Nevermore: A Novel of Love, Loss, & Edgar Allan Poe (9 page)

Edgar and Lenore turned in a single motion and stared at the girl.
 
What she said made sense, and it should have occurred to both of them.

"There is danger in trusting the words of a fairy tale too literally," Edgar said.
 
"This story has been filtered through my mind, and – apparently – that of the crow as well.
 
Or raven – or familiar. Whatever Grimm is, she has a part in this.
 
I don't know how much of this I might have just made up."

"She is out there," Anita said.
 
She shivered.
 
"I felt something when you told the tale, like a cold wind.
 
I heard your voice, but it did not seem like your words.
 
Not the way you would tell it – I mean.
 
Forgive me.
 
I hardly know you, and I have heard none of your stories, but – it is what I feel."

The room had begun to fill with other guests.
 
Wagons had pulled up with supplies, and a carriage filled with young men headed to the capitol in Raleigh had spilled its charges into the tavern, ready for a meal and a drink on the way through.
 
The relative privacy they had enjoyed nearer to sunup had dissolved into a busy crowd.

"Anita!" the bartender called.
 
"I don't pay you to stand around and gossip."

"I have to go," she said.
 
"I will meet you in your rooms when I can."

She turned to Edgar then, her face troubled. "I wish you luck," she said.
 
"It is forward of me, but I feel that you can use it.
 
Be careful."

Edgar nodded, and Anita hurried to the bar.
 
Lenore gathered up her drawing, pencils, charcoal and erasers.
 
She packed them carefully.
 
From inside her bag she brought forth two sheets of what appeared to be onion-skin.
 
She placed them over the front and back of the drawing and slid it carefully into the bag.

"Shall we?" she asked.

Edgar nodded.
 
"There is no sense in putting it off.
 
Somehow all the talk of sorcery and trapped spirits has not inspired me to finish this tale by candlelight."

"Out of character," Lenore said.
 
She smiled.

They rose, and with a quick wave to Anita, who nodded and smiled thinly, they left the tavern and turned down the long porch toward their rooms.

T
he work was even slower than it had been the night before.
 
There was only the one face trapped, but Lenore had never worked an image like this.
 
For one thing, she'd drawn the portrait of the bird without seeing anything.
 
She had already had to rework it once to superimpose the girl's features, and she'd seen them only for an instant – an instant that had burned dark lines into her mind.

The paper was raw from the constant erasing of the lines, and the risk of damaging the paper, or smearing the shading was constant, and distracting.
 
She removed Grimm from the center of that image one feather at a time, softly working in the details of a young and very beautiful face.
 
She had thought of asking Edgar to talk, to tell her another story, to tell her about his love, Virginia, and their life, anything to break the silence and create the atmosphere that aided her work, allowing her to free her mind from the mundane world and be lost in her vision.

Somehow it didn't seem right this time.
 
A story had brought them to this point, and any attempt to tell the rest of the story might send them both veering off track.
 
Though happy endings were clearly not Edgar’s forte, he might attempt one, and she did not know what would happen if he consciously tried to change things at this late point.
 
It would be better that they saved what simple skills and powers they possessed until events had played out as they had existed, or at least as they'd been written.
 
As she thought this, she smiled.

Edgar did not watch her work.
 
He stood at the window, gazing out at the trees, and the huge, deep expanse of The Great Dismal Swamp beyond.
 
He studied the sky, and he kept his eyes open for anything that might shift or change.
 
It wouldn’t do for some innocent to wander up in the middle of whatever was to come.
 
Even if no one was hurt, he and Lenore would be in danger.
 
What they accepted as their lot in life, others would see as sorcery, black magic, and evil.
 
They had no time to talk their way out of trouble.
 
It was not a thing he usually had to worry about, as his visions mostly invaded his mind, and his stories were written late at night or in the wee hours of morning.

As Lenore approached the final lines of the drawing, ever-so-softly rubbing away the last of what covered the princess’ face, a shadow broke over the trees.
 
Edgar watched as Grimm, circling in a slowly narrowing spiral, worked her way down to the earth just beyond the window.
 
It still didn't feel right thinking of the bird as a female, regardless of what Lenore had seen.
 
He opened the window.
 
The bird met his gaze and hopped back and forth from one foot to the other.
 
He, or she, was clearly agitated, and made no move to enter.

Edgar left the window open and stepped back slightly, but he did not break eye contact with his old friend.

Lenore brushed the tip of her pencil across the paper a final time.
 
Two lines joined, and suddenly, the entire image began to shimmer.
 
Edgar stifled a cry.
 
Beyond the window, in the grass beyond, Grimm stood as if transfixed.
 
The creature’s eyes were wide, and its wings thrown back.
 
The hopping motion had stopped – all movement had ceased – and the light around it brightened like the heat of a searing brand, or the glowing tip of a bit of kindling in a fire.

Grimm cried out, and Lenore pulled back in the same instant.
 
She nearly toppled her chair in the effort to distance herself from the table.
 
Edgar heard her and moved to catch her, thinking very briefly that it was becoming a habit.
 
He lifted her to her feet, and they stood together and watched as the bit of paper rose from the table.
 
It hovered, glowing as if on fire, about eight inches above the table top.

Outside, Grimm rose as well.
 
Not in flight, but slowly as if drawn by some odd force none of them could see.
 
Edgar sent a silent wish that no one would walk out the back door of the tavern at that moment, or glance out one of the windows.
 
Whatever was about to happen could not be stopped, and there was no way they could explain it if asked.

There was a blinding flash of light.
 
Edgar staggered back, but held his balance.
 
Lenore toppled into his arms, and he held her, supporting them both.
 
There was no sound.
 
It was as if the world had melted away in an instant, and they could only wait for it to pass.
 
Edgar wrapped his hands around Lenore tightly, pulled her against him protectively, and cried out.

“Grimm!”

There was a distant, answering cry, and then the light faded…and died.
 
Slowly, still clutching one another tightly, the two made their way to the window and looked out.

It was then that someone knocked loudly on the door.

L
enore spun, startled.
 
She could see nothing at first.
 
The flash of light strobed and filled her vision.
 
She nearly stumbled, then regained her balance and took a step forward.
 
She didn't know what to do.
 
She wanted desperately to turn back to the window – to know what had happened – but if someone was to burst in through the door they might not be able to explain what was happening.

The knock repeated, and with a worried glance over her shoulder, Lenore crossed the room and leaned against the frame.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"Tom, Ma'am, and Anita."

Lenore thought fast.
 
If she just said they were busy, the boy might get – and spread – the wrong idea. Edgar was a married man, and she still intended to stay and fulfill her original purpose.
 
She didn't want to give the wrong impression, but at the same time, the girl – Anita – had a part to play in whatever drama was
unolding
.
 
She gritted her teeth and tried to buy time.

"I will tell him to come and find you," she said.
 
"He is telling a story, and I don't want to interrupt him."

"I think he's gonna need to hear this," Tom said.
 
"With all due respect ma'am, and this won't make any sense but – could you tell him it's about his bird?"

That stopped her cold.
 
The bird?
 
What did the boy know about the bird?
 
What had Edgar told him? And if the boy was here about the bird, and the bird was outside the back window, who else was involved?
 
She took a deep breath, opened the door in a rush, and dragged Tom through.
 
Anita followed, and when they were safely inside, she closed the door behind them with a quick snap.

"Hey…" Tom said.
 
He tried to pull away, but she held him tightly by the shoulder.

"Wait!" she said.

Tom must have caught something in her gaze because he fell silent, and he stopped struggling.
 
When she sensed him calming, she released him and backed away.
 
She turned to the window.

Anita stood back to one side.
 
Her hand was pressed tightly to her lips, either in dismay, or to stifle a cry.
 
Edgar stood at the window, very still.
 
The sunlight shining in around him gave him the aspect of a silhouette.
 
His stance gave away absolutely nothing.

Lenore moved forward very slowly.
 
She stepped up behind him silently and glanced over his shoulder.
 
In the grass, just outside the window, a small dark heap lay prone on the grass.
 
It was very still, and though she knew that it must be Grimm, it did not look like a crow.
 
It was smaller, and glossier.

"Is she…"

"He," Edgar said.
 
He still didn't move, but he spoke softly.

"Grimm…is a he.
 
He is not a crow, but a raven.
 
It was a glamour, a safeguard we have tossed aside."

Tom had moved up beside them.
 
When he saw the bird lying still in the grass, he didn't hesitate.
 
He pushed the window open wider, and slipped through, nearly spilling everything from the tabletop.
 
He was out before they could stop him, or call out, kneeling in the soft grass and cradling Grimm in gentle hands.
 
He stared at the bird for a long moment, and then rose, very carefully, and carried him back to the window.

"He's alive," the boy said.
 
"I don't know what to do – but he's alive."

Edgar reached out, and Tom laid Grimm gently in his hands.
 
Edgar cradled his companion, stepped back, and Tom slid back over the window sill.
 
Lenore reached up and closed the window, and with Anita's help, drew the curtains across it.
 
There was no way to know who might have seen Tom, or what happened before he climbed out the window, but it was too late to worry about that.
 
They gathered around Edgar, and he glanced up.
 
He caught Lenore's gaze, his own a wash of pain.

"It is leaking from him," he said.
 
"The power – the energy.
 
I feel it slipping away, and though I can feel it, and share it, I cannot make it stop."

Then he seemed to wake, suddenly, and his eyes glittered.

"The drawing!" He cried.
 
"You didn't finish the drawing.
 
You set her free, she is gone, but there is a hole in the chest.
 
A hole in the heart."

Lenore lurched for the table.
 
She knew, even as he spoke, that he was right.
 
She'd gotten so caught up in what was happening, in what
might
happen, that she'd forgotten her duty.

The drawing sat where she'd left it.
 
She had to gather her pencils from the floor, and the chair, where Tom had accidentally knocked them climbing back into the room.
 
She smoothed the drawing and focused.
 
She did not have the time she would usually take to drop back into the trance-like state she had grown accustomed to.
 
She pressed the tip of the pencil to the paper, and began to draw.
 
The image was fresh in her mind, and she knew she would get no help with it.