Page 8 of Bewitched By the Headless Horseman
“Well, it’s true.” She pursed her lips. “Moving on, Gideon said you went on a date last night. It wasn’t Alex, was it?”
Alex didn’t have a job and played video games all day at his parents’ house. “I would never go out with any of Gideon’s friends. Ever. And it was a meeting that I guess turned into a date. Or a five-second date. We’re supposed to finish it.”
“Does he know you’re a seer?” her mom asked, worry lacing her tone.
“No, we haven’t gotten that far yet. But he did buy me a pie that almost matched my favorite color.”
Her mom tilted her head and studied her with concern. “I’m just thinking about your ex-boyfriend’s reaction who we shall not name.”
Stevie had dated Mr. Piss-Baby for a few months before telling him, hoping his reaction would be thrilled—it wasn’t. “Don’t worry about me confessing all my sins to Reese right off the bat.” Just because Sleepy Hollow held a good number of paranormal residents didn’t mean one went around spillingwhat they were to strangers. Reese could be a werewolf for all she knew.
“Oh,” Stevie continued. “Back to the Headless Horseman. I forgot to mention that something strange happened. Once he put the victim’s head on, it vanished into thin air! So maybe he doesn’t have a collection after all?”
“Unless they appear in a collection somewhere else...” Her mom pursed her lips again, mulling something over. “When I get a new heart, it pushes out the old withering one. It could be that his body needs the head, but that doesn’t explain why it would disappear.” She took a deep ragged breath, her eyes closing briefly.
“Are you all right, Mom?” Stevie asked, grasping her arm.
“I’m fine. I’ve just been tired today is all.”
The door opened and Stevie’s dad came in carrying two trays filled with smoked sausage. “Jack, let me get one of those.” Her mom hopped off the couch and grabbed one of the trays.
“Looks great, Dad.” Stevie took the other tray to the granite kitchen counter.
The music outside turned louder, only it was deep and slow beats pulsing through the walls. Her dad shook his head while raking a hand through his gray hair. “Your brother comes by here every day and still puts on shitty music.”
“It’s as if he never left,” Stevie sang.
Lucia came inside, clutching a few glass jars of purple seasoning. Her gaze found Stevie’s and she drew an invisible line across her throat. “No more Horse Man?”
“Makes me think of a legitimate horse that is a man.” Stevie lifted a finger. “But! I’ll officially be off the hook once the next new moon is finished and I’m invisible to him again.”
Chapter Four
Stevie took off her helmet and ran her fingers through her mussed hair as she peered toward the abandoned house near the end of the street.To wait for Roxy, or to not wait for Roxy—that is the question.
She was never a Shakespeare fan, so she wouldn’t endlessly debate between the two—she would check the house out. Especially as she thought more on it—ghosts could touch Roxy, not Stevie. But for her own safety, in case there was some morally gray person, of the living persuasion, who leaned more toward the dark side slinking about … well, she took out the special brew from her purse that Lucia had made which would work better than any pepper spray. It would turn the person into a toad for twenty-four hours.
As a backup, she sent her witchy sister-in-law a text after bringing her purse inside the duplex.
So, I decided to go look at the abandoned house down the street. If you don’t hear from me by tonight, that means to come save me. I could’ve been sucked inside the walls and trapped or something.
Stevie smiled just as Lucia messaged her back.Charms and hexes, you’re going without me? You better have the spray I made and your lucky ring still on.
Special attack toad brew already in my hand and ring on my thumb—check.
Stevie then headed toward the abandoned house, the neighborhood quiet. She rotated the lucky thumb ring, made of glass and embedded with spelled tiny clovers and white petals, round and round, until she reached the driveway that appeared more shattered than cracked when she stood this close. She stared up at the house, its boarded-up windows, the bars in frontof a small basement window behind the dead garden. On the wood of the entrance door, a question mark was spray painted in faded red. She had plenty of questions herself—like were there ghosts inside, was it cleared out or had things been left behind, and what was the spray painter wanting to know?
Nothing supernatural wandered the yard. No ghost slipped out from around the house to ask for help with their unfinished business. Vampires wouldn’t be caught dead in a place like this, and instead they lived the highlife in their extravagant gothic mansions.
Skating her finger over the spray-painted question mark, Stevie studied the door—she might need to go back and see if she could find a crowbar. If Lucia was there, she could’ve easily unlocked the door with a spell. But when Stevie tried to turn the locked knob, the door pushed open, a soft creak echoing. The door frame was splintered, most likely kicked in. And if it was recent, squatters could potentially be there now.
Stevie gripped Lucia’s toad brew as she stepped over the dirt-smeared threshold. A musky smell mingled with dust tickled her nose, not wholly unpleasant but not a scent she would want to be made into a candle either. A thin line of light spilled into what had to be a sitting room, due to the old fabric chairs and a torn leather couch, the cushions and pillows missing.
She removed one board from the window that rested on the sill and wasn’t even nailed into place. The other two boards were in the same boat as the first one when she set them on the floor. Full light illuminated the room, casting a charming glow into the other areas of the beautifully dreary home. Tangled silken spiderwebs decorated almost every corner, and graffiti covered the walls and wooden floor. Most of the wallpaper was peeled in places, some with chunks missing.
Mysterious black splotches rested on the couch’s leather and before she started shouting for ghosts, she would search the home to make sure it was empty of any living souls.
Stevie took out her phone and turned on the flashlight. The kitchen appliances were gone, leaving yellow stains in the empty spots. Most of the doors were missing from the cabinets, and the drawers were all empty. “Oh no wait, there the cockroaches are,” she sang softly to herself as she shut a drawer that wouldn’t close all the way. The door beside the pantry led down to what had to be the basement.
