:Author's Note: LOL, I finally decided how to end this story. Although I wanted to keep going with it, well ? maybe this is not yet the last chapter? There will, at least, be a sequel.

:Disclaimer: I don't own Sleepy Hollow.

:Claimer: Plot's mine.

:Beta-Reader: Lady-Miranda-Van-Tassel

:The Head:

Chapter 9 : Magic

It was midnight when Lady Van Tassel sat up in her straw bed and took some haggard looks around. The candle she had bewitched had started to burn. She smiled deeply satisfied. 'Now there's no more danger to go back into the city,' she said to herself and stood up. 'Crane is dead.'

Indeed, the spell had been very difficult. She had bewitched Ichabod's body to rise from the dead and erase the Hessian's body. This would, some people would say, be very drastic, but there was no other possible way to get rid of him. He had become way too dangerous to allow him to play his dirty games and this way, nobody would think it was her fault. Well, yes, people had believed that she had bewitched all of them (stupid Ichabod had indeed said too much), but Lady Van Tassel took care of that. How nicely all her potions had turned out.

The candle started to burn, meaning Ichabod was dead and everybody had forgotten everything. They didn't know about any murders, about any Hessians, any Cranes. 'My revenge is destroyed, indeed. As long as my reputation's still good, everything's fine.' She evilly smirked and went over to wake the servant girl.

'People will wonder why their friends are dead. But how shall I know? They shall make up some noisy fairytale and leave me alone. I've got enough of them. I'll take the Hessian with Ichabod's body.' She thought this a brilliant plan to flee, and indeed, it was. She could say things didn't run smoothly anymore. Lots of people had left Sleepy Hollow for these reasons.

"Wake up, brat," she called her and tapped her shoulder, "we have to go back into the city."

"Okay, okay," the servant girl opened her eyes and stared to the ceiling. "I'm up, I'm up..."

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Lady Van Tassel got off her horse and walked over to a cluster of people. They were looking down to somebody who spoke loudly so that everybody could hear.

"And so it occurred that both of them died," the loud voice seemed to be Katrina's.

A loud "aah ooh no" went around and the Lady shook her head. 'No, that was not one of my potions,' she thought, pushing people aside to look at Katrina.

"What happened?"

"They killed each other, didn't you know?" Katrina turned to face her and frowned, acting surprised by the Lady's astonishment as if it must have been clear to the Lady.

"Who killed whom?"

"The Hessian. He finally came out of the woods." Katrina started to cry. "I saw it. He tried to kill Ichabod!"

'I hope he did,' the Lady thought, biting her tongue. "So?" She couldn't believe none of them had survived it. "So Ichabod fought back. And the very bad thing is?"

Katrina turned around and went to the church, "That it happened in here."

The people followed her and she slowly opened the door of the church. Inside, two headless bodies lay on the ground.

Lady went down on her knees and covered her face with her hands. It couldn't be true. It wasn't part of the plan! How? Did she not manage to calculate everything properly?

"As soon as they looked at each other in the eye, both of them fell to the ground, dead and cold as if they had never lived."

Lady Van Tassel began to cry and shout out loud. It couldn't be true! How long she had tried to get the love of her life, Ichabod! And although she had planned on killing him, she would have had the Hessian. Her plans hadn't worked out at all.

"They killed each other with mere looks. It's the magic tragedy of Sleepy Hollow." Katrina turned away and stepped next to the Lady. The other people murmured and whispered, all of their faces having expressions of pure horror.

The Lady looked up. "My dear stepmother," Katrina said not loud enough for the others to catch a word, "you forgot you were not the only one capable of bewitching others. You, indeed, forgot that I was still alive. Loving Ichabod. But to punish you is worth much more. I promised myself the second I realized what you had done, and I did so very early, to act how you would have expected me to, but behind your back I would use white magic. The second you would try to keep both alive and use them for your own wills, both of them would die."

The Lady sobbed loudly. Her plans had gone terribly wrong. The triumph she had waited for, she had planned to receive for years, was ruined.

"Now you are left with nothing." Katrina smiled.

"Where are their heads?"

Katrina didn't answer. "You do realize that I knew you'd brew a potion to make people forget? You see, there's so much of you I know. Throughout all these years, I had a lot of time to pay attention to all your behavior. You had nothing. But I had his love, and trust me, he's alive."

"Is he?" She looked up, her eyes filled with hope.

"How naive you are. Of course he is. He's in my heart, where he will never die. There is one thing you should learn, and it's not to be learned in books or through evil charms. It's love. And love is not only alive until the last day of the earth, but further on."

:Author's Note: Nope, Katrina didn't save Ichabod. You may wonder why. Maybe she's not as "white" as she claims to be?