Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real. -Tupac Shakur
"Isn't it amazing?" Abbie Mills asks her younger sister, Jenny, as she shows her around the dusty old mansion she just bought for a song.
"Isn't is gigantic and falling apart?" Jenny shoots back. "Abbie, why? This… this house is hella huge."
"I told you I was looking for a project," she answers, disappointed her sister isn't sharing her enthusiasm. "Danny – Director Reynolds – is forcing me to take this stupid sabbatical, and you know I'm not going to be able to do nothing for three months."
"I know, but I was thinking, I don't know, scrapbooking, or like, baking, or… pottery," Jenny replies, throwing her hands up. She walks toward her sister. "This house dates back to Colonial times, Ab. They probably had slaves here and everything!"
"The realtor gave me some paperwork on this place," Abbie says, putting her hands on her hips. "The original owner… Lachlan Fredericks, was anti-slavery. An abolitionist. He had servants, but he paid them and treated them well, by all accounts."
Jenny narrows her eyes. "I'll bet."
"I checked into it, Jen. It's true. I'm going to do more research, too, because I'm curious now," Abbie says.
"Okay," Jenny nods. Then she takes her sister's hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to shit all over your excitement. Maybe underneath the three inches of dust, this place could be… kinda cool."
"Thanks," Abbie replies. "And there are only two inches, thank you very much. Come on. I want to show you the kitchen."
Jenny follows her sister and asks, "So this was, what, a foreclosure or something? Why isn't it preserved as historical?"
"Yes, it was, and I have no idea why not, but I'm definitely going to look into it," Abbie answers.
"You have no appliances," Jenny pronounces, looking around the kitchen. Other than that detail, it's really not in bad shape.
"Captain Irving said I could have theirs," Abbie informs. The Irving family is leaving Sleepy Hollow, the Captain wishing to retire to warmer climates. "The condo they've bought already has them."
"You can have them? Damn, wonder what I could score?" Jenny muses, half-kidding.
"Well, save their daughter's life once and find out," Abbie retorts, her voice edged with bitterness. She frowns lightly.
"Hey," Jenny says, "she's alive. That's the important part."
"Yeah, but she can't walk. I didn't get there in enough time," Abbie answers. It's a conversation they've had more than once. She knows the Irvings – and Macey – do not hold her responsible, but she is having some difficulty agreeing with them.
Which is why Reynolds "suggested" she take the summer off to "get her head straight". Her self-imposed guilt was uncharacteristically beginning to affect her work.
"I'm not having this discussion with you again," Jenny surrenders. "What kind of yard you got? Is there a big fancy gazebo? Ooo! I bet there's a carriage house!" She heads for the back door.
"Jenny!" Abbie yells, jogging after her. "According to the paperwork, the carriage house fell over years ago," she says. "I don't know if there was a gazebo or not."
"There was. There had to have been," Jenny insists. "A gazebo with a swing, where a young lady could sit with her gentleman suitor and let him get just far enough to give him hope, but not far enough to cause a scandal," she says, dramatically waving her hand like a fan.
Abbie rolls her eyes. "Oh, good Lord," she says. "I'm thinking of putting in a vegetable garden back here," she continues. "Next year, though. Need to concentrate on the house this year."
"So you're serious then," Jenny pronounces. "You're going to fix this place up and actually live here? Not like… flip it or anything?"
"I think so, yeah. Most of what needs doing is superficial. Cleaning, paint, that kind of thing. The previous owners updated the plumbing and electrical, so that's all good." She looks at her sister. "I've got plenty of room, as you said…"
Jenny holds up her hand and shakes her head. "You know I love you, but no thanks. I like my trailer. It may be a pile of crap, but it's my pile of crap. Not only that, but we've already proven we can't live together. I don't think having a giant house is gonna change that."
Abbie nods. Their brief cohabitation in Abbie's apartment when Jenny came back to town was short-lived and disastrous, prompting Jenny to find herself a nice little trailer in the trailer court near the edge of town.
"I know…" Abbie agrees. "But I thought I should at least offer."
"I know," Jenny echoes. She looks up at the rear façade of the mansion. "Damn, this place is huge."
"It'll keep me busy," Abbie says. "I need this, Jen."
Jenny simply puts her arm around her sister.
xXx
Abbie tackles the bedroom and kitchen first. She has until the end of the month before she has to be out of her apartment, and the end of May is just under two weeks away. Her sabbatical starts June first, so she also has limited time in which to work on the house.
"I just need it habitable; it doesn't have to be beautiful. Not right now," she keeps telling herself.
The master bedroom is large, but Abbie manages to clean it, paint the walls, and hangs room-darkening curtains in enough time. She even finds an area rug to warm the hardwood floor under her bare feet.
The appliances are moved in with three days to spare, and by that time, the kitchen is clean and the new flooring mostly installed.
She at least has a place to eat and sleep. That's all she needs for now. Lord knows she doesn't have enough furniture to fill the house, so she can shove it around to keep out of her way while she works. She'll worry about permanent locations later.
xXx
The bedroom and kitchen are just finished by moving day. Abbie leads Joe with the rented U-Haul, barely letting her Jeep turn off before hopping out and running to unlock the door, excited about finally getting to be in the house permanently. There were a few times where she worked late into the night and was tempted to just sleep there, but decided against it. She wanted it to be special. Official.
Plus, she didn't relish curling up on the hardwood with nothing to cushion and cover her body except dropcloths and the fleece blanket she keeps in her car for emergencies.
So, with some help, her relatively few belongings were moved in to the giant house in almost no time at all. Her friends only asked to be paid in pizza and beer, so Abbie made sure to have plenty of the latter on hand for everyone (except for Sophie, who was designated driver due to her having to work early the next morning) and ordered the former.
"You gonna be okay here all alone?" Andy asks as they are all getting ready to leave.
"Oh yeah," Abbie says. "I'm looking forward to it."
"Well, you know my number if anything happens," he says.
"Yeah, it's 911," she laughs. She and Andy have been friends since high school, and worked together at the Sheriff's Department before Abbie left the force to join the FBI. She sometimes gets the feeling he's a little fonder of her than she is of him, but he's never pressed the issue.
"All right, Brooks, you're holding up traffic," Joe says, playfully shoving him.
Abbie hugs her friends goodbye, saving her sister for last. She can't help notice that Joe seems to be lingering outside. "He's waiting for you," Abbie whispers in Jenny's ear.
"He is not," Jenny protests. Sophie honks the horn and Jenny replies with a salute using one finger.
"God, why are you dragging your feet? Go get your man," Abbie says.
"He's not my man," Jenny replies.
"Only because you won't go get him. You know he's not going to make the first move. Because you're scary," Abbie points out. Jenny snorts, and Abbie adds, "Look at him; he's like a puppy."
Jenny glances out at Joe, who is trying not to look like he's watching and waiting. "He is cute, isn't he?" she admits.
"Yes. And so are you. Go," Abbie urges. "I'm tired of watching you two dance around each other."
"Enjoy your big-ass empty house," Jenny says, giving her sister one more hug.
"I will," Abbie replies. She watches as Jenny heads directly for Joe, who is pretending to tie his shoe. He straightens up and starts to say something to her. Jenny grabs his jacket and pulls him towards her, lifting up on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his lips that should either answer or obliterate any question he was about to ask. Abbie chuckles and closes the door.
Then she locks both the knob and the deadbolt. "I should get a security system," she mutters to herself, then heads to the kitchen to clean up.
xXx
Abbie is exhausted by the time her head hits the pillow. She doesn't have a lot of things, but she has enough, and once the rush of moving into her first home had subsided, she crashed hard.
It's so quiet. She's beat, but the silence has her mind suddenly more alert. She's not used to this amount of solitude. No kids running and screaming in the hallways. No mysterious thumps or – even worse – sounds of sex from the apartment above. No Mrs. Parker screaming at Mr. Parker next door.
It's very dark and almost completely silent. She can occasionally hear the wind blowing outside, causing the window to creak a little. If she listens closely, she can hear the cars over on the highway. I wonder if I'll hear any owls… wait. What was that?
Abbie opens her eyes and listens, even holding her breath. She could have sworn she heard footsteps in the hallway. Deliberate footsteps.
There it is again. She sits up, staring into the darkness. The footsteps are quiet, but definite. Almost as though someone is trying to be polite, like a person who has come home late and does not want to awaken the household.
Abbie reaches into her nightstand for her pistol, then swings out of bed. She walks on silent bare feet, approaching her closed bedroom door.
She slowly turns the knob, then peeks into the hall.
There's nothing.
"Damn, go to bed," she tells herself, shaking her head at her silly paranoia before closing the door.
Definitely getting a security system, she thinks, sliding back into bed. If she's this jumpy over some stupid house creaks that kind of sound like footsteps, she wants the added reassurance of an alarm, just in case someone real ever does show up.
After about fifteen more minutes with no footfalls in the hallway, she finally drifts off to sleep.
When Abbie wakes up the next morning, she remembers having some sort of strange dream, but all the details elude her except one. She can't seem to shake the image of a pair of intelligent, intense blue eyes from her head.
And for some reason she finds herself thinking about her old friend Katrina McCarthy, who she hasn't seen or spoken to since the eighth grade.
A/N: Special thanks to like-bunnies for her help sorting out some of the details of this story!