I do not own Sleepy Hollow.

Or gentlemanly Englishmen. Dang it.

Accidental Time Traveler


This is not happening, this is totally not happening.

Lieutenant (or 'Left Tenant', as Ichabod pronounced it) Abigail Mills, Witness to the Impending Apocalypse and long suffering companion of the Indomitable Ichabod Crane, stood bewildered and speechless at the sight before her.

Sleepy Hollow.

But not in the year 2015.

No, definitely not 2015.

There weren't enough buildings, for one thing.

And no paved roads. Or electric poles and wires. Or cars.

Men and women milled here and there, yes. But they were dressed as, well, Colonials.

A few of them had noticed her and were beginning to stare as if she were some three-headed alien.

A reenactment. Happens all the time. That's what it is. People around here need a hobby. To keep from practicing dark magic and raising apocalyptic demons. So, yeah, let them play dress up.

But Abby Mills had trained and steeped herself devoutly in the world of reality and truth. Or at least the reality of the world as she now knew it.

And this was not a reenactment.

A horse drawn carriage rumbled by and she was almost splashed with mud.

Nope. This is definitely real. Shoulda never made that 'Dr. Who' reference before. Or 'Back to the Future'.

Numbly she turned and looked at the large wooden board in front of her.

The notices were written on parchment. Real parchment, not that cutsie little pretend parchment you bought at Hobby Lobby.

1781.

She ran her fingers along the grain of the board.

I'm supposed to be in the town square. This is not the town square.

She remembered launching herself at Katrina, who was being enveloped by some swirling vortex of doom thing.

Katrina Crane, former white witch and estranged wife of aforementioned Ichabod. Katrina, who had gone full-scale, bat-crap crazy nut, summoning vortexes and blabbering on about stopping her husband.

And then she, Abby, had woken up alone in the middle of the woods.

With no one around. No distinguishing features she could recognize. And no cellphone service.

Completely alone.

She barely spent any time alone anymore since committing herself to stopping the Apocalypse and the flood of bizarre minions that sought to bring it about.

There were usually people around, had just been around, or were very shortly going to be around.

Jenny. Hawley. Katrina. Irving.

Crane.

Especially Crane.

He even on occasion tried to talk to her through the bathroom door.

"As I am sure you are aware, Miss Mills, an oxymoron of this modern society is that with the addition of technology and self-sufficient machinery, that we seem to be more pressed for time than ever be-"

And she would roll her eyes and count to ten.

"Crane? Not now."

And flick on the exhaust fan to create more of a noise barrier between the two of them. Just for a minute. Just until she was done.

But here, in the woods, she had been all alone.

And so she had walked.

Basically picking a direction, determined to keep moving until she reached civilization.

Or the other side of the world.

Whichever came first.

A whispering disquiet had begun to grow in her when she'd found the road, uh, dirt track, instead asphalt that crossed her path.

See, this just doesn't bode well at all.

And she'd walked.

The faded wooden board proclaiming 'Sleepy Hollow' with a clearly outdated population count had bothered her too.

Dream, dream, I'm in a dream. I'll wake up soon and Crane'll be yammering on about batteries and NuWave infomercials.

She hadn't realized how attached she'd gotten to the time transplanted Englishman until she suspected they might be separated by centuries and not miles or even Purgatory.

And now she was here and all alone and in trouble.

Two minute men . . .

Well, glad I remembered that from high school history class, don't tell Crane . . .

. . . took special notice of her now and began to advance in her direction.

Oh crap. I'm really in for it now. This is gonna suck for sure.

She took a deep breath and tried to remain calm and casual-looking.

But she just knew there was going to be trouble.

This is the worst cosmic joke ever. Crane is going to have a field day with this. He'll never let me live it down. 'Thought you were so confident and self-reliant in your modern society, didn't you, Miss Mills? My, how the tables have turned . . .'

She'd give anything to hear his snooty, pretentious ranting right now.

She give anything to hear it.

Here.

In Colonial times.

Wait . . .


Silly and light, but hey, we need that too, right? ;)

Credit to my patient, video-game playing husband who helped me with some of these words when my brain temporarily went ka-put. Love ya, baby!

Everybody appreciates feedback. Leave a review if you like. :)