Sleepy Hollow Forests – Day
The storm has passed and the forest is empty. There is a long, peaceful pause till Spencer makes his way through, searching the ground. Spencerr comes to look down a small hill. The corpse of Lady Archer lies headless, in a dirty and torn dress. He walks over to the body. Her arm is twisted behind. The sewn cut on the palm of her hand faces up. "Here! I have found her…" he looks at the corpse quiet and miserable. "Here she is."
Archer House, Upstairs Hall – Early Evening
Doctor Hotchner comes out from where Lila is asleep. He closes the door and wipes his sweaty face. Spencer waits. "It had been a terrible jolt to her nerves."
"You will stay at her side?" Hotchner nods and Spencer walks.
Outside the house, it's getting dark. Spencer comes out and crosses the porch. A few of the Hollow's residents are here. Derek gets up and follows Spencer onto the lawn. He walks without waiting. "She's the one who controlled the Horseman, isn't she, sir? Sir?"
"I need time for thinking. Without you hanging on my coattails for a change." Spencer keeps walking and doesn't notice that Derek is wounded by the comment.
Spencer's Room – Night
Spencer packs his baggage. Derek is miserable. "Won't you change your mind, sir? What can I say to convince you?"
"Nothing. To hell with this place and all the people here." Spencer closes his bag and throws it with others.
"Why…why are you like this?"
"You do not know all that has happened. You cannot understand."
Outside the estate a coach, with Gunpowder as one of its team, waits in the orchard. Van Ripper comes to meet Spencer and Derek. "Half now. Half when we reach the city." Spencer hands the money to Van Ripper and he takes the baggage. Spencer looks to the Manor House. Only one light shines in a second floor window. He sees Lila close the curtains. Spencer turns to Derek who is beginning to cry.
"This is farewell."
"Take me with you, the only home that I would have stayed with is Desiree and her family and now they are no longer here like my father."
"I cannot. Van Ripper and his wife offered to take you. You will be well cared for." They hug goodbye. "I am sorry. Forgive me. I failed you." Spencer releases and goes away, finding this misery unbearable and he climbs in the coach.
"Do not go, Constable. How can you leave?"
Inside the coach, Spencer slumps back in darkness and closes his eyes. He pounds twice on the coach wall.
Outside, Van Ripper whips the reins and the coach starts. Derek follows and the coach picks up speed on the long straight road. Derek stops and wipes away his tears.
Town Square – Church – Night
Spencer's coach moves through the town square. A few people in the courtyard's tent city comes out to watch it pass.
Archer House, Spencer's Room
The door is pushed open, Derek enters and looks around the empty room. He goes to sit in a chair at the work table, crossing his arms and resting his head.
Sitting Room
A plate of food sits untouched. Lila is slumped down in a chair, heartbroken and stares into the fireplace. Behind her, a shadow moves across the room.
The Long Straight Road – Night
Van Ripper leads the coach through the stone pillars marking the entrance of Sleepy Hollow.
Spencer's Coach
The window between him and the driver slides open. "Sir…this is yours." He offers something to Spencer. "The Archer girl said to give it to you after you were gone."
Spencer takes it. It is the bird and cage spinning toy. He looks at it in melancholy.
Archer House, Sitting Room
Lila sits with her eyes closed. She hears a board creaking and she sits up. Suddenly, a figure in black is behind her as she turns and is punched by the figure.
Derek hears a dull thud downstairs, like a body falling and he moves to the door.
Spencer's Coach
Spencer turns the strings on the toy and ponders it. As the paper disk spins, images flicker until the bird appears to be inside the cage. Spencer keeps spinning it and looks out the window. He closes his eyes and realizes he made a mistake in thinking that innocent Lila was behind the murders. He wipes away the tears running down his cheeks and leans forward to the window at front. "Van Ripper turn the coach about!"
"What did you say?"
"Turn around. Now!"
Archer House, Foyer
Derek comes down the stairs and looks around meekly. "Hello? Lila?" Derek starts down a hall and he doesn't see in another room, Lila's body is being dragged across the floor."
Town Square, Doctor's Residence
The coach comes to Hotchner's. Spencer climbs out before it even stops fully, satchel in hand and he hurries. He knocks on the door repeatedly. Doctor Hotchner, half asleep, come to answer the door. Once the door opens Spencer pushes past and takes Aaron's lantern. "Pardon the intrusion…"
Inside the medical room there are two coffins on the floor. "I never examined these bodies." Spencer removes the lid from one coffin. Hotchner is about to say something indignant but then just looks disgusted. "Help yourself, you pompous ass. I will be in bed."
"Would you stay, doctor? I may need assistance." Hotchner reluctantly remains in the room and Spencer stares at the dead Lady Archer. The neck wound is covered by a stained brown cloth and Spencer unwraps it. "Stains of blood."
"What of it?"
Spencer takes out one of the lenses that survived the magnification spectacles and bends to examine the neck. "Jagged flesh." He pauses and puts two and two together. "The Horseman did not do this." Spencer moves to the side of the coffin, lifting the hand with the stitched gash on its palm. "Here, Doctor. Hold this just so…" Hotchner holds the lens so that Spencer can study the cut through it. Spencer takes a scalpel-like knife from his satchel, lifts the hands and cuts the stitches. Through his lens he sees that the gash spreads easily, soft and bloodless. "No clotting or gathering of pus. No healing at all."
"What?"
"When this cut was made, this person was already dead." Spencer stands straight. "This is not Lady Archer."