I released them with a shudder, as though I had found a cockroach in my soup.
Chapter 24
Olimpia had not escaped the blade. She had freed me from my bonds but in so doing had failed to withdraw her arms in time to avoid the razor's edge. I had been vaguely aware of it at the time, but so intent was I on surviving my struggle with the clockwork Poe that I had had no opportunity to react. She had somehow managed to halt the pendulum. Now, I saw her sitting on the floor with her back to me. She sat in the shadow of the lever cradling her poor arm. As I scrambled to my feet to tend her, I fully expected the worst.
But as I approached, she turned her shoulder to me, hiding her injury from my sight.
"No, Eddy, please don't look. I don't want you to see it."
"But I must if I am to help you. Olimpia, please." I knelt beside her, my mind racing. I struggled to recall whatever simple medical procedures that might have been within my power to perform. I was already removing my tie to make a tourniquet when I peered down into her lap—where I fully expected to find her severed arm laying in a bloody pool—only to find no blood at all. One of her arms was as unblemished as ever. She was cradling her other in it, her hand covering a spot on the forearm. I reached down gently. She resisted at first, but then allowed me to pull her hand away.
I would have said the blade had sliced her arm to the bone—if there had been a bone. Where I was expecting severed muscles and tendons and spurting blood I instead saw the twisted ends of tiny snapped cables and broken lengths of brass and copper tubing seeping the red-tinged fluid I knew was not blood. The blade had inflicted what would have been a frightful wound on a human; but I was stunned to see that Olimpia was not human.
My hands recoiled from the gash.
"Please don't hate me, Eddy," Olimpia said with such heartfelt emotion that I immediately got a lump in my throat. "As you can see, I am my father's creation."
I didn't know what to think. All of her father's other creations had tried to kill me in recent days. I had developed an aversion to them, only to discover that the woman I loved was one of them. I was at a total loss.
"But I won't be forever," she added hopefully.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm becoming real, Eddy."
I remembered Pluto. Unbeknownst to Coppelius, his clockwork creation had been well on its way to becoming a real cat, a process arrested only by my killing it. Real sinews, organs and vessels had grown up around the machine's gears and springs like jungle vines reclaiming the ruins of Man's conceit. Poe himself was driven by his desire to become a real man—me. Coppelius had foreseen none of it and had devised his new serum in haste to halt the process.
"Then Coppelius was trying to prevent you from becoming real?" I asked.
"Yes."
"That was the purpose of the needle machine?"
"Yes."
"And you are now on your way to becoming a real woman and the process is irreversible?"
"Yes!" I saw the beginnings of a smile creep over Olimpia's face.
I thought back to the girl as I had first met her, sitting silently until the wee hours at Virginia's bedside. I remember thinking her an odd girl, barely capable of speech, but seeming to gain faculties every day. She had always seemed to me a tender soul—if such terminology were possible of one born in a workshop—but somehow not of this world. Now I knew why.
I took her arm in my hands and examined the gash. "Can this be repaired?"
"Oh, yes," she said with confidence. "I can do it myself. I have assisted enough—"
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked her abruptly.
"I was afraid," Olimpia replied. "My memories come and go, Eddy. It is like waking from a dream. Not just in the morning, but all the time. I'm hoping that when I'm ... fully formed ... that I will..."
"That you will what?" I urged.
"That I will not remember my past at all, and I can simply be me."
"But who are you? That is to say, whose blood runs in your veins?" It had taken all of my courage to ask. I had none left to hear the answer.
"Virginia's," Olimpia said after a long pause. For a moment, I felt light-headed. Tears welled in my eyes. Olimpia grasped my hand. "I believe it is why you love me," she said.
"God help me, I do," I answered.
I heard a scuffing of hard-soled shoes on the stone floor. Fearing some new Coppelian horror, I scanned the chamber and quickly found the source of the noise. It was Poe; or rather, the lower half of Poe, legs and hips alone. I had last seen it draped over the head of the table to which I had so recently been bound. It was now attempting with some effort to push itself upright. Without arms, the thing was having difficulty gaining its feet. Once it did, it began running in crazy circles. It banged into the table leg and then turned and dashed blindly across the floor. At length, it slammed into the wall, whereupon it sat down heavily and began almost comical exertions to regain its feet. How it was possible for the thing to move at all was beyond me. Had I not known who the legs belonged to I might have laughed. As it was, I found the creature's exertions grotesque and obscene.
"Shall we put it out of its misery?" Olimpia asked.
I thought of Dansby's head and glanced over at Poe's upper body to ensure that it remained at rest. Dead as a doornail. It was like gazing upon my own corpse. "Leave it. Let the ghastly thing walk into the walls for eternity."
"We must help Inspector Gessler," Olimpia said suddenly.
I looked at her with a start. "He's still alive?"
She nodded.
I grabbed her by the hand. Poe's legs had toppled over and were now running in sideways circles upon the floor like a lunatic boat with only one oar. We gave them a wide berth and dashed up the stairs for the door.
~ * * * ~
The machine sat silent and cold. When I had last seen it, it had been bucking and spitting electricity. Of course something had gone wrong. I had no idea what the machine was intended to do, but I was quite sure it wasn't to incinerate its operator in a blinding flash. The fact that Olimpia had survived it told me that its purpose was something else altogether, though, even after examining the many dials set in its polished wooden dashboard, what it was I could not begin to fathom. It was true, however, that the seat upon which Coppelius had been sitting during the machine's 'malfunction' showed no hint of the man—not a pile of ash, nor even a shadow. The three, Olimpia included, had simply vanished without a trace.
Perplexed, I turned to Olimpia. "If the inspector is still alive, then where is he?"
"He was here," Olimpia replied, looking puzzled herself.
"Where?" I asked. "In this room?"
"Yes," she said, peering around her at the four walls. There was no more than five feet of floor space from the front of the machine to the wall, and no more than ten on either side.
"Perhaps you'd better explain," I said.
"I awoke to find us encased in electrical current. There was a crack and a flash. Then we stepped off the machine into this room as if nothing had happened, except that you had vanished. My father whisked me away, with the inspector giving chase. He caught up to us in the laboratory. I thought it was strange because everything was so different."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"All of Father's machines were gone, for one thing. And the laboratory itself looked like it had been abandoned. It was all dusty and draped with cobwebs when just minutes before it had been blazing with light and full of his equipment and supplies."
"Strange..."
"Yes. But, after a tussle, the inspector wrested me from Father. I don't know where Father was meaning to take me, but Inspector Gessler saved me from him. He put me back on this machine and pulled the levers as Father had done. Again there was a flash, and the next thing I knew, the inspector had vanished. I heard a noise and followed it to where I found you tied to the table. I fear the inspector may have gone after Father."
"In which case," I said, "he may be in trouble. But where? Where is he?"
I heard the sharp click of the bookcase latch. I turned. The door opened, but no one was there. Then I lowered my gaze and saw Tap step inside.
"You mean when, Eddy," he said. He walked into the room and hopped up onto the seat of the machine. "'When is he.'"
"Oh, hello, Tap. I'm glad you're still alive at least."
"Good to hear. But so is Gessler."
"What's that you say?"
"Gessler. He's still alive. And Coppelius, too, I suppose. Unless the inspector has strangled him by now."
"But where are they?"
"I told you: it's not where, it's when. And he might be right here in this room with us."
I looked around again and threw up my hands in frustration.
"Oh, don't bother looking, you can't see them. Gessler might be standing right next to you and you'd never know it. He's in the future. Or maybe the past. Here, let me check." Tap hopped up onto the dash and cocked his head at the many dials and gauges. "The future," he confirmed after a quick examination.
"What on earth are you talking about? How can he be in the future?"
"I don't know how. But that old crocodile does, and this is his machine. His 'Time Displacement Machine' I think he calls it. Whatever. Come look." I walked over and looked where Tap was pointing his beak. "See that? What does it say?"
"'04-14-18-65'," I muttered, reading the gauge. Gibberish.
"If I'm any judge of what year this is, that's the future, Eddy. April 14, 1865."
"You mean to tell me that this machine has transported them into the future? Olimpia, what do you know of this?"
Olimpia shrugged her shoulders hopelessly. "I would believe almost anything," she said. "Father's machines can be quite astounding." She blushed and looked down at her feet.
"It sure looks like the future to me, Eddy."
"But how do you know?"
"Because I've been there."
I laughed. Even if I could accept the concept of a time machine, Tap was, as I well knew, prone to exaggeration. "You've been to 1865?"
"I've been to 1999."
This I could not believe. "Oh, come now, Tap!"
"1999!" he repeated crossly. "I was ... You might say, I was born there."
"You were born 150 years in the future?"
"It was that foul Coppelius who took me there. It was a mistake—"
"Coppelius took you?"
"Of course, Coppelius! You know anybody else with a time machine?"
"Don't get angry," I said. I had already accepted the fact of a talking raven; of clockwork butlers and murderous zombies. What right had I to demand the restoration of sanity now? I decided I might as well continue down this path. Perhaps I would soon wake and find myself safe in my bed. "How was it a mistake?"
"He wanted to take me into the past, but I didn't want to go. Not to the past, not to the future. I didn't want to go anywhere with that old crocodile. Anyway, while we were fighting, he slipped somehow and pushed the dials all the way up, as far as they would go."
"And that was 1999?"
Tap laughed. "Coppelius may be a genius, but he's not perfect. See here? He forgot to put a twenty on his dial." I looked where he was pointing and cautiously turned the dial that showed '18' to '19'. I tried to turn it further, but it wouldn't budge. There was no '20'. "Nineteen's as high as it goes. So when he pushed it all the way up, we found ourselves on December 31, 1999. Lucky for us, this hole in the ground was still here. We might have found ourselves buried in concrete. Or in the middle of the subway with a train barreling down on us."
I didn't ask.
Neither had I ever asked where Tap had come from. He showed up one day during Virginia's illness—Times New Roman" s 12while she was under the care of Dr. Coppelius. I doubted my senses when he had first spoken to me. But I realized now that I should have been able to put his appearance together with the mad doctor. In fact, I would now associate Coppelius with any strange thing that had ever happened to me.
"But why?" I asked.
"Why what?"
"Why go at all?"
"Coppelius does most of his work elsewhere. I mean, elsewhen. So as not to attract attention to himself here. Plus he can work at his leisure. He can be gone for weeks at a stretch, and no time would have passed here at all. It's a jungle out there. Where Coppelius has been, you'll find some strange shit, Eddy. Strange shit, indeed."
"I have no doubt of that," I said. "But why you?"
"Because I'm like her," Tap said. "Coppelius made me. He perfected his serum on me. In 1999."
I was silent for a moment. Then I started to laugh.
"What's so funny?" Tap asked.
"I'm not surprised," I said, my laughter growing. "For the first time since this whole affair began, by God, I'm not surprised!"
~ * * * ~
The time machine began shaking. I grabbed Tap off the seat and we stood back. A few seconds later, Gessler appeared at the controls.
"Ah, there you are!" he said, clambering off the machine. He turned to Olimpia, bowing slightly. "Miss Coppelius, I'm glad to see you have arrived safely."
"And you, Inspector!" I exclaimed happily. "I was afraid we had lost you forever." I clapped his shoulders and made to embrace him, but felt suddenly awkward by the depth of my feeling for the man. Instead, I merely held him at arm's length and gave him a couple of pats.
"You'll not be rid of me so easily, I'm afraid, Mr. Poe. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for Coppelius. The devil has eluded me."
"Coppelius has escaped?"
"A wild carriage ride it was, too. I tell you, the man is mad. Completely mad."
"That has, in recent days, become obvious to all of us."
"I chased him as far as the train station," Gessler went on. "An odd thing, though."
"What is that?"
"I have lived in New York for most of my adult life, and I never even knew there was a train station there."
"It's probably new since the last time you were in the city," Tap said.
"The last time? The last time I was in the city was just yesterday ... Mr. Tap." He still didn't seem completely comfortable talking to the raven. I didn't have the heart to tell him who—what—Tap really was. Even less Olimpia.
"The last time you were there was 1847, Inspector," Tap said. "Today was 1865."
"Was it now?" Gessler asked, and Tap nodded.
I thought I better explain. "This machine," I said, gesturing towards it, "is a time displacement device, of Coppelian design. It transports its passengers through time. You chased Coppelius into the future, Inspector."
"Of course I did!" Gessler exclaimed. "I would not have expected anything so mundane as a simple pursuit through three-dimensional space. Who would?"
I sat down on the machine. "I'm going after him."
"What?" Gessler asked in astonishment.
"Eddy, you can't," Olimpia said.
I turned the dial from '19' back to '18'. I checked the remainder of the setting. April 14, 1865. Just as Coppelius had left it. "But I am. I cannot let him get away. You say you chased him to the train station, Inspector. For where was the train bound?"
Gessler knit his brow. "Washington. I'm a New York City detective, Mr. Poe. I'm perfectly happy to let Washington have the devil. I think you're making a mistake going after him."
Olimpia plopped down beside me. "Then I will make the same mistake. You'll not go without me, Edgar Allan Poe."
I threw my arm around her shoulders. "I will have it no other way."
"What about me?" Tap asked.
I looked down at him and mused how strange it was that I could always read his expressions in his unchanging beak and eyes. He cocked his head at me hopefully.
"What would I do without you, Tap?"
He immediately leapt onto my shoulder. "That's exactly what I was thinking," he said excitedly. I started rummaging through the pocket of my frock coat, searching for something. Tap began chattering the way he always did when he was excited and hap
py. Of course, I was only half-listening. "You should hear what people say about you in 1999. You're famous, Eddy. They make school kids read your poems and such. Everybody loves 'The Raven', of course, but, I gotta level with you, 'To Blank-Underline' never amounted to squat. You wasted your time writing that one. You probably remember me trying to warn you..."
I found what I was looking for: my smoked lenses. I was afraid I had lost them. I pinched them to my nose and then drew my pepperbox revolver. Where we were bound, I had a feeling I was going to need it.
"Now, Inspector, if you would show me how to use this infernal machine..."
THE END
Be sure to join Edgar Allan Poe, Olimpia and Tap on their next exciting adventure, A Midnight Dreary. Coming in 2012.
Afterword
The preceding is intended to be a work of speculative fiction and not biography. The author has not hesitated to rearrange the circumstances and chronology of Poe's life to meet the demands of his story. While it may be obvious to some that Poe did not battle zombies and automatons during his lifetime, it is less well-known that among other things he did not write his famous story 'Berenice' in 1847. Many fine biographies of Edgar Allan Poe have been written and the reader is urged to consult one of them for an accurate portrayal of Poe's life.
Charles Frederick Briggs and William Evans Burton were indeed Poe's associates and while much of their dialogue at least as it pertains to their opinions of the famous author is taken from their letters, nothing about their characterizations in this novel is intended to portray their actual personalities. The author apologizes to any of their descendents who might be offended.
About the Author
D. R. Erickson lives in the American Midwest and is at work on the next Poe Files mystery.
My Clockwork Muse Page 26