Nevermore: A Novel of Love, Loss, & Edgar Allan Poe (8 page)

She placed the raven's cage on her mantel and went to the old sideboard, abandoned and decrepit, that served as her desk.
 
She had few possessions, and most of them would have had her burned at the stake, or drowned, had anyone in the castle ever seen them.
 
They did not, of course, because – as I have said – she lived in an abandoned wing of the castle, and because she had laid an intricate sequence of charms and illusions on the entrance, and on her chambers.
 
What others would find, if they managed to stumble into the room, would be an empty chamber, dingy and windswept, and they would find themselves drawn inexplicably to the doors.

She found what she sought; a thin leather tome with intricate, arcane designs worked into the cover and flipped it open.
 
A moment later she gave a sharp cry that might have been elation, or even dark laughter, but evoked no sense of mirth. She was not in the queen's service out of fealty.
 
She had a plan, and like the solving of a dark puzzle the pieces were falling into her hands.

It was a simple spell.
 
She needed something from the raven.
 
She needed something from the girl.
 
Neither was a problem, as she'd been collecting bits and pieces of her small charge for more than a year.
 
Trimmed locks of hair.
 
Scraps of cloth.
 
A favorite toy, believed lost.
 
The bird she had all of.

She worked through the night.
 
She designed a small talisman, formed of bits of the girl's life.
 
She added things that sparkle and things with odd scents.
 
She formed it into a small, dangling bauble and attached it to a string, which she then dangled into the raven's cage.
 
At first, it only glared.
 
It backed away and cried its baleful cry.
 
She persisted.
 
The small ornament caught the light from her candle and glittered.

The bird attacked.
 
It grabbed the bits and pieces of the princess in its strong beak, screeching and rending, and as it did so, fast as a serpent, the crone plucked a single feather from its tail.
 
She left her captive in frustrated battle with her talisman, and went off in search of the princess.

The girl was playing behind her mother's throne.
 
There were thick blankets spread, and one of the queen's chamber maids watched in trepidation as the child seemed to stalk the most valuable items within reach, one after another.
 
Each time she was chastised, the tiny princess let out a wail, and would not be calmed.
 
Just as Estrella entered the chamber the child let out a shriek of outrage and petulant anger.
 
The girl watching her dropped to her knees and tried to calm the girl, but she would not be defeated so easily.
 
She sought her mother's attention and the only way to achieve her goal – for better or worse – was to get past the defenses set by her keepers.
 
She redoubled her cries, and tried to squirm free.

Estrella moved in quickly.

"I will take her," she said softly.
 
"I will quiet her, and get her food.
 
When she has calmed, I will bring her back to you."

The girl nodded quickly. A few moments more, and the queen was certain to rush in on them, threatening curses and punishment.

Estrella took the princess, who, despite her desire to be with her mother, was always curious around the old woman.
 
She sensed something different, and there were always interesting things to see, taste, and smell when Estrella watched her.
 
She grew silent, and allowed herself to be lifted and taken from the chamber without further protest.
 
The chamber maid stood and scanned the room.
 
The queen was nowhere to be seen.
 
She knew that she should not hand off her charge without direction, but she feared the queen's frustrated rage more than her anger at being disobeyed in a smaller matter.
 
Estrella often watched the girl, and she could claim an honest mistake in believing she had done the right thing.
 
If all went perfectly, the princess would be returned before anyone noticed, and there might actually be a reward for keeping her silent.

Estrella wasted no time.
 
She carried the princess through the halls of the castle quickly.
 
She cast a glamour around the two of them so none would notice their passing.
 
As she climbed the stairs to her room, she smiled.
 
It was her first genuine smile in years – possibly decades.
 
The princess stared up at her, wide-eyed.
 
She did not cry out, and she did not struggle.
 
She sensed something – interesting – to come, and she waited.

Estrella carried the child to her bed and laid her carefully among the ratty blankets and threadbare pillows.
 
She stared up and cooed, reaching out her chubby fingers for whatever might be offered.

Estrella watched her for a moment.
 
On the mantel, the raven still tore at the talisman.
 
For the second time, the crone smiled. She pulled the feather from a pocket in her dark robes and held it out to the girl, tickling her fingers and teasing it over her cheeks.
 
The princess giggled, then laughed, and then with sudden speed, she snatched the feather from Estrella’s grasp.
 
There was no hesitation.
 
Like every other thing that went into the baby’s grasp, she shoved the feather between her lips and bit down.

The room shimmered.
 
Though she knew what to expect, the burst of power still startled Estrella.
 
She stumbled back from her bed, even as the raven perched where the princess had been only moments before stretched its wings and stared at her.
 
She met that glassy-eyed gaze, studied it, and thought that – just for a second – she caught a glimpse of confused terror.

Then, without hesitation, as if she had flown every day of her life, the princess launched from the bed, whirled in a tight arc around the room, and took to the sky.
 
Estrella watched, just for a moment, and then opened the door of the cage and released the raven.

"Watch over her, dark one," she whispered.
 
"One day someone will come for her.
 
If she is not safe, I will come for you."

The bird squawked, staggered a moment after being imprisoned in the tiny cage, and then, with a quick angry shake of its wings that sent down and feathers in all direction, it dove for the window and disappeared.
 
Estrella walked to the window and gazed upward.
 
The ravens circled the tower in a dark stream, agitated, and suddenly augmented by one.

When they curled around the far edge of the castle, and out of sight, Estrella turned back to her chamber and began to quickly gather her things. She had her own ways in, and out of the castle.
 
She knew that the chamber maid would believe she had stolen the child, but it was unlikely the girl would admit to letting someone take her charge – at first.
 
By the time she did, they might not believe her at all.
 
Probably the girl would be put to death for her trouble, but that was no concern of Estrella's.

When they finally searched the castle for the old woman – she was long gone.
 
The rooms where she'd stayed seemed as though they had been deserted for years.
 
They found nothing at all, in fact, to mark her passing, but a rickety old wrought iron bird cage, and a single raven's feather.

The queen never recovered.
 
She ranted, and raged.
 
The king, who had been away at war, returned to find his daughter missing, and the explanation of that disappearance – sketchy.
 
He knew how his wife had felt about the child, how she'd raged about the crying, and the misbehaving – as if the girl was old enough to attend her and wait on her hand and foot, instead of a babe.

The kingdom fell into disarray, and there was no heir.
 
Eventually, the king grew old and his health failed.
 
The queen tried to assume control, but the king had a cousin, a dark man with darker ambitions. The queen was locked away in the same tower of the castle where Estrella had lived.
 
They sent men in to clean it, and seal it against the winter, but she was watched around the clock, and never allowed beyond the confines of her rooms.

L
enore pulled the pencil away from the paper and turned.
 
Edgar, who had allowed himself to be caught up in the story, sensed the change – and stopped speaking.
 
He shook his head.

"Where did that story come from?" Lenore asked him.

He glanced down at her drawing without answering.
 
The near perfect image of Grimm had changed.
 
In the feathers of his – her – chest, the face of a young woman stared back at him.
 
He knew that was not possible, that the eyes stared at whatever the angle they'd been drawn at required, but he couldn't shake the sensation.

He looked up.

"It's like when I write," he said.
 
"I would not be able to write as I do, or the stories that I do, without the link.
 
Grimm somehow connects to my thoughts, shares memories, brings me visions.
 
It has never happened before without him – her? – being very close.

"The story I just told is not
The Raven
– not the one that the Brothers Grimm penned so long ago, in any case.
 
It is a new darkness, a shift of the sort that so often separates reality from fictions.
 
If the Brothers did not record the story exactly as it happened, or if they merely repeated what they had heard passed down from oral history, it might explain the flaws in the original story.
 
And still…I feel as if there is more, something powerful that I'm missing."

"Flaws?"

"The story of the queen crying out to the ravens, and cursing her daughter is dark, born of the frustrated rage of a woman not ready for motherhood.
 
The rest of their story – a young man meeting the grown princess and going on a magical quest, where he finally frees her using a wand that can open any door, a cloak of invisibility and a magic horse, don't fit.
 
It is more like two completely different stories.
 
As if one were obscured by time – or – possibly by something more powerful – or someone."

"Grimm is not a raven," Lenore said. "The story is about a raven, not a crow."

"You've said yourself that Grimm is more than a bird.
 
If there is power behind those dark eyes, and if there is truly someone trapped inside, is it possible – perhaps – that she has obscured it?
 
That she has made herself common in order to obscure her nature?
 
That she has bonded with me – one who can share her thoughts – because she is also trapped."

"That is not all you," Lenore said.
 
"You are thinking out loud, but the thoughts are not random.
 
You must have felt some of this, sensed it as you wove the words…"

Edgar turned back to the drawing.
 
The girl inside was no child.
 
In some way, she had grown.
 
She should have been long dead, and so her growing had been painfully slow.
 
She had been denied her childhood, denied interaction with other young women, adults, young men – and yet – in trade – she had known Grimm.
 
She had learned and evolved and somehow the two – bird and girl – had realized that it was time for her to be free.
 
Either that, or whatever curse had bonded them in the first place was set to play out, and they were all in danger of being swept up in its darkness.

"Astounding," Edgar said.
 
"You must finish this.
 
You must remove her, remove Grimm, whatever it is that you do…she must be freed.
 
I have no idea what will happen when you do that.
 
This is not one of your spirits that will shift up through the clouds and away.
 
I am afraid that the consequences may be far-reaching."

Anita had wandered over as Edgar told his tale.
 
She'd listened, rapt, to his revision of the Grimm Brother's tale, and she'd heard the conversation that followed as she worked her way around the nearby tables, polishing surfaces that had long been clean.

She stepped forward.
 
"What if it is not so simple?" she asked.
 
"What if it is like last night?
 
What if you do this, and it draws you in – back, forward – to some other place, some other time?
 
And the old sorceress – Estrella?
 
Where is she?
 
What will happen if you undo what she created?
 
She said one day someone will come for her – the princess.
 
Are you that one?"