I arrived in Sleepy Hollow with a satchel of instruments and a mind sharpened by reason, only to be met with silence and suspicion. The elders—Van Tassel, Lancaster, Steenwyck—gave me hollow welcomes and colder stares. They believe the Horseman is a ghost, a curse. I believe in evidence. But when I stood over Peter Van Garrett’s headless corpse, the blood still warm, I felt it—the presence. Not of a man, but of something older, hungrier.

Now, crouched in the Western Woods beside Young Masbath, I dig at the base of the Tree of the Dead. The soil is black, clinging like tar. My hands tremble—not from cold, but from the certainty that beneath this earth lies the truth. And then I see it: the grave, empty. The skull is gone. Someone is controlling the Horseman. And they’re still among us.

A twig snaps. I turn. The wind stills. The Horseman is coming.