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The second time Ichabod Crane looked at the document purporting to be George Washington’s commission of him, he confirmed to himself it was a forgery.
At the time, however, he was in a crypt underneath the Capitol Building in D.C., surrounded by agents of whatever the bloody hell was this shadowy force. He was trapped. The obvious answer was to nod, and ask questions as if he were indeed going to accept this commission. He’d been a soldier and a spy. He knew how to play the game.
That night, however, alone in his billet over a Georgetown bookshop, he wrote a list of the pros and cons of staying. Citizenship still at risk, limited funds (although more than no doubt they thought he had), what appeared to be a longstanding, functioning organization deeper than the Masons had ever dreamed: all good reasons to stay. But his hand shook as he wrote one name at the top of the page.
Abbie.
Why had these people not revealed themselves earlier? Oh, yes, it might well be that Betsy had told their General of his temporal dislocation upon her release from the Catacombs, but both Sheriff Corbin in his voluminous files and Mr Mills had failed to mention the organization’s existence hitherto – and Crane had done an enormous amount of reading besides. No. They had not helped the Witnesses in earlier tribulations, and they had not saved Abbie. For that latter, he would never forgive them.
And he would find it hard to forgive himself.
The loss of her… It was as if he were an automaton, a hollow man with only a throbbing anguish where his heart should be. He would carry on for the sake of duty, if he had to, but he didn’t believe his duty lay with these black-suited, grey-faced men.
He burned the list in the flame from a scented candle he’d taken from Abbie’s house before they’d sold it. The smoke smelled of jasmine, and he remembered her drinking wine in the light from this candle. Smoke and memory were true things, as true as his beloved Lieutenant had ever been.
He snuffed out the candle with his fingertips. He ignored the burn – such a lesser pain.
And he ran.
……………………………………………
Three months later, he came to Savannah.
He had spent those three months in flight well. Using documents Miss Jenny had falsified for him a year ago, he had presented himself as one James Crandall, with an MA in English from the University of Warwick and a fine green card. He’d cut his hair and shaved his beard and gone in for what Miss Jenny would have called ‘hipster’ garb, and with a pair of horn-rimmed glasses – quite Clark Kent, if he could be permitted the allusion – he had traveled west, and then north, and then south.
He had no plans. He saw no demons or signs. But he saw more of this wonderful country, and read voraciously in public libraries in small towns. With an old laptop he’d purchased, he monitored various rare-book online fora and demonology online sites as well; he had ‘lurked,’ however, not even trusting a nom du internet for fear of surveillance.
And he wrote letters every night to Abbie. Of course he had done so during that now much regretted flight to England, too – in every B&B or hostel then, scratching out his disorientation and longing for her – but those he had burned. These, with no Lieutenant to ever receive them, he kept, although he didn’t know why.
Yours eternally, he signed these letters of grief and longing and memory, although he no longer truly believed in eternity. If there were such a construct, however, that was how long his love would last.
He arrived in Savannah on a steamy September day, with the air thick with old sadnesses and river moisture. He had spied a rare Adam Smith book in an online catalogue, for sale from a used bookshop in this coastal Georgia city, but he rather thought it was seriously underpriced.
The bookshop was just outside the main tourist area, in a late 19th-century house on a corner lot. Old Tales and New read the sign on the porch. Crane went up the stairs and into the familiar musty embrace of rooms full of books.
“May I help you?” said the man behind the counter, looking up from his book – Ta-Nehisi Coates’s first memoir. Gold-framed glasses shone on his Black face, almost blinding Crane for a moment. But then he saw nothing but good feeling.
“Perhaps I may help you,” he said. “I’m, er, James Crandall. I have some expertise in eighteenth-century texts. If I could examine your Adam Smith, posted for sale on the Dealer’s forum?”
The man examined him closely, which Crane suffered. Then he put down his book. “I’m Martin Jones. And why the hell not?”
Crane smiled. “I don’t think you’ll regret your choice.”
And indeed, as he saw at first glance when Martin had ushered him into a back room of a dizzying array of boxed and unboxed volumes, the book was a rarity. He gave Martin the name of a venture capitalist in California who was a collector, suggested a price well above the online quote, and watched the initial email go out.
Martin hit the keyboard of his laptop and then looked up, grinning. “If this works out, Crandall, would you like a job?”
Crane thought he would, actually.
And so it was that he found a small garage studio down near the Savannah College of Art and Design -- his attire and glasses made him pass easily among the artists – and began a part-time job cataloguing Martin’s unsorted works and doing the internet marketing. On the third day of his employment, the Adam Smith sold for something very near the quoted price, and on the strength of that, Martin invited him to dinner.
Martin’s wife met him at the door of the flat the Joneses shared above the shop. For a moment Crane’s breath caught hard in his throat – she seemed so very like a Mills woman, all strong Black curves and fire, her sleeveless top revealing impressive lean muscles. But then she moved, and he saw she, like Martin, was a generation older than his dear Mills sisters.
“Hey, guy,” she said, and held out her hand. “I’m Faith.”
His breath caught again on the memory of when Abbie had chosen sacrifice, he didn’t know why. But he made himself smile, and take her hand (without the appropriate bow, which still chafed him), and offer the chrysanthemums he’d purchased on a streetcorner nearby. “I’m James, and I am very pleased to meet you.”
Faith and Martin’s home was a beautiful space, full of her art, for she was a sculptor and metalworker and taught courses at SCAD as well. Martin had prepared a rice-and-beans-and-peppers dish that was delicious, and the three of them sat down to dinner amidst good smells and the gleam of silver sculptures on shelves all along the dining room. The music was Nina Simone – another passing bad moment for Crane, since Abbie had loved the singer’s work, but he did love it too – and the talk was easy.
Or rather, it was easy until Faith asked, “You got a partner, James?”
“No,” he said, and he had to repress an impulse to tears. He felt suddenly exposed and raw, as if that empty space inside him had been laid bare. He tried again. “I did have, but no. She’s gone.”
“I’m sorry,” Faith said, and, leaning in, laid her hand on his. Her strong fingers were warm, the music changed, his head hurt so –
“I’m sorry,” she said again, and let go, and smiled. Her smile was different somehow, more knowing. “But what’s gone can be found sometimes. If you’re really lucky. If the stars align.”
“I don’t believe so in this case,” he said, steady again, and changed the subject.
On the way home after the meal, he walked by an apartment building. There on the corner, waiting for the light to change, he heard the voice of the guide of a nearby ghost tour, saying something about haunts, and he smelled jasmine. He looked up, trying to find the source of the out-of-season scent, and saw one lit window two floors above him. He heard a phone ring.
Then the light changed, and he went on, sad to his bones.
That night his letter to Abbie was short. I miss you more every day, my dear Abbie, and yet I feel you closer. How is that possible? I cannot say, but so it is. Yours eternally. Then he took out Abbie’s jasmine candle and lit it one more time, watching the flame dance in his darkened small room, letting himself feel his grief in full, letting it go in and out like the tide.
The next evening after work he was invited upstairs for a glass of good wine with the Joneses. As he was preparing to make his farewell, however, Faith said, “Could you run an errand for me, James? Drop off something for my niece at her place? I think it’s on your way home.”
“Of course,” he said, although he had a momentary qualm when she handed him a wrapped square package, with an envelope inscribed Read Me First taped to the top. It was exceedingly heavy for its size.
It was also odd how Faith and Martin beamed at him as he left. It was… odd, that was all.
The niece – unnamed, which only now struck him as peculiar – lived in the apartment building where he’d had that strange moment the night before. Third floor, too: 3B. He entered the lobby, found the intercom, and pressed the right button. “Delivery from Faith Jones,” he said into the speaker.
“Oh hey, guy, Aunt Faith said you’d be coming,” came a female voice in return.
A very familiar female voice. A beloved voice.
“Oh Jesus Christ,” he said, and it was no blasphemy but prayer.
“No, no,” said the voice, laughing warmly now, as he had heard so many times. “Not Jesus, man. I’m Hope. Hope Dixon. I’ll be right down.”
With some distantly bemused astonishment he found his legs had lost the ability to support him; he slid slowly down the wall to the polished wooden floor, the strange wrapped package still in his arms.
It was in this undignified position that he was found by – well, he supposed he must call her Hope, but she looked so exactly like Abbie, smelled so exactly like Abbie, seemed so exactly her. She knelt by his side and thumbed up his eyelids in a professional manner to inspect his eyes. “You passed out, James? You’re James, right?”
His true name burned on his tongue, but he managed, “Er, right. And I didn’t pass out, I just…couldn’t stand up.”
“I’ve got first-aid training, and I prescribe some tea,” she said, and heaved him up to his feet with the ease and power he associated with Abbie. “Come on up. If you turn into an axe murderer or something, Aunt Faith will know who to blame.”
“I won’t. I promise.” I will never hurt you again, he finished in his head.
Her upstairs apartment was all jasmine and warmth. He noted – hazily, still shocked – that she had two succulents on her entryway table. When she caught him looking, she said breezily, “Yeah, I can’t even. Saw ‘em at the farmers’ market Saturday and had to get ‘em.”
“You like succulents?” he said, as he sat – more like toppled – onto her couch.
She paused. “I… don’t know.” Then she took the box out of his grasp.
“You don’t know?” he said hoarsely.
She put the box down on her coffee table and knelt down, one hand on the envelope. She was frowning, that adorable expression he’d caused so often in the past – or had caused in Abbie, he told himself. “I’ve had… a thing. Memory thing. But anyway. Tea? Or coffee?”
“Either would be fine,” he said.
“Coffee then. And hey, you want a doughnut? I found this great shop off Broughton. Had myself a craving last night, picked up a few today.”
“Perhaps later,” he said carefully. His heart was thundering so that he wondered she couldn’t hear it.
But she seemed unaffected, bustling around her small open kitchen as if nothing was troubling her. Except… except he saw that line between her eyes, that familiar line, that said she was processing something. His gaze went to the wrapped box and the envelope on top, and he swallowed hard.
When she brought their coffee – she hadn’t asked his preferences for sugar or cream, but had added them to perfection – she sat down on the other side of the couch. She was watching him as closely as he was watching her, he realized, and took another sip, and then said, “You’ve had, um, health issues? Are you quite well?”
“’Quite well,’” she said, in laughing mockery. “You sound like an old book or something, James.” A moment. “Your name doesn’t suit you. Don’t know why, but I think it just sounds wrong.”
“Ah,” he said, and took another sip of coffee. He couldn’t taste it any more. All he could taste was magic.
“But to answer your question, I…had amnesia. Have had. Just, yeah.” She raised her eyebrows. “You ever just wake up one day and not know where you are?”
“Yes. Yes indeed,” he said, and swallowed the memory of a dank cave near Sleepy Hollow, and a leap from cold water to a new century’s air. “Disconcerting.”
She grinned at him. “One way to put it.” Then, “How’s the coffee?”
“Oh. Fine. It’s fine,” he said, even as he put the cup down. He was afraid his shaking hands would spill what was left. He was so terrified and thrilled–
Because she didn’t seem like a soul passed from one person to another. She seemed like Abbie. His Lieutenant. His partner. But how on earth could he say that upon such short acquaintance?
Even as he tried to find an answer, she put her own cup down. “Hey, do you mind if I see what Aunt Faith sent me?”
“Not at all. Do you mind, er, if I stay?”
She stopped and looked at him. The room was quiet, and warm, and safe. “You know, it’s weird, but I think you’re supposed to.”
“I think I am too,” he whispered, and folded his hands on his lap so he didn’t reach out for her before she wanted him.
She got up and lit three candles on the mantelpiece. Jasmine rose even stronger in the room, and the flames danced.
“Envelope first,” she said, and ripped, and took out a sheet of paper. Read. Tilted her head, frowning.
“What did your aunt say?”
“She says… she says to ask you your true name, and to ask you what you have for me. And then she says to open the box she made a few months ago.” She looked up. “What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure. But I have an idea.” An astonishing, miraculous idea, for lo, this world was full of miracles as well as monsters.
And so, obeying impulse, he went on his knees in front of her and took her hands. As he had done in that dream on the day he’d lost her, he kissed her hands, one and then another. Then, cradling one to his cheek, he said, “My name is Ichabod—“
“Crane,” she said, on an indrawn breath, and then, with wonder and joy, “Oh my God, Crane!”
“Yes,” he said, and this time he let the tears show. “And I have everything for you. All I am is for you.”
“Abbie! I remember, I remember, I’m Abbie!” she said.
“And you are all the hope I’ve ever had,” he finished.
“Oh Jesus Christ,” she said, as he had done, and then she leapt on him, pulling them both over, pinning him to the floor. “Crane!”
He gazed up at her. “Lieutenant…Abbie. Although it’s not as we used to do, may I… may I kiss—“
The rest of the question was lost when she kissed him, and it was all jasmine and coffee and the most real moment of his life.
Somehow, however, either his long legs or her enthusiasm had them tipping over the coffee table, and the wrapped box landed on his hand. “Ow,” he said into her mouth—
As the box tumbled once, paper ripping away as it did, and then came to rest. He looked over at the same time she did, and saw figured gold gleaming through the tears in the brown paper.
“Faith caught my soul,” Abbie gasped. “When Pandora tried to take it. I don’t – I don’t know how, but—“
“Dixon women are resourceful,” Crane said, on another wave of joy. “I know that through and through.”
Still on top of him, she caught up the paper. “There’s something on the back. Um… she says The old men are coming. Best be on your way, my loves. Old men?”
“Well, there have been some developments,” he said vaguely, and then took her face in both his hands and brought her back down to him. This time he kissed her, in the way he had longed for since he had met her, giving her the everything he promised. This time his kiss was a vow.
She kissed him back, fully, completely, and they knew who and what they were.
…………………………………….
And a few hours later they ran. But this time they were together.