Her tears are like diamonds falling from her eyes, trickling down her cheeks and running into the grass.
The thunder that rips through the sky are her cries from deep within.
The lightning is the electric pulse that throbs through her veins.
The wind is the breath that she can’t seem to catch.
And the grave that she kneels over is her heart, slowly fading away.
Here lies Sarah Clayton, the forgotten.
I am the girl that died.
I can still feel the splinters prick my fingers.
I can still smell the vanilla flowers they placed on my chest. My fingers laced over the sharp thorns, pricking my skin. The blood swelled over the stems and quietly dropped onto my white night gown, seeping through to my bones.
I can still hear the whispers of the dead, crying out in the dark.
All the while I wonder why I am still bleeding. Why hasn’t it stopped?
I was the first to die out of the six bodies recovered.
Sometimes I wonder if I was chosen, handpicked by God.
We were all eight years old and terrified of the dark. All little girls whom went to the same Sunday school class and loved to eat candied lemon drops, under the grand maple tree of our church playground.
That’s where he was waiting in the quiet mist of Sleepy Hollow.
Ivy Pritchett was found after me, propped up against the wall of a theater in our town park.
Her long chestnut hair was braided in pigtails and her face was painted like a porcelain dolls, rosy cheeks and crimson lips.
The roses sewn onto her buttercup yellow dress, stood out against her pale skin and limp limbs.
Her tiny fingers wrapped around the oleander flowers, painted in her favorite color of a deep violet.
Ivy was Sleepy Hollows very own sleeping beauty.
The body they uncovered soon after was Tara Ferguson
She was found in the town forest by a group of teenagers out to build a campfire in the woods.
Her blond hair had been cut short and curled into small ringlets around her angelic face. Her head tilts down slightly and if you looked closely, underneath the doll like makeup, stitches had been placed on either side of her mouth to make her smile forever.
In one hand she held a small brown teddy bear that sat very still on her light pink dress. In the other hand she held oleander flowers painted in her favorite color of a bright yellow.
Tara became the misguided goldilocks of Sleepy Hollow.
Holly Thomas was found one week later, a day before she turned nine.
Her long red hair had been shaved off and a golden wig sewn onto her scalp. She was also found in the woods, only her body was turned on her side against the base of a tree as if she were sleeping. Her small hands had been propped under her cheek, carefully so no makeup was smeared.
The oleander flowers were painted in a dark magenta of her favorite color and leaning against her powder blue dress.
Holly dreams forever in a Sleepy Hollow wonderland.
By the time Robyn Daniels was discovered, the town police force had picked up on the pattern of the killings.
He was imitating the stories of his childhood, and making the fantasy into reality.
She was wearing a teal, cap sleeved dress that kept her body afloat in the town lake. The red oleander flowers had wilted by the time a local fisherman found her. Her long, flame coloring hair swayed gently as the sea creatures beneath scuttled under her and nibbled at her toes.
Robyn floats soundlessly as the Sleepy Hollow mermaid.
Charlotte Grey was the last to die.
The town thought the killings had stopped. But three weeks later they found her at the creek, sitting on the bridge with her legs dangling over the edge. Her raven hair was pushed over one shoulder while her head lay across her folded arms, nailed to the railing.
The tiny red hood of the small dress he had placed her in, rested on the crown of her head, sewn onto the top of her scalp.
This time he left only one oleander flower as a symbol of the last death. The white petals bloom as her small hand cups around the short stem.
Charlotte sits on the deserted bridge of Sleepy Hollow forever, the wolf that followed her waits in the shadows.
Our murders were never solved.
As I lay my head on Sarah Clayton’s grave, I place my ear over her bleeding heart.
I can hear a quiet beat if I drown out the rain, the thunder, the lightning, and the wind.
My tears are like red diamonds falling from my eyes, trickling down my cheeks and slipping into the grass unnoticed.
The headstones of every girl lay near to mine in the secret garden of Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.
I know who killed me; he stands above my grave every night holding the very oleander flowers that make me bleed.