Eleanore Crane

it was you?!

Ichabod ran from the morgue and jumped straight onto the drivers seat of the carriage, he whipped the reigns and drove off.

Mazbeth, who had gone to the back garden area of the Van Tassel home noticed that their was a light ablaze in the old abandoned windmill.

Inside the windmill, Lady Van Tassel aprached the two unconscious girls that she had dragged here, and cut off a piece of each of their hair.

First thr golden locks, then the brunette were thrown into the fire.

"Rise up once more, my dark avenger, one more night of be heading, rise up with your sword, a head....." She reached down and picked up a skull, placing it informt of the fire ".......for a head, my un holy horseman, rise, come now for Katrina and Elenore"

Once the words were spoken, the two girls began to wake up and look around their surroundings, trying to figure out what had happened to them.

"Ah, awake at last,did you think it was all a nasty dream?"

"Father said he saw the horseman kill you"

Lady Van Tassel turnd around to face the two girls, a sadistic smile adorning her features.

"Your father saw the horseman come towards me with his sword unscathed, but it is I who governed the horseman, my dears, and Baltus did not stay to watch"

"But there was a body" Elenore spoke in a shaky voice.

"Sarah, the servant girl, I always thought she was useless, but it seemed she had a purpose after all"

Katrina sat up and pulled Elenore into her arms, cradling her head close to her.

"Who are you?"

"My family name, was archer"

Katrina and Elenore suddenly remembered the carving of the archer in the fire place at her hold home.

"I lived with my father, mother and sister in a cottage not far from here. Till one day my father died and the landlord, ehonhad received years of well service from my parents evicted us, no one in this god forsaken town would take us in as my mother was suspected of witchcraft, but she schooled her daughters well, while we lifted as outcasts in the western woods"

Katrina and Epenore listened on, they were stunned into silence and still a little shocked about what had been revealed to them.

"She died, within a year, my sister and I remained in our refuge" she continued as she wandered around the fore, staring deeply into at as if she was reliving a memory "seeing not a soul, until one day, while collecting fire wood, we crossed paths with the horseman, I saw his death. It was at that moment that I offered my soul to satan if he would bring back the hessian from the grave to avenge me"

"Avenge you?" Elenore asked.

"Agaisnt Van Garret, the landlord who showed us no mercy and left us to starve, while Baltus Van Tassel and his simmering wife and girl child stole our home, I swore I would make myself mistress of all they had......"

Katrina looked to her right and saw young Mazbeth, hiding behind the beams, she turned back to her step mother and pretended to not have seen him.

"The first part was the easiest, to enter he house as your sick mothers nurse and put her body into the grave, and my own into the marriage bed. Not quite so easy was as to obtain my legacy, the widow had to go of course and the servant Mazbeth. And then just the other day that silly midwife Killian told me that the widow had told her a bug secret, and she told me this right informant of her husband, what a goose"

The crazed lady let out a conical giggle and the two girls cowered away form her.

"So, another little job for the horseman, but lust relieved the reverend steinwick into my power, fear did the same for the Notinary Hardenbrooke and the drunken Phillips and the doctors silence I exchanged my complicity for his fornication with he servant girl Sarah"

Elenore's mind flashed back to her first day in sleepy hollow, when she and her father had arrived at the party there was a couple kissing outside, it must have been Sarah and the doctor.

"Yes? You have everything now" Kataina sai din confusion.

"No! You have my dear, by your fathers will, I get everything in the event of your death, and you" She turns to look at Elenore "you are here as asked for by the horseman, I am not sure as to why, but he wants you dead"

"Oh my sister by the way, sadly passed away, quite recently" Lady Van Tassel added on.

"You killed your own sister?"

"Shebbrought it upon herslef"

Mazbeth had grabbed a mallet form where was hiding and slowly approached the deranged woman from behind, Just as he was about to strike she sound around and yelled at him. Mazbeth dropped his mallet in shock and ran pass Lady Van Tassel towards the girls, who were now on their feet.

"Your just in time to have your head cut off, the horseman comes! And tonight he comes for you!"

Mazbeth grabbed onto Elenores hand and Elenore was also holding onto Katrina's as the rabbit down the steps, away form the crazy lady.

Meanwhile, outside Ichabod had finally made to the windmill, he jumped off the carriage just as the three of them ran out into the night, closely followed by Katrina's steo mother.

"Elenore! Katrina!"

Elenore was the first to reach her father, who hugged her tightly, he pulled away just as the other two reached them and grasped their arms.

"Thank god"

The sound of the horsemans noble steed rand out from the mist as he made a break for them. The group I'd four sprinted back into the windmill, past Lady Van Tassel wo called out to them as they passed.

"Mind your head"

They ran inside and closed the trapdoor for above the entrance, securing it shut with a garden tool and heavy bags of grit.

The wooden doors began to move as the horseman pounded on them form the other side, trying desperately to break through.

"To the roof, I have a plan!" Ichabod ordered.

Mazbeth, Elenore and Katrina ran further up the stones while ichabid pulled down a large lever that sent all the cogs round and the sails on the outside of the windmill to start spinning.

The horseman reached his sword through a gab and sliced the garden tool in half, successfully getting through the trap and door as Ichabod raced up the stairs after the other three.

The horsemen was quick to catch up as they all climbed to the ladder, he sliced the spokes of the ladder with his axe from under Ichabods feet to try and prevent him form getting up.

Fortunately he was able to reach the top and climb out onto the roof with the others. Mazbeth handed Ichabod a lantern that he had brought with him and Ichabod smirked. He dropped the lantern down into the windmill and set it ablaze form the bottom upwards.

"Jump for the sails!"

Macbeth went first, then Elenore, then Katrina and finally Ichabod, as soon as their sail reached as close as it could to the ground them jumped off and landed in the grass below. Flaming, Wooden planks began to fall around them as the windmill fell apart.

They all ran away from it as fast as they could and were able to reach the carriage just before it exploded, the bright flames lighting up the dark sky only for a moment as the rubble fell into a pile.

"Is he dead?"

"That's the problem, he was dead to begin with"

They waited for a moment and sure enough out walked the headless horseman, unscathed. They wasted no time in climbing onto the carriage and driving off as the horseman got back onto his horse and followed them into the woods.