralyzed and turned to lead –

(No!)

In the thrall of an unknown devilish power his mind lolls, slack and helpless, as he is compelled to turn –

(NO!)

turn on the spot to face his Death.

Brandishing smoking steel, it glides – stalks – toward him; nearer, nearer! until he can see every tortuous twist in the leatherwork of the ghastly armour, his gaze travelling upwards –

(Oh, God!)

The gruesome spectre has no head.

Transfixed by horror, only his eyes move to track the hellish blade as it swings upward; higher, higher –

and arcs down.

Ichabod Crane scrabbles his way back to consciousness with a wordless gasp; heart galloping and breathless, panting hoarsely, wild glazed eyes flying open onto –

The crumpled corpse of a brawny young man, cleaved in two, lying in its own blood on the rough wooden planks –

Sheets, smooth and cool; a small white bed…a little room, bathed in the wavering halo of candlelight –

Brom! Father in Heaven…

He struggles to rise, fighting the woozy blackness at the corners of his vision –

A sharp, stabbing pain erupts abruptly in his left shoulder, arresting his efforts, stealing the breath from his straining lungs –

It BURNS! Oh! How it burns…!

Searing black claws at him –

A smoldering devil blade of wicked argent glow, thrusting forward swifter than a striking snake –

slicing, carving into his flesh; nerves laid bare and raw –

the white-hot, ice-cold agony of hellfire pierces him through and through –

somebody…someone screams, shrieks in torment –

Our Lady of Mercy…is that himself?

Words. An older gentleman's…The…Doctor…?

"…you must be still. The fever is on you…"

Yes…

His strength has deserted him; the fire scorching the gash to his shoulder pulses in his veins, courses through his aching body –

He collapses, utterly spent, onto the thin pallet; drenched in a sickly sweat that plasters his thick unruly hair to the nape of his neck in soaked raven curls, writhing against the raging flames and the flickering images that assault him –

The ear-splitting crash of demonic thunder –

(…A cherubic apparition of flowing flaxen curls and rosebud mouth, arrayed in silk brocade of blushing cherry blossom…)

"…Wait! He's not after you – "

("The Pickety Witch, the Pickety Witch; who's got a kiss for the Pickety Witch?")

" – I'll get him!"

("…Pardon, Miss, I am only a stranger…")

The deadly clash of steel on scythe –

("…Then have a kiss, on account…")

A lightning flash blazes across the sky, turning night bright as day – close! too close –

(…Oh! the sweet, supple softness of the cupid's bow lips on his pallid cheek…)

The grotesque sliminess of loathsome scarlet gore as it splatters onto his brow – his chin – his eyes –

(…The intensity of those deep chestnut orbs, the luxuriant lashes so full; so large – near, so near…)

The hideous empty sockets of the Western Witch, like to the ancient barren hollows of a gnarled and wizened tree –

(…A doe's laughing eyes…warm and loving, coal-black as his own – Mother…)

The hole he chopped into the rotten wood of the Tree of the Dead, gaping bloody like an open wound –

(…Her long, delicate fingers cradling the tiny child's hands of his boyhood: the thaumatrope whirls…faster, faster – the cardinal in the cage…)

the clouded, murky stare of the severed heads hidden in its bowels –

(…Mother's eyes, huge, frightened, glaring at him from a slat in metal…shifting, blurring – not Mother's, now, but that dazzling nymph's – )

Dear Lord! NO! – the Angel's golden crown has joined them –

Spine arching, he cries out in intolerable anguish, Her name risen unbidden to his parched and swollen tongue –

– but all that emerges is a feeble moan, a sigh – a prayer:

"…Katrina…"