Chapter Text
If the others had been even a trifle more insistent that he not return to the cabin alone that first night, Crane might never have left Sleepy Hollow. But he hadn’t wanted to be a burden to his friends—or, if he was being truly honest with himself, he had flinched away from the pity in their eyes.
So he returned alone to a cabin filled with ghosts, guilt, and self-recrimination—and in the midst of it all, one piece of welcome news in the form of letters from a banker. A few weeks ago, Crane had been contacted by a representative of the Masons, who had told him that Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and the others, aware that when he awakened in an unknown future he would require some means of support, had entrusted funds to that brotherhood’s care. Silently shepherded by the Masons over the centuries, that trust now brought an income of around fifty thousand dollars per year.
The representative had apologized profusely for not coming to him sooner. Apparently that portion of the organization had been in some disarray after the deaths of its Sleepy Hollow members. But though Crane would always regret his failure to prevent that bloodbath, he considered it just as well that he had gone almost two years in ignorance of the inheritance. Now he had sufficient understanding of this century’s money to realize that fifty thousand a year, despite its impressive sound, was closer to the income of a vicar of his time than that of a duke.
He hadn’t spoken of the matter to the Lieutenant yet, wanting to surprise her with the good news once all was settled and he no longer needed her support. To make up for the delay, the Masonic banker had agreed to disburse two years’ income as a single lump sum. Crane had thanked him, but asked that the money be split evenly between him and Lieutenant Mills.
And now all was arranged. He had his own account, and with it the nigh-magical plastic cards that would grant him access to it almost anywhere in the world. For the Lieutenant, there were instructions on what identification she needed to present and which documents she needed to sign to claim her share.
He’d intended to surprise her with it over dinner some fine evening. But now it seemed providential that at this precise moment he’d been granted both the means to repay his debt to her and to support himself indefinitely.
He could go. He could flee this cabin of unhappy memory, of faith broken, of failure. He would no longer be a burden to his friends, who must surely be as weary of him and his troubles as he was of himself.
He was not running away, he assured himself even as he reached for his best writing paper and pen—this was no matter for a text message, no matter how many emojis he might deploy to express the tumult of his soul. On the contrary, he was giving himself, he was giving the Lieutenant and Miss Jenny, some much needed space to come to terms with all that had come to pass. How often had he heard the people of this century, either in person or on television, state that they needed space to cope with some crisis or grief?
Well, now he needed space. Wasn’t that very twenty-first century of him?
But faced with the need to bid a proper farewell to his Lieutenant—to Abbie, though he would not use that familiarity on the page, not now when everything in him cried for separation—the formal cadences of his native era sprang naturally to mind. He opened with My dear Lieutenant Mills, thanked her for all her exertions and expenses on his behalf over the past two years, and carefully explained the Masonic trust and his decision to give her a part of it.
After the briefest of hesitations, he added a paragraph expressing his desire to take advantage of his newfound wealth—his newfound solvency, at least—to live and travel in solitude for a time. If his services as Witness were required, he assured her, she need only call or text, and he would return to Sleepy Hollow with all due haste.
He lingered longest, of all things, over how to sign the missive. He had written a formal letter, he was leaving town, he knew not for how long—the letter therefore cried out for an I remain, respectfully, etc., I. Crane, such as he might have signed himself when writing to a fellow officer in his day. Yet a prickling of conscience, a reminder of where and when he was, of all that the Lieutenant had been to him, suggested that she would find such a farewell hurtfully cold. Blinking hard—no, he would go, he must go, she would understand—he settled upon a familial, informal Ever yours most affectionately, I.C.
He folded the letter neatly, wrote her name upon it, and set it atop the instructions the banker had provided for her. She would find it tomorrow, he knew, for she had assured him she would arrive early the next day to take him for coffee and donut holes. When he failed to answer her knock, in her concern for him she would let herself in. She had done so often enough before.
On a day when she had no duties at her precinct, the earliest early might be was nine in the morning. By that time Crane’s train had deposited him in Grand Central Station, and he was gaping in dizzy, disoriented wonder at what Manhattan had become since last he’d seen it.