Story: Possession, Chapter 2
Author: Jennifer Campbell
Fandom: Sleepy Hollow
Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me.
Author notes: Thank you for the feedback so far. I hope to be posting a chapter every couple of days, so please keep checking back for updates.
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"What is this place?" Ichabod asked.
Abbie had parked her vehicle across the street from a building Ichabod had seen only in passing on their drives around town. In his time, this had been a church, a long, narrow building constructed of gray stone with a high steepled roof. Over the centuries since, wooden structures had been added onto all sides of the church. The end result was a strange conglomeration of past and present.
Like me, Ichabod thought.
Abbie turned the key to shut off her vehicle and twisted in her seat to look at him. She had her black hair pulled into a ponytail and wore no makeup. He liked her best this way. Relaxed and natural.
"This is the public library," she said.
"Ah," Ichabod said, pleased with her answer. "An institution of learning."
She opened her door to get out, and Ichabod did the same. The morning was cool and crisp, on the tipping point between summer and autumn. Already some leaves had changed to gold and orange.
The weather was such that Abbie had donned a black leather coat over her beige T-shirt and brown pants. She favored earth tones, Ichabod had noticed. Rarely color, and never pure white. The latter was probably a consequence of her childhood encounter with the four white trees and the demon Moloch.
Of course he had no room to criticize, as he still clung to his garb from centuries before.
They set off across the street.
"I quite like libraries," Ichabod said. "The one at Oxford was particularly impressive."
"I'm not much of a reader," Abbie said.
"Truly?" he asked and she nodded. "We must work to rectify that, Leftenant. A well-turned phrase is one of life's great pleasures."
"I prefer television."
He shook his head. "A pity."
She grinned at him. "Still, I do know that if you're looking for a book in Sleepy Hollow, this is the place to start. Though you haven't told me what we're going to do with the book once we find it."
This was true. Because of Abbie's negative responses to the subject of Katrina, he had decided to withhold that piece of information for as long as he could. He did not wish to upset her.
He had another reason, though. A more selfish one. If he gave voice to their plan, it would become real. He enjoyed his friendship with Abbie Mills, the only true and good thing he had found here. Adding Katrina to their lives would change their relationship. There was no helping for that. And he was not ready for it just yet.
Inside the double doors of the renovated church, they passed through a contraption that resembled the metal detectors at the police station. ("They make sure you've checked out your books before you leave," Abbie explained, but that made little sense to Ichabod. Why would anyone want to check a book when you could simply read it?). Beyond that was a lobby area, mostly empty of patrons at this early hour, and beyond that, the books. Tightly packed shelves that went from floor to ceiling, all the way to the back of the building.
"There must be thousands of volumes," he said. "How will we find the one we are looking for?"
"With this."
Abbie strode over to a computer and began typing. Ichabod watched with interest. He did not fully understand how these machines operated, but the world seemed to run on them now. She took a slip of paper and a pencil from beside the computer and wrote down several sequences of numbers.
"Come on," she said.
"What are those numbers for?"
"We don't have time for a lesson in the Dewey Decimal System." She checked her notes against a plaque with similar numbers posted to the end of a shelf and turned down the row of books. She ran one hand along the spines, scanning, and stopped. "These are the books about witchcraft. You look here. I'm going to check out the section on paganism. It might help if you'd tell me what specifically we're looking for?"
He smiled at her continued attempts to get more information out of him. She was very determined. "It will be an old book, filled —"
"Filled with spells. You said that before."
"And it is still true."
She sighed. "Got it."
Once she had gone, Ichabod searched through the books on witchcraft. They were mostly of the historical variety. He found one with a painting on the cover of a red-haired witch being burned at the stake. A wave of grief and loss swept over him as he thought of Katrina and how she had died.
"Anything?" Abbie asked when she returned.
He returned the book to the shelf. "Nothing useful."
"Me, neither." She flashed an encouraging smile. "No problem. We're just getting started."
But searches under Revolutionary War, American history 1700-1800, magic, occultism and fairy tales also came up empty, and Abbie's smile started to slip.
"You know," she said, leaning against a bookshelf deep in the stacks, arms folded across her chest, "this book might not exist anymore. It's been a long time —"
"No. Katrina would not send us on a fruitless chase. It must be here." He paced in front of her, thinking, tapping his fingers against his lips. "All that is kept on these shelves are books that are suitable for public usage, which a book of spells certainly would not be. If there is a collection of older and more valuable materials, perhaps the library keeps it in some other location."
She smacked her hand against her forehead. "Special collections. Of course. Let's go talk to the librarian."
Ten minutes later, they were being led down a dimly lit staircase by an older, bespectacled woman named Susan, who had become cooperative only after Abbie had displayed her badge.
"We keep the special collections in a vault down here," Susan said in a light, quavery voice. "That keeps them protected from the elements. Old books are so fragile. We don't usually allow patrons into the vault. What did you say this is for again?"
"An investigation," Abbie said curtly.
"An investigation into what? Eighteenth-century farming techniques? Instructions on how to fire a musket? Because that's the sort of thing you'll find in the vault."
"I'm sorry, but I can't tell you."
Susan clucked her tongue in disapproval.
Abbie pursed her lips, which Ichabod had come to recognize as a sign of her irritation. He wanted to reach out to her, massage the tension from her shoulders, but he sternly fought the urge.
He had experienced such inappropriate thoughts more and more as of late when it came to Miss Mills.
Instead, he leaned down to whisper in her ear, "If you wish to learn how to fire a musket, I could be of assistance in that endeavor."
Her lips twitched with amusement.
At the bottom of the stairs, a narrow passageway with stone walls branched off in two directions. The tunnel had the aura of something old, and Ichabod suspected it had been built at the same time as the church. A single, bare light bulb swung overhead, and a thin layer of dust coated the floor.
He kicked at the dust. "It appears that you do not have many visitors down here."
Susan scowled. "This way. And you" — she pointed at Ichabod — "mind your head. The ceiling gets lower."
He did find himself ducking, and feeling a touch claustrophobic, by the time they reached their destination: a metal door with a number keypad beside it. Susan pressed four of the numbers, and there was a click as the door unlocked. She pushed the door open, and Ichabod followed the two women through, relieved to be out of the tunnel.
The vault was about three meters square, white, sterile, with glass cases built into the walls that held various reading materials. Books, pamphlets, maps. A wooden table and two chairs sat at the center of the room.
"Perfect," Abbie said. "We'll take it from here."
Susan peered at them, her eyes magnified to an abnormally large size through her glasses. "I'm not supposed to leave anyone alone in the vault."
Abbie smiled coldly. "That won't be necessary, and the Sleepy Hollow Sheriff's Department thanks you for your help."
She huffed. "Be very gentle with the books. And shut the door on your way out when you're done."
When Susan had left and the door closed, Abbie threw up her arms. "Oh, I wanted to strangle that woman."
"I'm not sure deadly force would have been appropriate," Ichabod said, then added, "But I do understand the sentiment."
She shrugged out of her leather coat, tossed it across the back of a chair and surveyed the glass cases. "We've hit the jackpot."
"If by that you mean that we might find the book here, I think you are correct." He removed his coat as well and laid it on the table. "I suggest we start over there." He pointed to a case of books across from the door. "We can proceed around the room in opposite directions and meet on the other side."
They worked steadily for an hour in comfortable silence. Once, Ichabod came across a pamphlet he thought might have belonged to him, a treatise on American politics during the war. Just when his stomach's growls were becoming distracting enough that he was about to suggest they break for lunch, Abbie called out behind him.
"Crane. Come look at this."
She set a heavy volume on the table with a thump. Ichabod went to join her. The cover of the book she had found was tan leather, with a symbol in the center that resembled a sunburst.
"I know that symbol," Abbie said, excited. "It's the same one that's on your Bible, right?"
"Yes it is."
He grazed his hand over the sunburst, his fingertips tingling. Was this the key to Katrina's return? He hoped that it was. But at the same time, the irrational fear he had felt before in Purgatory returned, stronger than ever. It set his hands to shaking as he slowly, carefully opened to the first page. The parchment was thick and yellowed, curling at the corners, but the handwritten words in black ink were as clear as the day they had been inscribed, some in English and some in Latin.
Abbie leaned in to look. He became intently aware of how close her body was to his, their forearms touching, but she seemed completely unaware of how she was affecting him.
"A spell to cure the pox," Abbie read. She looked over at him, brown eyes wide. "This has to be it."
"Perhaps."
"Come on, a really old book of spells that just happens to have that symbol —"
"There's only one way to know for sure," he said, and that was if the book contained the spell Katrina had sent him to find. He sat in one of the chairs, too small for his lank, lean frame, and thumbed through the pages one by one. When he found it, he thumped the table with both fists in triumph. "Here. This one."
Abbie came around behind him and peered over his shoulder. "A spell to resurrect the dead," she read, and now Ichabod heard fear in her voice instead of excitement. "Are you serious?"
Her incredulity made him wince, and he knew he could no longer keep her ignorant of what they had to do. He turned to face her. From the expectant look she gave him in return, she clearly agreed with his assessment.
He took a deep breath and plunged into the explanation. "When I saw Katrina in my vision, she told me of a darkness about to descend on Sleepy Hollow. A darkness we cannot fight by ourselves. She said we will need her help."
Her eyes widened further. "Katrina? We're going to resurrect Katrina? Your dead wife?"
"Yes," he said and waited.
Abbie moistened her lips. Ichabod could read the emotions that crossed her expressive face like an open book. Shock, anger, panic, then resignation.
"All right," she said finally. "She hasn't steered us wrong yet. But did you read the whole spell?" She pointed to the bottom of the page, the last line of instruction. "Look what it says."
He did, and his stomach dropped. "The vessel must act in full knowledge and cooperation, welcoming in the spirit of his own free will," he read.
"The vessel," Abbie repeated. She sat heavily in the chair across from him, her eyes flicking from him to the book and back again. "This isn't a spell of resurrection, Crane. It's a spell of possession. And your wife? She's going to need a body."
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