Nevermore: A Novel of Love, Loss, & Edgar Allan Poe (22 page)

Ahead of him, he saw Grimm gliding like an arrow, straight toward the farthest tree, and Lenore.
 
It seemed as if he intended to dive straight into her, or into the tree.
 
Edgar wanted to call out to the bird, or to form the now familiar link, but there was no time.
 
He cursed softly and flung himself forward.

He was not going to make it to Lenore.
 
Whatever Grimm planned, whatever else happened, the best he could do was to try and help the girl – Anita.
 
She knelt
,
frantically scratching at the ground with a stick.
 
He tried to concentrate, to figure out what she might be doing, but again, there was time only to move and to act.
 
If he hesitated even for a second, he would become irrelevant to all.
 
Instead, with an almost feral cry, he dove headlong, arms outstretched.

L
enore searched her memory for something, anything she might have left out – any part of herself she might add to the drawing and draw out the creation.
 
She found nothing.
 
It was the most complete, the most amazingly accurate drawing she'd ever penned, and she was a single line from completing it.
 
She wanted to glance over to see what Anita was doing, and she had heard Edgar's voice clearly more than once, though she had no idea how close he was, or what it would matter, in the end.
 
She reached out with the pencil, placed it against the paper, and drew the final short line into the image.

As she did this, a huge, compressed burst of energy, power, anger, laughter, and so many other emotions and sensations that the intensity of it erased all thought from her mind burst forth.
 
The tree shivered, and something huge, malevolent, and powerful dragged itself free.
 
Lenore watched in fascination.
 
The thing moved as if gripped by hot tar in a pit – dragged itself out of the wood and bark one limb at a time.
 
It was vaguely shaped like a woman, but only vaguely at first.
 
It was shadow, and that shadow was more concerned with freeing itself than with maintaining its earthly form.

Lenore screamed.
 
It was the first sound she'd been able to utter since the vision had claimed her.
 
She tried to rise, to turn and run, but her feet were rooted in place, and she was drawn up, formed, sculpted to the proper shape as she fought wildly – and futilely – with every thread of her being.

Something small and even darker than the thing climbing from the tree dove between her and what she'd set in motion.
 
In, and then gone, so quickly, that Lenore only glimpsed a flicker of white as Grimm grabbed the drawing she'd made, bit into it with his beak, causing a tear, and soared off into the night.

The thing in the tree screamed as if that beak had torn into its flesh, but instead of slowing it, what happened next was final, dramatic, and horrifying.
 
The creature – Estrella – shot up from the tree like a black flame.
 
She poured over and out, shifting away from the curved limbs and torn bark, screeching in fury and wild laughter.
 
As she tore free, shards of ice drove into Lenore's heart, and she snapped sideways, assumed the position of the bent old tree, and with a cry so soft no one but she could hear, winked out of existence.

A
nita felt the end coming and drove the stick into the dirt.
 
She joined two broken points on the image, completing her mind's creation – a tree with nothing trapped inside it; a tree with nothing but branches and leaves, jutting from the shoreline of the lake.
 
She heard something, but could not make out what it was until – flying through the air like a crazy man – Edgar hit her, wrapped his arms around her and carried her on past the tree toward the water.
 
There was a huge roaring sound, and what light the moon and the fire had lent the night was snuffed like a candle.
 

Edgar didn't hesitate.
 
He rolled on top of the girl, clutched her tightly in his arms, and buried his head beside hers, keeping as low as possible, and not glancing up.
 
He didn't know for sure what had happened, but he knew facing it at that moment would be the end of him, so he held very still, breathed in the scent of the loamy soil, and waited.

Behind, and to the side of him there was a splintering crack.
 
He knew that it had to be the tree – the deer tree – but he couldn't turn to watch, or to wonder at what was taking place.
 
Whatever had been freed, whatever was unleashed, let out a cry to match that of the initial burst of energy, and now – where the air had grown deathly cold and stale, there was a balance.
 
On one side Edgar felt warmth – fueled by anger, but not by malice.
 
On the other, there was nothing but shadow and rage, power and an unrelenting fury that prickled his skin as if he'd been pierced by hundreds of tiny needles.

"What can we do?" Anita said, trying to pull away.

"Nothing," Edgar said.
 
"Do nothing, and be still."

He clutched her more tightly then, and closed his eyes.

M
iles away, Nettie raised her head.
 
She had brought the girl to a safe place, a place where her power was strongest — where the roots of the trees and the soil had been joined for more than a hundred years.
 
There was a sort of natural cave created by curving cypress roots and wrapped with vines and moss.
 
She often came there to meditate, or to sing.

She had known the man would be too late.
 
The events unfolding were long in coming, longer than most men or women had been alive.
 
Nettie had lived many lives.
 
Generations turned, and she was always there, along with the younger one.
 
The Harvest brought the old magic to bear, and the great, horned creature she both loved and feared reared his head when he was called upon.
 
It was as it had always been, before men, when the earth was one huge entity, not carved into swamps and forests, glens and fields.

Others had come and gone.
 
She had known creatures and men, old powers, and new.
 
She had remained – as she would always remain – guarding the land, protecting when she could – driving out the shadows.
 
There was always new evil.
 
The good wore away over time and was harder to replace, but the darkness swelled eternally.

The trap she'd created so long ago had held very well.
 
It had served her, and the land, but all things change, and entropy was a strong taskmaster.
 
Now the time had come for old confrontations to be renewed.
 
She knew she had to protect the girl, if she could.
 
Nettie had no idea where they came from, the dark lady and the bright, beautiful girl, but she knew they did not belong together.
 
If left to her own ends, the sorceress would suck the youth from this one and use that power to fuel a revenge so cold those it was served upon would not even comprehend it.

Parts of Nettie remembered an older country.
 
She was of this land, but her spirit – the belief that fueled her existence – had come from far away.
 
The swamp had drawn them, and when they came, they brought her with them – her festival, and her bonfires – her dark, horned lover – the girl.
 
All of it a cycle to be repeated as long as the hands on men's clocks ticked forward – and beyond.
 
Time meant nothing to one such as she.
 
She remembered a time when time itself was not even a fully realized concept.
 
For her, all times existed.
 
All the lives she'd lived were one.

She wove the vines more closely around the protective alcove and waited.

Then, something changed.
 
Something unexpected – something she had not planned for and had no defense against.
 
She heard the release as the darkness spewed forth from the old tree, but there was a second sound – a brighter break – a snapping of something rotten that revealed vibrant, brilliant life.
 
Was it possible?
 
How? Who could have freed him?

She rose and stepped away from the girl. She stood on the almost invisible trail and stared off toward the lake.
 
She sensed the growing darkness, but there was another.
 
Something stood against that shadow – something bright and pure and so familiar she ached at the deep, sensual psychic touch of it.

"Oh no," she said softly.
 
"You cannot beat her.
 
She will crush you.
 
Alone, you will fall."

The woman let out a whistle, and then, simply, was gone.

F
rom the weeds beside the trail, the young girl stepped out and turned, staring out the way Nettie had gone.
 
She felt the conflict, but she was a creature of rules and discipline, strength and courage born of allegiance.
 
Her place was here –
to defend, and to guard.
 
She was the vessel, and one day she knew she would see the world through other eyes.
 
Older eyes.
 
For the moment, she ducked in under the covering of vines and moss and drew them back over the opening, camouflaging herself, and her charge from sight.
 
She didn't know what to expect, but it was not her nature to worry at such details.
 
She would stay, and she would guard.
 
All else would just…be.
 
It was her way.

"T
he lady," Anita whispered.
 
"She was by the tree.
 
We have to go to her."

Edgar knew she was right.
 
It was why he'd come.
 
He didn't want to draw the attention of whatever dark force whirled above their heads, nor did he want to distract the other – whoever, or whatever it might be – that had squared off with the darkness.
 
The tree – the now dead fire, snuffed from existence as if it had never given warmth, lay on the side of the shadows.
 
It was all he could do to control his slamming heart, and to nod.
 
He did so against Anita's shoulder, so she could feel him without the need to look up.

'"Stay low," he said.
 
"Keep as close to the ground as possible, and as quiet.
 
We will crawl.
 
If we rise, or if that thing – whatever it is – notices us, I believe we will find that we would be better off dead."

They moved as quickly as possible, stopping every few feet, waiting, and then continuing again.
 
Whatever was going on above and around them paid no more attention to their movements than a lion would pay a colony of ants passing alongside its den.
 
It did nothing to change Edgar's certainty that if the focus shifted to them, it would be the last thing they ever worried about.

It took longer than he would have liked to reach the other tree.
 
They had to skirt around the small cove and the unnatural darkness made it more difficult still.
 
It seemed hours before they turned back toward the water and started toward the tree.

They slipped past the fire, and Anita tugged on his sleeve.

"She was there," she said.
 
She slipped her arm up between them and pointed to the stone where Lenore had sat, just short of the base of the tree.

They both stared.

"Where is she?" Edgar asked.
 
He chanced raising his head and scanned the area.
 
The pencils and drawing kit were scattered over the ground.
 
The easel was collapsed in the dirt, and the pad lay across it, the top page flapping in the wind.
 
He stared at it, but could make out nothing.

"It's a blank page," he said.
 
"There is no drawing."

"That's impossible.
 
She worked on it for hours.
 
I saw it when she started.
 
After a while, she couldn't seem to stop.
 
She sent me to draw the deer…"

Edgar turned and stared at the girl.
 
He'd wondered what had happened at the other tree.
 
He thought back to what the old woman had told him.
 
Now he knew – at least thought he knew – what was battling with the thing above them.
 
He thought immediately of Grimm and wondered where the bird had gone.
 
Then, before he could speak, he glanced up, and he saw the tree.

"My God," he said.

Anita rose up on her elbows and followed his gaze.

She was beautiful, possibly more beautiful than they'd ever seen her.
 
Lenore's arm stretched up and out toward the lake.
 
Her hair hung long and loose over her shoulders. One leg, bent at the knee, seemed almost in motion, as if she could run out over the waves and escape, while the other stretched back and down, blending slowly to the solid mass of roots that bound her to the soil.