The Haunted - Jessica Verday [87]
Where is he? I have to see him!
Something was in my hands, and I looked down to see the charcoal he used was dangerously close to snapping in half. I hadn’t even realized I’d picked it up.
Relaxing my grip, I reached for a nearby drawing pad and tore out a piece of paper. I need you, I scrawled, and left it in the middle of his table. He’d see it there when he came back.
I stormed out of the crypt, still reeling from confusion and anger, and decided to head to the bridge. As I ran, I desperately wished for him to be there. I needed to make sense of this.
How could Ben have been D. all this time? How could I not have seen it sooner?
The looming wooden structure rose up out of nowhere. I crossed the riverbank, daring to yell his name again. Straining my eyes to make out any shape that could possibly be him.
Double- and triple-checking the trestles up under the bridge to see if he was there.
He wasn’t.
Digging my fingernails into clenched fists, I threw my head back and screamed, “Why can’t I find you?!” My heart was racing, and I tried to calm down, but I couldn’t. I pounded the side of my head with my hand as I paced back and forth. “Think! Think, Abbey! Where else would he go?”
Irving’s grave.
The thought came to me in a crystal-clear flash of inspiration. I left the river behind, and walked quickly to his plot. My heart sank when it came into view. The little fenced area that enclosed his grave was empty. Caspian wasn’t there.
I climbed the stone steps and pushed my way through the gate, sinking to my knees at the foot of Washington Irving’s tombstone. “I’m lost,” I whispered. “I can’t find Caspian, and I need him.” A bird chirped nearby, sounding like he was saying, “Why? Why? Why?” A scraping sound made me jerk around. I staggered to my feet. “Nikolas!” He looked… wary, and I stopped short of hugging him.
“Is everything okay, Abbey?”
“Have you seen Caspian?” I asked. Nikolas shook his head, and I reached out to grip his hand. “Are you sure? I have to find him.”
“Why?” He said it so abruptly that I took a step back. “Tell me why.”
“Because I found out who Kristen’s secret boyfriend is! Don’t you see, Nikolas? He might have been with her the night she died.”
“And you are positive that it was not Caspian here that night with her?” His question jolted me. “Caspian? No. It wasn’t him. He already told me he wasn’t here that night, and besides, Kristen couldn’t have seen him and touched him. There’s no way it was him.” I knew without a shadow of doubt that what I was saying was true.
Nikolas nodded his head. “I do not think that it was your young man either. I just wanted to be sure.”
Suddenly, something Nikolas had said once flashed through my mind. “Before I left Sleepy Hollow, when I came to your house, you said Kristen isn’t like you. Isn’t a Shade. That you saw her die.”
He wouldn’t look at me then. Wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Nikolas?” I prodded. “What did you see? Please. Tell me. I need to know.” He gazed at me, looking like he’d instantly aged a hundred years. It was as if every horrible thing he’d ever seen or done was etched in the lines across his face. A tear ran down his cheek. “Is it not enough that I saw her die? Why does any more matter?” I gripped his hand and held on tight. “Was anyone with her?” He shook his head, as if unable to speak, and I waited.
“I was on my way back to my home,” he said slowly. “And I saw her in the water. I felt something. Something dark. But I was too far away.” He pulled his hand free, and it was shaking. “Did I see someone there? I am not sure. It was dark.… There were trees.… All I know is that I had to watch that poor girl get pulled under, and I could do nothing about it.” Flashes of my dream from the night Kristen died played out in front of my eyes, and I was lost in them. Cold water. Dull pain. Aching chest. Hopelessness.
“That is what I saw, Abbey,” Nikolas said sadly. “I could do nothing. And now you know the worst of it. To see someone die and not be able to cry for help, to be unable to pull them to shore, or to go warn someone of that