The Road to Sleepy Hollow

The news of Erasmus Vellum’s death hung over Jess and Leanna like a storm cloud. They sat in the dim glow of the library’s basement archives, surrounded by the ghosts of forgotten research, debating their next move.

“This can’t be right,” Jess muttered, staring at the grainy print of the obituary Olivia had found. “He died fifteen years ago? That doesn’t make sense. If he was working on that experiment forty years ago, he’d be…”

“A lot older than we thought,” Leanna finished. She tapped the newspaper clipping, her expression unreadable. “Or someone’s been using his name.”

There was only one person left who might know the truth, Dr. Langford, the so-called ghost of the genetics building. Officially, he didn’t exist. No faculty listing, no published work in decades. Students called him The Ghost—an eccentric relic haunting the forgotten wings of the genetics complex, muttering about recursion and false memories. Jess and Leanna had already met him once, long enough to realize he knew things no one else dared speak aloud.

Finding him again took time. They lingered in the building’s dim corridors over several late nights, tracing the scent of old coffee and solder, the barely-audible scuff of his shoes in the dark. On the third night, they found him hunched over a stack of yellowing files in the restricted archives, his fingers fluttering across pages like a man reading Braille.

“Langford,” Leanna called softly.

He didn’t startle. Just stilled.

Jess stepped closer. “We need to talk. About Erasmus Vellum.”

At that, he looked up—eyes sunken but sharp, as if he'd already been expecting them.

“Vellum’s a dead end,” he said, voice rasping like dry leaves. “That’s what they wanted. A name to seal the records. To give the illusion of closure.”

Jess exchanged a glance with Leanna. “So he wasn’t real?”

Langford gave a ghost of a smile. “He was real enough. Brilliant. Dangerous. Obsessed with beginnings. He believed identity could be engineered. But he got lost in his own logic. Thought memory could be... recycled.”

“Recycled?” Leanna echoed.

“Rewritten. Reskinned. Passed down like an heirloom, but heavier.” Langford turned back to the papers. “He said time was circular. That some minds echo louder than others.”

Jess stepped forward. “Do you know where we can find what he left behind?”

Langford didn’t answer directly. He scribbled something onto a scrap of paper and slid it across the desk. Two words, scrawled in looping, unsteady script:

Sleepy Hollow.

Jess frowned. “What is this?”

Langford’s smile twitched wider. “Not a place. A pattern. You’ll understand when you see it.”

Leanna’s voice was low. “And what are we supposed to do with that?”

Langford tilted his head. “That depends on whether you’re trying to solve the past… or survive it.”

Langford gave no indication that he expected a thank you—or that he cared if they understood a word he’d said. Without another glance, he turned back to the heap of papers in front of him, fingers moving with a twitchy precision as he resumed sorting files only he could decipher.

It was as if they’d ceased to exist.

“Be careful,” he murmured absently, eyes already scanning a page filled with scribbled equations and hand-drawn diagrams. “Some questions aren’t meant to be answered in daylight.”

Then, in a barely audible whisper, as though to himself, he added, “Or by the living.”

He reached for his pen with the absentminded grace of someone brushing dust off an old relic, and the scratching of ink on paper drowned out any hope of further conversation.

—---------------------------------

“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” Hannah said, practically bouncing in her seat as their rental car sped toward New York. “Sleepy Hollow! Home of the Headless Horseman! This is amazing.”

Kevin grinned. “I’ve read ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ at least ten times. Do you think we’ll see his ghost? Maybe a flaming pumpkin head?”

Jess, curled up in the backseat, wasn’t as enthusiastic. “Let’s focus on finding Erasmus first, okay? If he has a legacy, we need to figure out what that means.”

Leanna nodded. “It could be his research, or maybe someone carrying it on in his name.”

“Or he’s not as dead as we thought,” Olivia murmured from the passenger seat.

That ominous thought lingered as they pulled into the sleepy little town. The streets were lined with colonial-style buildings, flickering lanterns, and—of course—decorations for the town’s upcoming Headless Horseman Festival

Their rented cabin sat on the outskirts, nestled among gnarled trees that seemed to whisper in the wind. Inside, the wooden floors creaked under their steps, and the scent of old pine lingered in the air.

“I love it,” Hannah declared, dropping her bags. “So much potential for ghosts.”

Kevin smirked. “Just wait until we visit the cemetery. That’s where the real fun begins.”

Jess shivered. Fun wasn’t the word she’d use. Outside, a distant horse’s neigh echoed through the night, sending a chill down her spine.