Nevermore: A Novel of Love, Loss, & Edgar Allan Poe (11 page)

"No, the door," Edgar said.
 
"Something is going on in back, you might be seen."

With a soft squawk, the raven leapt into the air and glided across the room to land on Edgar's shoulder.
 
Edgar smiled, opened the door, and stepped cautiously out onto the long porch.
 
He glanced both ways, but there was no one in sight.
 
Grimm took off with a loud flap of his wings and soared out over the trees.
 
Edgar watched him go, then turned to Lenore's door.

He reached to knock, but before his knuckles struck the wood the door swung inward and Lenore appeared.
 
Her eyes were wide, and she stepped quickly out beside him.

"What is it?" she said.

"Not sure.
 
There is something going on down by the docks out back.
 
I think we have to find out what it is.
 
I don't know why, but I have the sense that it might have something to do with us.
 
If there is any danger, we should know up front what we are dealing with."

"And if someone needs help…" Lenore said.

"Yes, we'll be there to do what we can."

They turned and hurried toward the tavern.
 
The doors were open, and a small pool of light had leaked out onto the porch, but there was no one in sight.
 
All of the sounds they heard came from the back of the building.
 
Edgar stepped through the doorway first, and Lenore followed.
 
They stared inside at an almost empty room.
 
The doors in back also stood open wide.

There were lanterns lit along the walkway leading down to the docks, and the two stepped through the main room and out the far side.
 
It was about fifty yards from the back of the tavern to the water.
 
Boats arrived at all hours of the day and night, dropping and receiving passengers and supplies, but any sort of normal traffic on the waterway wouldn't cause such a ruckus.
 
If there was serious violence or gunplay involved, those inside would have hunkered behind their tables or slipped off to their rooms, hoping to avoid being shot.
 
The place was absolutely empty.
 
Not even the bartender, or a serving girl had been left behind to watch the till.

Edgar turned, looked at Lenore, and raised an eyebrow.

They started down the path toward the water.

"Get her up here," a voice cried.
 
"I have a blanket."

The sound of water splashing and loud cursing followed.
 
As they drew near, they saw men and a few women circled, holding lanterns.
 
There was a raft tied up at the dock, but there were no boats in sight.
 
Some of those on shore were pointing at something in the water.

"Damn it!" a man cried.
 
"She bit me!"

There was a sudden flurry of splashing.
 
Men bellowed, and those on the dock worked frantically to light the struggle, but whatever was happening in the water was moving too fast.

"Get more lights," Someone called.
 
"Someone get a boat!"

"Use the raft."

"It's too hard to maneuver…get a damn boat!"

The cries flew back and forth in rapid succession.
 
Edgar worked his way down toward the bank, keeping well back from those involved.
 
He scanned the faces of the onlookers.
 
Their eyes were wide, and they scanned the dark water intently, each hoping to spot something the others had missed.

"What happened?" Edgar asked a man in a dark suit.
 

"Not sure," the stranger said. "Something about a girl in the water.
 
Giving them quite a run for it, it seems.
 
Someone said she had no clothes."

Lenore studied the trees on the far side.
 
Beyond those trees The Great Dismal Swamp stretched out into the night.
 
It seemed endless, and very suddenly, she sensed that immensity, and how it pressed in on their tiny, dimly lit stronghold.

Then a very different sound intruded.
 
There was a sharp whizzing, followed by the sound of something being struck.
 
A man cried out.
 
The sound repeated, and suddenly everyone in the water was less interested in being there.
 
Men dove for the shore, or the cover of the small dock.
 
Those on the shore backed away, uncertain.
 
Then an arrow shot out of the night and stuck in a tree about four feet from where Edgar stood with a solid WHAP!
 
The crowd broke and ran, all but Edgar, and Lenore, who stepped back behind two of the larger trees near the shore and waited.

Edgar edged around the tree, angling to get a look at the far bank of the waterway.
 
There was no one clearly visible, but as he watched he saw a face, surrounded by wisps of gray hair, press forward through the trees.
 
A moment later, two large men, and a slender girl crept onto the beach.
 
They stood very still for a long moment, waiting.
 
When there was no reaction from the tavern side, they hurried to the water.

They entered without hesitation, and moments later climbed back onto the shore.
 
Between them they supported another young woman. Her hair was long, hanging in damp strings down her back to her waist.
 
She wore nothing at all, and moonlight gleamed off the pale curves of her body.
 
As the two men half dragged, half-carried her into the trees, the girl kept her back to them.
 
She held a long, supple bow, and an arrow was notched.
 
A quiver rested easily on her shoulder, and Edgar saw the feathered ends of several more arrows waiting to be fired.
 
He chose not to become their target.

"Did you see?" he hissed.

Lenore nodded, but even as she did, there was a solid THUNK! as another arrow embedded itself in the tree directly behind Edgar's head.
 
He fell silent, and they waited.
 
After several moments of silence, Edgar once again chanced a look around the trunk of the tree.
 
There was no one in sight.
 
The shoreline was bare on both sides of the water, and there was no sign that anyone had passed.

He stepped around the tree, and inspected the arrow.
 
It was very long, thin and solid.
 
Though obviously hand-made, he could find no fault in the workmanship.
 
It was beautifully fletched with what appeared to be the feathers of a red tailed hawk.
 
Where it bit into the tree, he saw a wickedly sharp metal barb.

"Glad I was on the other side," he said.

Lenore stepped up beside him and studied the arrow, then glanced back at the trees nervously.

"I'm sure they're gone," Edgar said.

Lenore shivered.
 
She didn't look fully convinced.

"What just happened?" she asked.
 
"I mean, who was that girl, and who were those – others?
 
Some of the men who were out here had guns, why did they take off running the second that first arrow flew?

Edgar didn't answer.
 
He had turned, staring at the water, as if lost in thought, or trying to remember something.
 
Then his eyes widened.

"Damn!" he said.
 
He started for the dock at a run.
 
Lenore followed, though more slowly.

"Where are you going?" she cried.
 
"Why…?"

A moment later, his purpose became clear.
 
He laid down on the dock and peered over the edge.
 
A moment later, he reached down and pulled.
 
A man's prone form bobbed under the edge of the short pier and then floated.
 
Edgar held the man by his collar and dragged him toward shore.
 
Another of the arrows protruded from his shoulder, and he was not struggling.

"Is he…?"

"He's alive," Edgar said.
 
"Get up to the tavern and bring help.
 
He's too big for me to carry, and I don't want to do any more damage.
 
See if there's a doctor."

Lenore took off at a run, and Edgar continued, slowly, to drag the
unmoving
man toward the shore.

T
he man, Jebediah Nixon, was breathing raggedly, but he was unconscious.
 
The arrow wound, while deep, was also clean.
 
It had struck true, and run straight through, the tip protruding from the back of his shoulder.
 
By some miracle, it had missed damaging anything of vital importance.
 
The wound had bled a lot, and he was in shock, but a traveling veterinarian who'd been staying on the Virginia side of the roadhouse had cleaned the wound, doused it with enough whiskey to make Jebediah bellow, and stitched it up neatly. The scar would not be pretty, but the wound would heal.

As it turned out, Jebediah had served in the war under General Lee, and it wasn't his first battle wound.
 
Once the burning from the whiskey had passed, and the ache from the wound settled to a dull throb, he was easily pacified by more whiskey poured slowly into a tumbler.

Everyone had gathered back in the tavern.
 
Enough ale and whiskey had been poured to calm nerves and loosen tongues.
 
After helping with the injured man, and accepting a round on the house, Edgar, his soaked sleeves and shirt drying slowly, and Lenore had retired to her usual table to wait and see where it would all lead.

"Who were they?" Edgar asked no one in particular.
 
"I've seen Indians, and those two larger men were no Indians.
 
Still the girl was incredibly accurate with the bow and arrow."

"Did you see the old woman?" Lenore asked.

Edgar nodded.
 
"Only for an instant.
 
She appeared first, just before the girl."

They stared at one another for a moment, and then, suddenly Lenore burst out laughing.

Edgar cocked an eyebrow and waited.

"We sound crazy," she said, fighting for breath.
 
"The two men who were not Indians, an old woman who disappeared, and a girl with a bow and arrow, stealing a naked woman from the shore and disappearing into the swamp.
 
If you were to write this into one of your tales, how do you suppose your editor would react?"

"I've not had all that much luck with editors thus far," Edgar said, "but I get your point.
 
It is crazy, and it didn't start with the girl in the water."

Anita stopped by their table.
 
She'd been kept busy serving drinks and taking orders for more.
 
It was the first chance she'd had to stand still.

"They are not Indians," she said.
 
"That was Nettie.
 
The men serve her – the girl – no one is sure.
 
Nettie has always lived in the swamp.
 
When my family came to the swamp, she was already here, and she seems – the same.
 
There is always the old woman, and the young girl."

"What are you saying?" Edgar asked.
 
"She's a witch?"

"There are things in the swamp," Anita said, "that I do not understand.
 
When the harvest comes, there is a celebration.
 
Nettie is a part of that – or the girl is – or both.
 
No one ever quite remembers."

"But the woman in the water," Lenore said.
 
"Where would they take her?
 
Where do they live; why did they shoot that man with an arrow?"

"No one knows where she lives," Anita said, "and no one will follow her in there.
 
Some have tried.
 
Most of them never made it out of the swamp alive, and those that did found no trace.
 
If she took someone into the swamp, we won't know why unless she tells us."

"You talk to her?" Edgar said.

"Many have talked to her.
 
She can heal, and they say she has the power to help find lost things, or to change your fortune.
 
There is always a price."

Lenore shivered.

Edgar turned to stare out the window into the swamp.
 
He had heard two words that drove into him like a steel blade.
 
Heal – and change.
 
One of the reasons he was on the road was to consult with specialists over Virginia's health.
 
The answer was always the same.
 
Some claimed to have cures, or procedures that would help, but they sounded like madmen, and as desperate as he was, he would trust none of them near his wife.
 
This felt different.
 
There was a lot of power in this swamp, and near it.
 
Strange things had happened since the moment he'd arrived, and none of them appeared to be coincidence.
 
He had approached Virginia with such solutions in the past, but she had rejected them.
 
Her faith was strong, but apparently not strong enough to stop the withering of her health.