CHAPTER 1: A SIMPLE STORY…
"Charlotte!" cried the two small children who had anxiously gathered in front of the family's fireplace. Their eyes wide with merriment stared across at the parlor's entrance, waiting for the appearance of the one named Charlotte.
"Come here, Charlotte!" a boy, no older than ten, called.
"Yeah, you're going to miss Papa's story!" a tiny girl added as she bounced in her position.
The sound of heels coming down the wooden hallway followed by a gentle, feminine laugh reached the kids' ears. Within a couple minutes, a beautiful young woman, who was nearing 20 years of age, strolled into the parlor room, carrying with her a silver tray.
"Well, I wouldn't want that to happen, now would I?" she teased playfully; giggles erupted from the mouths of the two kids as Charlotte simply smiled and walked over to where they sat on the ground. The boy, who was named William, reached his hands up for Charlotte's tray; Charlotte's smile deepened as she handed the tray down to the small boy appreciatively before she gracefully kneeled to the floor and took a seat by the children.
"Oh lookey, Charlotte brought Angel Cake!" William happily exclaimed as he quickly observed the four slices on the tray which now rested in his lap.
"I want some!" the little girl named Alexandria threw out. Charlotte reached over and grabbed one of the slices of cake before she handed it across to the little girl. Alexandria gratefully accepted it without question while William was already digging into his slice. As the kids hungrily bit into their sweet cake, another person entered into the Parlor room as well.
"Papa!" Alexandria greeted with a smile; William swallowed a mouthful of cake before pointing out,
"Look what Charlotte brought, Father!" he said before he taking another bite.
Evan Collins smiled warmly down upon his two children as he moved forward and took a seat in a chair across from the fireplace.
"And what do you say to that children?" he asked lightly. Both kids quickly turned to Charlotte,
"Thank you, Charlotte." They said in unison;
Charlotte laughed softly, "You're very welcome, children." She replied before she brought her eyes up to their father, "Good evening, Mr. Collins." She formally greeted with a soft nod of her head.
"Evening, Charlotte." Mr. Collins answered. Charlotte politely reached over to the tray and picked up the two remaining pieces of cake before she placed one slice in her lap and handed the last one over to the older man. He thanked her with a smile and a quick nod.
"So Mr. Collins, your children tell me that you have a story for us tonight." She amusedly stated.
"Indeed. The kids are right." he answered.
"Tell her the one about the Horseman!" William called out; Alexandria quickly nodded her head in agreement. Charlotte raised a soft eyebrow at the two kids for their enthusiasm before she turned her attention back onto the older man before her.
"Alright," Mr. Collins answered with a soft nod, "Tell me Charlotte, since you're new to Sleepy Hollow, what do you know of the Headless Horseman?" he asked curiously.
Charlotte cocked her side to the side slightly and pondered his question. Having just moved into town a week ago, the young woman knew very little about the folktales the town had to tell. With a soft shrug of her shoulders she answered honestly, "Nothing, sir."
And so the widowed Mr. Collins began telling the famous story that haunted their town.
"It all started at the hands of a vengeful witch known as Mary Van Tessel." He explained, "The Witch stole the head from the Horseman's grave, and with the use of her black magic, she was able to make the Horseman do her every bidding." The man sat back in his chair,
"With that power, she ordered him to decapitate her multiple victims which were found scattered across the town, then allowed him to take their heads back to the Tree of the Dead where he could keep them as trophies. Of course, as you could imagine, people grew frantic. It seemed like no one would be safe in Sleepy Hollow anymore."
" So then the people called upon a very intelligent man known as Ichabod Crane who used his brains to solve the case of the Headless Horseman!" William voiced up beside Charlotte with robust.
"Well God bless, Ichabod Crane." Charlotte answered with brief laugh as she spared a glance over at the boy.
"It was he, who in the end, gave the Horseman back his head and freed him from the evil Witch's binding." Mr. Collin's carried on, bringing everyone's attention back on to him.
" The last time anyone every saw the Horseman was when he had carried off that witch with him back into the Tree of the Dead. Of course some people still say that if one was to ever go into the western woods at night when the moon was full, you'd see him riding around, looking for blood to spill. So keep that in mind Charlotte if you ever decide to go out and take a walk, if you're not careful, you might end up losing your pretty head to the Horseman." Mr. Collins made a soft gesture with his finger 'slitting' his own throat for a dramatic effect. The kids giggled nervously at this while Charlotte, who did not seem as moved by the story, gave a polite smile instead.
"Well, Mr. Collins," she began as she started to rise off the floor, "That was indeed some story. " she quickly paused to smooth out the navy blue skirts of the gown that she wore before continuing, "I'll definitely be sure to stay away from the woods at night from now on." She calmly teased while she brushed off unseen dirt on her flowing skirts. Mr. Collins smiled,
"You seem unaffected by my tale." he guessed.
"Yes well, it's just a story, right?" Charlotte answered as she reached down and picked up the silver tray off of William's lap. As she glanced down at the kids, she saw them shake their heads 'no'.
"One would like to think so, huh?" Mr. Collins answered back.
"Well I…" Charlotte started but had to stop as she noted the serious looks upon everyone's faces, "…You can't seriously be saying that this is a true story." She stated in disbelief. William once again nodded his head,
"Very true." He answered.
Charlotte blinked twice before shaking her head disbelievingly, "If you ask me," she began, "…it sounds like a story that was created to scare little children." She boldly stated.
"But he's real!" Alexandria protested. Mr. Collins raised a hand up in the air to silence his child,
"Now Alexandria, Charlotte can believe whatever she wants to believe. Besides," he quickly added, "I'm sure in time, Charlotte will come to understand the...history of the story." He explained to his youngest.
The young woman could've argued that statement...but decided it was better to hold her tongue.
"Well sir, if you'll no longer be needing me tonight, I shall take my leave." She murmured as she began walking towards the Parlor's exit.
"Of course. In fact why don't you take the day off tomorrow and go see more of the town. It could really open your eyes to new views." Mr. Collins answered. What Charlotte found interesting about his offer was his tone of voice, he sounded like he was hinting at something. In response, she nodded her head,
"Very well sir. Goodnight children, Mr. Collins." She formally spoke.
"Goodnight, Charlotte!" the kids replied.
Without another word, the woman left the parlor room and headed back down the wooden hallway to the kitchen. There, she found her thick cloak and gloves waiting patiently for her on a wooden table. After she dressed herself up for the late Autumn weather outside, she left out the back door of the house. Upon leaving, Charlotte was greeted by a chilly gust of cold air. She instinctively drew her cloak tighter around her petite body and pulled the hood up and over her head. As she made her way around the house to the front where the coble stone road was, from a great distance, a high pitch screeching sound leaked into the night sky. It was a very faint sound, and though it made Charlotte's blood freeze momentarily in her veins, she quickly dismissed the feeling and scolded herself for overreacting.
"Shame on you, Charlotte...letting Mr. Collin's words get to you..."
Still...for whatever reason, the woman couldn't stop herself from taking a few moments to let her eyes search around for a possible source, only to find themselves drawn to the dark shadows that would lead into the woods.
Did things around here always appear so eerie at night?
The haunting sound came again-closer this time, and Charlotte, suddenly spooked, quickened her pace and fled down through the streets till she reached her own small cottage by the bridge.
Upon entering her cozy home, the young woman immediately turned around and bolted the door shut. It was only after the latch had been slid in place that she felt safe and secure once more.
"That was odd…." She noted nervously as she drew her hands back down to her side.
The wind outside her cottage started to howl; at that moment, it was like it was trying to say personally,
"Welcome to Sleepy Hollow, Charlotte White…."
Author's Note: Hey guys :) so as you may have noticed, I had taken my story 'Eternity' down for a little bit of time and now it's coming back up, bit by bit. When I had started this story, I was in my sophomore year of High school and had really just started writing. Well now I'm a sophomore in college and if you have read any other of my works, you've probably been able to see my skills with writing progress. So now that I'm a much more fluent writer, I had some time to go through my first version of this story and I was blown away at all the amateur errors I had made: spelling, punctuation...there was even some redundancy with character phrasing and description. So...I'm cleaning up this story :) No biggie. I'm not changing the plot, I swear on a stack of bibles! Everything will be exactly as it was, there's just going to be some slight tweaking here and there.
And one more thing I'd like to clarify on because it obviously concerned a reader of mine. Yes I know the summary is different, but the story is the same. Again, when I had first created Eternity, FANFICTION only allowed an author to create a summary with only like...180 characters? (they hadn't done all the updating that is in use now) And even from my perspective, (and I was the one who had wrote it in the first place..) I felt the original summary wasn't as grabbing as it should be. Now that the site allows someone to summarize with 330, I simply spiced it up. :P Harmless right? haha.
Now...I hope we all have an understanding? Rest assured, Eternity isn't being redone... just tweaked so it's error-free with just maybe a little spicing up in between. :D So..that's all I got..if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to shoot me a message. I'd be happy to chat with you (because if you leave questions in the review box, I may not always be able to actually reply to you personally because of account settings.) With that said, I hope you all enjoy the updated version of Eternity. :) Thank you for your support. You guys are awesome!