Once Upon a Midnight Eerie: Book #2 (Misadventures of Edgar/Allan) (6 page)

Cat at their side, the two sets of twins followed Clarence and Genevieve down a long row of aboveground tombs. The boys expected the costumed guides to stop at any moment, since it seemed unlikely any place could be more haunted than a cemetery. But the Du Valiers continued silently to an open auxiliary gate in the wall of the cemetery and then strode out onto Basin Street.

“Where’s our first stop?” Allan asked.

“We will begin just up the street,” Clarence said.

The four had to scramble to keep up, as the Du Valiers set a surprising pace. For older folks, their movements were graceful and effortless.

“This is our first site,” Genevieve announced, stopping on the sidewalk before an empty lot that was overgrown with weeds and littered with broken bottles and wadded-up fast-food bags.

The twins joined the tour guides. “Here? This?”

Clarence motioned at the abandoned lot with a sweep of his hand. “You children see before you the beautiful town house of Etienne de Boré, who became the first mayor of New Orleans in 1803.”

“Yes, and you’ll notice the lovely balconies and flower boxes, overflowing with our city’s beloved bougainvillea,” Genevieve added, gazing rapturously at the vacant lot. “Ah, Madame de Boré was such a decorous and stylish woman. And quite good on the harpsichord, too!”

The two sets of twins looked at each other. The lot was vacant. Were they missing something here?

“And if you observe above the front doorway, you’ll see an architectural flourish that’s likely of particular interest to a pair of adventurous boys like you,” Clarence continued, grinning widely as he pointed at empty space. “That’s right—crossed muskets!”

Allan and Edgar furrowed their brows in confusion.

“You see,” Clarence continued, “Monsieur de Boré had been a musketeer for the king of France before coming to the Louisiana Territory.”

“Are you telling us this is where his house
used
to stand?” Em asked Clarence.

Clarence laughed. “What do you mean, ‘used to’? The house is there before us!”

Ah, so this is how the tour would work, the boys surmised. They were being asked to use their imaginations.

Imagination was no problem for the Poe twins.

Em caught on too. She spoke, her voice dreamy:

“The gleam of an heroic act,

Such strange illumination—

The Possible’s slow fuse is lit

By the Imagination!”

“More Dickinson,” Edgar observed.

Milly groaned. “Naturally.”

“Do you ever quote
our
ancestor, Mr. Edgar Allan Poe?” Allan asked Em.

She smiled at him. “‘Nevermore,’”she said, quoting from Mr. Poe’s best known poem, “The Raven.”

The boys grinned at the acknowledgment.

“So is this Etienne a ghost?” Milly asked the guides, returning to the subject at hand.

Clarence and Genevieve turned to her with curious expressions.

“No, he died peacefully in his sleep and has moved on,” Clarence said.

“Then does his wife haunt this place?” Allan inquired.

Genevieve shook her head no. “She died peacefully, too.”

“So why—”

But Clarence and Genevieve had already started up the street.

“Come!” Clarence called over his shoulder.

“We’ve still much to see!” Genevieve added, looking back with a charming smile.

“Strange tour,” Milly whispered.

The Du Valiers stopped after a few blocks at yet another vacant lot.

Sure enough, Clarence motioned to the weedy property. “Here stands the friendly pub called the Wet Whistle, where a thirsty man can get delicious ale.”

“Once, Clarence and I were proprietors of this fine establishment,” Genevieve said.

Clarence turned to his wife with love in his eyes. “Yes, we had many good years, eh, dear?”

“Hey, this is supposed to be a ghost tour, right?” Allan interrupted.

“We’re really not that interested in vacant lots,” Edgar added. “Unless they’re haunted.”

Clarence turned from the lot to face the boys. “Wait a minute. . . .” He took a long, deep breath, his eyes expressing new concern. “What do you mean ‘vacant lot’?”

“What else would you call this?”

“That’s all you boys see here, a vacant lot?”

The Poe twins nodded.

Clarence turned to Em and Milly. “Is that all you two see?”

The girls nodded.

“Is it at least haunted?” Edgar asked.

Genevieve touched her husband gently on the shoulder, worry in her eyes. Then she turned to the four twins. “No,
it’s
not haunted.”

“So what’s up with this tour, anyway?” Milly asked.

“We came to see haunted places,” Edgar reminded him.

The man sighed. “Ah, a misunderstanding.”

“What do you mean?”

“These ‘vacant lots’ do not appear vacant to us,” Genevieve explained gently. She seemed to be sorting through the misunderstanding as she spoke. “Instead, my young friends, they’re alive with what to you must seem the distant past.”

“Are you speaking in metaphor?” Em asked, confused.

The Du Valiers shook their heads.

“So you actually
see
these long-gone, historical places?” asked Edgar.

“We see them because my wife and I are of the same long-gone, historical time,” Clarence said.

“We thought you boys understood that,” Genevieve added. Seeing the twins’ baffled expressions, she continued: “This ‘ghost tour’ is not a tour of ghostly places, but a tour of New Orleans as we knew it,
conducted
by ghosts.”

The two sets of twins stepped back as all began to comprehend.

“Our apologies,” Clarence Du Valier said, removing his head from his shoulders and cradling it in one arm, like the Headless Horseman, only real.

Em and Milly gasped.

Edgar and Allan groaned—this was
almost
too much, even for them.

Genevieve Du Valier sighed and began to grow transparent.

Edgar, Allan, Em, and Milly stood Stuffed Cat–still beside one another, their faces white as the moon overhead.

Only Roderick seemed unfazed.

“Please don’t be afraid, children,” Clarence said, putting his head back on his shoulders.

“We mean you no harm,” Genevieve assured them, growing ever more transparent. “We mean no harm to anyone.”

Shock stilled the tongues of both sets of twins.

But after a moment, Roderick sauntered toward Clarence and Genevieve, purring.

This reassured the boys.

“So, you two are . . . dead,” Edgar said uncertainly.

“Well, in a manner of speaking,” Clarence began, adjusting the fit of his head on his neck. “Biologically, I suppose it’s undeniable.” He rubbed his hands together, looking for the right words. “Physiologically, anatomically, organically, so to speak—”

“In a word, ‘yes,’” Genevieve interrupted, for clarity’s sake.

Edgar and Allan looked at each other in delight.

This was the best ghost tour ever!

“Is this one of your tricks?” Milly whispered to the boys.

“We’ve heard about you two,” Em added.

The Poes shook their heads. It was true they’d pulled some ghoulish Halloween hijinks in the past, most recently turning their house into a dungeon to take revenge on neighborhood bullies. But this was the real thing.

The girls looked at each other, understanding.

“Death is a dialogue Between

The Spirit and the Dust,”

Em muttered.

This time, even Milly thought the quote perfect.

WHAT THE POE TWINS DID NOT KNOW  .  .  .

A LETTER DELIVERED THAT DAY:

IGER COFFIN MAKERS
Serving discreet customers since 1845

Ms. Cassandra Perry

P.O. Box 3273

New Orleans, LA 70116

Dear Ms. Perry,

I received a phone call from your lovely grandmother today and she informed me that you may be interested in my services. As you know, your family is very special to me. In that light, I can make you an outstanding offer on TWO child-sized models. And I will be happy to throw in a cat-sized coffin for free.

Please let me know if I can be of any other service to you.

“WE SHALL MAKE A PIE, SIR!”

NEITHER
the Poe nor the Dickinson twins were of any mind to go to sleep when they got back to the Pepper Tree Inn.

Actually, they weren’t sure they’d ever sleep again.

So they crept through the silent, three a.m. lobby, careful not to wake the snoring front desk clerk, who reclined in his chair with a thick biography of George Washington Carver open on his chest. With Roderick at their heels, the four slipped up the carpeted stairway, past the third floor, to the roof, which was accessible through a heavy metal door.

They stumbled outside into the moonlight.

The view was beautiful.

To the south, the shimmering Mississippi River twisted toward the sea, and to the north the moon illuminated lacy clouds that by morning would be dew on the wrought-iron handrails and ornaments of the French Quarter. But neither Poes nor Dickinsons noted the view. Instead, they stood facing each other, their expressions similarly composed of fifty percent wonder and fifty percent dismay.

“Did we actually see what we just saw?” Milly asked the others.

“Did we just hear what we just heard?” wondered Edgar aloud.

After the Du Valiers had acknowledged their shocking condition, they invited the two sets of twins to return with them to Saint Louis Cemetery for a little socializing. There, after they had all settled on stone benches near the Du Valiers’ crypt, the kindly old couple answered a flurry of questions.

Did death hurt?
Not at all
.

Did they ever get hungry?
Only for beignets, the scent of which sometimes wafted on a river breeze all the way to the cemetery
.

Why didn’t they just rejoin the living, since their appearances were so lifelike?
Because they could only materialize within a mile of their tomb and only for a few hours at a time.

What did they miss most about being alive?
The feel of one another’s actual flesh when they held hands
.

What hopes did they have for the future?
To move on to the next world.

Now, atop the roof, the Poes and Dickinsons took long, deep breaths, hoping to appear more calm and at ease than they actually were. Only Roderick seemed truly composed, curling his body into a comfortable position for a long-overdue sleep.

The four sat on the rooftop, legs crossed, as if around an invisible campfire.

“We have to talk,” Allan announced.

Everyone nodded.

But where to start?

Em spoke first, or, rather, recited:

“The grave my little cottage is,

Where ‘Keeping house’ for thee,

I make my parlor orderly

And lay the marble tea. . . .”

“Well, one thing’s for sure,” Allan said, rubbing his hands to warm them, wishing that they were seated around an actual campfire rather than an imaginary one. “Clarence and Genevieve have been stuck here a long time.”

Edgar reviewed aloud. “Clarence said the only way he and Genevieve could move on from this world to the next was for justice to be served.”

“A public acknowledgment of their murderer’s identity,” Allan elaborated.

The boys thought of their parents, deceased for seven years. Surely, Mal and Irma Poe had moved on by now to the next world, having been victims of a famous accident rather than an unsolved murder. But what if circumstances had been different? Edgar and Allan shuddered to think of their mom and dad stuck, like the Du Valiers, in a cemetery (or a satellite!) for eternity. That would be unacceptable. So, in that light, how could the boys not do all they could to help Clarence and Genevieve?

“But how can we mete out justice at this late date?” Em asked, wrapping her shawl more tightly around her shoulders.

“Especially,” Milly added, “since the Du Valiers’ murderer has been dead for two centuries?”

“Well, obviously what we have to do is—” Allan stopped.

But Edgar didn’t jump in.

The girls waited.

The Poe twins said nothing more.

“Do what?” Milly pressed after a moment.

“
That
is the question,” Allan answered dramatically.

The Dickinson twins sighed and rolled their eyes.

“Great,” Em said. “What we need is Sherlock Holmes, and what we get is Hamlet, prince of indecision.”

The Poe twins were impressed by the literary reference, even if it was intended as a put-down.

For a while, they all sat silently on the rooftop, reviewing the facts.

This much was true:

Clarence and Genevieve Du Valier had shared all they knew of how things worked with the dead. Of course, the Du Valiers didn’t know much, since they’d never moved from here to the next world. Most dead move right along; but, because the Du Valiers’ double murder in 1814 had been neither solved nor avenged, they remained earthbound, pining for justice.

Naturally, they
wanted
to move on. But they needed help.

Clarence and Genevieve had explained that in the autumn of 1814, their little inn, the Wet Whistle, had been visited by the most famous brothers in all of Louisiana, the pirates Jean and Pierre Lafitte. Jean lived up to his nickname “the Gentleman Pirate.” But Pierre was no gentleman at all.

Now Milly began typing on her phone.

The Poe twins had never seen anyone so adept with her thumbs.

“What are you doing?” Edgar asked.

“I’m writing a draft post for my blog,” she answered, without looking up. “To take the story public!”

The Poe twins looked over her shoulder:

One night in New Orleans, 1814, the famous Jean Lafitte left his brother Pierre and their pirate friends at the Wet Whistle. At closing time, the drunken Pierre accidentally handed the innkeeper, Clarence Du Valier, a handwritten note instead of cash. Naturally, Clarence read the note, which was just an odd-sounding poem. He returned to Pierre to explain the mistake, but the pirate leaped from his chair in outrage.

“That note was for no one’s eyes save my brother’s and mine own!” Pierre shouted, snatching the slip of paper. “Did you read it, swine?”

Clarence nodded, unable to lie.

Furious, the drunken pirate demanded that Clarence step outside to settle the matter “honorably.”

In those days, that meant a duel with swords.

What Pierre Lafitte didn’t know was that as a young man, Clarence had served the king of France and was an expert swordsman. In the alley behind the inn, Clarence held his own.

But it was to be no fair duel.

When Clarence’s foil scratched Pierre’s cheek, the pirate’s henchmen grabbed the innkeeper by his arms, stripping him of his weapon. Then Pierre ran him through the heart. When Genevieve darted into the alley to help, he ran her through too.

“I will make my confession to my personal diary,” Pierre declared, dropping his foil to the ground beside the dying Du Valiers. “So you two innkeepers needn’t worry about my soul.” Then he instructed his henchmen to behead the Du Valiers with sabers.

Pierre never answered for the crime.

Milly’s thumbs stopped.

Em wiped at a tear. “Well written, sister.”

“Isn’t it strange,” Allan commented, “that we think the Du Valiers haunt New Orleans, when it’s really New Orleans that haunts them?”

“While a wax figure stands in the museum celebrating Pierre Lafitte as a hero,” Edgar added.

Milly indicated the phone. “Soon it’ll be online for the world to read.”

“We’ll still need
proof
,” Em countered. “And the only proof would be Pierre’s diary. His ‘confession,’ right?”

Milly and the Poe twins nodded.

It was commonly believed that Pierre’s diary had been buried along with the Lafitte brothers’ loot, which for two centuries no treasure hunter had located. However, no one had ever been provided with the clue that Clarence had offered the Poe and Dickinson twins in his account of the murder.

Now Em recited from memory the contents of Pierre’s note—his poem:

“Thrice concealed in the following prose

The place where only a true Lafitte goes,

The name of the spot walled by hallowed gates

Where our treasure abides and safely awaits.

‘I’ll make a wise phrase.

Hear me as I will speak.

We shall make a pie, sir!’”

“It’s a rather awkward poem,” Em observed.

“It goes all crazy at the end,” Milly added.

“I don’t think the poetry is the point,” Edgar said.

The girls looked at him, intrigued.

He shivered in the predawn cold. “This has something to do with the treasure.”

“What else would have been so important to Pierre Lafitte that he’d kill somebody just for looking at it?” Allan added.

“So we should think about it line by line.” Em stood and began to pace about the rooftop.

“‘Thrice concealed in the following prose . . . ’” Edgar said contemplatively.

Em turned to them, her face alight. “The ‘prose’ is the three unrhymed sentences at the end.”

“That makes sense,” Milly murmured, “but what’s concealed there?”

“The name of the ‘spot walled by hallowed gates,’” Edgar said.

“‘Hallowed gates’ . . . ” Milly mused. “A cemetery!”

“And in 1814 there was only one main cemetery in New Orleans,” Allan added, glad that he’d paid attention to the city tour earlier in the day. “And that cemetery is the one we visited tonight, Saint Louis Cemetery.”

“So the treasure’s hidden in one of the tombs?” Em said.

The Poe twins nodded.

“But which?”

The boys knew better than to quote Hamlet again and say,
That is the question.

But that
was
the question.

And the answer was concealed three times in the three sentences at the end of the note.

“I’ll make a wise phrase.

Hear me as I will speak.

We shall make a pie, sir!”

“What does pie have to do with pirate treasure?” Em inquired.

“Well, what types of pie are there?” Milly asked. “Let’s consider.”

“I don’t think that’s the direction—” Allan began.

Milly dismissed him with a wave. “Off the top of my head I can think of apple, strawberry, rhubarb, chocolate, boysenberry, cherry, pumpkin, banana cream, pecan, sweet potato, coconut cream, peach, Mississippi Mud—”

The boys turned to her, their interest piqued. “Wait,” Edgar said.

“Did you just say ‘Mississippi Mud’?” Allan asked. They were, after all, mere walking distance to the Mississippi River, also known as “the Big Muddy.” “But if the treasure’s buried in the Mississippi mud . . . that’s no clue at all, since the river is a thousand miles long.”

Milly barely missed a beat. “Blueberry, blackberry, key lime, lemon—”

“Chess pie!” Em interrupted.

The boys turned to her.

“How’s that helpful?” Edgar asked.

Em shrugged. “Well, I like to play chess in my mind whenever there’s a question I can’t answer.”

“Why?” Allan asked.

“Chess busies my thoughts and frees them, all at the same time,” she answered. “And there is, of course, a kind of pie named chess pie, of which our famous great-great-great-great grandaunt was very fond . . .”

Edgar and Allan sighed.

All the while, Milly kept reciting. “Boston cream, chicken pot pie, pizza—”