That afternoon, Isabella went out and disappeared in a crowd of people who wanted to hear the stories of how her father escaped the Headless Horseman. Like Brom she could tell tall tales and she liked to boast them loudly, so she stood on an apple crate and had everybody gather round while she told the tale.

"It was on that dark and fateful night that my father, the great Ichabod Crane came to meet up with the Headless Horseman. The Hessian hid off in the shadows he did and my father called 'Who be there?' and got no reply, so he kept on riding waiting for the moonlight to fill the sky. When the moon came out from the clouds, he heard a horse following him and he turned and looked and saw that headless soldier's spirit coming after him. So he kicked ol' Gunpowder in the sides and shrieked 'To the bridge, to the bridge, Gunpowder, to the bridge!' And it was then that the race was on.

"The faster he went, the faster the Horsemen got to keep up with him. It was a long hard race to the old church bridge, for my father was certain once there he would be safe. Looking back again he saw the Horsemen bore a blade on his side and a flaming pumpkin in his hand, this was no joke, this specter was dead serious about what intentions he had for his nightly business. The saddle dropped from ol' Gunpowder and Ichabod just barely hung on grabbed around the horse's neck, no matter what he did the Horsemen ensued chase after him.

"Finally, when all hope seemed lost, the bridge appeared up ahead, 'Aha!' he said, 'I've made it now, I'm in the clear once I pass through here'. But this was not the be and end all of what was that night, for once he crossed the bridge, the Horsemen still appeared. He lifted up his flaming pumpkin and flung it at my father, but he missed and it smashed on the ground. The Horseman rode on and drew his sword and held it out to meet with Ichabod's neck but the frightful sight disappeared before his very eyes just before the blade could sever his head from his body. Well there's only so much that one man can endure and he'd had enough frights in one night to last him the rest of his life so he said 'I'm going back home' where he settled down and brought forth the woman that's before you now telling this tale of days long past."

Everybody was entertained and engrossed by the sight before them and listening to the wild story that Isabella Crane had to offer. Of them all, one man and one man alone was not amused and that be Brom Bones. He knew something that only he knew and he would go to his grave before he admitted it to anybody else, including his loving wife, Katrina. With this Crane came a feeling of uncertainty and dread, but Brom remained certain of one thing, he was dead certain that this new schoolmaster wouldn't last through the month.

Later Katrina and Brom went to find Isabella and found her leaning against a large leafy tree with a wide base, with a long piece of wood in one hand and a small blade in the other.

"Hello Isabella," Katrina called.

She looked up and called, "Hello Miss Van Tassel, how are you?"

"We thought we'd come and see how you're doing," she replied.

"Oh swell, I got everything I need here, I got a fine jug of corn whiskey, and my pipe, and my whittling knife."

"Oh, what're you whittling?" Katrina asked, taking in the long piece of wood.

"Oh, it's a rod…I couldn't find any beech trees and they make the best ones…so I went to the sawmill and picked up some wood."

"A rod?" Brom repeated.

"Well I will be the new schoolmaster, and it's the master's responsibility to discipline the students when they don't behave…and if they're anything like they were when my father taught, I'll be needing the rods…" she laughed, "That's how he brought me up and I still have a couple marks on my…on my behind to prove it, and I never forgot."

Never in his life was Brom sorry he and Katrina had never had children, that was one less person to fight for the Van Tassel inheritance; but now he wished he had one, a son, one that he could mold to be the schoolmaster's perfect nightmare. Of course, he knew that Sleepy Hollow was still very superstitious, and if word were to come out that the new schoolmaster was a witch…he liked that idea, it had definite possibility.

"I'm sure you'll make a great schoolmaster," Katrina said, then added, "That does sound odd, doesn't it?"

"How's that?" Isabella asked as she lit her pipe and stuck it in her mouth.

"Well, a man is the schoolmaster, a woman is a schoolmarm."

"Yeah, but there's not enough woman in me to go marming around," Isabella replied.

"I trust you don't plan to wear those in the schoolhouse," Brom said.

She looked at him with a puzzled look, "Wear what, my trousers?"

"No, your arms."

She looked down at the belt that suspended her sword and gun, "Sure I do."

"What?"

Katrina laughed hysterically, "Well, without a doubt, nobody will think you a schoolmarm then."

"Bones, I don't know if you're aware of it, but when my father taught at the schoolhouse, there was great trouble there. He thought it was poltergeist, but I don't know…I stick to my suspicions that some wicked man deliberately scared him to run him out of town without being an object of suspicion himself. Well, if it be so, and if that same man try anything with me, he won't live long enough to laugh about it."

"Don't be daft, the schoolhouse where you're to teach is a different one from where Ichabod taught. After he…disappeared, they brought it down."

"I'm aware, but a man can travel from one school to another, do you deny this?" she replied.

"Isabella, will you be out long?" Katrina asked.

"Oh as long as the sun, I have to make several more rods," she answered.

"Well, dinner will be in a few hours."

"Okay, I'll come in then."

They turned around and headed back towards the house.

"Oh she is a nice one," Katrina said, "And so much like Ichabod, it's downright eerie."

"Something's eerie about it allright," Brom said, "And I'm going to find out what it is."

"What're you going on about, Brom?" she asked.

"Nothing."

"I just can't believe it," she said, "Ichabod Crane alive for 30 years after leaving this town and now dead and gone…only his daughter remains."

"Yes."

"It must be fate."

Fate, that word could make Brom sick. It was fate that drew Crane off and fate that let them be married and fate that Katrina's father died years ago and fate that they never had any children, now fate that the offspring of the man he hated with every inch of himself had come to live with them.

And she was looking for him, he remembered also. He couldn't let himself forget that simple fact, oh she might not know directly that he was responsible for scaring Ichabod off all those years ago, but she wanted the man responsible and that was him. Also he remembered how cold she was toward him, she had absolutely no respect for him, she didn't call him 'Mister' once since her arrival. She'd only used his first name once when she first rode into town, she'd brought with her a gun and a sword. No, a saber and if his guess was right, a cavalry saber, such used nearly 25 years ago.

Ordinarily Brom wouldn't think he had much to fear from a woman bearing arms but he had to remind himself this was no regular woman. This was the grown child of Ichabod Crane who raised a man out of a girl, and he feared she could very well kill him with either weapon with little struggling if she decided to.

Oh there was no supposing about it, this woman, this female schoolmaster, had to be done away with, run out of town, or just plain killed before she got too wise for her own good. Brom would see to that, he didn't know how, yet, but he would figure a way.


As the sun started to set, Isabella came inside with six freshly whittled rods, her pipe, and an empty whiskey jug. Dinner consisted of roast pig, mince pies, corn on the cob, hot bread with butter, gooseberry pie, and a jug of wine. Where Isabella lacked an appetite during the noon hour she now seemed to have inherited her father's hunger because she took parts of everything and asked for more when she was through.

"Did you get well acquainted with the town folk?" Katrina asked.

"Oh yes," she replied, "Most of them seemed rather pleasant, and they were all pleased that I was to take over position as schoolmaster. Some of them remember my father and commented it's nice I'm taking over in his work."

"So are you looking forward to going to work tomorrow?" Brom asked.

"Oh yes…it's been so long since I did any teaching. After my father died I just sort of dropped out of it for a while until I could move somewhere else and start again, to be honest I missed it."

"Well I'm sure you'll take back to it like a fish to water," Brom insisted.

"I do believe you're right, and I think it'll do me some good."

"Providing the ghosts don't scare you away," he laughed.

"That can't possibly happen, Bones," she said.

"Why? You don't believe in them either?" he smugly asked, feeling very full of himself.

"Oh no, in my life I've been among the company of many, many ghosts and ghouls and specters. I can assure you after all the spirits I have known, it's going to take more than a headless Hessian soldier to frighten me away from this quaint little village of yours."

Brom grinned, more to himself than to her comments, and he thought to himself, We'll just see what it takes to frighten you away, Crane.

"But do you really think you'll find out what drove Ichabod away all those years ago?" Katrina asked.

"Well I certainly intend to do so…ever since my father told me what happened, when I was a little girl…I always tried to think, just why was he driven away?"

"What do you mean?" Brom asked.

"Well, the man who scared him off clearly did it for a reason, but what reason exactly? When my father worked as a lawyer, every case he had, he took great trouble to prove that every case had to have a motive somewhere. So what was the motive in his being scared off so many years ago? Why should anybody want to drive away a simple schoolmaster? It wasn't for his money, it wasn't for his land, he had neither. It wasn't for a discovery of something, he never found anything in this whole place. So what was there to gain by him disappearing from Sleepy Hollow forever?"

Katrina couldn't think of a thing, Brom could but he chose not to speak lest his words lynch him.

"One thing is for sure, if that man is still in Sleepy Hollow, I'm going to find him, I'm going to hunt him down and kill him like the dog he is. I'll tear him limb from limb, I'll run him clear through, I will."

Brom wasn't sure he believed she actually could be capable of such a thing, but he still had a horrible feeling eating away at him that she was going to find the right man for what happened, and then there would be consequences to suffer.


That night, Brom tried to sleep but could not sleep, he kept tossing and turning over and over in the bed, remembering what Isabella had said. Never in his entire life had he ever met a woman so determined to seek revenge on something, let alone something that didn't even involve her. He wasn't sure what he was going to do and that bothered him more than anything had ever bothered him in his entire life.

It was an extremely windy night and the winds seemed to howl like a banshee. Brom tried to ignore the ghastly noises but the more he tried to ignore them, the more they seemed to try to form words. After a while the wind seemed to be calling him, "Brom Bones", he heard the owls hooting but they weren't hoots any longer, they were calling "Brom Bones", and the crickets chirped but they no longer chirped except in two words, "Brom Bones".

He was certain he was only imagining these voices saying these words and he tried to block out the sound with a pillow over his head. But the voices persisted, becoming louder, louder, "Brom Bones", "Brom Bones", "Brom Bones!"

The last mention of his name scared him enough that he almost jumped out of bed. He looked around the room, completely dark and nobody in sight, just a nightmare he supposed. He then turned to the window and his relief came to a quick end when he saw staring back at him through the window the pale, ghastly face of Ichabod Crane!

"Brom Bones! Brom Bones!" the ghost moaned horribly.

Brom, who had never before in his entire life believed in ghosts, certainly believed in them now. He ran to the window but when he did, he saw that Ichabod had disappeared. What was going on here? After a moment to realize everything given their conditions, he had an idea that somebody was trying to scare him. For a moment it seemed to work, but now he told himself, that he was wide awake, he was going to get to the bottom of this fine kettle of fish.

He made for the door but before leaving, remembered to pick up his musket rifle, he had an idea that he had a mad crane bird to shoot before it attacked. Brom stormed over to the room where they had put Isabella for a guest and he decided rather than jump in and attack, he had better be clever about it. He grabbed the doorknob and just barely turned it to slide the bolt out of the wall and he pushed the door open. All was quiet, nothing moved, not a sound was made; Brom stuck his head in and found that the room was empty. Not only that, the bed hadn't been slept in and there were no discarded garments anywhere in the room.

So, Isabella Crane had decided to become a haunt. Brom smiled to himself as he imagined her lifeless body hung up on the wall like a trophy, of course such a thing couldn't be possible but he did like the idea of it. He slowly backed out of the room, ready to go hunting, and in so he bumped into his wife who had padded out into the hall. Brom screamed and his rifle went off, firing a shot into the roof.

"Really, Brom," Katrina said, not amused, "Don't you have anything better to do than sneaking around in the middle of the night frightening people to death?"

"Katrina, that Crane woman isn't in her room."

"What?"

"I was just in there, she's not there, the bed is made and her clothes are gone."

"Oh that's ridiculous."

"Have a look for yourself," he insisted.

Katrina went to the room and looked in and saw things exactly as her husband said they were. "Well there must be some sort of explanation for this."

"There is," Brom told her, "I saw that woman standing outside our bedroom window not 10 minutes ago."

"Oh Brom," Katrina said, "You're being ridiculous, you had a nightmare."

"It was no nightmare, I swear to you I saw that Crane woman standing outside the bedroom window."

From behind they heard a sudden, "You're absolutely right."

The two jumped with a start and turned around to see Isabella, still dressed and still with her weapons supported around her waist, standing at the back doorway.

"Isabella," Katrina said, "What's going on?"

"I didn't mean to alarm you, but I couldn't sleep, and I thought I heard somebody trespassing outside so I went to look around," she explained.

"Did you find anything?" Brom asked.

"No, I thought I saw him come around your window so I decided to look in and make sure everything was allright. I didn't mean to startle you."

The grandfather clock in the hall struck the witching hour. Katrina pulled her nightgown closer to her body as if a sudden breeze passed them. "Why aren't you asleep? You have to go to the schoolhouse early tomorrow morning."

"I guess I forgot to mention…I haven't slept well in the past few months…some nights I go to sleep late at night or rather early in the morning. Some nights I can't sleep at all, so I stay up pacing my room…or reading…I brought out with me my father's journals he kept once he started being a lawyer. If you'll excuse me, I think I'll start reading on them."

"Of course, goodnight, Isabella," Katrina said.

"Goodnight."

Her door closed behind her and Katrina turned to Brom, "Come on, Brom, let's go to bed…and put that silly thing," she pointed to his rifle, "Away before you hurt somebody."

"But, Katrina, I…" Brom decided to forget it, there was no reasoning with women, wives especially.

All the same, as he went back with her to their bedroom and climbed in beside her in bed, and laid down to sleep, he couldn't get over an uneasy feeling that what had happened tonight was just a sample of things to come so long as Ichabod Crane's daughter was in Sleepy Hollow, and especially their happy home.