Chapter 5
- "A blizzard will come soon."
I avoided looking at him for the rest of the way, thinking about what it would feel like. To die, to wander like a ghost for centuries and then go back in time just a day before his death would take place. Was it painful? 200 years in the solitude of the woods, riding from one place to another without rest. It would have been his punishment for the vices to which he dedicated himself. However, here he was again, alive and in my opinion without feeling any remorse.
We finally stopped. We had reached the place where we had been thrown. I recognized the woods in the distance. The sun was beginning to set and the faint rays lighted up the footprints in the snow.
- "Do you remember the exact place where you fell?"
- "I think it was around here." - I lied while taking a few steps pretending to look closely. I inadvertently touched the palm of my right hand, the skin still stinging but it didn't seem like it was going to leave any scar. The Horseman walked closely but he wasn't precisely looking at the snow but rather he was looking at me.
- "What is your name?" - He asked suddenly.
- "Alice".
- "Alice". - He repeated slowly. "Don't you want to go back to your time, Alice?" The 21st century is a wonderful time to be alive. "
I thought about his words. In the irony of the situation. In a way my problems weren't that different here in the past. In both the 21st and 18th centuries I had managed to be bent to the will of two men. In both centuries I felt the urge to flee, in both centuries I felt that I didn't fit in anywhere.
- "And if I find the stone, will you know how to send me back to the future?" - I asked.
The Hessian took a deep, crestfallen breath.
- "We can try".
After almost half an hour circling around with my eyes fixed on the snow I started to worry. How long would the Hessian's patience last? The last rays of the sun were overshadowed by thick clouds and a cold wind whipped our bodies. The Hessian kicked the snow in frustration.
"It is impossible!" He growled under his breath.
Something caught my attention, the glare of several lanterns was moving towards us, I could make out the figures of at least a dozen men and their muffled voices could be heard very faintly. The alarmed Hessian took me with him to his horse and, taking the reins, went into the forest. His face was contorted with a panicked grimace. A deep wrinkle was drawn between his eyebrows and he was breathing frantically.
- "What's going on?" - I asked amazed. I never would have imagined seeing him that way.
- "Shh, they can hear you." He whispered.
The night hung over us and the expected blizzard started. The snow fell and was blown by an icy wind; the temperature plummeted, and visibility was worsening. The Horseman managed to reach a hidden cave in the heart of the woods. At first, I thought it was the same one where it all started, but this one was tiny, and you had to crawl on all fours to get inside it. Inside the space was small and we could only sit. The Horseman took several things from Daredevil's mount and brought them with him, among them I could see the book. Finally!
I tried to hide my emotion, but it wasn't necessary since the Hessian was busy lighting a tiny oil lamp. I cleared my throat nervously, the dim light illuminating the Hessian's pale features and he fixed his eyes on me.
- "I know you hate questions, but can I know what is happening?"
- "Those were Americans troops, as you would guess I do not have much interest in crossing them. Especially during these days. "
- "They were the ones who murdered you, right?"
The Horseman tried to give me a fake smile but he stopped halfway. His expression was grim and distant, he lowered his head and looked at the ground.
"Why did you return precisely to this day?" - I asked. - "Why didn't you choose another date?"
- "There are certain rules." -He answered. - "The memories I had of my life were lost after two centuries, I was only able to remember the last hours of life, over and over again. I remembered the shot that killed Daredevil. I remembered that little girl and the dry snap of a branch breaking. I remembered the pain of a sword stuck between my ribs ... the taste of blood in my mouth ... "
His voice cracked, at that moment he looked up and I had to cover my mouth with my hands moved by his tears.
"The sting… the burning sting and the sudden choke that I felt when my head was cut off. It was hellish to see my own decapitated body lying on the ground and feel for a few seconds the icy blow that my head gave against the snow."
I approached him and with my fingers I wiped his tears away, he seemed not to be able to contain himself anymore and he hugged me tight, burying his face in my hair. I didn't know what else I could do so I hugged him back. His body spasmed slightly and his crying continued to soak my shoulder. He calmed down little by little at the same time that the vapor of our breath became more and more dense. I was patting him on the back and couldn't help but inhale his scent of damp earth and brandy.
- "Commander." - I whispered in his ear when his breathing had calmed so much that I thought he had fallen asleep.
- "Klaus." - He said sitting up. - "Call me Klaus."
- "Klaus." - I repeated, fixing my eyes on his.
An uncomfortable silence took over the small space and then it was I who took his face and kissed him. I thought my heart was jumping out of my chest as I felt Klaus's thin lips trying to follow mine. I watched as he closed his blue eyes and pulled me close with his strong arms. The heat of his body was intoxicating and at that moment I stopped feeling cold. It was a rather awkward and timid kiss. His sharp teeth tickled me when biting my mouth and I couldn't help but laugh. It was glorious, for an eternity I had not felt a moment of peace, a moment in which I could smile naturally. A brief moment of calm. He smiled back at me and rested his flushed forehead against mine.
- "Who did that to you?" - He asked while his thumb brushed against the bluish bruises around my mouth.
I looked at him incredulously. Did he really dare to ask about my contusions? My anger must had immediately showed in my face because then he said:
- "It was not me. I noticed the bruises from the beginning, I noticed them while you first read the spell."
- "Forgive me!" - I replied with a shrill voice. How could he be so insolent? I used all my strength to avoid slapping him and just blurted out:
- "I also have many marks done by you; do you want to see them?"
- "No. I know exactly each one of the bruises that I caused. "
Klaus swallowed hard, brought his hands close to mine and caressed the marks left by the rope on my wrists. I pulled away from him and laid on the frozen ground giving my back to him.
- "I want to get away from you, monster. I want to go back."
- "Go back to him?" – he asked in a low voice.
I let a few seconds pass as I swallowed a lump that burned my throat.
- "No. Never again. "- I answered dryly.
- "You were running away right? It is not very common to see vehicles on the road to Sleepy Hollow. It is not remarkably busy, especially at that time of the evening. Do you have family there? "
I turned my face curiously. It was so strange; a being from another time, technically from another world, speaking so naturally of the traffic of a little village as small as Sleepy Hollow.
- "No, I got lost. I was going to Boston. "
Klaus couldn't help laughing. - "What a way to get lost. Didn't you have a map? "
"No, I didn't want to turn on my phone ..." -I let out a sad smile. "I was afraid Dean would call ..."
I raised my eyes sheepishly to him.
"Surely now you would not be afraid." – He whispered as he laid next to me. - "The world has changed so much Alice, when I was a child I barely learned to read and write, there were few who fought beyond their possibilities. I followed in my father's footsteps and an alien war brought me to the new world. I have existed for many years, but lived, only few. Don't let that happen to you Alice, don't be afraid to live your life."
The storm was raging outside and a freezing cold sneaked into our shelter. I adjusted my thick cape better and looked at him. He had his eyes open, fixed into the cave ceiling.
- "Are you happy now being a human and back in your time?"
Klaus blinked a few times thinking.
- "It is good to feel clearly again. When I was a ghost, I noticed everything, but it was like seeing the world through smoked glass. My senses were anesthetized and for the first few years I was desperate at the idea of never have feelings or desires like before. - He put his eyes on me.
- "But no, this is not my timeline Alice. Not after having gone through so many years and seeing how entire families were born and dying. To see other battles claiming the lives of young men who I had seen been born and grow up. I could see how Sleepy Hollow was developing. Part of my woods were destroyed to build a highway. During that time there were a few unexplained deaths ... "-
Klaus seemed a little more enthusiastic.
- "Later I found out that I was part of the folklore of the village, a place that I had never paid attention to in life." - He let out a laugh. "I love Halloween; it was the only day that I could walk the streets in peace without people being terrified."
I also laughed imagining him cool as a cucumber among a crowd of other Headless Horsemen in disguise.
- "So that's what you want the stone for? Do you want to go back to 2017?"
- "First I must understand how it works."
Klaus straightened up and reached out to take the book, I sat next to him as he turned the worn pages. I looked closely at the words written in black ink:
Somnium chimaeram visum est hominis. Qui mortuus est sicut somnus iumentorum. Tantum tempus desideria cognoscit et somniorum. Patrem tuum, tempus et vita in manibus habentur.
Klaus's voice was tremulous as he uttered the enchantment. For a moment I raised my hands to my chest in panic at the thought that the stone I still kept hidden would start to shine and burn again but nothing happened. I glanced at Klaus, thinking he had noticed my sudden movement, but he was still absorbed in the book. Could I really trust him?
- "I thought you already knew how it worked. You take the stone, you say that phrase and that's it."
- "It's not that simple." - He replied. "That cave where I found the book used to belong to a witch ... I'm still not sure, but I had the feeling of having been there before ..."
Klaus sighed and leaned his back against the stone wall, looking thoughtfully at the light from the lamp.
- "There is a space in my existence in which I had no consciousness or will of my own. The space between the day of my death and several years later… During that time, I only heard the voice of a woman…"
He shook his head as if to ward it off from a bad memory and continued:
- "It took me a year to read all those books and to discover that the only possibility I had of recovering my body was traveling back in time."
The Hessian looked at me and he immediately realized the question that was stuck in my throat.
- "Yes, even without a head I could still see, smell and hear. I just couldn't speak."
- "And that's where I come in." - I said.
- "More than that." - He said taking the book and showing me a note written in the same ink, but in English.
I have hidden the Sun Citrine from wicked eyes in plain sight. Only the Hekate servers will have enough light in their gaze to see it and only they will be able to use its power at will.
- "I tried many times. I caught anyone who passed through the woods, but it was useless. After several years I gave up. "
Impressed, I took the book in my hands and read the same scrawled note over and over.
- "What does it mean to be a Hekate server?" – I asked.
- "I don't know, but the day I found you, I could smell your scent in the distance. It is the same one that invaded that cave. It is the same one that impregnates that book."
I raised an eyebrow and shot him a suspicious look as I sniffed the book discreetly. It smelled of old paper and withered herbs. Marvellous…
I remembered how at the moment of pronouncing that incantation I felt like that little stone was calling me, how suddenly I felt so attracted to it. I bit my lip worried. Should I confess to Klaus that I had been carrying the stone all this time? That I played dumb and tricked him long enough so I could figure out where the book was? No, I still didn't trust him, or the reaction he might have. I decided to wait a little longer before deciding what to do.
"Klaus, in that place, in the tavern; the women were convinced that I was going to be sold…"
Klaus cut me off mid-sentence.
- "I'm a bastard, Alice. I have committed terrible acts and if I am honest I may only regret half of them; but I have had a worse punishment than death itself and now that I have the opportunity to be free I want to be away from the war, I want to live the life that was always denied to me. I want to fly on an airplane."
I could not help but snore with laughter.
- "Do you want to fly in a plane?" - I asked smiling.
Klaus blushed a little.
-"I have heard that you can get to Frankfurt in just eight hours. Do you know how long it took me to get to America by sea? Almost three months!"
"Yes, it must be incredible. I have never been in a plane. " - I said blushing as well. - "Or on a sailing ship..."
At that moment my stomach let out a deep, long roar. I covered my abdomen with my hands embarrassed.
-"Sorry."
Klaus squatted out of the cave and came back a minute later with a small cornbread wrapped in a cloth.
-"Eat." - He told me, offering me the whole bread.
- "We can share it." - I said as I split it in half and gave a part to him.
Klaus shook his head and declined my offer.
- "I already took care of that while you were sleeping. It was one of the things I longed for the most, to feel the taste of food."
He laid down on the ground again while I chewed on the dry bread and took small sips of water from his canteen.
- "What else did you miss?" I asked him absent-mindedly before I uneasily recalled the contact of his pale fingers on my bare legs.
He didn't reply immediately, letting out a slow, weary exhalation.
- "I don't think you want to know." - He said in a low voice.
I figured that it must have been midnight, and the storm seemed to slow down at times, then worsen hour after hour. I settled next to the Horseman. The width of the cave hardly allowed us to lie next to each other, a condition that benefited us since at least we could share the heat of our bodies. A couple of minutes passed in silence and I entertained myself by staring at the shadows cast by the light on Klaus's black armour. He lay on his back with his eyes closed, breathing calmly. I couldn't help but let my imagination run wild, I longed to feel his lips on my skin, touch his hands and kiss his forehead. I closed my eyes and remembered his face close to mine, his strong and hard chest pressing against my body. His warm mouth on my neck. That memory gave me goosebumps. How I longed to feel the warmth of his mouth again, the smell of damp earth on his skin!
- "Good night, Hessian." - I whispered with a silly smile.
I shrunk into a fetal position and closed my eyes. Two seconds later I felt his arm hugging my waist. His breath on the back of my neck, his nose between my hairs.
- "What are you doing?" - I asked surprised.
- "We will freeze to death otherwise."
I knew he was lying but I had no urgency to resist. Turning around, I buried my face in his chest and wrapped my arms around his torso.
-"I'm cold." I whispered, and Klaus pressed his body against mine.
-"Gute Nacht, Alice."
I slept soundly until the dim light of dawn illuminated the tiny cave.