A/N: Wow, it's been a while. Like, 4 years. Geez. :O Anyway. I haven't forgotten about this story. So, 4 years later, here's the beginning of part 2. Enjoy!

Chapter 10

"Usually, when someone comes back, it's because their death was unfair and their soul did not accept it... or because they are summoned. Dead souls can appear in different ways: tangible, like the Horseman, or evanescent; they can bear the signs of death, like a wound or a mutilation, or appear serene and restored. It depends on how they want to be perceived. But, whatever the reason they come for and the form they assume, one thing is for sure: they must pass through a gateway. And someone with powers must help them. Receive them." - Katrina Van Tassel

Wiesbaden, 1816

The new century had started bringing massive changes in the world, in Europe, and in people's lives. The French Revolution and the Terror had left an unforgettable aftermath, then a little man named Napoleon had come along, his desires of grandeur being inversely proportional to his size. Scientific and technological progress was making giant strides, cities were becoming metropolises, daily life was becoming more and more frenetic.

The archaic, timeless world of fairytales, of ladies and knights, of kings and outlaws, of fairies, witches and dragons, was switching to a neurotic world in which time was everything and never enough, a world in which people worked, produced, consumed and died.

The old games of power changed their shape, but were still there. The privileged kept their privileges and the unfortunate kept their misfortunes. Yet, the working class was starting to come out from invisibility and subordination, slowly becoming a fierce entity, proud of its own voice as the motive power of society.

In this new picture, magic and dark forces had been moved to the back. Reason had replaced superstition, reality had smothered the dream, smoke often clouded the stars.

A white rose had opened its petals in the garden of the Schiller residence. A pair of eyes as blue as a clear sky were watching it in enchantment, and slim, snow-white fingers brushed it. A porcelain visage closed in on the flower, and inhaled its scent.

"Sibyl!"

Inside the house, Mary Archer Schiller had just opened a blue velvet box containing a set of diamonds and sapphires, nestled in a frame that reminded sea waves.

Who knows if she will like these, Mary wondered. More often than not, her young creature did not show much interest in luxury objects.

A sound of light steps in the corridor. Mary looked up, and her smile faded in an expression of displeasure and resignation.

"Honey, your poor dress. And look at that hair of yours. Come here."

A young woman, as fresh as the white rose she had just smelled, came forth. She was not very tall, but the gentle curves smoothing out her slim body balanced her figure; her lunar skin contrasted with the mane of raven-black hair which, intolerant of the braid, had escaped it in rebel strands. On her oval face, under a small and slightly sharp nose, a pair of lips the color of chestnut flowers were stretched in a nervous smile; two big eyes as blue as a clear sky lit up her gaze, and were framed by thin but perfectly arched eyebrows.

Her rosy-brown dress was stained of grass and dirt, and given that she couldn't hide it, she kept both arms behind her back, trying to hide at least the other thing.

"Storm has gotten fast," she said with a hint of pride.

"Don't blame your horse," Mary said. "But you are sweating! And what's behind your back?"

"Nothing," she replied, a bit too quickly. She stepped back. "I'll be right back, mum. I need a nice bath, and..."

At that moment, Chris entered. In sixteen years, the bizarre look of the legendary Hessian Horseman had not changed much; he always looked ageless, except for the silvery strands in his wild black hair. He had the usual hypnotic charm that Mary hadn't resisted. Upon seeing his daughter, he smiled, baring his restored and slightly gapped teeth.

"How was your day, kleine Walküre?" he asked. Sibyl usually spoke German with her father and English with her mother. Chris and Mary had always made sure that their daughter learned to speak and write in both languages, while Mary, since her arrival in Hesse, had taught some English to the housekeepers and most of the workers.

"Three bull's eyes in a row," Sibyl said grinning. "Not one, not two, but three."

"That's my daughter," he said, beaming.

Mary, who didn't speak much German but understood it pretty well, got up and stood between her husband and daughter, looking the latter into the eyes.

"Three bull's eyes, Sibyl?"

Sibyl put on her most innocent smile, but Mary held her gaze. The girl knew it was no use to lie to her mother, so she sighed and brought her white arms from her back to the front. They were wrapped in leather straps to protect the skin from splinters and calluses. In her right hand, she held an axe. It was smaller and lighter than her father's legendary axe, but just as sharp.

Mary's eyes went wide and she turned to Chris, glaring. "You gave your daughter an axe?"

"Big deal! Girl must learn to defend herself," he said, as if it were obvious.

"Defend herself from what, Chris? From a lion?"

Father and daughter exchanged a knowing look. Each was the mirror of the other.

"Alright, you did it behind my back, you two," Mary said. "Go get cleaned up, or I won't allow you to sit at the table."

Chris and Sibyl walked away, snickering, and Mary was left alone with Inga. The old housekeeper of the Schillers was in her sixties by now, but still the usual human stronghold. In the house she was aided by her daughter-in-law Bridget, Otto's young wife, and by other girls working in turns. Mary, who cared about these people as her own family, constantly worked by their side.

"Sibyl has been horse-racing like there's no tomorrow, and she's made a habit of venturing in the woods to 'swing the axe', as they say," she told Inga. Mary was not a lover of weapons. Especially of axes. And with a good reason: those deadly tools reminded her every day of her bloody past, and in the familiar curved blades she could see the empty eyes of the heads she had cut off and had ordered to cut off. She knew that it was completely different for Chris and Sibyl: Chris had always loved weapons with a passion, especially bladed ones, and then they were still part of his job as a trainer for horsemen and swordsmen. Sibyl, instead, had started using them as mere entertainment, and never against living creatures, for which the girl felt the deepest respect.

"Blood will tell," laughed Inga. "But do not worry, dear. Sibyl is a sweetheart: playing with an axe won't make her cruel. Unlike how it was for her father, she is surrounded by the warmest affection. There is nothing that makes her upset."

"That's true," Mary said. "Except for the nightmares... and those apparitions..."

She and Inga looked at each other, worried. "How did she look to you this morning? Do you think she's managed to sleep lately?" Mary asked.

"Well, the dark circles have faded away, her eyes don't look swollen, and there's color on her lips and cheeks," said Inga, who always tried to see the best in a bad situation.

"I have no intention of stuffing her with concoctions for unconsciousness," Mary said, resolute. "They would assure her night rest, yes, but they would also keep her dull, confused, and weary during the day."

"Maybe that's why she goes horse-racing and axe-training," Inga said. "She wants to clear out her mind and exhaust her energies."

"But she can't go on like this," Inga heard the dismay in Mary's voice. Touched, she took Mary's hands, mother to mother.

"Mary, Sibyl is strong. More than she herself thinks, and more than you think. Nothing scares her, and when it did happen, she never surrendered to fear. She never gave up, never let herself go to the darkness of mind. She's an ever-burning fire. Inside of her, is a warrior. Your soul and Chris's soul are merged into her, don't forget it. She will learn to understand this thing, and nobody like her will be able to deal with it."

Mary, the former merciless Lady Van Tassel, a cruel and vengeful witch, a cold-blooded murderer who had suffocated every glimmer of affection until she had met the Angel, felt her heart ache for her beloved daughter. With eyes full of tears, she wrapped the old housekeeper in a hug.

"If you didn't exist, my dear Inga, someone should invent you," she said.

Against Mary's low expectations, Sibyl was radiant with joy for the set of diamonds and sapphires which her mother had had made by an old acquaintance named Hans Schmidt. The gems matched with the girl's porcelain skin and blue eyes, making her shine like a star.

Sibyl had entirely changed her parents' lives. She was obviously unaware of their gruesome past; all she knew was that her mother was American, from New York, and her father had met her during a brief stay in America, eventually taking her with him in Hesse. A very romantic little story. The girl ignored the existence of Sleepy Hollow, and was deeply skeptical about the existence of the Netherworld. She did believe in something superior to human nature, in a force moving other forces, and she believed that earthly life meant something more than a mere time span between the cradle and the grave, but she allowed herself the benefit of the doubt. After all she was just a teenage girl, who had no wish to overthink issues she could not comprehend.

Witchcraft, ghosts, and spells were nothing more than fairytales for Sibyl.

But there were those visions... and those nightmares...

She didn't know how to call it. A second sight? A third eye? A sixth sense? An extra-sensory perception?

Sibyl could perceive things no one else could have ever perceived; without understanding how and why, she could literally see clear. A ray of moonlight in total darkness, a small piece of matter in the emptiness, a sigh in the silence, something instead of nothing.

She was both blessed and cursed, with the gift of clairvoyance.

The phenomena had started years before, when she was still a young girl. She could feel presences, sensations, emotions... All unknown, and all negative. Sometimes they would take shape, assuming human features... The constant was the pain. They were all suffering presences, which she could neither place in time or space, nor understand. They would appear to her after twilight, at irregular frequencies, but it was in the dimension of dreams that these entities would torment her the most: men, women, and children, wounded, mutilated, crying or screaming... Many of them would appear without head on their necks, holding it in their hands... and their eyes were always filled with terror. By now, Sibyl's sleepless nights were uncountable.

However, the girl did not seem to give up, just as Inga had said. The presences did scare her a lot, without a doubt, but she had never fallen into madness. Her rational mind would never be infected by them. She received those visions, and waited. She didn't know what exactly, she didn't know why. Perhaps she was waiting to be able to figure them out.