He was a gentleman, she reminded herself, thinking back to that night of the village clambake. She kept her composure as best she could, gripping the reins with whitened knuckles, keeping Gunpowder steady. Glancing over her shoulder, Katrina steeled herself. She dipped her head respectfully, indicating with an outstretched hand the road before her, allowing him berth to pass. In response, he bowed to her, a short bob from the waist that let her see the shape of his neck within his high collar. He had been decapitated at the very top of his throat, where jaw melted into the column supporting it, if she had to make a guess.
She realized her first impression of his size had been no trick of perspective. He was just as big as his horse, and his horse was massive. When he stretched out his own arm, the long, gloved fingers on his hand unfurled like a shadow, gesturing for her to continue on. It’s fine. It’s going to be fine. If you don’t run, he won’t chase. Gunpowder nickered nervously, and she ran a fast hand down the old horse’s mane.
“I know, boy. We need to think of it as an escort. They’ll disappear at the bridge.”
But he hadn’t disappeared at the bridge. The tread of the phantom horse shook the old wooden beams, and she sucked in a shaky breath, willing herself with everything she had in her not to dig her heels into the old farm horse’s sides. The Horseman followed her up the hill, silent atop his steed, keeping a measured pace until they reached the church yard. She felt the moment he dropped back, keeping her spine straight.
Don’t look back. You don’t need to look back. Gunpowder huffed as if he could read her thoughts and Katrina frowned, her inner voice mirroring the horse’s sound of disgust. Would you just ignore someone who rode with you if this was the middle of the afternoon? If it was Brom? Or Jansen? Would you just ride off rudely and not even say good night?
Gunpowder protested when she turned in her saddle, but she twisted until she was practically backward. He was directing his own mount into the open gate, in between the rows of crooked, ancient headstones, tipping the hat that wasn’t there to her again when she raised a shaky hand in parting. By the time she’d reached the other side of the small church, he was gone.
And so it went.
Her neighbors continued to trade and build on their stories of the Horseman as the autumn season progressed, each more gruesome than the last, and Katrina held her tongue as she drank cider and ate pumpkin bread, listening to the tall tales traded at every gathering. Her experience with their ghostly neighbor was quite different, not that she’d be airing that in the town square.
By the end of September, she had grown quite accustomed to the horse that would melt from the darkness and the measured approach of her silent escort. He would accompany her as far as the churchyard on those nights when he followed her out of the dell, and it was nearly a shock to realize she was unafraid after so many evenings in his incorporeal presence.
It was several weeks into this new routine when she began to speak to him. Katrina wasn’t sure why. Only that it seemed odd to her to ride with him silently, for if he were any other man in the village escorting her home, she would keep her courtesies and be as pleasant as possible. After all — she would converse with Jansen, flirt with Brom, and it seemed the height of rudeness to leave her headless attendant without the courtesy of conversation. Treat the dead as you treat the living, and they won’t bother you.
“I’m a school mistress. I teach the young girls of the village to read and write. I-I don’t know if that was common in your homeland or not? But it-it’s necessary. Folks don’t like to think so, but it is. It makes girls less reliant on others, more able to speak with their own voices. It gives them the power to have voices.”
She paused, glancing swiftly to her silent companion before continuing.
“There’s such little power they have over their own lives as it is. Being able to read, to sign their name . . . it’s more important than most people think. The men in the villages are always resistant at first,” she went on, snorting to herself wryly. “Always. They don’t think it’s important. They claim literacy is a form of witchcraft, but of course they would feel that way. They want wives who are subservient and obedient with no minds of their own. But it’s one small thing I can do for these girls.“ After all, the ability to read and write had been her own salvation when her father had died. “I’m proud of the work I do. That’s where I come from every night, giving private instruction to the daughters of one of the east farm families.”
Her cheeks heated, realizing she was rambling. She received no response, not that she was expecting one. It would have been difficult to carry on a conversation without a head, and in her imagination, she liked to think he had been the strong, silent type even when he had been living.
As the evenings went by, she continued to fill the still night air with her chatter, and if her ghoulish companion objected, he gave her no indication. She told him about her family, and the peculiar gift she had always possessed. They had been poor, but her father worked hard, had taught her to read and write himself. She told him about her flight from her childhood village after her father’s death, knowing she’d be forced to marry. She’d spent a short time working as a governess, getting the idea for her school once the family moved abroad, leaving her behind. She told him of her existence moving from town to town, feeling rudderless and adrift most of the time. Perhaps he can’t even hear you. He doesn’t have ears. You’re just talking to yourself.
It didn’t matter if she was, she decided. It was nice having someone to talk to. Nicer still to have someone listening, if he could even hear her, of course. She loved what she did and the freedom it afforded her, but she was an outsider, always. Even here. She’d not been born to this Dutch community, and although she knew it was the benefit of her shared heritage that had made her as welcome as she’d been, she was not one of them. Even though she enjoyed life in the Hollow, even though most of her neighbors were friendly and welcoming, even though she had decided she would quite like to stay, she was an outsider still. Places like this were built on their history — the people who tilled the land and the people who were buried in it, and she shared none of that.
And besides — her occupation did not lend itself to longevity. Her worldly possessions were few, easy to pack in a single valise, moving on to a new village and a new position for as long as it lasted. Inevitably, some minor bedevilment would befall the community — always something easily explained as an act of nature or neighbor, but her school would invariably take part of the blame. Parents would pull their daughters from the classroom, casting them back to the kitchen and illiteracy. Her position would be eliminated and she would be turned out, forced to make her way to the next village or town and start all over again.
“It’s hard,” she admitted, hoping her voice wasn’t as anguished as she sometimes felt, wondering if it even mattered. He said nothing in return. “I carry them with me, these girls. And I wonder what will happen to them, after I’ve left. But-but I very much like it here. It’s strange, I feel as though . . . as though I’m meant to be here. That I was put here for a reason, but I don’t know why. Maybe I’m not meant to find out. But I’m doing my best to become friendly with everyone, because I would like to stay.”