Nevermore: A Novel of Love, Loss, & Edgar Allan Poe Read online

  Lenore listened, and worked, rearranging branches, shifting the wood slightly, picking the strong woman's face to release from the pattern first. Anita's voice droned in the background – and she faded into the story, letting it draw her back across the years as she carefully disassembled her drawing, working the faces free.

  Chapter Two

  The carriage pulled away, heading back to the main road and on into the plantations of southern Virginia. Edgar watched it for a moment, wishing he were continuing on, and then turned toward the main door of the Halfway House. He'd written ahead for a room, but had not been in Raleigh long enough to wait for a reply. Besides, the Lake Drummond Hotel was not the sort of place that catered to amenities such as reservations. You could let them know you were coming, but there was literally no way of knowing what you'd walk into when you arrived.

  The tavern was nearly empty when he stepped inside. There was a young boy sweeping the floor, and behind the bar, an older man with well-combed gray hair and a silver mustache who was placing dried and polished glasses on the shelves. The man turned as Edgar entered.

  "We're closed, I'm afraid," he said.

  "I'm here for a room?" Edgar said. He stepped forward. "I wrote ahead. I'm hoping you aren't full, as I need to remain for several days, if possible."

  The bartender dropped his towel on the bar and smiled.

  "Ah," he said. "Mr. Poe. We were expecting you, but I thought you'd arrive tomorrow in the day. We held a room for you, the last empty room available. I was beginning to regret not renting it."

  Edgar let out a breath. "Thank you for holding it," he said. "I'm afraid I don't have any way to leave, so I took something of a chance."

  "Tom," the bartender called to the boy with the broom. "Show Mr. Poe to his room – it's the one right next to the corner, beside Miss MacReady's quarters. And mind you, don't make too much noise. The hour is late, and I imagine she's gone off to sleep."

  "Not that one," the boy said. He grinned. "She's up all hours – seen the light from her window on my way home a couple'a times."

  The bartender frowned. "Never you mind that," the man said. "Do as you're told. And speaking of home, run off when you're done. I don't want you missing an hour's sleep and playing the slacker come tomorrow."

  "Yessir," the boy replied. "Come on, Mister."

  He turned on his heel and hurried toward the door, as if afraid he'd be summoned back after all to wash another pile of dirty dishes, or mop the floor a second time. Edgar nodded to the bartender and followed Tom out into the darkness. As he stepped outside he heard the soft rustle of feathers, and he smiled. He did not look up, but instead turned down the porch.

  Tom had grabbed a key on his way out of the tavern. He unlocked the door to the room, and then handed it over. "There's a lantern in there," he said. "Should be a coal in the fire too, if you poke at it."

  "Thank you, Tom," Edgar said. "Am I to understand that you live on a farm?"

  The boy nodded. "I got four brothers and two sisters, all older. They do most of the farming. Pa hired me on here to do odd jobs and clean up. Said I was always 'underfoot'."

  "I wonder if you might do me a favor, then," Edgar said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a copper penny. "I wonder if you might bring me a bit of corn."

  The boy stared at the penny, then glanced up at Edgar as if certain he was talking to a crazy man.

  "Corn?" he asked.

  "Corn," Edgar affirmed. "I am partial to birds, you see. I like to feed them, and I find that if I drop a handful of corn outside my window they gather very regularly. Can you do this for me?"

  Tom snatched the coin and grinned.

  "You bet," he said.

  "I thank you," Edgar said. The boy turned and hurried off into the night, as though afraid Edgar would ask for the money back.

  With a chuckle and glance to the empty sky, Edgar entered his room. He left the door open a crack until he'd located the lantern. He lit it with practiced ease, turning the wick up just slightly to increase the flame's brightness. Then he returned to the door. He closed it and locked it carefully, then laid his bag on one of the two wooden chairs and pulled it open.

  The room had a small chest of drawers along the side wall, and he carefully unpacked and stored his clothing. Next he pulled out the book he was reading, a novella titled Carmen, by Prosper Mérimée, and his worn copy of Children's and Household Tales – or – Grimm's Fairy Tales. He set these aside almost without thought and drew forth a thick sheaf of papers bound in a ribbon, his pens, and a small bottle of ink. He glanced at the window. Through the curtains he saw that there was a light. He placed the ink, pens, and paper on the table that rested against the wall beneath the window and pulled the curtain aside curiously.

  To the right, along the back of the building and on toward the tavern, only the moonlight shone down to illuminate the trees lining the near side of the Intercoastal Waterway. To the left, however, at the very corner of the building, flickering lamplight danced outside the window of the room adjacent to his.

  What had the tavern keeper said? Miss MacReady? And the boy, Tom? "She's up all hours…"

  It seemed that it was true. Edgar smiled. He was no stranger to late nights. He sometimes believed he would be unable to write at all if it were not for the long hours between dusk and dawn, when the world quieted, after a fashion, the light flickered, the paper took on a yellow lamp-light hue, and his imagination wandered. He thought of his desk, and his home – and that brought him to thoughts of his wife, Virginia, and her failing health.

  He turned abruptly back to the chair and opened a side-pocket on his bag. He pulled free a large, silver-plated flask and carried it to the table. The wind was picking up outside, blowing in from the south. Trees swayed, and the roaring throaty breath of the storm teased along the walls and through the slats of the roof. It was a proper night for writing, and only the words – and the whiskey – could draw him up and out of the cloud of despair that was his constant traveling companion.

  Virginia was always on his mind. Theirs had been a troubled relationship from the beginning, their familial ties, and the girl's age, but he'd seen something in her – some fragile beauty – that completed him. Now – having filled the hole in his heart, she withered, and he felt the pain like a fist squeezing the light from his world.

  If only she'd listen to him. If only the things he knew – the things he could do – could ease her pain. There were curatives – elixirs – potions and charms. He knew he could restore her health, but she would not allow it. Not at what she considered to be the cost of her soul. Not if it meant becoming part and parcel to the powers that swam through the darker recesses of his mind. It was likely that she had trouble deciding if he were evil, or simply mad.

  He knew that, despite her wishes, he could save her, but if he did, she would hate him. She would not be happy, and making her happy was all that he craved. Instead, she died, and he drank, and he wrote and he prayed that when all the smoke and dust had cleared that something of worth would remain.

  A dark shape dropped through the light from the MacReady woman's lantern. Edgar walked to the window, glanced out, and actually smiled. He unfastened the sash and lifted the window a crack. The scents of blooming flowers and impending storm wafted in. He lifted the window a bit farther, and with a hop, a large crow landed on the windowsill, then dropped into the room with a thud. It sat glaring at him for a moment, and then, as if satisfied in some way, began to busily and noisily preen its feathers.

  "Good evening, Grimm." Edgar said with a slight, mock bow. "And it is good to see you too. Perhaps I shall groom my mustache while you are busy, as a show of camaraderie?"

  The bird glanced up at him, and then continued working over its tail feathers in complete indifference.

  Edgar closed the window and took a seat at the table. He arranged his papers carefully, gathering those he'd written the night before on top of a larger stack of blank sheets. He always began by re-reading what
he'd just finished. It served as a quick pre-edit, and it dropped him back into the story with a fresh 'reader's' perspective of the work.

  "Perhaps," he said conversationally, "I shall write a story about a bird – a great black one who is too often inattentive. Grave things might happen to such a creature, don't you think?"

  The crow didn't even bother to glance up at this. Edgar chuckled, and turned to the pages before him. He had meant to write a story of romance and intrigue, but as he read, he saw that – once again – the melancholy that served as his muse had taken over and driven dark spikes between the pages. It was clear that one lover must die at the hand of the other, and that the mystery would depend on the circumstances. The young man in the story was quite mad – as was so often the case – mad and absolutely brilliant. Misunderstood. Lonely.

  He opened the flask and took a long pull, letting the fiery warmth of it roll back over his tongue and down through the chilly expanse of his heart. Grimm hopped to the tabletop in a flurry of wings. He turned and glared at Edgar again, looking for all the world as if he would snatch the flask and fly off with it. It was Edgar's turn to ignore the bird.

  "Leave it be, old friend," Edgar said. "Now is not the time. You are right to disapprove, but I can't help myself. Rather, knowing the pain that it would bring, I will not help myself."

  Then, opening the small bottle of ink, he dipped the first of his quills and began to write, dropping away into the world of the story as if it might erase the real world entirely. He told himself the protagonist's pain was not his own, so it was cathartic to pretend that the darkness in his characters’ lives was also not his own, and to drive them deeper and deeper until what he suffered in his silence seemed smaller in comparison.

  And there were the visions. As he wrote, his mind stretched. It was the only way he could describe it. He reached out to the world beyond him, linked himself to the minds and dreams of others, plucked out the things that frightened them, and made them his own. His mind blended with that of the crow as well, named Grimm for the fairy tales so well-penned by long-dead brothers. The two had traveled together, albeit in secret, for several years. The old bird lent him strength, sometimes wisdom, and more often than not the necessary inspiration to bring another tale to life.

  This time it was different. Something had shifted, or changed. He could not drop into the story he was working on properly. He knew what was happening, knew what he thought must come next. He even had bits and pieces of prose handy that he felt he might make use of in the course of recording that particular vision. He could not write it. It had all disappeared from his mind like a puff of smoke. In its place – all he saw were trees.

  Chapter Three

  Once she started, Lenore worked steadily. The work that she did was demanding. Once she slipped back into the drawing, she had to remain there, at least until whichever trapped spirit she'd chosen to work with was absolutely freed of the object that trapped it. She tried to think of the spirits as things, and not as the men and women that they had been. Sometimes it was difficult. She felt Anita watching, and waiting. The girl seemed to understand instinctively, that Lenore needed to concentrate, and how important it was. On the other hand, perhaps she was merely gathering her courage before speaking.

  The woman's face that Lenore was working with was not difficult. The tree held her, but it did not grip her. Lenore removed a branch carefully with the gum eraser. As she removed one bit of the image, she recreated the details beneath. In her mind, she held a clear image of the woman as she'd been – as she'd lived. She brushed the twigs and leaves carefully from the lines of the dark hair and filled in the highlights, carefully traced the dark strands across the bisecting wooden cage that held them. It was quick work, but very intense, and when she finished – when she applied the final line beneath the woman's lovely, dark eyes, she heard a gasp behind her.

  Instinctively, she pulled the pencil away from the paper, afraid that she might mar the work she’d completed. She turned, and saw that Anita was staring at a point about a foot above the paper. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth wider – she looked as if she might be on the verge of screaming. Lenore's heart quickened. Was it possible?

  “Anita!” she said. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “I saw…” the girl shook her head and stepped back. “I saw her…leave.”

  Lenore stared. In all the years she’d worked the images, perfected her art – in all the time she’d labored to set them free, no other had ever seen. Many had examined and praised her art – the finished pieces hung in some very famous homes across the country, and even in Europe. Others had been able to see what she saw in the trees and stones, mountains and even – at times – water and clouds. Until this moment, though, no one that she'd encountered had ever seen the spirits themselves.

  For Lenore, it was a silver, luminescent thread. When she released them, when the final bond with the paper and the image was severed, the end attached to the paper frayed. It split and snapped with tiny pops of light and energy. It unraveled slowly at first, then faster and faster, until suddenly – it broke free. That instant was so fleeting, so quick in its passing, that she often wondered if she imagined the whole thing. She’d been called crazy more than once. Particularly when she was younger, before she’d learned to keep the visions to herself, and only present her art to the outside world.

  “What did you see?” she asked. She rose, stepped closer to Anita and reached out to offer support.

  "I…I'm not sure," Anita said. "It was…like smoke, but not exactly. Silver. I saw silver, tied to your paper. It unraveled and the colors…oh the colors. It was like a rainbow. Like nothing I've ever seen."

  "She is free now," Lenore said.

  She led Anita to the other chair, across from her.

  "I need to do the same for the others. As I work, I need you to talk to me. Watch, if you will – I have never shared this with another – but talk to me. Tell me the stories you know of this man – this bad one – that you fear. Tell me what it is you know, and I will show you my art, whether it's a gift or a curse you can decide for yourself. Know that when I set him free, the word freedom is a relative one. He is trapped here in this world – in this existence – but he is no longer part of it. He should have passed on to the light, or to the dark, but he should not be here. He is trapped. When I release him, whatever fate he originally earned will be his. He will not be free to harm you, or any other. If it is proper, he will be judged."

  Anita stared at the picture. The Indian woman's features were bold and bright. Her eyes gleamed. The likeness was so real, so perfect, that it seemed she might turn her face and smile at them.

  Lenore returned to her seat, and Anita took the chair opposite her. She composed herself, ordered her thoughts, and then she began to speak.

  "His name was Thigpen. Abraham Thigpen. He was supposed to be a lawman. That is what he said when he took a room. No one questioned him. He was well dressed, and armed. He had a badge. I remember that it shone like silver, and he wore it on the lapel of a long, dark jacket. He said that he was tracking a man – a dangerous man. Again, no one doubted him. This is a place that attracts shadows.”

  Anita paused. She glanced at Lenore, but got no response. The eraser brushed lightly at the drawing, dragging aside a clump of leaves. The pencil dropped to the paper, and the line of a man’s nose was joined where the leaves had been. There were still twigs crossing the man’s chin, and a final leaf tangled in his hair to be changed. Anita continued.

  “He stayed here almost a week. He was an arrogant man, and crude. The longer he stayed, the more he drank, and each night he grew closer to losing control. I remember him because…”

  Anita paused again. Lenore wanted to glance up. She was aware of the story, aware of the words, and she sensed the pain behind them, but she could not allow herself to be distracted. Anita would have to continue in her own time.

  “…he tried to have his way with me. I work in the tavern, but tha
t is all. I serve drinks. I clean up. Sometimes, if they need me to, I cook, or tend to the rooms. There are other women – there are always other women. They are here for the men – to take their money and offer…what I do not. This man, this Abraham Thigpen, did not respect this. He put his hands on me again, and again. I asked him to stop. Others asked him, and then told him, but he would not be denied. He believed that I was toying with him; that is what he said. He told me that he was a lawman from a very big city, and that he had seen women like me before – holding out – playing hard to get.

  “I am engaged to be married. My fiancé Roberto does not come to the tavern. It is a hard thing for him. He does not like that I have to work, and he does not like that I work so closely beside drunken men. One night, against my wishes, he came to see me. He must have sensed that I was upset, that something was not right. It was a night when this man – Thigpen – was drinking too much ale. He stood by the bar; trying to tell stories of the men he’d brought to justice. I think that by this time, the other men had started to wonder how long he would remain – and why he was not out in the world, bringing more men to justice.

  “I was doing my best to ignore Roberto, who sat at a table in the corner. He had ordered beer, and he was not used to drinking it. It was a very busy night. To make my way through the crowd I had to come very close to many customers. Sometimes I brushed against them. Sometimes they joked, or reached for me. It is part of my job – not a part that I enjoy. Roberto did not understand, and he grew angry.

  “Then I had to serve ale to Abraham Thigpen. He was already very drunk. His eyes did not seem to focus on me, but on some point behind me, and his words – though directed at me – barely made sense. I brought his drink and turned to leave, but despite being drunk, he moved very quickly.

  "He stood, and put his arm around me. Before I knew it he had spun me around, groping me with his hands...and his tongue. I pushed away, but he was strong. I slapped him as hard as I could, but he did not release me. No one moved to stop him, and I was afraid.