I looked up from hanging a kettle over the fire. "Ah, I have forgotten your window."
"Not to belabor the obvious..."
I stood and opened it a crack, giving Tap a good six inches of open space. Without a word, he squeezed through and hopped onto the sill outside. Then he flapped away into the night.
I knew he'd be back, so I didn't get my hopes up.
Neither did I bother closing the window. When he had first appeared on the night of Virginia's funeral, I thought I could rid myself of the wretched creature by allowing him to fly away in such a fashion. But no sooner had I settled in with a volume by the fire than I heard a tapping on the pane behind me—and not so gentle either. Night after night, I would shoo the bird away only to be assailed by its insistent tapping, its pecking beak like a hailstorm on the glass.
"How do you expect me to get back in if you keep closing the window?" he asked one night.
"Bird or devil! Wretch!" I cried. Oh, what was the use? Now I just left it open so he could come and go as he pleased. Anything was better than his mad tapping.
I spent a few moments alone with my tea before Tap came back. He squeezed through the crack in the window. With two flaps of his wings, he resumed his perch on the back of my rocking chair.
I saw his beak open and I winced.
"I believe we were—" he began but I quickly held up my hand, cutting him off.
"Tap, please. In deference to my poor head." It had only gotten worse and the tea hadn't helped. Furthermore, I felt myself descending.
"—talking about love, Eddy," the bird resumed without missing a beat, whispering now. "There. Is that better?"
I sipped my tea. "I don't recall anybody talking about love. Nobody but you, that is."
"Oh, but your head is filled with visions of it."
"What do you know of my head?"
The bird soft-cawed a chuckle. "Your thoughts are an open book to me, Eddy. You're thinking of that Coppelius dame."
He had gradually left off his whispering and spoke once again at his usual overloud pitch.
"What of it?" I asked.
"Nothing. Just saying..."
"Well, quit saying."
I stood and taking my candle and tea with me walked over to my desk. Perhaps by leaving him in shadows and sitting with my back to the bird, I could dissuade him from blabbering on so. Alas, I knew better. Nothing dissuaded him.
But perhaps this time, he had a point.
I picked up my pen, but before dipping it, mused aloud, "Oh, to hear my name fall from her lips..."
"Gawk! That's just plain embarrassing, Eddy. I suppose there's no way I can un-hear that?"
I dipped my pen and wrote, 'To'. I wanted to write Olimpia's name, but all at once lost my courage and just left a blank underline. Perhaps someday she would know for whom my poem was intended. I was still scandalized by my feelings so soon after Virginia's death.
Perhaps, because of this, words deserted me.
"'To,'" Tap said, as I laid my pen down and reached for a blank sheet. "Is that what you're going to call it? 'To'? Oh, brother! Do you want me to help you?"
"There are no rusty chalices in this one, Tap."
"You make a guy famous and this is the thanks you get?"
I had for days been formulating a new story. Now was as good a time as any to put down the first lines while they were still fresh in my mind. I dipped my pen.
'Berenice and I were cousins, and we grew up together in my paternal halls.'
"It doesn't even rhyme," Tap said.
"Shut up!" I cried.
"Touchy," said Tap, but he gave me a few moments of peace. I would remember to snap at him more often.
I wrote in silence.
"But it is not only thoughts of love dancing in your head." His voice came out of the darkness that shrouded my room. "There is still the matter of a certain corpse buried behind a certain wall. Three corpses, actually, if you count the ladies done in by the monkey."
I stopped writing in mid-sentence. The ink made a spidery blotch on my paper.
"It is none of my affair," I said.
"Of course not, Eddy," said the raven.
"Gessler supposes me some vengeful Montresor. But I tell you, I am Fortunato." I set my pen aside and turned to face the bird. I could see him only where the firelight danced feebly upon his beak and in the oily sheen of his feathers. "It is my tongue that falls silent behind the suffocating wall."
"Not Burton's?"
I felt a cold wrenching of my gut.
"Burton is alive," I said, and turned back to my work.
"Still, someone is not."
I ignored him and wrote until my eyes swam. If Tap kept up his endless commentary, I let it dissolve into the fabric of silence. I looked up when I heard his wings flutter. Pluto was creeping in under the window frame.
"Ah, here he is, fresh from the Night's Plutonian shore!" Tap cried.
The cat leapt from the window sill and padded across the floor towards me. I braced myself for an attack, but the creature merely jumped into my lap. He curled up and began purring. I had to raise his head in my hand to see his missing eye to ensure that it really was Pluto.
"That's a nice kitty," Tap said. "I like him better than the one that tries to kill me."
"Shut up, Tap," I snapped, but without the force I had intended. The deep melancholy that had threatened me all day had finally descended upon me, brought on by Pluto's uncharacteristic tenderness.
"Aww..." Tap said, when he saw that I left the cat where he lay, purring on my lap.
"Tap, give me some peace. My sorrow overwhelms me..." I muttered as I laid my head down on my desk.
"So your father never loved you," Tap said. "So what?"
Chapter 4
When I opened my eyes, I felt as if I were staring into the sun itself. I screwed them tight against the blaze and immediately realized that cold air enveloped me. Tap's window, I thought. Damn the bird! How could I continue to accommodate the creature's comings and goings if it meant I must freeze to death?
I gradually opened my eyes and found to my dismay that I lay not at my desk with Pluto purring tenderly in my lap, but in the gravel path at the foot of Virginia's tomb with a freezing sheen of dew covering me like a wet blanket. I jerked my head up with a start and found the full light of day staring me in the face. I saw to my horror that the sun was already high in the sky. I stood quickly, brushing the dust from my clothes and smoothing my hair, wondering how many passersby must have seen me curled up on the ground. It was a wonder that I had not been awakened by a policeman's billy club poking me in the ribs.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. As I did so, I felt the ache in my cheek where Pluto had scratched me the day before. Just as I ran my fingers over the claw marks, I saw him padding swiftly across the path in the same spot where I had last seen Olimpia as she had walked away. I thought of calling to him, but decided against it for the futility of the endeavor. Pluto had only answered my beckon once before and probably never would again, despite his seeming change of heart of the previous evening. He was hunting rats now and I would just as soon avoid him when his blood was up. I was afraid he might be planning another ambush for me.
I was about to move on when my fingers alighted on a strange welt on the side of my neck. I had noticed it there once before, just below the level of my collar, but I had thought it long ago healed. I pressed it and felt the same soreness as I had from the claw marks. This old wound, however—whose origin was a mystery to me—was a puncture and not a slash. I could feel the little hole in the middle of the raised flesh. I assumed the renewed soreness of my old bug bite—or whatever it was—was accounted for by the damned cat.
I never would have foreseen this turn in my life: I was plagued by animals. Tap was always complaining about Pluto chasing him. I almost wished the cat would catch him one of these days and choke on him, ridding me of both troublesome creatures at once. I imagined the ghastly beast spitting feathers with his final
breaths and it almost brought a smile to my lips.
I straightened my collar and hurried back to my cottage, walking with an exaggerated dignity. I felt a drunkard's remorse, as if my bouts of delirium were a moral defect and not a mere physical malady of the brain. I supposed that it was this same malady that also accounted for my acute sensitivity to light. As I strode rapidly along the graveyard path, I shielded my eyes from the glare of the sun which at this time of the year was always too low in the sky, causing me constant torment. I probably looked like a man trying to hide his identity. An observer who might have taken me for a vagrant before probably suspected me of much worse now.
Such was my lot.
By the time I reached the wrought-iron gate, I saw through the leaves of the trees that someone was in my house. I had caught just the merest hint of movement through one of the back windows. I wondered absurdly if the police had been summoned on reports of a strange man wandering around in the graveyard. Or perhaps not a strange man at all—perhaps Poe himself!
I rushed to the house with as much haste as I could muster, growing more fearful with every step. Fearful of what, I did not know. Then it dawned on me. Tap. Alone with me, the wretched bird was a mere nuisance. Alone in my house with a stranger ... Well, that might be harder to explain.
And who knew what the garrulous creature might find to talk about in my absence?
I raced around the house to the front door and flung it open. My eyes immediately fell upon my rocking chair where Tap normally perched. To my relief, I saw no bird there. I scanned other likely spots and didn't see him in any of them either. Then I saw a figure emerge from my kitchen. It was Inspector Gessler.
"Mr. Poe!" he cried happily when he saw me, his mustache puffing out on his breath.
"You are in the habit of breaking into peoples' homes now?" I asked, feeling less annoyed than I tried to impart in my tone. In truth, his intrusion did not surprise me. That was probably why my first thought upon waking was of policemen. Perhaps I had been expecting him.
"My profuse apologies, sir," he gushed at me. "I knocked but when no one came, I grew frightened that something might be amiss."
"Why would something be amiss?" I looked past his face and into the corners of the room. The man made me unaccountably nervous. I felt as if I might have left some incriminating material laying about where it could be found and used against me. But, of course, I was guilty of nothing, except perhaps a little slovenliness. Still, I had nothing to hide and no reason for anxiety.
At least not once I realized Tap was nowhere about. I went to his window and clamped it shut tight, in case he decided to return.
"I looked in your window there," Gessler nodded at the one next to my desk, "and saw that your candle had toppled over, and your papers... Well, when I found your door slightly ajar, I was afraid something had happened. After our business yesterday..."
I must have knocked over my candle in my sleep. I could see how the state of my desk might have caused some concern. My unfinished manuscript littered my desktop and several sheets had fallen to the floor. From the outside, it must have looked like a struggle had taken place. I supposed the mess was from me groping about in the dark in my delirium. Perhaps Pluto had been chasing mice while I slept. Who knew?
I stooped and gathered errant pages from the floor. Thankfully, I had developed the habit of numbering my manuscript sheets as I wrote so I could re-order them easily in case of accident. I spent the next few moments organizing and stacking them on my desk.
"I took the liberty, Mr. Poe," Gessler began in the tone of a confessional, but stopped. His voice trailed off, almost bashfully.
I looked up, slightly alarmed. "Of what?" I asked. The man who had whisked me from my sleep one day and then broke into my house the next was too ashamed to admit to taking some additional liberty ... One could not help but be alarmed.
He nodded sheepishly toward the thin sheaf of papers in my hands. "I took the liberty of glancing at your tale-in-progress. I certainly hope you don't mind..."
"Mind? Of course not," I assured him when, in fact, I did mind. And very much. My first impulse was anger that the man should have presumed to pry into what was clearly not yet intended for the public. On the other hand, I was relieved that his transgression had not been something more.
He breathed a sigh, smiling. "It is shaping up to be another triumph, Mr. Poe!"
"Oh?" I remembered Gessler as he had come to me after my lecture at the New York Society Library. He was obviously well-read with an enthusiasm for literature that I found charming in a man of his profession. It occurred to me that I valued his opinion.
"Yes, maybe your best work since the Amontillado story. It is easily as chilling as that tale. I can't imagine how you will conclude it, but I fear it will cost me sleep when you do."
It was amazing to me that he had hit upon my exact thoughts while writing the story. 'Berenice' I was going to call it.
Gessler went on. "My only criticism..."
I looked up with a start. "Criticism?" I felt my anger rising again. "You must know, Inspector, that it is an incomplete work. It is not intended for any eyes at this point but my own, certainly not for criticism."
"Of course not, Mr. Poe. I apologize. I should not have presumed to look. It is beyond presumptuous of me to question your work on any point at all—whatever the state of its completion. I beg your forgiveness."
I looked at him for a moment and realized that he meant every word of what he said. The man's sincerity was disarming.
"Oh, out with it, then," I relented. "If I am ever to finish it in peace, I cannot have your unvoiced criticism hanging over my head! What is it?"
"Probably not what you think, my dear fellow. Oh, no, I daresay not at all! My only point of criticism is that it is not a Dupin story. Unless the great detective comes in at the end...?" he added hopefully.
I laid the papers down, shaking my head. "Dupin again..." I felt a twisting snake squirm in my gut. It could not have been worse had he said "Burton" instead. It was all mixed up in my mind, now—Burton, Fortunato, Dupin, murder, Rue Morgue, brick walls, Gessler himself... "They cannot all be Dupin stories," I said.
"Oh, would that they were, Mr. Poe," Gessler laughed. "Would that they were... Although it would not have required Dupin to find that fellow under the floorboards, would it, Mr. Poe? Not with the murderer himself confessing to the very deed he had sought to conceal!"
I chuckled, amused to hear my tales spoken of as if they were real events. "Indeed!" I agreed. "But you must remember that it is not only the mind of the genius I seek to illuminate, Inspector, but that of the lunatic as well."
"Excellent, Mr. Poe!"
"Please. Call me Edgar."
Eddy.
Tap?
I heard the word distinctly and my heart leapt into my throat. Had Tap returned? I looked around and behind me, but there was no sign of him. I suspected the sound must have been my own thought, coming to me overloud in the raven's maddening voice. I had, after all, spent a night of delirium in a graveyard. I needed rest—es New Roman" s 12or at least a change of clothes.
Gessler was sputtering something I didn't catch. Probably agreeing to call me by my given name. Or not. Whatever, I missed it.
"Tea?" I asked.
"Ah, thank you, Mr. Poe," Gessler exclaimed. He gave me a broad wink. "Although I wouldn't decline something a little stronger, if you were to offer."
"Sorry to disappoint, but I never touch the stuff," I said, wondering on what grounds he had decided against Edgar.
"Very good. Tea it is, then."
I was already moving towards the kitchen with the intention of making a fresh pot. I opened a cupboard and out sprang Pluto. He lunged at me with a deafening scream. I ducked under his claws, determined not to sustain any further wounds.
"Damn that cat!" I cried, forgetting I had company. "I should have gouged out both his eyes!"
Gessler danced out of Pluto's path. The cat dashed straight for t
he door, which I had left open a crack, and darted away through it. I was beginning to think the creature mad.
How he had secreted himself in my kitchen when I had just seen him in the graveyard was another matter. But I was too furious to give it much thought. At that moment, I would indeed have made good my threat—New Roman" s 12and I wouldn't have needed an episode of delirium to carry it out, either.
Gessler had rushed to the door and looked out after him. When he saw that the cat was gone, he closed it and came back. I lifted myself from the floor, and found that I was clutching a teaspoon as if it were the penknife I had used to pluck his former eye from its socket. The way I felt now, I would have instead plunged it into his heart given the chance.
Gessler grasped my elbow and helped me to my feet.
"My dear fellow! Are you all right?" He frowned at the marks on my cheek. "Oh, it looks like his claws may have found you!"
"That is from yesterday," I said, brushing his fingers away. "That cat has it in for me."
"I see... Ah, what have we here?" He tugged at my collar, finding my other fresh wound. "A puncture..."
"Again, as I said... Inspector, please!" I swatted his hand away. Was I his patient and he my doctor that he should handle me so freely?
Now that he had found it, though, my curiosity piqued. I passed my fingers over the puncture, feeling the slight swelling of flesh around it. I determined to have a look at it in a mirror when I had the chance. In the meantime, perhaps Gessler had an opinion. "What do you make of it?" I asked after I had set about fixing our tea.
"Your puncture wound?"
"Yes, I haven't had the opportunity of examining it yet. I first noticed it some months ago. I would have thought that it might have healed by now. Perhaps Pluto has aggravated it. "
"Of course. May I?" He tilted a finger towards my collar. I relented. "Ah, yes! A puncture, as I say. A little red, a little swollen. You might want to have a doctor take a look. For fear of infection." He let my collar fall back into place. "Was that your cat?"
"Yes ... er, no. I mean to say, it is Virginia's cat. Was Virginia's cat."
My Clockwork Muse Page 4