Nevermore: A Novel of Love, Loss, & Edgar Allan Poe (6 page)

As he moved into the chill night air, he saw that the door to his immediate right, the corner room, was also open.
 
Lamplight streamed out and pooled on the wooden slats and the ground beyond.
 
A woman stood there, silhouetted, staring into the distance.
 
She turned, caught sight of him, and stared.

"Did you…" she said.

Edgar took in her eyes, her long hair, slender figure, and the serious set of her jaw.
 
Something sparked between them, and he knew that she'd felt some – or all – of what he'd felt.
 
Maybe caused it.

"No," he said.
 
"I don't think so.
 
Maybe a part…"

Another woman stepped out into the darkness behind the first.
 
She was younger, darker, stumbling a little, and staring out beyond the porch through glazed, empty eyes.
 
She paid no attention to her surroundings.
 
Instead she stepped down to the ground and walked very slowly forward to where two trees stood about thirty feet apart.
 
When she reached a point between them, she turned back.

"Here," she said.
 
"It was here.
 
They stood, there," she pointed toward the tree nearest to the bar, and then at the ground beneath her feet, "and here.
 
Thigpen was shot here.
 
He died.
 
I was there."

"Thigpen?" Edgar said.
 
He turned to the woman.
 
"Who is Thigpen?
 
The dark man?
 
The one with the eyes of ice?
 
The snake?"

Lenore nodded.
 
She studied Edgar with new concentration.

"How do you know that?"

"I wrote it.
 
I was working on a story – a story about a lost love.
 
Something… interrupted me.
 
I did not finish that story, but began another.
 
Two men – a gunfight – a death.
 
The darker man was going to win.
 
I felt it, and I could not stand that it might be true –so I – changed it."

"Changed...?"

"There was no bird," Anita said softly.
 
"I was here.
 
He drew his pistol first.
 
He fired first, but at the last second, he shied away.
 
I thought it was the drink.
 
I thought – maybe the sunlight was too much after so little sleep.
 
There was no crow.
 
I stood right where you stand now.
 
There was no crow."

"I changed it." Edgar said.
 
"He was evil.
 
He was faster, and he was going to kill that man.
 
There was a woman, as well…"

Edgar stared at Anita, concentrating.

"You?"

Anita turned to face Edgar, as if seeing him for the first time.
 
She started to speak, stopped, and simply nodded.

"He is gone now," Lenore said.

"How long ago did he die?" Edgar asked.
 
"What did I just write … see?"

"The gunfight happened a year ago," Lenore said.
 
"His spirit was…detained.
 
I was working to release it – and Anita was telling me his story.
 
I'm afraid it's a little complicated – a little more so with your inclusion.
 
I'm Eleanor
MacReady
.
 
My friends – what few there are – call me Lenore."

"Edgar.
 
Edgar Poe.
 
I'm a writer, among other things.
 
The boy from the tavern told me you keep odd hours."

Lenore laughed then, and the sound broke the heavy darkness that had wrapped around them.
 
Anita still looked bewildered, but not frightened.
 
Edgar leaned back against the frame of his door and stared at the trees.
 
Now that he knew, he could see it.
 
The entire encounter, as he'd envisioned it, played out once more in his mind.
 
He saw where the men had faced off, where the one – Thigpen? – had fallen.
 

"I think we are going to have to discuss this, Mr. Poe," Lenore said, breaking his reverie.
 
"If what you say is true, and you caused a change in the image that I shared with Anita – then you have reached into the past.
 
Or, more curiously, you seem to have been a part of it all along.
 
I find that more than a little odd.
 
And there is the matter of the crow…"

At that moment, there was a rustle of feathers.
 
Grimm dropped from the sky like a dark cloud, whirled up and under the overhanging lip of the porch, and thumped onto Edgar's shoulder, nearly knocking him from his feet.
 
Anita screamed, and Lenore backed away, but Edgar stood his ground, regained his balance and reached up to steady the bird.

"It's okay," he said.
 
"For better or worse, this is my traveling companion.
 
His name is Grimm."

Anita stared, one hand to her mouth to stifle any further outcry.

"We need to get inside," Lenore said.
 
"Come to my room for now.
 
We need to get out of sight before anyone else comes out to see what's going on.
 
I'm not sure I could explain why I'm talking to a stranger in the middle of the night, and I'm quite certain I have no explanation for – Grimm."

Edgar closed the door to his own room, and followed the two women inside.
 
His gaze was immediately caught by the drawing on the table.
 
He crossed the room and leaned down to stare at it.

It was a drawing of a tree, except, bits and pieces of it were missing.
 
There were five blanks in the branches, leaves, and gnarled bark – not places that seemed to have been left out of the picture, but bits and pieces that were simply…gone.
 
One in particular held his attention.
 
He reached down and traced it with the tip of his finger.

"That's where I found him," Lenore said.
 
"That's where his face was trapped – his spirit.
 
The tree held five spirits.
 
It happens when someone fights very hard against moving on after death, or when some event – some tragedy or traumatic event – causes an unnatural binding."

"What bound him?"

"I don't know…at least, I'm not sure.
 
Now I think…"

Lenore turned and stared at Grimm.

"He's not just a bird," she said.

"No, far from it," Edgar said.
 
"I have told you he is my traveling companion, but it would be more accurate to say – I am his.
 
He is very old, very intelligent, and I believe he is responsible for the visions that bring my stories – the insights that allow me to bring dark events to life with simple pen and ink."

"He is your familiar," Lenore said.

Edgar frowned.
 
He knew the term well enough, but not the context.
 
It was a word normally associated with witches, practitioners of dark arts.
 
He thought he might have recognized it from his research, but had certainly never associated it with himself.

"Don't look so shocked," Lenore chuckled.
 
"It's a very old term, and very apt.
 
You, and the bird, are bonded.
 
He is as bound to you as you are to him, and that is why – when you needed something you did not have – a way to change what had already happened – he became your vessel.

"I am not certain about this, because, as far as I know I'm the first practitioner of my own art, and nothing like this has ever happened before, but I believe that it's possible this man – Thigpen – was waiting for you.
 
For us.
 
He was trapped for a reason.
 
I think, just possibly, Mr. Poe, that you have bent time.
 
It's a very impressive feat, I must say."

Edgar stared at the picture.

"The others?"

"Free," Lenore said.
 
"Normally I'd know at what point that occurred, but I have no memory of this room, or the work, since Anita's story drew me in.
 
I assume it was about that time that you yourself were caught up – an unexpected blending of energy, but, if I am correct, perfectly in accordance with something bigger – something grander."

"Fate?"

"Perhaps."

Anita, who had stood silently off to one side, staring, slowly approached Edgar.
 
Her gaze was fixed on Grimm, and she moved forward with tentative courage.
 
She held out her hand, obviously expecting the old crow to snap at her, nip off the end of a finger, something.
 
When her finger brushed the top of his head, Grimm dipped at the neck so she could scratch more easily.
 
When she did so, and then pulled back, he set to work preening his feathers.

Lenore laughed again.

"He is the only one of us not caught up in the how or what of it."

"Probably for the best," Edgar said.
 
"So…you think something or someone – obviously more powerful than you or I – saw the dark outcome of a gunfight over a year ago, and, what, altered reality so that something distracted this man Thigpen, then trapped his spirit to await the opportunity to
make
that thing distract him?"

"Something like that.
 
You have a better explanation?"

"There was no crow," Anita said, cutting in.
 
"I was there, and there was no crow, but tonight – when I saw it tonight – I knew that it was right.
 
I knew that it must be the truth."
 
She turned to Edgar. "You saved my life."

Edgar stared at her, then back at the drawing on the table, and finally back at Lenore.

"I'm going to try and get some sleep," he said.
 
"I suggest that the two of you do so as well.
 
We will be able to think more clearly by the light of day, and I believe that we both have stories to tell – important stories."

"Anita," Lenore said, "will you stay?"

She nodded.

"I will get more blankets from the tavern.
 
I have a key, and sometimes I sleep in an empty room, when there is one.
 
I haven't liked walking home alone since…"

Grimm let out a soft caw just then, silencing her.
 
Then, in a rush, the girl crossed to Edgar, threw her arms around him, including Grimm as well in an impromptu hug.
 
She left the room then and Edgar stood, staring after her.
 
Grimm, rumpled, hopped from foot to foot and glared.

"Tomorrow, then," Lenore said.
 
"And well met, Edgar Poe.
 
I believe we are well met indeed."

When she closed the door after him, he stood a long time on the shadowed porch, staring out at the trees, and the darkness, before slipping inside, closing his window, and climbing into bed for a long, absolutely dreamless sleep.

B
reakfast was a fairly sedate affair at the tavern.
 
Even the most hardcore of drinkers would not wander in until noon or later, so those who were awake, and aware, and present, took advantage of the silence.

The kitchen was open.
 
There was toasted bread in large slices, soaked in butter.
 
There were eggs, and there was bacon.
 
The boy, Tom, had returned with a basket in one hand and a large sack over one shoulder.
 
He'd struggled gamely under the weight, and when Edgar stepped out of his room and spotted him, he hurried over to lend a hand.

"I've got it," Tom said.

"I'm sure you do," Edgar said, "but I am going to assume that you remembered to do me a certain favor, and with that in mind, it's the least I can do to carry the basket to the tavern for you."

Tom grinned.

"Got the corn right here in my pocket," he said.
 
"Whole bag of it.
 
I know it's the right stuff 'cause my ma spends half her day chasin' crows out of the bin where we keep it."

"Sounds perfect," Edgar said.
 
"Let's get this food inside."

Lenore was already seated at the table to the rear of the tavern, beneath the great window.
 
Instead of shadows, the surface of the table was bathed in morning sunlight. Anita bustled among the tables, polishing the surfaces, wiping down the chairs.
 
The morning was far less forgiving than the dark of night; food, stains, and stray glassware had found its way to the far corners of the room, and now kept her occupied.

Edgar took it all in in an instant, and smiled.
 
He crossed to the bar, laid the basket on top, and turned to Lenore.