Page 34 of The Horseman of Sleepy Hollow
"We did nothing I regret," I told him. "Those kisses were worth any pain."
His remorseful expression diffused into a grin."I could kiss you like that for hours. How do people in love get any work done?"
I gasped a little, covering my mouth in playful shock. "What did you say?"
"Nothing." His face reddened and he got up, muttering something about traps and returning later.
I sank onto the blankets to rest, but my smile stayed for a good while, and returned each time I rehearsed his words in my head.
I could kiss you like that for hours.
How do people in love get any work done?
People.
In love.
I spent the afternoon soaking in the sunshine, occasionally stretching my legs and chatting to Elatha, who seemed almost as glad of my company as his master was. Far from being a hell-monster, he was a sociable animal and kept coming back to the fence to greet me.
A few times I heard the trip and tussle of small creatures in the undergrowth at the edge of the meadow. Once, after I had been lying still a while on the blankets, a rabbit hopped right past me. He leaped frantically aside when he realized that I was something alive and possibly predatory—and he skittered off into the bushes so fast that I laughed. But as he disappeared, my gaze latched on something else in the trees—a flash of movement, of something pale and tall. My heart constricted. Was someone watching me?
I stared at the spot until my eyes burned, but I saw nothing else—no sign of the shape, no additional movement. I began to doubt myself. Perhaps it was only a deer. The height and the lightness of the coloring would fit that theory. And if it had been human, surely the person would have accosted me if they recognized me—and if they did not recognize me, then why should I care if I was spotted?
Slowly I relaxed, returning to my current project—braiding together as many long grasses as possible into a perfectly useless rope.
When Eamon came back, it was late afternoon, and the sky was beginning to glow with the rosy warmth that precedes an especially beautiful sunset.
"Grab a few of the blankets," he said. "I will fetch us more food, and then there is something I want to show you."
He donned his coat and hurried to the cabin. When he came back, he carried a cloth bag, a lantern, and a waterskin. His eyes shone with purpose and eagerness. "Come with me. It's not far, and we will take it slowly."
Together we skirted the pasture fence. The trail he chose led up a gradual incline, higher into the hills. Newly fallen leaves clustered along the edges of the path in a colorful litter of scarlet and orange and gold. Above our heads, the sun streamed through the remaining foliage, turning it to incandescent fire. I felt like some princess of old, being led into Faerieland by a dark Fae prince. Of course I would have been the girl who gave up my true name easily for the promise of a dance with a beautiful devil. And I would have regretted it when the magical glitter dissolved, and the faerie sweets turned rotten and sour in my mouth.
A moment later we stepped out of the trees onto a rocky ledge high above the valley. To our right, some little way down the hillside, I spied the curling smoke from the Horseman's cabin. Spread out before us was a view the like of which I had never witnessed—golden fields, emerald pastures, fluffy clusters of amber forest speckled with dark evergreen. Far away, on the opposite side of Sleepy Hollow, the hills swept up to the sky, clad in yellow and scarlet, their smoky blue peaks yielding to a wash of clear pink sky.
Eamon set down what he carried and put his arm around me.
Silently we bathed our souls in beauty, in the clarity of the air and the scent of the wind-washed world. The tang of wood smoke curled past my nostrils, merging with the rich leather scent of Eamon's greatcoat. A blue-jay squalled from a pine tree nearby. Half-dried leaves shivered in the breeze, and though it was chilly, the firm press of Eamon's fingers around my blanketed shoulder gave me all the warmth I needed.
"I brought food," he said softly, as if the beauty around us was a live thing that might flee at a sharp word. "And I brought a book."
We spread blankets on the ledge and drank the warmth of the sinking sun while we ate. Eamon read to me from Christopher Marlowe's playA Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus—a text which I had once borrowed from a former teacher of mine, before Ichabod arrived in Sleepy Hollow. My parents were doubtful about the plot, and would not allow me to add it to our small collection of volumes.
I wondered, at first, why Eamon had the play in his possession; but as he read, I began to understand why he, a physician, and something of a demon in his own eyes, might find it compelling.
Be a physician, Faustus; heap up gold,
And be eternized for some wondrous cure...
The end of physic is our body's health.
Why, Faustus, hast thou not attained that end?
...Couldst thou but make men to live eternally,
Or, being dead, raise them to life again,
Then this profession were to be esteemed.
