"Can we help you in any other way madam?"
"No. This is wonderful. Thank you."

"Yes'm."

The servant left the room after dropping into formal curtsy. The woman, having just barely left girlhood, stood framed in the window by the gray sky of an early New York autumn. After a moment she turned from the window and, lifting the billowing, pale blue cascades of her gown, stepped into a pair of satin heels that bore same color. She twisted her long and strikingly blonde hair up and pinned it into a bun, as was only acceptable of a lady. Throwing on her only cloak- a midnight blue starscape of velvet, embroidered with silver moons and pinpoints of silver stars. She was leaving this tiny and macabre hotel room, after all, she had a job to do.

-Break-

"No, no, no!" Ichabod cried. "Make the incision longwise, like this!" He demonstrated upon the straw and cotton body that his student practiced on. Then he reached in and pulled out an apple.

"It's...an apple...what difference does it make?" He said.

"It's the liver." Ichabod reprimanded. "And it can tell you many important things about the cause and time of death."
"It's....an apple." Ichabod sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Yes, whatever you say." He muttered, waving the apprentice away. This was his own city estate after all, and he was rather tiring of his servant quarters being littered with straw.

He sighed and leaned upon the table, rubbing his temples. "What an utter waste of time." His trail of thought was interrupted by a soft knock on the door.

"Sir Ichabod?"
"Yes?"

"Sir," A servant entered, followed by a figure cloaked in midnight blue. "There is someone here to see you."
"Thank you." Ichabod rose as his guest entered. "Leave us."

"Yes Sir." His servant curtsied and exited.

"Welcome sir...or madam, I am Ichabod Crane..."
"Yes. It was you I wished to see." His guest pushed back the hood of the cloak, and Ichabod was surprised to see the pale, smooth face of a woman, no older than seventeen. Her blonde hair, almost white, hung loose from what appeared to have once been a bun. Her gray- blue eyes were just a bit too big for her roundish face, giving her a childlike appearance. She seemed to be a doll staring up at him, her rosebud mouth a questioning pout. She reminded him vaguely of his dear Catrina, who was taken by a mysterious fever not twelve months ago in the blistering white of winter.

"It was?" He was a bit surprised at this comment.

"Yes. I am searching for a man named Ichabod who once visited my little town...Sleepy Hollow."

"S-sleepy hollow? What about Sleepy Hollow?"

"All I know of him was that he sent the Hessian back to his grave, and he may be the only chance we have to do it once more." She glanced at her gloved hands, which were crossed and clasped in one another, dangling in front of her skirts.

"Y-you mean...the horseman..?" Ichabod could not control the sudden attack of trembling upon his body. His heart began to race.

"Yes. The horseman rides again." She looked him straight in the eye and pulled her gloves off, revealing to him her palms, slashed, as if in one swipe across both. "And I bear proof upon my very living flesh that this time it matters not to him whose head he takes, as long as it is a head."

"That's...impossible. Miss, I am very sorry, but if this is some sort of a prank..."
"It is not, Sir Crane, I swear it! And I beg of you, in the name of my father, Baltus Van Tassel, God rest his soul, to help us!"

"Baltus Van Tassel was your father?" Ichabod was growing more confused and frightened by the very second. The girl only nodded. "And my mother..."
"The witch who brought the wrath of the horseman down upon your whole family?!"

"I do not know sir. I have heard it, but within a fortnight of my birth, I was sent away to New York...a wee babe to a nanny. I only returned when I was fourteen, and all was over and done with by then." She shrugged. "I know nothing of either my mother or my father, or the sister they say I once had, who the horseman also killed." She bowed her head. "But I don't want any more of my town to die. Ichabod, I, no, the entire village beg of you, please return with me to Sleepy Hollow, and help us end this once and for all!"
"Well, I um...I..." He struggled to find the words. "...no...I..I'm very sorry Miss, but...I c-cannot honor your request, and... must be going now, early to bed early to rise..." He began to back away from her.

"Wait, Sir! I have not offered you your payment yet." She curtsied. "Please." Ichabod slowed, and then relented and stopped, looking at her.

"P-payment?"
"Yes. I have a small amount of money I can offer you..." She looked at the floor and slowly removed her cloak from around her shoulders. "As well as a warm bed and three hot meals a day beneath a strong roof. And..."

"And...?" Ichabod pressed after a long silence from his strange guest from Sleepy Hollow.

"My body, which I can give as payment, if you accept, to use freely as you like..."
"Preposterous!" He shouted, turning away from her. "Such things you say! I am very sorry, madam, but I am most definitely not interested!"

"Please sir!" She ran to him and dropped to her knees behind him on the floor. "I will give anything!" Ichabod paused, turned on his heel. After a moment of contemplation, he crouched on the floor in front of her. Her head was bowed, laying in her arms, disguised by her long straight hair.

"You lost someone very important?" He asked softly. She lifted her head to look at him, and then nodded.

"A nanny, the only mother figure I ever had, who raised me....Mama Sullivan." She looked at him wide-eyed for a moment, then rose to her feet. "I should go now." She gathered up her cloak and slung it across her back, heading for the door. "Thank you for your time."

"Miss?" He called after her. She looked over her shoulder at him, her face shrouded in the depths of her hood.

"Yes, Ichabod?"
"What is your name?"
"Abigail." She turned away, but did not move.

"Abigail?" He repeated, taking a step foreward. She was still as stone, staring seemingly at the door. He felt pity for this girl, but also an overwhelming sense of respect for her courage and empathy. For her love of her little town. But he also felt love for her, as Catrina's only relative. Catrina. He had forgotten to tell Abigail that he had known her sister.

"Yes, Abigail...Van Tassel." She swept her cloak over one shoulder and unsheathed a dagger from concealment amongst the folds of fabric that made her dress, she whirled on Ichabod, knocking him to the floor with her clenched fist that grasped her weapon, and falling to him, raising the blade high... he screamed... and...