Nevermore: A Novel of Love, Loss, & Edgar Allan Poe (23 page)

"No," Anita said.
 
Then she screamed it. "No!"

The scream ended in the deepest silence Edgar had ever known.
 
He stood, not wanting to face whatever came next lying down, or on his knees.
 
He stepped forward to the tree and laid his hand on Lenore's shoulder.
 
He refused to look up, or in any way acknowledge what might come next.

Anita stepped up beside him and also laid a hand on the tree. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, and she leaned on Edgar for support.
 
They stood that way for a moment, and then, as if waiting for just the right moment, a voice broke the silence.

"Lovely, isn't she?"

Edgar turned.
 
The woman from his vision stood before him.
 
She was dressed in the same dark dress she'd worn those many years before.
 
Her hair was still dark, but the flecks of gray were gone.
 
She oozed strength and power – it seemed to seep from her pores.

The sound of heavy breathing caught his attention, and with a great effort, he tore his gaze from the woman's and looked down the shoreline.
 
Where Estrella was dark and willow-thin, the deer was golden, powerful, and magnificent.
 
It stood, shoulders lowered as if ready to charge.
 
One front hoof pawed lightly at the dirt.
 
Its eyes glowed a deep, comforting amber.

The woman turned toward it and smiled.
 
There was no mirth in the expression, no emotion at all.

"You have been dull company," she said, "and you will be an even duller opponent.
 
I have known your kind, time and again.
 
You serve well – you battle poorly."

"Maybe," a voice cut through the night like a hammer shattering brittle ice, "you should not concern yourself with boredom so soon.
 
A wiser woman would already be gone from here with freedom so hard won."

Estrella spun snake-quick and actually hissed.
 
The sound was the most evil thing Edgar had ever heard.

"You," Estrella said.
 
"You dare to come here – after all that you have done to me, all that you have cost me."

"I cost you nothing but time," Nettie said.
 
"You look well enough.
 
I will tell you what I told you long ago.
 
There is no place for you here."

"You have something that is mine," Estrella said flatly.
 
"I will gladly leave if you return her.
 
There is nothing left to hide from.
 
When I return, those I knew will be nothing but dust, and I will be a nightmare tale told to children."

"You are already famous here," Nettie said.
 
"You are the tree lady, the one trapped long ago by a power she could not withstand.
 
The one who has watched over the lake for generations.
 
They call you…tragic."

If Estrella was bothered by the taunting, it didn't show.
 
She stood her ground almost placidly, staring first at Nettie, and then at the deer, as if deciding which was of more immediate danger to her.

"There is one missing," she said.
 
"Where is your girl?
 
She slew my men so many years ago, but she does not seem to be with you now."
 
Then Estrella cocked her head to one side and studied Nettie carefully.
 
"Or is she…I almost wish the two of us would have time to sit and talk.
 
So many secrets, and so old.
 
But I have places I must travel, and so…"

She struck like lightning.
 
She flung her hand toward the deer and something dark – like glittering string – shot across the space.
 
The animal was quick, but not quick enough, and the darkness twined around it, drawing in like a thick bag of energy and compressing.

"No!" Nettie's cry was high and keening.
 
She launched herself toward the trapped deer, and in that instant, hesitating only long enough to turn to Edgar and actually wink…Estrella was simply…gone.

Edgar took off at a run.
 
He didn't know if, or how he could help, but he saw Nettie reach the point where the deer had been trapped and grip the darkness, as if pulling on thread.
 
He thought if he had done the same, it would have burned him, or dragged him in, but it did not matter.
 
The only one who might help him – the only one who might know what to do about Lenore – was Nettie.
 
He ran to her side, and heard Anita tight on his heels.

Before he reached her, Nettie turned to him.
 
Her eyes were dark with anger.

"Stay back," she said.

She closed her eyes and grew very still.
 
She reached her hands deeper into the still compressing darkness.
 
The pulsing mass was alive with energy.
 
Edgar felt the trapped creature inside, its emotion not exactly fear, but with a bright burning light of desperation, closing on madness.

Nettie did not move.
 
She was so still she appeared to grow from the soil of the swamp, or to flow from the vegetation surrounding them, drawing strength from the air and deep cold waters of the lake.
 
She turned her arms so that her hands touched in front of her, palms out to the sides.
 
Then, with a whispered word and a quick exhalation of breath, she snapped those hands apart.

The darkness parted with a shivering explosion of energy, sound and light.
 
Edgar and Anita were driven back, actually blown from their feet to land flat on the soft ground.
 
The concussion robbed their sight, and their hearing.
 
He tried to rise, but found that he was unable to move his arms, and that though his eyes were open, he saw nothing.

He tried to cry out then, to call for Nettie, or Anita, to scream his frustration, but even that release was denied him.
 
Though he fought it with every ounce of his strength, darkness swirled around him and dragged him slowly down to unconsciousness.

N
ettie knelt on the beach and cradled the deer's head in her lap.
 
He breathed, and with each passing second that breath grew stronger.
 
She had closed out everything else.
 
It had been so long.
 
She had tried so hard, so many times to free him.
 
She had lain at the foot of the tree to be near, and had drawn him into her dreams so they could roam the swamp together, but the pain was a constant, burning thing.
 
She would never forgive the dark woman, or herself, for his entrapment.
 
Now that he was free – now that he'd been returned – she could not bear seeing him come to harm, or worse, to lose him.

Now other things had been lost.
 
Years spent working toward a single moment, only to cast the outcome aside for love.
 
It
was
love, though not a type many would understand.
 
The two were bonded – had been bonded – so long they were two parts of a single whole.
 
Even the girl was not so close.
 
Not yet.

That snapped her out of her daze.
 
She had to get back.
 
She did not feel as if the girl had been harmed, and she would know, but something had happened.
 
Something had changed, and not for the better.

As the world came back into focus, she gently laid her old companion on the ground.
 
Then, without rising, she pressed her palms to the earth and spoke a single word.
 
The deer's eyes opened then.
 
It lay still just for a second, then, rising in a swift graceful roll, it shook its head, tossing dirt and leaves from its antlers.

Nettie turned.
 
Edgar and Anita lay side by side.
 
She turned back.

"I must go," she said.
 
"Guard them.
 
It will not take long."

The deer's eyes glittered, and it slowly lowered its head.
 
She reached out and stroked its neck, then turned, and, like Estrella, was simply not there.

T
he place where Nettie had left the girl – and the princess – was nearly destroyed.
 
Despite her wards and protections, despite the age, and the central location – deep in the swamp where her power was greatest – great chunks had been blown from the roots of the old tree.
 
A dark, smoldering patch stained the ground, and when Nettie peered inside, there was nothing.
 
She turned then, searching the shadows, wishing, though she knew it was in vain, that the other was still present – that she could face her again and bring her down.

A sound to her left caught her attention, and she turned.
 
The girl limped out from between the trees.
 
The quiver of arrows on her back was empty.
 
Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth, and the bow, snapped in the center, hung uselessly from her hand.
 
Her expression had not changed.

Nettie went to her, supported her, and led her into what remained of the ruined chamber.
 
She walked the girl to one wall, leaned her against it, and waited until her charge had settled.
 
Then, stretching her arms over her head, she gripped the lower extremities of the roots.
 
She began to speak, not words – at least not words any would have comprehended.
 
The sound formed a cadence, and then a pulsing rhythm.
 
From the ground at her feet, energy flowed up through her legs, her body and lit her eyes with a fierce, glowing brilliance.
 
The burned and blackened roots flaked off their outer shell of bark and cinders and snaked out and down.
 
Time sped up.
 
Nettie fed the tree, and the swamp fed Nettie, and in only moments, the chamber was whole again – the vines had cut them off from the dying moonlight and the threat of day.

Nettie turned, sat in front of the girl, and waited.

"She came shortly after you left," the girl said, her voice soft, but steady.
 
"At first, I thought she would not find us, but she sensed the other.
 
I slipped out and tried to draw her away, but she paid no attention to me.
 
I shot her then, twice.
 
The first seemed to hurt her, but then – then she grew angry.
 
The second she brushed aside before it touched her.
 
I would have shot again, but she attacked.
 
I don't know what it was.
 
I was blasted into the trees, the bow…"

She held up the ruined remnant of her weapon.
 
Nettie only nodded.

"She did the same to the wall that she had done to me.
 
She burned it away and stepped through.
 
The girl inside knew her, was afraid.
 
I tried again to help her, but I could not.
 
The dark one wrapped herself around the girl like a cloak, spoke, and then was no longer here.
 
I searched, but nothing remains."

"You did what you could," Nettie said.
 
"Did you hear what she said?"

"Rathburg," the girl replied.
 
"Nothing more."

Again, Nettie nodded.

"Rest.
 
There will be much for us to do in the next few days.
 
I must return to the lake, but I will need you at full strength.
 
When you have rested, tend to your bow."

The girl did not reply.
 
She watched in silence as Nettie rose, slipped out into
the
rising glow of
early
morning that was seeping down through the trees, and disappeared.

E
dgar woke to a throbbing headache that rendered him nearly incapable of coherent thought.
 
He tried to sit, failed, and then on the second attempt managed to raise himself weakly.
 
The first thing he saw was the deer.
 
It stood before him, gazing down, and its eyes were as deep and dark as the swamp itself.
 
Still, strange as it was, there was no malice in that gaze.
 
Edgar nodded – hoping the animal would somehow see it as acknowledgment, or thanks.

He turned.
 
Anita still lay beside him.
 
Fighting rising nausea, Edgar turned, reached out, and gently shook her.
 
At first there was no reaction, but he saw the steady rise and fall of her breathing, so he shook a little harder.
 
Anita stirred after a few moments, raised an arm with what was obviously a great effort, and placed it over her eyes.
 
Then, as memory and reason flooded back in, she moved the arm and tried to rise.
 
Edgar shifted and got a hand under her shoulders, steadying her.