CHAPTER 29
THE COMPASS ROSE
I took him to a place where neither one of us had set foot in since the day our lives changed forever. For the good or bad, I wasn't certain. The meadow was different though. Now in the midst of winter, snow had consumed the little valley like an ocean of white waves and it was hardly recognizable from when it was erupting with luscious greens and spring from the prior summer. And now I was to say farewell. Tears brimmed my eyes realizing that this was the last time I would gaze into the eyes of my true love, and I let the sharp features of his face chisel into my brain. Time would go on, life would wear on, and yet in my mind, Ichabod's face would always remain the same.
"Why did you bring me here, Melanie?" He asked, snapping my attention back. Tears rolled down my cheeks steadier now, and I wiped them away with the end of my cloak.
"I'm not asking for your forgiveness, Ichabod. I want you to know that before I begin. " I whimpered and inhaled a breath, preparing for words that would sting my throat. "I've a confession-''
But suddenly Ichabod's face transformed into a sallow lighter than the snow and terror flickered in the blacks of his eyes. "Ichabod?" I asked shakily, but he didn't answer. Instead the lids of his eyes drifted shut and he collapsed into the white powder beneath him. I spun around sharply only for terror to captivate my body more than I ever knew possible. Stampeding toward me, sword unsheathed, was the Headless horseman. He was mounted top a black Spanish steed, whose giant hooves lashed up mounds of snow with each gigantic stride. For a fragment of a second, I just stood there; too paralyzed to move as death itself rushed closer, the blade of his sword, the blade of my fate, gleaming in the sunlight.
I ran. Darting into the trees, I ran my throbbing heart out. I sprinted through the woods as if running from the end of the world. Abruptly, a white horse leaped in front of me, it's legs thrashing in the air as it reared. "Katrina!" I gasped. "Ichabod…the horseman…." I couldn't get the words out of my mouth, but my eyes pleaded with Katrina to help me.
"Why are you running, my dear?" She asked so sweetly, it seemed bitter.
"The horseman!" I screamed, but she only chuckled a possessed little laugh that made my knees tremble.
"Do you want to know a secret?" she asked me leaning forward in the saddle so that her lips grazed my ear. From the depths of her cloak, she uncovered the skull of the horseman. I gasped, and tried to dart away, but she grasped my hair, and I screamed with indescribable pain. "Here she is, horseman! She's all yours!" Katrina called to her avenger and I heard the pulsation of hoof beats as the Hussein neared.
Then he surged into the small clearing; his horse prancing elatedly, white clouds left his flaring nostrils as he heaved each breath. I gazed at the sword again, and saw the horrified reflection of my glacial eyes in its blade. My eyes widened as he came closer. How I desperately wanted to close them, to close out the world and all its agony, but I forced myself to keep them open. I had lived too much, seen too many horrors of the world to close my eyes as death approached me. I couldn't be weak now.
And then I heard it. I heard Ichabod scream my name and I realized I couldn't leave him. Not when he depended so much on me, like I depended so much on him, that he would surely die if I were to abandon him in a world held captive by odium and injustice.
A strength gushed through me when I saw the horseman's sword ready to slice through my neck. I seized Katrina's wrists with a bone breaking grip and yanked her down in front of me. I heard the slashing of flesh and the snapping of bone as the blade ripped through her neck. The warm blood splattered my face and I tasted it on the tip of my tongue as her nerve twitching body collapsed on top of me. The horseman's skull rolled from Katrina's cloak and lay in the glistening snow. Swiftly, the horseman galloped by and his sword pierced his skull in one rapid movement, and then he was gone.
Katrina's head was resting by my left foot, and a surprised expression, her last expression, decorated her face. But I returned my glance back to her neck. The fresh wound was still bleeding, and she wore a necklace, her blood seeping onto the chain. I vomited when I saw it, as the pendent was a rose, a compass rose…the rose from my nightmare. And now, as Katrina's blood rolled down my face as well, it sunk into every crevasse of the rose, every petal. I wanted nothing more than to wake up. This wasn't real. It was only a dream, another nightmare. But as desperately as I wanted to wake up, I couldn't and instead, everything went black.