Page 2 of Bewitched By the Headless Horseman (The Bewitching Hour #1)

Stevie knelt against the cool pavement, a wide grin spreading her cheeks as she watched the white-furred animal barrel toward her.

The fox barked in excitement while circling her, then leaped through her body.

It was true that ghosts couldn’t see Stevie, but it wasn’t a fact that all ghosts couldn’t.

At some point in a seer’s life, they were meant to have a ghost animal sidekick, AKA a familiar, who also held the ability to see both the living and the dead.

A bouncy little fox she’d named Roxy had staked claim to her when a seven-year-old Stevie had been at the park with Gideon.

Since then, the ghost was akin to a guardian.

“Did you really have to trail me here, Foxy Roxy?” Stevie’s hand followed the curve of the ghost’s form in an attempt to pet her sidekick. Her fingertips felt nothing but air, not even coldness or warmth surrounding the animal’s essence.

Roxy sat on her haunches, her mouth pulled back into a smile, exposing her sharp teeth. The fox purred, swatting the air with her paw.

“Look, we’re on what? Year fourteen here of knowing one another? In the next five years, I will make it a point for Lucia to figure out a spell so you’ll feel me.” Stevie laughed, passing her hand through the fox once more.

Roxy perked up, nudging her nose toward the pie box in Stevie’s grasp.

“Oh, this?” She brought the box closer to the fox. “It’s from my new friend. He knows how much I like orange.”

The fox cocked her head, her ears perking straight up, wanting to hear more.

Even though there’d been a few friends by Stevie’s side back in school, Roxy had always been the one she’d revealed her secrets to.

“Right, so you know how I told you about Reese? It seems baby sparks might’ve flown.

Maybe . But with my luck, he’ll end up most likely becoming an acquaintance or someone I used to know.

You know my history of keeping people around outside of family. ”

Roxy released a shrill bark, then took off into the woods, disappearing behind the bushes and trees toward their neighborhood.

“I can’t race you with this food in my hands or these stupid boots!” she shouted while smiling. “I’ll see you soon!”

A young couple with their arms linked stared at Stevie curiously as they stepped around her. Stevie shrugged at them and gave her go-to response when someone caught what looked to be her talking to herself. “I’m just chatting to my other personality.”

They nodded like it was no big deal and cuddled each other closer before crossing the street.

The people of Sleepy Hollow were used to a good number of residents holding some sort of supernatural ability, usually witchy.

Some outsiders would consider them cursed, while others would shout from the rooftops that they were blessed.

Stevie’s mom once believed herself to be cursed, but after coming to Sleepy Hollow well before popping out Gideon and Stevie, her ability proved to be, while not quite a blessing, at least an unfortunate ailment that could be maintained.

Anyone who lived in the town, regardless if they were paranormal-less, knew to keep Sleepy Hollow’s secrets sealed behind tightened lips to outsiders or face the council’s wrath.

Stevie resumed her walk home down the pavement since going through the darkened woods would be nothing but a hazard—she didn’t have Roxy’s superhero eyesight. As a gust of chilly air ruffled her orange locks and tickled her skin, she cursed herself for not bringing a sweater.

Up ahead, in the middle of the street, a white translucent form shook his fist in the air.

“Where is my fucking car?” the young guy screamed, his short hair stuck up around his head like a mad scientist. His suit looked like it was straight out of an old seventies catalog with bell-bottom pants and a button-up shirt tucked into the waist.

“It’s long gone now, buddy,” she hollered.

The ghost glanced her way, his lips twisted into a snarl as he yelled, “It isn’t. It’s coming this way, missy.”

Stevie stilled, sucking in a sharp breath, her lungs tight while her gaze glued to the back of his head.

This was not a coincidence. He’d heard her, seen her.

She’d chalked up the girl at the restaurant as nothing, but it had been something .

Unless … he’d been a seer before he’d died and the other ghost at the restaurant really hadn’t seen her.

Stevie peered up toward the star-filled sky, where the new moon should’ve been.

A cloud drifted toward the west, revealing a flash of red and she gasped.

No way . It couldn’t finally be … but it was!

Giddiness seeped further toward her bones with each pound of her heart. The Eye of Sleepy Hollow had opened!

A story had been passed down from generation to generation that one day—no one knew when—two magical new moons would fall a cycle apart.

During the first new moon, one Eye of the Hollow would open, and the dead would see the living.

It was said that for an entire month the veil over the departed would remain lifted, until the following new moon when the second Eye opened and all the living would see the dead for a single night before the Eyes sealed once again, separating the two worlds.

Stevie cupped her hands around her mouth like a megaphone. “So you can see me?”

The ghost scowled at her. “Of course I can. We knew this day would eventually come. It’s a fucking curse I can’t return to not seeing you, though,” he grumbled just as a car came around the curve and passed through him.

Well, then … “I was going to see if you needed help with any unfinished business, but since you have the most wonderful attitude I’ve ever come across, you can figure it out yourself.”

“I don’t give a fuck about that,” he grunted and flipped her the bird, then chose to ignore her.

“Good luck to you then,” Stevie sang.

“He’s a fool. Ignore him,” a female voice said from behind Stevie, her small form hidden behind a tree a few feet away. The ghost was maybe in her forties, her hair in a long braid down one of her shoulders, and an ill-fitted dress dwarfed her body.

Stevie stepped toward the woman. “Not that I can for sure complete your unfinished business, but do you need anything?”

“No thank you.” The woman shrugged. “I’m waiting until after the second Eye opens.

I want to tell my daughter I’m sorry. That’s my unfinished business.

It’s a shame that a lot of the ghosts are trapped inside their own minds, believing they are still alive or already in Heaven or the Hollow.

With the Eye open now, some will continue to not see what’s right in front of them. ”

The Hollow was really what Hell was to outsiders, only the fiendish things that were down there were far worse than any book or movie had ever described. Demons in the Hollow could shift into any horrific creature they wished.

“That’s good she’s still here for you to find.” For others who’d died longer ago, they wouldn’t be so lucky. But on the bright side, they could possibly meet up with another blood relative.

Stevie studied the Eye of the Hollow, the night surrounding the town, knowing the Headless Horseman would slither out sometime soon since darkness was here.

As though her thoughts had summoned the psychopath, a horse’s hooves pounded in the distance, the ominous sound filling the air.

Since everyone drove cars these days, she couldn’t chalk it up to just any rando horse, not in this tech-driven century.

The bridge was just across the street, and the hoofbeats of the horse picked up, thumping across the earth.

“Go!” the woman slipped from behind the tree, shouting at the ghost still standing in the middle of the road.

“Yeah, you don’t want to be caught up in that maniac’s head-stealing game,” Stevie added half-heartedly since he’d been a dick.

She stepped back into the foliage, listening to the hoofbeats slowing against wooden planks, becoming measured when the vengeful spirit broke out from the enclosure of the bridge, appearing in all his narcissistic glory as his cape billowed behind him.

The Headless Horseman and his stallion were both the same translucent shade of white as every other ghost, not swathed in black as memorabilia liked to show.

The only colorful thing about him was the glowing orange jack-o’-lantern in his gloved right hand.

A sword hung at his hip, and Stevie couldn’t pinpoint exactly how he could see or hear without a head.

It had to be the vibrations which was why the jerkwad in the road needed to remain still.

Even then, without a brain, how could the Horseman think?

Or did the stallion just guide him to pluck a toy of his choice?

Unless the pumpkin’s cut-out eyes were like his own?

Stevie was leaning toward the second option.

But before she could think on it more, the ghost in the road seethed at the Horseman, “Ah, fuck you, asshole.”

The Horseman sat taller, his shoulders squaring as the stallion turned to face the idiot. Puffs of air escaped the horse’s nostrils, and brilliant white eyes glowed bright while it focused on the Horseman’s prey.

Stevie gazed at the scene, unable to turn away. “This point now goes to the Headless Horseman,” she whispered to the woman.

“You should leave,” the woman stuttered, her body trembling while creeping toward the darkness of the woods.

Stevie didn’t need to be as wary as this woman.

First, Stevie wasn’t a ghost, so he couldn’t just choose her head for the picking.

And second, that was it. She’d never seen firsthand a head taken by the Horseman before.

Only caught sight of him galloping through the streets when she’d been driving to or from somewhere at night.