Once Upon a Midnight Eerie: Book #2 (Misadventures of Edgar/Allan) (10 page)

“Cassie?” Allan called into the darkness. “We’re here. Where are you?”

No answer.

“Cassie?” Edgar shouted. “Give us Roderick and we’ll tell you where to find the treasure.”

Silence. Then a shuffling sound.

The twins whirled around—but it was just a rat scurrying away between tombs.

“Cassie?”

“The name’s Cassandra, boys,” came a woman’s voice from a few rows away.

The twins started in the direction of the voice. They said nothing, creeping silently, hoping to take her by surprise.

However, they were the ones surprised.

“Freeze, boys.” The voice was behind them. “Now turn, slowly.”

It was Cassie. But hadn’t they just heard her in the distance?

The boys drew their swords as they turned.

Cassie held Roderick in one arm, squeezed tight. In her free hand she held a syringe, pointed at Roderick’s furry neck. “Lose the swords, silly boys, or he gets it.”

“What’s in the syringe?” Edgar asked.

“Death,” she answered.

The boys believed her. They had no choice but to drop their swords, which fell to the ground with a rusty clatter.

“Look, we know you’re related to the professor,” Allan said. “Are you working for him?”

“I’m his daughter, and I’m working
against
him!” she snapped.

“Then that puts us on the same side,” Edgar observed reasonably.

She shook her head. “Not exactly.”

The boys shared a moment of bafflement.

“Tell me the name of the tomb that contains the treasure,” Cassie continued.

“And then you’ll give us Roderick?” Edgar asked.

“Well, the name of the tomb is actually just the first thing I’ll be wanting from you two.”

“And then what?”

“Let’s take it one thing at a time,” she said.

The boys shared another, less baffled thought.

“Otherwise you’ll kill Roderick?” Allan asked.

She tightened her grip and their cat yowled. “Obviously.”

“Wow, that’s cold,” Edgar said. “In fact, it’s
downright frozen
.”

And on cue, Roderick went stiff, his eyes fixed and glassy.

Cassie glanced down at the seemingly lifeless object she held against her body. A dead cat! Her eyes widened in panic.

“Hey, you scared him to death!” Allan said.

“He must have had a heart attack!” added Edgar.

Startled, she dropped both the “corpse” and the syringe.

“Threatening to kill a dead cat is no threat at all,” Allan observed calmly as he picked up his sword.

She looked confused. “What, you’re not even sad he’s dead?”

Edgar snapped his fingers.

Roderick snapped back to life, leaping to the boys’ side.

“What!” Cassie shouted, outraged.

The boys moved forward with swords extended.

“I think it’s time we have a talk with the police,” Edgar said.

“I don’t think so, boys,” announced another voice from behind them.

They turned.

An old woman stepped out of the shadows. She pointed a double-barreled shotgun at the Poe twins. It must have been
her
voice they’d heard calling to them.

“Drop your weapons.”

Her face looked familiar. She was an older female version of Professor Perry.

The boys’ swords clattered once more to the ground.

“Good timing, Grandmother,” Cassie said, regaining her composure.

The old woman smiled at the twins. If anything, this was possibly the most terrifying sight of all. “Yes,” she said. “I’m mother to your nemesis. And I hate him even more than you two.”

Edgar and Allan looked at each other.

“Excuse my forwardness,” Allan said to her, “but your last sentence was grammatically unclear. Do you mean you hate the professor even more than we hate him, or that you hate him even more than you hate us?”

“I don’t hate you boys,” she said.

“Oh, good,” they responded.

“But I’m still going to have to ask you two to step into that open tomb,” she said, nodding toward iron doors ajar on a mausoleum nearby.

The boys had been too distracted to notice it before.

“Why?” Allan asked.

“Because my granddaughter and I are going to seal you inside,” she answered. “With mortar.”

The twins thought of their great-great-great-great granduncle’s famous story “The Cask of Amontillado,” in which a villain traps his rival behind a brick wall. The story doesn’t end well for the character behind the wall.

“Why would you do that to us?”

“Because my loathsome son considers you two to be irreplaceable to his ‘great experiment,’” she answered. “You know his plan, boys. To kill one of you and imprison the other, and then to use your psychic connection as a channel between this world and the next. All for his own gain!”

She had it right.

“So, if you’re opposed to that, why are you holding a gun on us?” Allan asked, reasonably.

“Because killing you
both
, right now, will make a waste of his life!” she answered, her eyes gleaming with devilish delight. “By demolishing his ambitions I’ll demonstrate that his mother is quite capable of avenging a betrayal.”

“And it’ll also show that his long-abandoned daughter is someone to take seriously,” Cassie added, having regained her poise.

What a family!
the boys thought.

“Look, the professor is thousands of miles away,” Edgar said. “He’s hunted by authorities. He’ll never show his face in the country again! So why bother with us?”

“Oh, he’ll be back,” Grandmother Perry answered.

“But we’ve already defeated him,” Allan said.

“No, you’ve only delayed him,” Cassie snapped. “But Grandmother and I
can
defeat him.”

“Now get into the tomb,” Grandmother Perry demanded, motioning with the shotgun. “And no more tricks with the cat.”

The boys were stumped.

“No more stalling!” Grandmother Perry shouted.

And then, appearing from out of the shadows . . .

. . . were Clarence and Genevieve Du Valier.

“Are you harassing these boys?” Clarence asked Grandmother Perry.

“Where’d
you
come from?” the old woman demanded, turning and looking the mysterious couple up and down. “Masqueraders,” she murmured. “Poor timing. . . . Looks like I’ll have to put you do-gooders in the tomb along with the boys.”

“I don’t think so,” Genevieve said sweetly. “We’ve just spent two centuries in a tomb and we’re not anxious for more.”

“In fact, it was these boys who set us free,” Clarence said, smiling.

“What are you talking about?” Grandmother Perry snapped.

“It’s a long story,” Clarence said. “Why don’t I just show you?” At this, he removed his head, cradling it in his arms.

Genevieve removed her head, too, for good measure.

And, unlike last time, blood gushed from the gaping wounds, cascading over their shoulders, drenching their bodies.

Even the Poe twins were taken aback.

Grandmother Perry gasped, clutched at her heart, and fell to the ground, unconscious.

Cassie screamed at the sight of the decapitated pair. She turned to run. But the headless Clarence blocked the path to the left, and the headless Genevieve blocked it to the right. Panicked, Cassie dodged into the open tomb.

The twins slammed the door behind her.

They wedged it shut but skipped the mortar. Instead, they’d let the police know where to find her.

The old couple put their heads back on their shoulders. (It made communicating so much easier.) The blood that had covered their clothes turned luminescent and then disappeared. They were their old selves once more.

“That was impressive,” Edgar said to the Du Valiers.

“We thought you two had already moved on,” Allan added.

“We wanted to thank you first,” Clarence said.

“Besides, we were a little worried about that young woman, Cassie, who’s been following you around the French Quarter,” Genevieve added.

“Following us around?” the twins responded, aggrieved not to have noticed.

“Don’t feel bad,” Genevieve said. “She was stealthy. And some things are just easier for ghosts to observe.”

“In any case, we wanted to return the kind favor you did us,” Clarence added.

“Well, you did,” the boys chimed. “Thanks!”

“What will you two do now?” Genevieve asked.

Allan gestured toward the unconscious old woman, and then to the locked tomb that contained Cassie. “First we’ll tie Grandma up, and then see that the police cart these two away.”

“And then we’ll deliver the treasure to the New Orleans Pirate Museum,” Edgar added.

“And you two?” Allan asked.

Clarence and Genevieve smiled.

“Oh, we’ll be moving on now, thank you,” Clarence said.

When Genevieve kissed the boys on their cheeks, it felt to each like the merest breeze.

WHAT THE POE TWINS DID NOT KNOW  .  .  .

AN UNMAILED LETTER RECOVERED BY POLICE IN THE HANDBAG OF MRS. NATASHA PERRY:

CELEBRATION

TWO
days later, Edgar and Allan Poe settled behind the big semicircular desk on the set of the third-best-rated TV morning news program in New Orleans. The top two shows,
Rise and Shine, New Orleans!
and
Wake Up, New Orlean
s
!
, had turned down exclusive interviews, still angry about the on-air confusion the twins had caused a few days before. No matter. Edgar and Allan knew that whatever show they appeared on now was bound to make national news.

“Welcome to
Sunrise New Orleans!
” said the host as the red light on the TV camera lit.

His hair wasn’t as perfect as the host’s hair at WKEU, and his posture wasn’t as straight as the hostess’s at WJRT. But his teeth glittered whiter than any Edgar and Allan had ever seen on a human being. The boys almost needed sunglasses to ward off the glamorous glare.

“It’s my pleasure this morning to welcome Edgar and Allan Poe,” he continued.

“Thanks,” the boys said in unison.

“But don’t forget Roderick Usher,” Allan added.

The cat poked his head out from Edgar’s jacket. He looked sleepy, which was no wonder, considering the schedule they’d all kept the past few days.

“Hello, Roderick,” said the host graciously. Then he turned to the camera. “Just two days ago, these boys—the great-great-great-great grandnephews of the illustrious Edgar Allan Poe—finished shooting the upcoming Werner Wender film,
A Tale of Poe
. But that’s not why they’re here this morning.” He turned back to the boys. “Tell our viewers how your actions resulted in the arrest of Cassandra Perry, a con artist wanted by police in three states, and her grandmother, a parolee whose gun violations will send her back to prison as soon as she’s out of the hospital.”

“Well, we used a two-pronged approach,” Allan answered, like the veteran crime fighter he was quickly becoming.

“First we employed the Stuffed Cat,” Edgar said.

“The what?” the host asked.

“It’s a trick that Roderick does.”

“We’d demonstrate,” Allan broke in, “but taxidermy is a little disgusting and might spoil your audience’s enjoyment of their cornflakes.”

“Taxidermy?” the host asked, cautiously. He’d been warned that the Poes were not “ordinary” interviewees.

“And the second part of our two-pronged attack involved our much older friends, Clarence and Genevieve,” Allan continued.

“Who?” the host asked, glancing across the studio to where Uncle Jack and Aunt Judith stood near the camera, watching.

“No, not them,” Allan said.

“Clarence and Genevieve are dead,” Edgar elaborated. “Whereas our aunt and uncle are very much alive, as you can see.”

“Your helpers are dead?”

The twins nodded.

“They died helping you?”

“Oh, no,” Edgar said. “They were dead all along.”

Confused, the host sighed. It was no wonder the other two morning shows had turned down this interview.

But then the twins delivered a bombshell.

“We aren’t actually here to talk about crime fighting,” Allan said.

“No?” the host asked, cautiously.

“We’re here to announce that, along with Em and Milly Dickinson—our costars in
A Tale of Poe
and the great-great-great-great grandnieces of Emily Dickinson—we have discovered the major portion of the lost treasure of the Lafitte brothers,” Edgar announced. “Right here in New Orleans!”

“You’re kidding!” the host cried.

The twins shook their heads. “Not just Pierre Lafitte’s diary,” Edgar said, revealing their role as museum vandals.

“But the gold, jewels . . . everything,” Allan added.

“So it was you two who found Pierre Lafitte’s diary and brought it to light?” the host asked, recalling the big news story of two days before.

“Along with the Dickinson twins,” Allan reminded him.

“And where was the treasure hidden all these years?” the host asked.

“Tonight, at a special event at the New Orleans Pirate Museum, you’ll find out all the details.”

Before guiding Ms. Ellen Payne, curator of the New Orleans Pirate Museum, to the tomb of Lance de Tremblement and the treasure hidden within, the Poe and Dickinson twins negotiated a good deal. They would donate to the museum 100 percent of their share of the treasure, provided the museum agreed to the following terms:

Two percent of the proceeds from the treasure would go to an organization that preserved original nineteenth-century poetry manuscripts (Em’s idea).

Two percent would go to an organization that distributed computer technology and smartphones to underprivileged schools (Milly’s idea).

Four percent would go to an organization that helped place orphaned children with good families (Edgar and Allan’s idea).

Two percent would go to fight cruelty to animals (Roderick’s idea).

And there had been other matters to work out. For example, there was the lock that the Poe and Dickinson twins had broken on the museum display case in which they’d placed Pierre Lafitte’s incriminating diary. As a show of good faith, Ms. Payne agreed to overlook the minor offense.

“And the Pierre Lafitte wax figure is easily enough returned to its properly clothed state,” she said.

But the boys were tough negotiators.

“We’ll only take you to the treasure if you agree to leave him dressed as a convict forever,” Edgar insisted.

“It’s to serve as a reminder that Pierre was no swashbuckling hero but a scoundrel,” Allan explained.

“We concur with Edgar and Allan,” the Dickinson sisters chimed in.

Ms. Payne made a phone call to her board of directors, and, after a moment, agreed to all of the Poe and Dickinson demands.

She was not disappointed.

The treasure proved truly historic.

So that night at the New Orleans Pirate Museum’s special event, the media, community, and pirate fans from all over the state gathered on the museum steps beneath a new banner:

When Ms. Payne announced from the podium, “Ladies and gentlemen, here they are, our treasure hunters: Em and Milly Dickinson, and Edgar and Allan Poe!” the crowd’s cheers rose up like so many released spirits into the Louisiana night.

“And Roderick, too!” cried the boys.

And the cheers got even louder.

The next morning, the Poe family went downstairs to the lobby of the Pepper Tree Inn to say good-bye to the Dickinsons, who were going to the airport for a noon flight to the sunny beaches of Mexico. In contrast, the Poes planned to load up their Volvo wagon after lunch and start the long drive back to Baltimore. Edgar and Allan didn’t mind. They looked forward to reuniting with their school friends. Well, they minded a little. . . .

They’d miss Em and Milly.

“Who’d have guessed that making a movie would be the
least
exciting part of this trip?” Em asked the boys as their respective parents and guardians checked out of the inn.

“Yeah,” Edgar said lamely.

“True,” Allan added uselessly.

Suddenly, the Poe twins couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“You know what was the most exciting part of the trip for Em and me?” Milly asked.

“The ghosts?” Allan proposed.

“The treasure?” Edgar suggested.

“Meeting you two,” Milly answered.

Em nodded in agreement.

Now Edgar and Allan couldn’t get any words out at all—not even monosyllables.

The girls said nothing but just stood before them.

Are we supposed to hug good-bye
? Edgar and Allan wondered.

But hugging girls wasn’t all that simple for Edgar or Allan, even in the best of circumstances. They hadn’t hugged many girls before (actually, discounting their mother and Aunt Judith, they’d hugged exactly zero). And now, in a lobby full of adults, this was far from the best of circumstances.

Was this an example of too much thinking about a simple thing?

That happens sometimes, even to smart boys (especially to smart boys).

The silence grew awkward.

The girls threw their arms around Edgar and Allan.

“Be safe,” Milly whispered.

“We believe in you,” Em whispered.

After a moment, the boys relaxed and allowed themselves to be hugged.

It was nice.

A little later, Edgar and Allan stood outside the Pepper Tree Inn watching the Dickinson family’s cab pull away from the curb and into the slow-moving traffic. Uncle Jack came out of the lobby. He joined them, putting his arms around their shoulders.

“Last night, I did a little negotiating of my own with the museum, boys,” he said.

Edgar and Allan looked up at him.

“What’d you get us, more beignets?” Allan teased him.

“Hey, that’s a great idea,” Uncle Jack said hungrily. “I wish I’d thought of it. Oh, well, I guess you two will have to settle for these.”

He handed each boy a heavy gold doubloon.
Their own pirate treasure!

“The museum people were happy for you kids to keep something,” Uncle Jack explained.

“Em and Milly, too?”

Uncle Jack nodded.

The twins smiled and put the coins in their pockets. Their pirate-obsessed friend, David Litke, would love this.

Uncle Jack laughed. “Don’t drop those in any vending machines. They’re worth more than our house.”

“Speaking of our house—” Edgar began.

“Let’s go home, Uncle Jack,” Allan continued.

“Baltimore it is, boys.”