Sleepy Hollow Shooting Script
KATRINA Hush… hush… you were dreaming.
Ichabod falls back on the pillow.
ICHABOD Yes… thing I had forgotten and would like not to remember.
KATRINA Perhaps the remembering is the hard road to peace of mind… What ails you, Ichabod?
ICHABOD I was well, it was the world that was ill… But since I came here…
KATRINA You were not a happy man when you came. I think your wound was deeper than the wound you received from the Horseman… (she puts her hand on his forehead) But your fever is broken, and though I cannot cure the world I would make you live happy in it… Tell me what you dreamed.
ICHABOD How I found my mother dead… how good and evil sometimes wear each other’s clothes. She was an innocent, a child of nature, condemned… murdered… by my father…
KATRINA Murdered by… ?
ICHABOD Yes-murdered to save her soul! By a Bible-Black tyrant behind a mask of righteousness. I was seven when I lost my faith.
KATRINA What do you believe in, Ichabod?
ICHABOD Sense and reason, cause and consequence, an ordered universe… Oh lord, I should not have come to this place where my rational mind has been so controverted by the spirit world…
KATRINA Is there nothing you will take from Sleepy Hollow that was worth the coming here?
Their eyes meet.
ICHABOD No… not nothing. A kiss… and how rare a thing… a kiss from a lovely woman before she saw my face or knew my name.
KATRINA Yes, without sense or reason…
They hold still, perhaps about to kiss.
KATRINA (CONT’D) It was a kiss on account.
But Ichabod breaks the moment.
ICHABOD Oh-God forgive me-I talk of kisses and you have lost your brave man Brom- KATRINA I have shed my tears for Brom… and yet my heart is not broken. Do you think me wicked?
ICHABOD No… but perhaps there is a little bit of the witch in you, Katrina.
KATRINA Why do you say that?
ICHABOD Because you have bewitched me.
This time their held look turns into a passionate embrace…
EXT. VAN TASSEL HOUSE, PORCH-NIGHT
Young Masbath slowly opens the door to peer out. He walks out onto the porch, watching as…
ACROSS THE LAWN, a CLOAKED FIGURE walks, carrying a LANTERN. The figure heads onto the long straight road, into the forest, lantern light dissipating.
Young Masbath steps off the porch, in cautious pursuit.
EXT. THE HOLLOW-EARLY MORNING
Dawn light is visible over fog-shrouded forests.
INT. VAN TASSEL HOUSE, ICHABOD’S ROOM-MORNING
Ichabod awakes, rolls… finds Lady Van Tassel at his bedside with food and drink. Ichabod covers himself with his sheets.
LADY VAN TASSEL You slept like the dead.
ICHABOD You are too kind to me… I do not look to be served by the lady of the house.
LADY VAN TASSEL (smiles) Nor would you be but that the servant girl has vanished.
ICHABOD Sarah?
LADY VAN TASSEL Run away, like many more-people are leaving in fear without ceremony.
ICHABOD Where is… ?
LADY VAN TASSEL She watched over you till dawn. Now it is her turn to sleep.
Young Masbath enters as Lady Van Tassel goes out.
Ichabod looks at his palms, which are stained with dried blood.
ICHABOD Help me. I am fit for another day, I think.
The scene incorporates Young Masbath pouring water for Ichabod to wash himself, and helping him into his clothes.
YOUNG MASBATH Where are we going?
ICHABOD To the Notary’s office.
YOUNG MASBATH Why?
ICHABOD Because that is where I expect to find deposited… the last will and testament of the elder Van Garrett…
YOUNG MASBATH You have thought of something…
ICHABOD … of something you said, Young Masbath… The Widow Winship came many a day with a basket of eggs to Van Garrett… who I understand had hens to spare… I begin to see. It was Van Garrett’s child that the widow was carrying. And what news have you?
YOUNG MASBATH I heard someone leaving last night. Looked like they headed to town, but I lost them in the woods.
ICHABOD You didn’t see who?
YOUNG MASBATH All I saw was their lantern.
Ichabod ponders, troubled, as Masbath brings him a shirt.
ICHABOD The Horseman does the killing but, I believe, at the bidding of a mortal, someone of flesh and blood.
YOUNG MASBATH What… ? What makes you say that?
ICHABOD The witch… the crone, when I happened upon her corpse, she lay in a pool of blood. Blood poured hard from her neck. The wound was not cauterized.
YOUNG MASBATH Then, she was not killed by the Hessian. Someone only tried to make it seem so.
ICHABOD (nods) It was the settling of a private score. But the Horseman cuts heads to a different drum. The crone pointed us to what drives the Hessian-his skull has been stolen from his grave. The person who stole it has power over the Hessian. Here is why the Headless One has returned through the gate of the Tree of the Dead. He chops heads until his own is restored to him.
YOUNG MASBATH But what person… ?
ICHABOD A person who stands to gain by these murders.
EXT. TOWN SQUARE, CHURCH-DAY
WAGONS, HORSES and TOWNSPEOPLE swarm. A CROWD empties the town’s general store. Provisions are passed along, man to man, and loaded onto wheelbarrows.
Ichabod and Young Masbath ride, passing MANY ANGRY FACES.
All up and down the long straight road, home owners board up windows with lumber.
Ichabod and Young Masbath stop, tying their horses in front of the “NOTARY.” Ichabod looks off…
DOWN THE ROAD, people head to the CHURCH. Much activity…
ICHABOD Sanctuary. Or, so they hope.
People carry supplies into the church, within the bordering WROUGHT- IRON FENCE. Others work to build and erect massive WOODEN CROSSES.
In the crowd here, Reverend Steenwyck spots Ichabod and Young Masbath, pushes past people, shouting…
STEENWYCK There he is! There… !
People begin to pay attention to Steenwyck as he climbs atop a crate, pointing toward Ichabod…
STEENWYCK (CONT’D) (to everyone) The desecrater of Christian burial! Twice he met the Horseman, and kept his head! How is it so… ?
AT THE NOTARY, Ichabod tries to ignore, heads inside, as a clod of earth hits him on the shoulder.
IN THE CHURCHYARD, Steenwyck continues his rant.
STEENWYCK (CONT’D) The Devil protects his own!
INT. NOTARY PUBLIC, HARDENBROOK’S OFFICES-DAY
A small, untidy room with piles of dusty documents in great disorder. The Notary Hardenbrook looks at Ichabod with his one good eye. Young Masbath stands near.
ICHABOD I take it, Mr. Hardenbrook, that wills and testaments are held here on public record?
Hardenbrook is in a funk, trying to act calm. He passes a document across the desk.
HARDENBROOK I believe this is what you wish to see. Take it and go!
Ichabod scans the will of Peter Van Garrett.
HARDENBROOK (CONT’D) Van Garrett Senior left his estate to his next of kin, that is to say, to his only son. However, the son being murdered in the same instant…
ICHABOD The next of kin after the son would be the eldest of the line from Van Garrett’s father’s sister… none other than the Baltus Van Tassel: something else no one thought to mention!
HARDENBROOK Well, you have found your way to it, and I hope you will leave now before my windows are boken.
The crowd murmurs outside like angry bees. Ichabod flourishes the will.
ICHABOD I am not ready to leave.
Hardenbrook starts moaning and wringing his hands.
ICHABOD (CONT’D) A brick through your window is not what puts you in terror, Hardenbrook … there is something else… I saw your fear, and Steenwyck’s and the doctor’s, when you met at Philipse’s house… Philipse paid with his head, and you fear for your own.
HARDENBROOK Yes, it’s true! -but we did not know it was a murdering plot when we were drawn in!
ICHABOD Drawn in by whom?!
HARDENBROOK Mercy upon me! -We meant no harm to come to her!
