Author:Le Jaseroque
Title:
Should The World Fail To Fall Apart
Description: A crossover fanfic combining the world of Aeri Amadis-Noel's "The Thirteenth Hour" with Sleepy Hollow, tying the main character of the third novel, Susana Damaris Hawke, to the Hessian.
Violence:
Not really. Allusions and remembrances of death.
Sex: None, so to speak. A kiss, and yet another.
Language: Mild
It had started with a dream.
A dream of faces and smells and the blowing of leaves—so many leaves—there always had been so many—
--she could not sweep them all as they blew in—not then—
--and certainly not now.
“Wait, Griffin! I can’t catch up---I can’t run any faster—“ the breath flew from her in a trail of frost, followed by the tenebrous strands of hair that had escaped her dark braid as she ran after her brother, the trees a speckled blur of orange and the absence of such colour where the leaves had already fallen and left bare white bones of branches.
Griffin’s laughter rang back at her—bouncing and echoing—hollow sounding.
And when she reached him he cocked a brow and laughed again, playfully rumpling her hair.
As if the wind had not done enough.
And then they were climbing—or rather-- she was climbing up up and up high in the branches of the great tree she had not realized she was climbing at all.
Griffin had already reached the top, and stood on the platform, his hands resting firmly on the half-built rail. “Come on…” he said, and he lifted her up.
She with her blue skirts and curious eyes.
“Come and look Susana…”
At the rail’s edge, high up in the tree, upon that small smooth wooden platform they had built—or rather he had built—
(Girls don’t play in forts and lookouts, what kind of sister are you, Sannen?)
--at the edge of the rail was where vision leapt forth and blurred and righted itself again—
only she could see far past the hollow—
--she could see the ends of the earth—steeples and trees and pyramids—twisted spires and rocky cliffs—even a vast expanse of desert—
“Look—there’s India…Griffin….do you see it, too?”
His arm about her waist, he smiled. “Yes. I can smell the air—it’s full of spices—“ And he turned her to face him---suddenly seated in her world of remembrance---
--- hammering at the rail as if to finish it.
**He never did finish that rail—before--**
The thought flew from her mind as she watched him slip—careless and curious—driving the iron point straight through his palm.
“Oh, no. No.” she whispered, shaking her head. Her voice was terribly calm as the wind picked up and she stared at the spreading crimson stain in her brother’s palm. “You’ll die a martyr.”
She was standing now and looking over the rail as Griffin climbed down—faster than humanly possible—shrinking from her view as he vanished—hundreds and hundreds of feet below.
“Griffin! Don’t leave me here. I—“
But he was already gone and nothing more than a whisper on the wind—a droplet of wet sound—
**Wait—no—that’s—rain—**
It was raining now—though the drops seemed too slow—and a voice—disjointed—singing out within the confines of her mind.
**I’m sorry Sannen…I have to go…it’s time for tea and I don’t know where I’m buried…**
***************************
She had woken instantly.
It was raining.
Through a small hole in the crack-stone roof she felt it strike her cheek—a small slick slap.
She was awake, her brother was dead and there was a great expanse of sky where half the manor should have stood.
**It’s all the same, then.**
But it wasn’t.
Not today.
Not at all.