As the summary says, this is written to go with the 1999 movie (starring Johnny Depp) of Sleepy Hollow. If there is anything not akin with the book, I just want to let it be known that I have not read the official book nor any of the fics in this fandom (but worry not, for I am going to buy it next time I go to Barnes & Noble and also I am going to start being an active member of this fandom, hopefully). Obviously, it's my first time writing a Sleepy Hollow fic, and so I hope it's presentable...But I'll let you be the judges of that. *wink*

Cause and Consequence

Ichabod Crane stood at his chipped, faded wooden desk, studying a small flap of skin he'd secretly found in the closet of a suspected serial killer in uptown New York City. The whitish sunlight poured in like a waterfall through the open circular window, the boisterous sounds of people and carriages and the mingled smells of bread and other trade items drifting into the man's room.

His brow wrinkled in intense concentration, he scraped a transparent substance from the surface of the dead flesh (what he hoped to be residue of the poisonous gas used in the violent murder) and scrutinized it closely with his naked eye before discovering a more focused view was required.

Absently he reached for the spectacles he had fashioned by hand from an old pair of eyeglasses, a cracked magnifying glass, a single telescope lens, a scratched microscope piece, and three shards of a stained glass window. His hands roamed over their keeping place for several seconds before he realized he clasped at nothing.

His cool brown eyes clouding with confusion, he pulled his gaze away from the mysterious evidence and looked down, uncomprehending. He had never once placed anything he owned in a spot that it did not belong…

He stood at a loss for a moment, and then, all in an instant, he remembered.

The atmosphere around him was misty and so frigid it pierced the breath out of his very lungs, each gasp for oxygen sending waves of freezing pain down his throat, spreading to every limb, biting into his skin despite the sweat trickling down his neck. Even with the scenery of the twisted, gnarled trees that whisked by in blurs of dull brown, the air felt alive, charged with the energy of the thrilling horror of that gruesome monster he faced.

The very same that was swinging his blade around for another attack.

"My bag!" he shouted to young Masbath, his voice barely carrying over the blast of the violent wind as the carriage on which he stood jolted through the dark, dead woodland.

As the sword glinted in the moonlight where the long-dead horseman held it high, ready to add his tousled coal-colored head to the collected in the roots of the Tree of the Dead, Ichabod Crane spun in a flash of black and held his buckled briefcase in front of him as a shield. The horseman's sword sliced easily through the handmade leather, but Ichabod refused to release it, and for a few breathless seconds his weapon remained lodged in it.

When the enraged swordsman finally ripped it free with stunning might, Ichabod hurled the bag at his opponent's eternally unmoving chest, knocking the walking dead man upon his back and sending another shake through the frame of the carriage.

The satchel went flying through the air, landing on the damp forest floor with an upsetting of brown winter leaves, never to be found.

Ichabod's eyebrows raised in dawning. Yes, of course; that was why his spectacles were missing. They were locked away in a black bag lying buried under leaves in the Western Woods of Sleepy Hollow, many, many miles from his brick abode in the snow-coated city of New York.

Then, Ichabod Crane did something quite uncommon to him. He laughed aloud. It was a sharp, quiet, incredulous-sounding yelp, but it was, indeed, a laugh.

It was exceedingly difficult to understand now how much the thought of a missing tool would have grieved him only a month previous, so much more the loss of nearly his entire collection! How many hours would he have spent searching and digging and crawling upon his palms and knees to recover that satchel? How many duties would he have shirked for the pursuit of it? How would he have ever gotten beyond the frustration and damaging effects of such an obstruction?

That bag and all it contained had once been his life. He had spent weeks and months and even years building and perfecting his detecting instruments, using them any chance he could for experimentation or, when he could manage, actual crimes and cases. His mind and faith were dependent upon it, the feeling of believing that his life was not all for nothing, that there was some form of true meaning to his solitary existence.

Then, he was sent away to Sleepy Hollow.

It had changed everything. Every area of his life had been deeply and irreversibly affected by that little, unheard-of town. All the logic and reason he had depended upon for his mental stability had been blown apart, the disgust and nausea that overcame him at the slightest glance of bodily fluids or crawling pests had been surpassed by the facing of the greatest horror he'd ever envisioned in fiction or reality, the bloody, dark memories of his past that he had forced himself to lock away had been brought to the forefront of his nightmares.

More than any of that, however, perhaps as a product of it all or perhaps for some other reason, the walls he had put up around himself to guard against the emotional pain of attachment had collapsed, leaving him entirely vulnerable. The stony heart that had so long been dormant suddenly was lively again, beating for the love and faith that he never thought he could feel after the death of his beloved mother.

When that newly-alone little boy called Masbath had sincerely stated, his kind eyes pleading, "My mother is in Heaven, sir. But you have no one to serve you," Ichabod had every intention of denying him and going about his problem isolated, as he had grown accustomed to being at all times. And even after he had assisted him in digging out the five corpses in the four graves, the thought never once crossed his mind that he would stay with him. No one else ever had; why would this innocent lad be any different?

Yet, he had trotted after him to the doctor's, respectfully carrying that same black bag that kept everything he held dear. When he had exited the surgery, splattered in blood, he had found him sitting on the stair, within hearing distance should Ichabod call out for him. When he had awoken suddenly in his bed, drenched in cold sweat after seeing the magistrate beheaded by a horseman from hell, that boy was one of the two persons who stood over him. He had remained at his side throughout all the dangers and horrors of the entire venture, through all the things that would have driven away the strongest of adult men.

Ichabod had, at the time, assumed it was out of deep devotion to avenge his late father, who had been murdered by the horseman. But then he had collapsed to the ground as a shot echoed through the trees, feeling the witch's bullet strike his chest, and the most anguished cry he had ever heard resounded in his head, followed by the boy Masbath dropping to his knees beside him. He had seen the grief in his eyes melt away when he put his young hand over his heart and realized he was not bleeding, not dying, and heard the tears in his voice as he breathed the words in relief. It was the same relief present when he was told he would be welcomed with him at his home in New York City.

He still did not understand what young Masbath had seen in him that day of the burial that made him forsake his home, his belongings, and even his own adolescent life, but he no longer felt the need to understand. He could only be grateful for it.

As if the sudden, expected loyalty of a friend was not enough to perplex and baffle him, another conundrum entered his life from Sleepy Hollow that was an even greater mystery than the taken heads: Katrina van Tassel.

That beautiful, brilliant, enchanting lady of white magic had for whatever senseless and unreasonable purpose decided he was worth the endurance of all the eccentricities and moroseness that came associated with his character. He had felt always within himself that whatever decent qualities he possessed were lesser valued in comparison to his unwanted characteristics, and yet this lovely woman had somehow chosen him before all the other, worthier men in her town.

When he had first felt her soft lips caress his clammy cheek, seen her glorious, pale face fairly glowing in the candlelight, he had felt within him a surge of odd, sweet tenderness and something else — something very foreign to his cold, sullen persona. He had reflexively crushed the feeling, reproachfully telling himself that any lady possessing such outward and inner beauty, radiating such pure goodness and delicate strength, could never want anything to do with him, for he was undoubtedly he opposite. This superficial feeling of refusal only increased by the sharp watch the young man Brom kept on the lady.

And yet, when he hesitantly entered the door to the van Tassels' occupied downstairs sitting room, she was there, with a strange hypnotising glow in her warm brown eyes as she bid him enter. She shared so much of her deepest soul with him in that simple, quiet conversation, and he had not even had to ask first. Even as she spoke of her deceased mother and her working father and their old, poor cottage of yesteryear, he could not help but feel at a loss for her motive. Why was she so kind, so open to him? Why did she watch him through eyes of a gentle angel, almost as if she could see the nightmares still playing in his mind even when he was wakeful? Most of his acquaintances — he had neither kith nor kin to his name — regarded him with distrust and suspicion, especially those in this small town, and there was not a soul in the world who cared for his inner disturbances. What could she possibly have sensed about him that made her so quickly fond of him?

Then, she had reached into her nightgown and produced a book — A Compendium of Spells, Charms, and Devices of the Spirit World, a protection against harm, she'd said…the very same book that had stopped the bullet that would have pierced his heart. He was always grateful that she was so sure of everything.

And standing by his beside when he awoke from the shock, who other was with young Masbath but Katrina? She had watched over him, protected him with her good magic, despite the fact that if she were caught performing it she would lawfully be put to death. Why? Why would she do such a thing for him?

As the days went on, he began caring naught why, but to drink it in with a parched thirst he had not known he possessed. The sight of her made him feel that he was seeing the sun for the first time after years upon years of endless rain — which was not so far off, as it felt like years since he had seen the sun break through the clouds.

At long last, he had realized she truly hadbewitched him, left him hopelessly in need of her, and the very thought of leaving both Katrina and young Masbath after the death of the four town elders and the supposed departure of the horseman (even though his mind told him it was she who had done it and controlled him) was enough to make him wonder how he would continue living alone in New York City after having been in the company of them both for so many hours.

Even had he not by happenstance opened that book she'd give to him as a gift — had it really been only a few nights previous? — he knew deep within himself that he would have turned the carriage around, come back for them both. Even if he had never known she was trying to protect him, not curse him, with the evil eye, he would have returned. The only debt he owed that fluke was that had it not been in that moment that he did turn around, he would have been too late to save them.

He had been willing to risk his own life for their safety…and that was something he would not have done for that satchel of trifles he held so dear prior to his meeting them. How strange and comical to wonder how he could have ever thought those little trinkets and toys were so vital, when now he had only to look at one of his loved ones and be reminded that his own dark nights would not be spent frightened and lonely any longer; this was a peace those bits and pieces of metal and glass strewn together had never been able to offer him.

"Ichabod? Are you all right?"

He started out of his reverie and looked up into the concerned faces of the two most important possessions he had, where the blond woman in the pure white gown and the fearless boy with mischievous eyes sat across the room by the crackling fire.

He gave them the warmest look he could manage (he was still learning how to convey his thoughts and feelings appropriately) and answered softly, "Yes, I am fine. Just thinking."

Satisfied, they turned back to the hearth, Katrina continuing her lesson to young Masbath on how to draw mystic symbols and shapes in the ashes, and Ichabod made do with a small magnifying glass he kept in the middle drawer.

Let the little black bag lie in the damp sod of the Western Woods. Let those tools and utensils rust and decay with it. It was of no consequence to him any longer.

The End

Any good? If there's anything off with the story, or bad in spelling or grammar, please don't be afraid to let me know. I publish my stories for a reason, and that's to get better...I hope...
Reviews are appreciated!
~Rin~