Sleepy Hollow: Children of the Revolution

JANUARY 2014

THE GREAT CONTRADICTION
of Ichabod Crane’s life was that he was constantly surrounded by people, yet had never been more alone.

The number of things to which Crane had been forced to adjust since awakening in the early twenty-first century—subjectively mere moments after his death at the hands of an enemy soldier he’d beheaded in the late eighteenth century—were legion. At times, though, the adjustment that vexed him the most was the sheer number of
people
around him. In his previous life as a soldier, first for the British Regular Army and then for the Continental Army, he was an aristocrat. Rarely did he find himself surrounded by strangers, and such occasions were fleeting, and often on the battlefield.

Indeed, the number of people he
could
have been
surrounded by was negligible. The entirety of the colonies contained barely more than two thousand souls at the time of his alleged death. As the calendar changed from Anno Domini 2013 to 2014, Sleepy Hollow alone had an order of magnitude more people in it than the colonies had had in toto, and it was one of the smaller of what Lieutenant Mills had once called “bedroom communities” that dotted the Lower Hudson Valley, north of New York City.

Once he could go a full half year without encountering a single person with whom he was not at least acquainted enough to shake hands and exchange pleasantries. Now every day he was awash in strangers, wearing absurd clothing, occupied with pursuits Crane found impossible to fathom.

He took only small solace from the fact that those same folk would find his own pursuits even more baffling.

On this cold winter day he found himself drawn, as he often was, to Patriots Park, which lay on the border between Sleepy Hollow and the adjoining village to the south, Tarrytown. The park had been constructed around a monument to John Paulding, one of three Continental Army soldiers who captured a spy named John André. Crane recalled the incident, though he’d been elsewhere at the time. He was fairly certain that the actual capture of André, a confederate of Benedict Arnold, was in truth a quarter of a mile from this spot. His months
in the twenty-first century, however, had taught him that history only remembered his time dimly when anyone bothered to remember it at all.

The park was quiet on this winter afternoon, for which Crane was grateful. Snow covered much of the grass, though the smoothly paved oval-shaped passageways were cleared. He heard the sound of children across the thoroughfare known as the Broad Way (an odd appellation, as it was not significantly wider than any of the other nearby boulevards). The Paulding School was just letting out, having apparently concluded the day’s lessons.

Crane strode, lost in thought, past the monument and wandered around the pathway that took him onto one of the two stone bridges that overlooked the brook.

One of the few people in the park was a woman of Oriental descent, who was strolling with a very small dog of indeterminate breed. The woman wore plastic spectacles of the type that were fashionable in this era, and wore an animal-hide jacket that seemed insufficient protection against the cold, particularly given the number of frays and holes that dotted her dungarees.

Having learned the hard way that the people of this century did not always appreciate a simple greeting, Crane said nothing to the woman.

She was less restrained, to his surprise and delight. “I
love
that coat. Where did you
find
such a hot vintage piece?”

“This topcoat was a gift.” It was, Crane had found, the easiest method of explaining his clothing.

“Ooh,
love
the accent. And I bet it keeps you warm—the coat, not the accent, I mean. This winter has been just
awful
.” The dog chose this moment to make a detailed olfactory survey of the bridge.

“Has it?” Crane smiled. “I’ve endured far worse winters in this very region. Indeed, I find this particular season to be quite bracing by comparison.”

“If you say so, but I just wanna go back home to Cali.”

“Who is this Cally you speak of?”

“Not who, hot stuff,
where
. California? That’s where I’m from?”

“I’m afraid I haven’t had the privilege of visiting.”

The woman glanced at her dog, who was still attempting to sniff the entire bridge, then smiled back at Crane. “I
adore
the way you talk. Anyhow, I’m from L.A., and it’s
always
summer there. Much better than this. I’ve been freezing my
ass
off.”

Crane resisted the urge to glance at the woman’s posterior to see if it was still attached, as the last time he heard that particular phrase his doing so had resulted in an open-handed blow to his cheek. Instead, he simply said, “It amazes me that the people of this time, with such wondrousness as central heating and insulation, still wax rhapsodic on the subject of how awful the cold is. But then it seems the denizens of this century are never happier than when they’re complaining.”

“This century? Dude, you can’t be
that
much older than me.”

Crane’s smile widened. “You have no idea, miss.”

The dog chose that moment to continue its examination on Crane’s boots.

Chuckling, the woman said, “Guess Puddles likes your boots as much as I do. Were they a gift, too?”

“Indeed.” Crane stared down at Puddles. “I hope your pet’s name isn’t indicative of how he intends to express his affection for my footwear.”

“Nah, he only pees on trees. Only dog in the world that avoids fire hydrants. That’s why I like to bring him here. Well, that, and it’s a nice park. I love the history, y’know? The monuments to the people who died in the wars.”

Crane nodded. Near another entrance to the park sat three monuments, one each for those local residents who died in the three of the wars that plagued the world in the previous century.

“Although I don’t think it’s entirely fair,” the woman added.

The list of things that Crane considered unfair was considerable, but in the interests of politeness, rather than volunteer suggestions for what she meant, he instead asked, “What isn’t?”

“Well, the brook—it’s named André Brook. Why name it after the bad guy?”

“One wonders why it is named at all. The obsession with nomenclature is mind-boggling. I recall—” Crane stopped, reminding himself that
actually stating he was from another time tended to send conversations in a direction that ended poorly for him. “There was a time when this brook had no name, nor had it need for one.”

“Well, I’d rather it had no name. I mean, c’mon, André was the one who was the friggin’
spy
. Paulding gets the statue
and
the school named after him, and André gets the brook. What about Williams and van Wart?”

“I believe Militiaman Paulding receives the lion’s share of the accolades because he was the only one of the three who captured Major André who was literate. It was he who read the papers André carried, and therefore found him out as a traitor.”

“Huh.” The woman considered Crane’s words. “I didn’t know that. Go fig’.”

Puddles then decided to start running toward the other end of the bridge, eliminating the entirety of the slack on the lead the woman used to guide him. As she allowed herself to be pulled along, the woman waved with her free hand. “Well, it was nice meeting you! Happy new year!”

“To you as well, madam!” Crane even waved back to her, finding her conversation to be oddly stimulating, despite her unnecessary complaints about the cold.

Crane leaned on the side of the bridge, listening to the hypnotic rustle of the brook as it flowed across the channel that served as the border between the two townships.

For a moment, he closed his eyes, enjoying the noise of the water. With his eyes shut, he imagined the sound of meat as it cooked on a pan over a fire.

That, in turn, made him realize that he had not yet had his afternoon repast. His stomach made odd noises as a further reminder. With a sigh, he opened his eyes—

—only to find himself no longer in Patriots Park.

He had not moved, yet he stood in an expansive forest. It was darkest night. No sign of the sun peeked through the gnarled, wizened trees that choked the landscape for as far as Crane’s eyes could see. The air had transformed from the crisp cool of a Sleepy Hollow afternoon to heavy and thick. Taking a breath had gone from bracing to laboring, and he found it difficult to stand upright.