Chapter 18

Omg! You guys you don't know how much your reviews mean to me! You have been so nice and I am so happy that you liked the chapter! I am really really happy that you liked the love scene. I'm one of those people that can't really go all the way cause If I did I would just screw up the entire story and I am just so happy that you liked that chapter for what it was! Really appreciate it! Okays well nough of my blabbing onto the next chapter!

Oh yeah big PS. Okay for everyone who has seen the movie everybody knows about the creepy old lady who lives in the forest right? Okay well we all know her actual name isn't the Crow but I like to call her that! LMFAO! Okay so she's actually the crone but I like crow so there yah go! Plus I totally screwed it up anyway so please just live with it.

The Crow Crone

Young Masbath could be seen leaning against the door of Ichabod's room staring at his hands as he heard footsteps coming up the floor. He lifted his head to find Selena and her father rushing up the steps not far behind them Katrina.

"Has he not come out at all?", as Baltus knocked on the door. Young Masbath only shook his head sighing. Baltus and Selena entered as Katrina and Young Masbath followed cautiously unsure of what they would see.

"Constable Crane….?", Baltus asked gently as he entered the room. Ichabod looked up terrified from his sheets as he laid in the corner of the bed shaking lifting the sheets up to his chin. His face was a pasty white as sweat dripped down his face.

"It was a headless horseman!", he yelled terrified lifting the sheet up again. "You must not excite yourself…", Baltus murmured once again. "But it was a headless horseman!", Ichabod screamed back.

"Of coarse it was", he said as if talking to a child. "No! You must believe me! It was a horseman! A dead one! Headless!", as he continued to speak nonsense.

"I know, I know..", as Baltus walked closer to Ichabod. "You don't know because you weren't there! Its all true", as Ichabod's voiced squeaked in the end.

"Of coarse it is. I told you! Everyone told you!", giving Ichabod a tired look as he rolled his eyes. "I saw him!", Ichabod whispered wildly as his eyes darted around the room until his eyes rolled back up into his head as he fell back fainting.

Selena quickly rushed over to him crawling up on his bed grabbing his head as she gently ran her fingers through his hair as tears began forming in her eyes.

Her father looked at her strangely but ignored her loving manner towards Ichabod. Katrina gave her sister a knowing look. "I guess it's back to the city then".

Selena looked up, as more tears were ready to spill at the thought of Ichabod leaving, but she held them back.

Dreams

Ichabod ran amongst the garden yelling happily as milkweeds seedlings flew across the sky dancing in the wind. Ichabod took one and broke it apart as more milkweeds flew across the sky as he saw his mother in the distance laughing also at his joy.

Ichabod turned back and started to pick more milkweeds to give to his mother but when he turned around he saw her disappearing into the forest. Ichabod quickly ran to follow her.

Instead of finding his mother he found Selena dancing beneath the milkweeds surrounded by mushrooms and toadstools. He stood and stared at her as she continued to spin beneath the followers. She stopped and looked at him smiling.

Selena smiled as she ran over to him grabbing his hands as they began to spin together again. He closed his eyes for a minute and instead of seeing an adult Selena smiling at him he found himself in front of the child Selena.

She smiled as she stopped her spinning, and ran away towards a small field of flowers. She sat down and picked some entwining them in her hair. She walked over to him and took his hand in her small pale ones. She dropped a small purple violet in his hand.

He stared at the lovely flower as he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around to find his mother standing over him. Ichabod turned back to find Selena missing.

He wondered for only a second at where she could be but ignored it as he began to spin with his mother in the circle. She gently let him go as he fell back against the soft grass as he lay there on his back as Milkweed flew across the sky.

He looked at his mother to find her spinning, her face to the sky as she was gently lifted in the air still spinning. Ichabod was not worried. He knew………..

Ichabod closed his eyes for a minute but when he opened them he saw the forest had changed into his room. He could see his fathers dark coal eyes burning into his. Ichabod closed his eyes scared, as he opened them again to find himself in his room.

He noticed that his door was cracked opened as light filtered into his room. He walked towards the door and peek through the crack.

He watched his father yell at his mother, berating her angrily as he picked up a bible and threw it to the floor. He grabbed his wife's shoulders dragging her to the floor making her pray before the bible as she pleaded to him.

Ichabod found himself trying to close his windows as it was pouring and raining as he looked outside to find his mother being dragged away into a coach. He leaned against the window trying to reach her as she looked up.

And he saw it. Instead of his mothers warm, brown eyes he saw crystal blue. "Selena….", as she looked up at him pleading him to help her as she was shoved into the coach. The two men looked up. Ichabod found it to be his father and another man smiling villainously at him.

Ichabod leaned against the window crying as he watches the coach drive away in the rainy night. He closed his eyes…

Ichabod's eyes flew open as he sat up quickly in his bed. He sat there in silence looking around his room. His hand turned into a fist tightly as his knuckles became white.

But he stopped suddenly and looked down at his hand. It was the flower. The flower that Selena had given him when they were in the special garden. The small purple violet laid crushed in his hand. Lifting it gently to his nose he sniffed it.

The essence of the flower was still as strong at the time it was picked. But Ichabod was lost. He had no clue where the flower had came from.

He swung himself out of bed walking over to his scientific books. He lay the flower in between the pages so it would dry out and he could have it as a bookmark.

Selena sat outside of Ichabod's bedroom scared. She wanted to see him. To hold him and whisper her kind thoughts to him. She knew he was up. She could feel it.

Ichabod marched up and down playing with his cardinal disk as he determinedly thought. He could leave right now. This entire thing was way out of his league. But leaving meant he would disappear as a coward and more people would have to die.

But this wasn't his problem, as he fought back to himself. It was his problem. He was sent here to stop this. But this was witchery and magic and everything unexplainable.

But then he looked towards the book holding the special flower and he thought of Selena. He would have leave her. Maybe….just maybe she would just run away with him and never come up.

Ichabod could have laughed at his thought. He could wish. Selena was a strong powerful person. She was brave and she would stay and protect her family with any means possible unlike him as a memory of his mother flittered through his head.

He rubbed his eyes tiredly clearing away that thought. He would stay. And he would fix this, no matter what.

Downstairs' in the foyer (I think, not sure) sat Reverend Steenwych, Doctor Lancaster, Mr. Van Tassel, Mrs. Van Tassel, Notary Hardenbrook, Katrina and last but not least Young Masbath.

"Right! This time I'll go to New York myself and I won't be fobbled off with an amateur deductor!", he paced back and forth his drink spilling everywhere.

"Detector..", Notary Hardenbrook correcting him.

"Deductive", as Reverend Steenwych corrected him.

"No…no…", as Lancaster came in on the conversation unsure.

"An amateur sleuth! This times it's a magistrate that's dead-"

But the door to Ichabod's room flung open breaking the conversation. Ichabod determinedly, and victoriously walked down the stairs. Selena smiling behind him, as Masbath beamed.

"Gentlemen! I need able men to go with me to the Western Woods. Who will be the first to volunteer?"

"You…? We thought you shot your bolt!", as Baltus stared surprised at the change in Icahbod's change in attitude.

Ichabod cleared his voice. "A setback merely. And yet, a step forward too! We know who has done these terrible-"but he was cut off.

"You now know. We already knew", he said sarcastically towards Ichabod.

Ichabod tried to hold in his anger as he continued speaking. "Quite so, and now it seems fate has chosen me to make my name in a case without parallel in the annals of crime, in short to pit myself against a murdering ghost.

Selena from atop the stairway watched and listened to Ichabod. "No Ichabod. Don't do this…..", she whispered moving her hand to her chest as she felt a gut wrenching feeling.

Lady Van Tassel only smiled and remarked sarcastically, "Do you intend to arrest him? Or impound his horse?"

The men in the room chuckled, as Katrina only shook her head sighing deeply annoyed. "Neither. To put an end to the killing. To discover the cause and remove it. Who's with me?"

Silence throughout the room.

Masbath only raised his hand. "Me…"

That was a fun chapter to write! Hope you guys liked it! Please read and review! Love you!