Raven (Legends Saga Book 2) (6 page)

Indecision
marred Mrs. Allen’s elegant perfection with concerned creases that cut between her brows. Pressing her lips together hard enough to cause white lines around her mouth, she rose to her feet, flipped her mane of pin-curls, and—with visible reluctance—strode off on her task.

Only at her exit did Father’s brave façade crack. His hands slid down his son’s arms until he caught both the boy’s
wrists. Turning Edgar’s hands palm up, he inspected the gloves, searching for any snag or catch that would allow the horrifying truth to seep through. “Whatever happens, do
not
remove your gloves. Promise me that?” His gaze scoured his son’s face, encouraging the words he longed to hear to tumble passed his lips.

“Of course! I
promise
, Papa!”

Folding both his hands around his son’s,
John brought them to his chest as if in prayer. Suddenly, the man that always seemed able to mold the world to his will appeared genuinely vulnerable … and frightened. “If
anything
happens, Edgar, anything that scares you or that you cannot control, you run straight home without pause. It will not make you a coward, son. It will make you a man aware of the severity of his condition. Do you understand?”

Edgar swallowed hard around the lump of trepidation
that had wriggled its way into his throat. “Yes, Papa. I understand. Yet you must know that nothing will happen. Death does not loom on school yards.”

Outside the wind lashed and whistled, its powerful gust allowing a nearby tree branch to scratch against the
windowpane like bony fingers.

“Edgar Allen,” John muttered
, staring out at the threatening storm. “I fear wherever you are, death will
always
follow.”

Happiness was shoes
clumping through busy halls, the hum of constant chatter, and boys stealing one another’s caps and playing ‘keep away’ with them. Edgar watched all this as an outsider not yet initiated into the fold, yet he remained optimistic. More than one of the lads gave him a friendly nod of the head in greeting. A simple gesture that made the heart of Poe, the eternal outsider, sing. To be one of them, to be included. Such an idea was nothing short of pure bliss.

Despite his distaste for Mrs. Nesbit
, Edgar did owe her great respect. He was right on track with all his classes, except for mathematics where he was actually a lesson or two ahead. Retrieving his coat from the row of hooks, he prepared to join the other boys for their post-lunch outing to stretch their legs. The heels of his shoes scuffed across the hardwood floor, his hands plunging deep into his pockets. Moving with the crowd toward the door, he kept his gaze cast to the floor. Air, still crisp from the morning rain, swirled around him the moment he stepped into the yard.

Many a time Edgar had stared out his
bedroom at the orchard next door and tried to picture what an actual schoolyard would look like. The reality did not disappoint. Under the canopy of a towering oak, a group of boys engaged in a lively debate over a leather bound text. At the picnic table beside them, another group set up dominos in a path that led across the table, down to the bench, and ended with a spiral on the ground. In the center of it all sat the field where a dozen or so lads retrieved cricket equipment from a storage closet and assigned themselves positions for a game. Unsure of where he fit in any of this, Edgar skimmed along the brown stone school. The rough brick snagged his wool jacket as he slid down the wall to watch their game.

“Ayo, ayo, chaps! It looks like we ‘ave a new bilge rat in our galley!” A hefty lad with a shock of red hair and forest of freckles
flung his cricket bat over his shoulder, shooting a grin to Edgar.

More than anything,
Edgar wanted to acknowledge the boy’s greeting. Unfortunately, his own painful anxiety allowed him little more than a forced glance, before returning his stare to the top of his shoes.

It was a rodent
-faced boy with a crooked smile that came to his aid. “D-d-don’t mind H-h-Harold,” he stammered. “H-h-he learned of the East India Company hiring C-c-Captain Kidd to combat p-p-piracy in history class t-t-today and n-n-now wants to be just like him.”

“Not just like him,” Edgar softly advised,
brushing the dirt from the tips of his shoes. “He was later tried for treason and hanged.”

“Blimey,” Harold’s face fell, his bat wielding arm dropping limp at his side. “We didn’t get that far in the lesson yet.”

A plain looking boy with sandy-brown hair hanging in his eyes flung an arm around Harold’s broad shoulders. “You cannot let that bit of trivia stop you! Your frame could use a bit of stretching!”

Harold used
excessive force to shove the boy away, sending him stumbling back three paces. “To bowler’s position with you! If you want to have time for a game at all!”

“I’m Douglas b
-b-by the way,” the boy with the lopsided grin announced, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder at the other players taking their position. “D-d-do you play?”

Edgar gnawed on his lower lip,
his own inadequacy growing into a ravenous monster that threatened to swallow him whole. “I know the theory behind it. That the bowler bowls to the batsman, who then attempts to score runs. Unfortunately, I have never had the opportunity to play … or even watch a game for that matter.”

Douglas nodded as if he understood Edgar’s very plight. “Watch a g-g-game or two. S-s-soon as you
are ready, you can p-p-play substitute.”

With an eager nod,
Edgar settled back on his heels to watch as the game began. The blond fellow, referred to as Anderson by the other players, seemed quite the bowler. The majority of batters swung and missed at each of his powerful throws. All took turns taunting each other’s failed attempts at bat, yet none seemed up to the task of besting Anderson.

Until Harold stepped up.

Ball and bat met in a clap of thunder, wood splintering at the impact. The bat snapped in two, the ball shooting out long behind the hefty redhead.

“What should we call
that
play?” Harold bellowed, leading the boys in a rousing chorus of laughter.

“Land a second one, Harry, and we
can name it after you!” Anderson teased, grabbing another ball from the pile beside him and rolling it in his palm.

Harold tossed the half of the bat he still held aside and
accepted the new one offered to him by Douglas. “Not a hard feat, considering you throw like my sister!”

“Do we want to speak of sisters?
” Anderson smirked, throwing the ball and catching it behind his back. “Because with tits as big as yours you could pass for one!” 

“
From what I heard you know the curve of your own sister’s breast well.” Harold took a practice swing, a cat that ate the canary grin curling his thick lips. “Amusing you must be one of the poor girl’s chores.”

Ignoring their banter,
Douglas bent to retrieve the section of shattered bat that had fallen beside Harold’s feet. His bent posture prevented him from seeing Anderson, face flushed with aggravation, arch back and whip the ball with all his might. Oblivious to the warning cries of the horrified onlookers—Edgar’s own voice among them—Harold instinctively swung just as Douglas’s head rose at their shouts.

Many ghoulish things would haunt Edgar Allen Poe
all of his days. None more so than the gruesome, hollowed
thunk
of the bat colliding with Douglas’s temple, splitting his skull open wide. His head snapped to the side in an inhuman angle, a steady current crimson gore pulsating from the wound. The bat slipped from Harold’s guilty fingers, slowing time with each of its rotations before hitting the ground. The entire schoolyard seemed to suck in the same shocked breath. Moving as one body, every boy rose to their feet in fretful panic. The hue of Douglas’s skin drained chalk white, his eyes rolling back as he toppled to the ground, stiff as an axed tree. His jaw hit first, driving into the dirt with the unmistakable crunch of bone. Like an enraged mother aching at the pain of her young, life picked that moment to roar back to real time.

Anderson dove to Douglas’s side, cradling
his friend’s lulling head in his lap. Yanking off his blazer, he pressed it firmly against the spurting gash. “Harold, go get the school nurse!
Now
!”

Harold stood rooted to that spot, gaping down
at the expanding patch of blood soaked grass stained an inky black. Sweat dampened hair clung to his head as Harold shook his head in denial of the truth staring back at him with fixed eyes.

“Harold?
Go
!” Anderson bellowed.

Seeing how fear had immobilized the larger boy,
two of the domino players darted inside to fetch help. A crowd gathered behind Anderson, each boy looking every second of their youth in the face of true travesty.

It could have taken a minute or an eternity for the nurse and two teachers to come spilling out of the school’s double doors. They brought with them a flurry of activity
: frantic footfalls, fumbling hands assessing wounds, exchanged looks of shock and knowing. Two fingers nestling into the crook of Douglas’s neck, just below his slack jawline. And the head shake—that fateful gesture that dashes all hope without a single word being uttered.

Violent sobs shook Harold’s hefty frame as the
nurse shook out Anderson’s blood soaked blazer and used it to cover Douglas’s face. Students huddled together, whispering their shock and awe of the unimaginable. All this noise and chaos faded to a dull buzz in the background of Edgar’s existence. Staring down at his hands, he pinched the tip of fabric on one gloved finger and peeled the leather away. Alabaster fingers wiggled back at him, daring him, taunting him. Whispering he could be a hero—with a simple touch.

“
Dougie, come to dinner
,” a high-pitched voice mocked from beside him. “Every day at dinner time, as long as I can remember, that is how my mother called to me. The fact that I was on the precipice of manhood made no difference to her. Why would it? She saw me as nothing more than her precious baby boy who only stopped wetting his bed two short years ago.”

Eyes bulging, bile rising up the back of his throat, Edgar slowly turned to find a form of
Douglas standing beside him. The boy leaned casually against the wall, seemingly oblivious to his gaping head wound or the blood that matted into the hair around it. His jaw hung unhinged on one side, giving his smile the demented twist of death.

“
Do you think she will finally call me Douglas at the wake?” The ghoul’s smile widened, grey gums visible where his jaw swung slack.

Edgar’s chin
retreat to his chest, his hands rising to curl around his ears. “Y-y-you’re not here,
cannot be
real
.”

“L-l-liked my stutter so much you had to steal it, Edgar?” Douglas scoffed, dabbing at his wound with the tips of his fingers, then wiping the
ooze on the leg of his pants. “But know, my friend, that I am
very
real. Of course a little
less
real than I would be if you had used that little talent of yours.” Douglas’s head rolled toward Edgar, his eyes narrowing with malicious intent.

Edgar’s nervous gaze flicked around the crowd in front of him. No one was turning their way
or tearing their stares from the body still sprawled in the grass. Which meant this little haunt was reserved for him alone.

“I do
not know what you are talking about,” Edgar whispered, trying not to let his lips move, else he look like the mad loon he was certain he’d become.

Douglas rocked up onto one shoulder to face him.
“Oh, yes you do,
Edgar Allen Poe.
We
all
know about you. What you are, what you can do.” He leaned in close, his rancid breath making the air around them unbreathable. “Did you think you could hide it from us forever? That darkness within you offers such promise to all of us that have found ourselves in the unfortunate vocation as worm food.” His head fell back to guffaw at his own humor, his jaw fully unhinging like a hungry serpent.