Overdressed for the muggy weather spreading across the Hudson Valley like a damp weighted blanket, a hungover Iggy Crane arrived at the Sleepy Hollow Girls’ Preparatory Academy at 5:05 p.m. on a Sunday in early June, the night before summer session started. Leaving behind an overpriced and overcrowded Brooklyn apartment, Iggy brought two pieces of luggage—a lilac-colored suitcase stuffed with clothing, toiletries, and assorted miscellany, and an extra-large raincloud-gray duffel containing horse-riding gear, a saddle, and her riding outfits. She also came blissfully unaware of the specter rumored to haunt the trails around the posh private institution: the so-called Headless Horse Girl.

When agreeing to the summer post, Iggy refused to accept its advertised temporary status. The offspring of a Mississippi oilman and a woman whose parental oversight extended to placement on the society page and no further, Iggy Crane came with an expectation of things “working themselves out.”

Owing to a miscommunication with the town car driver hired to bring her from the city to the school, Iggy stumbled to the academy’s administration building with sore thighs, her hair in a tangle of humidity-ravaged curls, and a sinus headache pounding behind her eyes like an explosion of horse hooves on tight-packed soil. Cigar smoke and the sound of balled-up racing slips slamming against metal bleachers would’ve completed the illusion of a life she’d believed was left to her past.

Emerging from the tree-lined walking path and approaching the old brick steps of the admin building, Iggy’s complaints sat forgotten on her tongue at the sight of Headmistress Catherine van Tassel’s smile.

If cruel eyes gleamed in hyena-pack formation from the surrounding grassy commons, Iggy didn’t see. If bare hands or feet slapped against the paved ground, if blood splattered on the grass, Iggy didn’t hear. The smile drew her forth from the dark. She was planetary debris pulled into the matter-destroying interior of a deep-space black hole.

Reality and conversation slipped back into focus. “. . . delighted you’re here to help our girls with their horses, Ms. Crane.”

Another flashback took hold, a scene replayed from Iggy’s own student life. On acid at a frat house Halloween party, she’d watched a friend take too many shots of Everclear before falling headfirst into a Jack O’ Lantern. She remembered how he’d come back wearing an upside-down orange grin and how the plastic-handled carving knife made a twanging sound, like a plucked banjo string, when it jammed through one of her wasted friend’s eyes. He’d flopped his arms and skittered around like a demented marionette, screams muffled by unscooped pumpkin guts.

Like the sight of her friend’s shuddering dance of pain, the Headmistress’s smile had a similar stupefying effect on Iggy. “Thank you, Headmistress,” Iggy said.

“Please, call me Cat. All my friends do.”

Call it lust, call it infatuation, Iggy Crane’s quest for sustained employment at the Sleepy Hollow Girls’ Preparatory Academy took an immediate backseat to her pursuit of the affections of Headmistress Catherine “Cat” van Tassel. Backlit by the twin sconces on either side of the admin building’s main entrance, the Headmistress’s short blonde hair glimmered under the soft lights. The swoop of ghost-white set against the top of the woman’s head reminded Iggy of the New Wave pop stars whose photos she’d cut from her big sister’s old punk-rock magazines. She used to hide them in shoeboxes under the bed.

*     *     *
“The Bones Girls” got their clique name when, during their first week at school, the four young ladies each broke a bone in separate incidents and met in the Academy’s infirmary. The breaking of their bones kick-started an inseparable friendship and alliance. United by pain, they rocketed to the top of the school’s social food chain. Not the prettiest, not the most studious, and not the nicest, the Bones Girls were rowdy, boisterous, and unapologetically united.

Daring the faculty to oppose them, the foursome never submitted projects, book reports, or even pop quizzes as individuals. Instead, everything became a group project. Britney, Rosa, Olivia, and Meredith even signed their joint tests with a tiny skull and crossbones symbol, the quality of which varied depending on what Girl happened to hold the pen or pencil at signing.

*     *     *
Headmistress Cat gave Iggy a nighttime walking tour of the campus, pointing out various buildings older than both tour guide and guided, and sharing a somewhat restrained version of the Bones Girls’ story along the way. “They mean well,” she said as if the potential explanation excused their strange behaviors.

Iggy nodded along with every word, but not too hard. Not so much she’d draw attention to herself. Even still, her focus on achieving the correct level of nodding caused her to bump against her new employer when the latter stopped at the end of the path they’d taken through campus. “Well, I suppose there’s one more place you’d like to see,” the Headmistress said, brushing off the contact with restrained ease.

Iggy took a slow breath in, the scent of peppermint from her brief contact with the Headmistress tickling her nostrils. “Bed?”

The Headmistress’s laughter wasn’t dismissive. She stepped aside and revealed a dirt path extending to the grassy meadowlands behind the school. Instead of peppermint, a foul combination of dried manure and damp hay stampeded over the young teacher’s senses. Iggy wrinkled her nose.

“Okay, well, two things you want to see. I assume you want to inspect our stables. Right, Ms. Crane?”

Iggy unwrinkled her nose and returned to nodding.

“Of course,” she said. “I love horses.”

*     *     *
The next day, the first of summer session, Iggy Crane woke alone in her bed in the teachers’ dormitories. Having showered and dressed in her riding gear before bed (a habit picked up from her father, who’d slept in his best suit on the eve of every major business deal or life-changing decision—except for his last), she applied makeup and pulled her mass of tangled brown hair into a tight ponytail before starting her day. She left her room a good hour early, giving herself time to partake of the buffet-style breakfast offerings in the cafeteria. Croissants, muffins, links of vegan sausage, fruit wedges pooling sticky pink and green juices around the rim of her plate. Sitting at a small bistro-style table facing the entrance of the cafeteria, Iggy watched summer-session teachers and students steal glances at her, the new face in their tiny enclave.

Iggy wondered if any of the faces cutting eyes in her direction belonged to the Bones Girls.

After polishing off breakfast, Iggy arrived at the stables five minutes early. She found the four horses assigned to her students already fed, brushed, and saddled, ready for a day of galloping through the fresh-cut grass and trotting down dust-cracked trails. The black heels of her riding boots sunk into the straw-scattered dirt with each step. In stall after stall, Iggy found a horse ready to ride, but no riders.

Approaching the next-to-last stall, Iggy heard the murmuring voices of her new charges.

The Bones Girls ignored their new riding instructor standing in front of them and paid no attention to the tired old nag in the stall behind, instead giving their full attention to a video playing on one of their smartphones. Iggy missed getting a good look at the video, given the tight circle formed by the Bones Girls, but she caught glimpses of an empty horse arena ringed by tall hedges. She didn’t see any horses.

Iggy stepped into the fray, still trusting things to work themselves out. “What’re we watching, ladies?” she asked.

The phone went black after their thumbs flicked across the screen like the darting tongues of fly-crazed frogs. Eight eyes looked Iggy up and down, four faces imperceptible in their study of their new instructor. The synchronized judgment made Iggy stop short, with one foot still raised to move forward. She planted it back in the dirt at an awkward angle and rocked back a step.

“Okay.” Remembering the Headmistress’s warning about the girls and deciding not to push too hard on her first official day, Iggy fell back to her favorite safe subject: herself.

She went through her introductory spiel, listing riding schools she’d attended, naming winning jockeys who’d taught her how to take turns on the track in the most efficient ways, and recalling dressage experts obsessed with form and style.

When she finished, Iggy paused before pulling out a piece of paper where she’d scribbled the Bones Girls’ names for attendance-taking.

“Britney?”

“Here.”

All four spoke at once. Polished and practiced in their “I am Spartacus” routine.

“Rosa?”

“Here.”

Again, all at once.

The behavior repeated for the last two girls. All four answered for all four names, making it clear: where one went, the others walked alongside.

“So, why’d you want to take this summer’s Equestrian Fun course?”

“We like horses.” There was a slight delay as they attempted to sync their off-the-cuff answers. Iggy found comfort there. It showed their speech as affectation rather than any supernatural synchronization.

“We love horses.” Each took a deep breath in before they continued. “Though not as much as the Headless Horse Girl.”

Pitch-perfect, even down to their trailing silence at the end.

Iggy peered inside the next-to-last stall, giving some consideration to the worn-out old mare chomping with relaxed but insistent vigor at a pile of straw already splattered by ricocheted chunks of her expelled horse turds. “Hmm,” she said. “Let’s see if there’s something else over here.”

Iggy’s singular voice rang hollow and tiny in her head. When she stepped toward the last stable, the polished black and brown boots of the Bones Girls kicked up old straw chunks and gravel. They moved in formation, blocking Iggy’s path and shaking their heads together.

“Sorry ma’am,” they said. “There’s no horse in there. You’ve gotta ride Vanna White over here.”

They pointed to the nag. The horse didn’t bother to lift her head at the sound of her name. Her tired bloodshot eyes rolled back white.

Iggy’s displeasure registered on her face.

“She’s a good horse. Faster than you’d think,” the Bones Girls said. As a way of further convincing their new instructor, they added, “They keep the last stall empty. There’s been no horse in there for a long time.”

The Bones Girls walked from Iggy’s stall and split apart, the way sparrows dart from their migratory V, a temporary separation before inevitable reunion. They moved into their stalls, each claiming a horse as their own, leaving Iggy alone with Vanna White.

Iggy kicked loose rotting straw over a turd and made a mental note to make the Bones Girls clean the stables later.

Iggy’s past-her-prime horse gave a strangled cry as she found someone else inside her stall-sized world. The noise reminded Iggy of a car alarm left screaming and screaming against a busy curbside on a hot summer day. She reached out and touched the surrounding wall, the part shared with the supposedly empty final stall. Her warm palm touched the peeling white-painted wood and became clammy, slicked with sweat. She considered a quick peek over, just to make certain the last stall really was empty.

An insistent nudge at her elbow pulled Iggy away from her investigation before it could even get underway. She turned to face her steed, stifling a bemused chuckle at the sight of sagging horseflesh wrapped around a fat, bloated head.

By the time horse and rider made it out of the stable and onto the field, the Bones Girls appeared bored atop their mounts. Iggy forced a grin, unwilling to let the girls intimidate her. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s ride.”

*     *     *
When Iggy held her hand up and signaled for the foursome to return to the stables, she dropped it quickly to reestablish her double grip on Vanna White’s reins. Even the slow and steady gait of the nag proved too much for the worn-out instructor. Iggy winced, remembering her first conversation with the Headmistress when she’d commented on the recency of her equestrian experience. My last time around horses? Oh recently, very recently. Always, really.

The Bones Girls received no points for style and grace, but they made up for those deficiencies with their raw power and stamina. They ran their horses hard. Iggy looked back across the open field and picked out the furrows made by each horse and rider combo.

Iggy pulled up to the stable and found all four girls off their horses and all four horses back in their stalls. In turn, Iggy led her aged mount by the bridle, grateful for the girls' absorption in their post-ride tasks. They missed seeing the way she winced with each step or how her knees knocked together like dull wooden blocks played by a toddler in nursery school music class.

Absorbed by her pain, Iggy walked too far, stepping past Vanna White’s stall and heading for the end of the line. She faced a shadow on the final stall’s far wall, something resembling one of the ponies from her childhood. But the proportions, even in shadow? All wrong. Its back legs were longer than the front. A disjointed outline replaced the expected swooping curve from neck to belly to tail. And the head?

Horse teeth fell heavy on Iggy’s shoulder. Not enough to tear clothes or break skin, but enough to get her attention. Vanna White pulled her rider back from the dark. With a frustrated sigh, Iggy dragged the old horse into her stall, giving her the most perfunctory of brushes and rubdowns. After she’d crammed a sugar lump between yellowed teeth, Iggy exited the stables and didn’t check if the shadow remained.

The Bones Girls were already gone.

When Iggy returned to her room to change into her “civilian” clothes, she found two text threads waiting on her cellphone. First, a group text, four other numbers besides her own making it easy to guess the senders’ identities. Three messages and one link, each item from a different number.

Here’s what.

We were.

Watching.

The last message’s URL opened a video file when Iggy clicked on it. She recognized the same horse riding arena she’d glimpsed in the video the Bones Girls had been watching back in the stables, but it looked different somehow. Undersaturated, drained of life and color, emerald-green shrubbery became inky black blobs, and the girl—of course, there was a girl—appeared pale white like a funeral shroud on-screen.

And yet . . .

When the girl at the empty horse arena dropped onto the ground on all fours, Iggy covered her mouth with her free hand to stifle the giggles. The girl wore a “My Little Pony” t-shirt, a genuine vintage number from the 1980s, and jean shorts.

Her uncovered limbs, arching back, taut neck, and shoulder muscles all stood out. The girl’s arms and legs were muscular and sinewy, but also gangly. She got into position, like a foal taking her first afterbirth-covered steps fresh from her mother’s womb.

Everything changed when the girl moved. She took off at a trot, navigating around the nearest obstacles in the arena. She pranced around the first gate, shaking her long black hair from side to side like a show pony displaying her coiffed mane for the judges. Her backside twitched like a phantom tail. And then the girl picked up speed, moving from a trot to a full-on gallop, heading for the first jump, a fence set two-and-a-half feet tall.

Iggy found herself invested in the strange athletic feat being performed onscreen. She gripped her phone with both hands.

The first fence sat low to the ground, easy enough for a person on two legs to cross it. But someone galloping, their limbs moving in the same synchronous motions as a horse’s legs?

The girl’s shins pressed against the undersides of her upper legs like a spring-loaded chamber being prepped. And then? The explosion, the girl leaping up and over the obstacle. Her body stretched across the screen. The Horse Girl filled in the sky, like the sun’s last light show before settling in at dusk. There was no sun, only the Horse Girl.

She cleared the fence.

“Yes!”

Iggy caught herself cheering for the strange young woman’s feat. She bobbled the phone from her hand. As it fell onto her tossed aside comforter, the sound of something like thunderous applause rose from the video.

When she picked her phone up from her unmade bed, Iggy found the video app closed. A second set of texts caught her eye, pushing the Horse Girl from her mind.

From the Headmistress: Hi it’s Cat.

Sorry. Van Tassel. Sorry.

How’s your first day? Want to come around for cocktails after dinner?

And then: This is my private personal number.

Iggy Crane’s summer plans proceeded as she’d envisioned.

*     *     *
And yet . . .

*     *     *
In the meadow, the crowd of students, teachers, and staff who’d gathered to watch the Fourth of July light show dispersed. Across a full-moon sky, the last of the fireworks burned out like dying stars.

Iggy Crane watched the colorful explosions while leaning against the railing of the Headmistress’s balcony. All alone. “The best view on campus to watch the girls riding their horses. Second best place for me to see you,” Cat—no, not Cat, not anymore for me—the Headmistress had told her weeks before. Her long arms had wrapped a flannel blanket over Iggy’s bare shoulders and had pulled her in close to whisper breakable promises in the younger woman’s ear.

The soft, sweet tones she’d used were now a distant memory for Iggy. More often, their conversations escalated to screaming without argument in between. They threw dishes across kitchens like goddamned clichés. Hours before the fireworks, the Headmistress had moved from tipsy to exasperated and mean. “Fine, Iggy, I admit it: I only hired you because I hoped your family would underwrite some of the developments intended for . . .”

Nearing black-out drunk beneath a smoke-streaked sky peppered by fizzling sparklers, Iggy found the details of the few hours previous came with a certain fuzziness. She held onto moments, feelings—the way her heart sank into her stomach. She remembered the Headmistress’s eyes, her dawning realization of what Iggy’s trembling lip meant.

Iggy had forced out every word. About her father’s gambling debts. About how he’d gone to “settle up” with the bookie to whom he owed their family fortune, Iggy’s inheritance included. About what her dear old Daddy had meant when he’d said he was going to “settle up,” how he’d actually meant he was going to “take a swan dive off an oil derrick.” About the pictures of the final bloody tableau sent to her family, the earth stained black enough to mistake her father for oil leaking up from underground.

The Headmistress had tried talking while Iggy ran through her confession, but there had been too much to confess. Iggy figured she had slipped away at some point, leaving to host the fireworks for her students and her teachers. Once Iggy got around to confirming her family fortune’s depletion, nothing had mattered. That’s when she’d walked to the balcony and watched the first whistle-and-bang explosion.

She suddenly remembered the horses, probably scared out of their minds in the stables. How’re they holding up, I wonder? The Bones Girls were staying with them while the fireworks went off. Not as a punishment, but as part of their “Equestrian Fun.”

The Bones Girls.

They pushed me to watch the rest of the Horse Girl video. That ruined everything. Why’d they make me watch it? What was even in it for them?

*     *     *
Recklessness and indiscretion swam in Iggy’s gene pool. Following an afternoon tryst, she’d faced the Headmistress’s open doorway, giddy with satisfaction. Greedy for more, she’d leaned in and grabbed the other woman by the shoulders, pulling her halfway out the door for a kiss.

“Ms. Crane!” The Headmistress pulled back, retreating into the supposed safety and secrecy of home. Iggy licked her lips and waved goodbye. But as she’d walked away, she heard voices, some persons whispering out of sight, footsteps following. Not one pair of feet or two, more like three or four.

The texts from the Bones Girls picked up again, confirming Iggy’s earlier suspicions. Except no blackmailing over her affair with the Headmistress followed, not directly at least.

Did you

Watch the

Whole video

We sent?

After each text, they’d re-sent the video link. Like a finger poking Iggy in the chest over and over: poke, poke, poke, poke. Raising their eyebrow like, you see? Do you see?

Iggy wandered to the stables. Absent class-time and free-riding hours, she had the building and horses to herself. She made a beeline for Vanna White. Iggy found something comforting in the old gal’s orneriness and flatulence. “Hey, can I buy a vowel?” Iggy asked. Vanna White paid no attention whatsoever.

Iggy shrugged. Nuts to you, then.

She figured she’d put it off long enough and pulled up the Horse Girl’s video on her cell. Her index finger pulled at the on-screen progress bar, moving past the parts she’d watched. There’s the arena, there’s the girl. She’s on all fours. My Little Pony. Trotting. Trotting. Gallop. Gallop. Jump and . . .

Iggy picked her finger up from the screen and the video resumed. The Horse Girl touched back down from her first jump, her breath whooshing out like a prizefighter taking a body shot to prove their toughness. Not breaking her stride, she kept up a galloping pace. And good thing too, considering the next fence stood a full foot taller than the previous. Iggy checked the time left on the video. A few minutes remained.

As she checked, she missed the Horse Girl vaulting over the second fence. Her eyes flicked back to the action in time for the landing. From behind Iggy, Vanna White snickered and whined in her stall, stomping with her forelegs, mashing her old straw into the muddy soup of the ground. Iggy tried to ignore her.

She focused on the thunderous applause she’d heard before. Except this sound came with a tougher, heavier quality to it.

The Horse Girl’s bare palms and soles slapped on the manicured grass, but their movement doesn’t quite match the sound either. Then it all clicked into place. Not applause, but the sound of horse hooves stampeding, barreling through the arena. Splintered remnants of a jumping fence flew forward into the path of the camera. An equine shadow hung above the Horse Girl.

Iggy watched it get closer, closer, and saw fear in the Horse Girl’s eyes. Slick from nervous sweat, Iggy’s finger slipped against the video’s progress bar again. She went too far ahead.

The video played from a point where Iggy caught the thick burnt-tree-trunk back legs of a massive stallion thundering out of frame. The Horse Girl slumped on the ground, frozen in time. Her back arched at an unnatural angle. Her head was gone, replaced by a blossoming red and pink bouquet, like someone had sprinkled middle school Valentine’s carnations in the arena.

Rewinding, Iggy watched what happened to the Horse Girl in reverse. The shattered pieces of her face stitched back together. The black stallion’s massive hoof pulled up from the ground, traveling up through her chin, back out the top of the Horse Girl’s skull. Every drop of blood, every bit of brain, every hair put back into place until the horse was gone and the shade remained.

She played it through again, confident she’d already experienced the worst. Egged on by those texts from the Bones Girls, she put herself through the sight of the Headless Horse Girl’s creation once more. A white banner fluttered across the frame like some massive mythological bird, either side of the cloth flapping like wings ready to take off and fly away, up to the full moon.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, Iggy watched the winds bring the banner down slow, giving her a chance to read the words printed in shiny golden script across the blood-splattered fabric: VAN TASSEL RIDING ARENA.

*     *     *
The campfire smoke blurred Iggy’s eyes, tracers of light appearing behind every popping spark from the crackling wood. The mushrooms Iggy had taken in the middle of the fireworks show kicked in. She stood in the dark, watching her riding students passing around a bottle of Malibu rum taken from the Headmistress’s liquor cabinet.

When she studied the fire-lit faces of the Bones Girls, Iggy found their mouths closed tight, like someone had used needle and thread to sew them shut. But she heard them, talking together, inside her head.

“The Headmistress’s family owned the arena. It closed after the accident.”

“It’s nearby?” Iggy touched her lips, making sure they still moved.

“It’s right behind the school.”

Iggy looked up from the eye-watering firelight. She put a hand above her eyes and peered past whirling, pinwheeling shapes. Dull stadium lights glowed around the trees.

It didn’t make sense. Iggy had never noticed those lights before.

“We’re surprised you haven’t been. Considering how much you love horses.”

Iggy nodded.

“I do love horses. Don’t I?”

The Bones Girls shrugged their shoulders, a rippling wave of indifference. Iggy blushed, realizing she’d spoken her question out loud.

Iggy changed into her riding clothes. Her hands rubbed grass stains and dirt on the black cloth of her riding jacket. Her legs tingled, warm from the fire baking its way through the khaki jodhpurs. “Okay, let’s all go,” she said, looking around the campfire circle, seeking the buy-in of the Bones Girls.

They gave her a slow clap. Let it grow and grow, rolling like thunderclaps on a late summer evening. Iggy stared into the flames and noticed the upside-down pumpkin grinning on her old friend’s head. Blood spilled from both his triangle eyes and from his jagged, smiling teeth.

*     *     *
When Iggy stepped inside the empty arena, the Bones Girls were gone, slipped away in the night. Were they ever here at all? Iggy let go of the notion, knowing her nightmare was of a more recent vintage.

“Hello?”

Her question echoed off the bleachers. Her hands touched the hedges while her eyes fell upon something else.

She was not alone.

The Headless Horse Girl ran in circles, kicking up dirt and grass on the other side of the arena. Iggy took slow, measured steps, weaving her way around the obstacles, inching closer to the phantom. Iggy watched blood droplets flung from the long-dead girl’s ruined neck wound, the space marking the absence of her head. Iggy stepped closer and closer.

The Headless Horse Girl’s My Little Pony shirt darkened from white to a blood-soaked pink, then red. It stuck to her pale skin. The sight of her affected Iggy beyond mere disgust. Something hideous yet beautiful remained in the sleek, powerful limbs of the dead girl bucking in headless arcs like a wild rodeo bronco.

She can’t see me, Iggy thought. But when the Headless Horse Girl’s shoulders lifted upward, her stubby neck tilting like an animal regarding some unnatural intrusion, Iggy doubted that conclusion.

She stopped in her tracks, regretful of all her decisions made along the way. Moving closer and closer, for the first time, Iggy Crane worried she was mistaken about everything working out. Not just this once either, but all the times before.

The Headless Horse Girl reared up on her front legs, phantom tail twitching, blood spray angled to form a temporary mane. She took off at a full-speed gallop, heading right for Iggy. The riding instructor looked left to right, back behind her too.

My last time around horses? Oh recently, very recently. Always really.

Iggy recognized the sound of horse hooves thundering like applause. From the thinnest of the surrounding shadows, a pitch-black stallion burst from a pocket of nowhere and into the arena. Iggy fell to the ground, staring up at the muscular, savage beast. Its eyes glowed red and threw sparks like fireworks, like out-of-control campfires catching the dry wood of old horse stables ablaze.

For the first time, Iggy glimpsed a rider atop the phantom horse. It was cloaked in dark garments, wearing the same grinning pumpkin face as her bloody friend from school. The rider pulled back on the reins and spurred his steed forward, heading right for Iggy, who scrambled in the dust with nowhere to run.

Corpse-cold hands found Iggy’s skin. They pulled at her pressed white shirt, at her coat. She gazed back into the bloody stump of the Headless Horse Girl. Dirt clods exploded from the black stallion’s hooves, spraying Iggy and her ghostly savior. Blood baptized Iggy and she nodded her head in quick acceptance.

Iggy swung herself up and over, rider mounting steed. She clung to the My Little Pony t-shirt fabric as the Headless Horse Girl leaped clear of the stampeding charger. Then, they rode on—away from the arena built in the path of old ghosts, heading back to the school.

*     *     *
Later, everyone at the Sleepy Hollow Girls’ Preparatory Academy noted how lucky they’d been to escape the roaring flames tearing through the tinderbox buildings. Someone let the horses out from the stables, thank god, leaving them to gallop in panicked circles, digging furrows in the burning grass.

One person remained unaccounted for, though—the riding instructor the school had hired for the summer term. Spurred on by the Bones Girls dropping conspiracy theory morsels to anyone who’d listen, students and teachers would soon whisper about sightings of Iggy Crane fire-touched and moonlit, pulling back on the shoulders of the Headless Horse Girl.

The pair rode out into the night-world, loping into the moon-soaked dark.