“You have a car?” he asked finally and I nodded.
“Back at the cemetery.”
“I shall escort you there,” he said. “You may be correct in thinking that it is safest for you to return home while I investigate alone—” he stopped. “A thousand pardons, but I have not asked your name.”
“Anna Peyton.” He knew I was the publisher of Golden Words and could find me that way. Lying wasn’t worth the effort and might annoy him. I didn’t want to do that.
“I shall give you the number of an answering service where I may be reached if you have any difficulties in the next hours.” The poet opened the cabin door. Fog and the smell of dawn crept into the room. It smelled wonderful after the poisoned air of the cabin. “You must be vigilant and cautious if you remain on your own. I do not believe that Saint Germain knows of you, but we cannot blindly assume this.”
I nodded. Anything to keep him happy so I could leave. It wasn’t that I feared him— though I should have, given that he had an ax and had just chopped up something or someone with it— but I wanted away from this weirdness of the cabin. Out of sight, out of mind.
“If I had my purse I would give you a card,” I said politely and forced a smile. It took every major muscle group to bend the lips upward, but I did it.
“I found your purse in the woods,” he said just as politely back. “It is out there on the stump. I fear the motley is muddied.”
Motley. He meant patchwork.
“That’s okay. It will match the rest of me. I don’t know what they will think at the motel. I’ll probably ruin their towels.” I was almost babbling again as I stepped into the outdoors. Freedom was at hand and I felt giddy.
Somehow, though I had passed through the door first, Poe was now in front of me to help me down the one steep step. He handed me my tote. I sighed. The velvet would never be the same. This would please my sister who thought the purse garish and who had given me something tasteful and black for Christmas.
“I know that your brain wishes to deny your senses and that it will take you some days, perhaps weeks to believe that what has passed here is true and real.” His voice was kind. “I will gladly give you as much time as you want. If circumstances allow. But eventually we must speak in more detail of today’s events so that you may prepare yourself for the day when… things must change. Your adaptation needn’t be as difficult as mine. In the meantime, it would be best if you didn’t tell anyone about what has transpired. Your eyes will also be sensitive to light, so you will need to wear sunglasses whenever outdoors or in bright light.” His eyes locked and mine and I found myself agreeing completely. I needed to wear my sunglasses at all times so my eyes were hidden.
“Thank you for coming to my aid,” I said, though I wanted to put my hands over my eyes and block out that black gaze which seemed able to look into my brain and I sensed could arrange my thoughts like furniture in a doll house.
“You are welcome.”
“You didn’t tell me your name,” I said then added: “I mean, the one you use now.”
“I am several people, but you would know me best as Emerson James.”
My jaw almost fell. I did indeed know Emerson James. He had been an infrequent but very welcome contributor to Golden Words in years past. He also wrote some of the best-selling horror novels on the market under the name of E. A. James. If that wasn’t enough, he had numerous screen-writing credits. He was notoriously reclusive and refused to do television interviews or movie premiers but had been known to occasionally appear on PBS radio and did his own recording on his audio books. That explained the familiarity of his voice; I had a complete set of his novels on CD.
“No shit?” I said before I could stop my tongue. Whatever had happened to me had caused the customary time delay between thought and speech to disappear.
“No shit,” he affirmed and then smiled again. Had the circumstances been less bizarre, I might have actually enjoyed his smile.
Chapter 3
“We trust that he [Edgar Allen Poe] will soon come out with his Penn Magazine, a work which, if carried out as he designs it, will do away with the monopoly of puffing and break the fetters which a corps of pensioned blockheads have bound so long around the brows of young intellects who are too proud to pay a literary pimp for a favorable notice in a mammoth six penny or a good word with the fathers of the Row, who drink wine out of the skulls of authors and grow fat upon the geese that feed upon the grass that waves over their early tomb stones.”
—Jesse Erkine Dow (Journalist)
As hard as it might be to believe—and trust me, it was far more difficult for me as the one to experience this event than for you to merely hear about it—Emerson James walked me to my rental car, helped me inside and then disappeared back into the woods.
I put on my sunglasses, drove to my motel, snuck in before anyone else was stirring, and took the longest shower of my life. I did not look in the mirror. I didn’t phone anyone, not even my sister who was waiting to hear if I succeeded in unmasking the mysterious mourner. I couldn’t talk to her. She would know I was upset and Clarice was inclined to be pushy with her questions when something puzzled her. She likes to plumb the depth of her emotions. And mine too. I didn’t want to look that deep. Not yet. Maybe not ever. I needed to get home first and that meant staying calm and acting normal.
My bloody clothes were a write-off, but I felt strange about putting them in the tiny waste basket for the maid to find, so I wrapped them in a plastic bag I kept for my bathing suit and stuffed them in my duffle bag. I dressed carefully, turned in my room key and settled the bill. I thought at the time I was imagining things, but I now believe that the clerk did actually stare at me harder than usual as I checked out. If I had had the courage to look in the mirror I would have known why. But the aversion to the mirror was overwhelming. Instead I hid behind unneeded sunglasses as I went out into the cloudy day.
Most people are pretty agnostic when it comes to supernatural stuff. True, there are some who believe they were kidnapped by aliens and others who have faith—or desperation—enough to spend actual money on psychic hotlines, but most adults draw the line at half-believing in ghost monks roaming distant English castles. My mind is a bit more open, but that did not mean that I was ready to just accept anything that had happened. Highly evolved intuition was one thing. Monsters and reanimation of the dead was another.
Hunger was strong in me, but I drove to the airport, turned in my rental car and only then stopped for breakfast. Economy and perhaps a bit of paranoia kept me from ordering everything on the menu at the cafe, though I felt certain that I could easily eat everything they offered.
It was still a bit early, but I went through security and eventually my flight was called. None of my previous fears of flying manifest themselves, which was surprising but a tremendous relief because the twelve labors of Hercules couldn’t have been harder than getting on the plane to fly to Baltimore in the first place.
I flew straight through to Oakland where I retrieved my own car from long-term parking and then I drove the three hours home. It was only then, when safe inside my house, that I allowed myself the luxury of a small nervous breakdown.
It was only a small one though because I still had a magazine to get out. I had originally intended to open the piece on Poe with The Haunted Palace, a lesser known poem, but instead I switched to A Dream Within A Dream. I no longer wanted to write about evil things in robes of sorrow. It would, in fact, be a relief to move on to cowboy poets in February. But in the meantime, there was still the Poe issue to get out. His poems, centuries on, still speak for themselves, but read alone they do not always explain to the modern reader what they meant to the people of the era when they were written. They don’t supply social context on their own, and because of the fantastical subjects of the era, they do not always reveal the poet’s true nature. This was certainly the case for Poe who is known now only for his sensational poems and few horror stories. Thanks to a post-mortem h
atchet job from a rival, most people think Poe was a brilliant but psychotic drunk and drug addict. The brilliant part was right, but the rest was lies. Poe was not a lotus-eater, though he had taken to strong drink after his wife died as a kind of pain management.
Or so I had always believed. But maybe he did take drugs. Lots of drugs. Given what I had seen, he was probably far stranger than I had ever imagined him to be. This thought left me shaken so I put it away for later.
The printer had delivered the covers while I was gone and Jake, the UPS guy, had shoved them under a bench on the porch where they stayed dry. It took three days to do the printing of the interior pages and assembly, but by the arrival of the first big snow in January, I had Golden Words in the mail. It was only a couple weeks later than usual.
Once in the hands of the postal service, I then went home from and willfully forgot all about Poe and what had happened in Baltimore. I forgot nothing else—didn’t lose my car keys or blank out on phone numbers or even my great aunt’s birthday for which I had bought a special card that did not mention love or good wishes at all. Only the horror of the cabin and its owner faded from my mind and I felt great, focused on the moment and stronger, healthier than I ever had before. In fact, I understood on some level that it was amazing that I retained any memories of travel at all. A force outside myself wanted me to forget what had happened and I mostly complied. Except for that little voice that likes to guide me and even it was mostly playing coy. I had all this intuition laying around in my brain but for some reason I didn’t make use of it.
My strange amnesia lasted for two days more and then I finally got around to examining myself in the mirror on the first sunny morning in a month. The encounter was an accident, a casual glance as I was passing through the bedroom. Staring back at me was a stranger wearing my favorite green sweater. My skin, already winter pale was shades lighter and nearly luminous. My hair too had been bleached several shades. But it was the eyes that disturbed me most. The woman in the glass might have been a sister, even a twin, but she wasn’t me. My eyes, last I had seen them, were the color of whisky. The ones looking back at me were as dark as midnight.
As dark as Emerson James’s.
“Dear Jesus.” Memory rolled over me and I sat on the bed.
Shaking badly, I looked for the piece of paper where I had scribbled a number for his answering service. In the process I found my ruined phone and my wadded up shirt with the torn shoulder and my pants with black sludgy splatters on it. The phone was set aside for recharging—a task I eventually found to be impossible and ended up buying another throw-away phone on my next trip into town. All the rest went into the garbage. And then, since it was odorous, back out of the garbage and into the fire pit out behind the house where I burned it. The stench was terrible and the smoke a weird gray-green color which I wished was not wandering off into the sky, signaling God only knew what that I was home and having a cookout.
Cleansing ritual over, I went back inside and dialed the number I’d written on the back of a grocery list. An electronic voice said that the office was closed for a personal emergency and asked me to leave my name and phone number—which I did reluctantly. What emergency? Had something happened to Emerson James? All the terror I had failed to feel while in Emerson’s physical presence caught up with me then.
Dr. Frankenstein was real.
Poe was alive and living as Emerson James.
I had been attacked by a monster.
To save me—or so he said—Poe had done a Frankenstein on me too. And now he wasn’t answering the damn phone.
Unable to think beyond this and what it might mean, I pulled grandma’s old afghan off the sofa and huddled in my dad’s ratty old wingback chair next to the telephone.
A part of me had worried that I might have a long wait until my call was returned, but Poe had been obviously waiting for my comprehension of events to be complete and knew that hysteria would likely flower once true understanding took root. But it hadn’t happened for several days. Why? What had happened to my mind? My memory?
The phone interrupted my spiraling thoughts.
“This is Emerson James,” said the soft voice I had tried to forget but was now very relieved to hear.
“My eyes are black,” I whispered. I hadn’t meant to whisper but that was all my throat could manage. The shaking was so bad I might as well have been sitting on the washing machine during the spin cycle. He knew me anyway.
“Yes. You will be able to hide that with contacts. It would be best if you saw to this immediately. Have you worn them before?”
“Yes.” This was a bit firmer. Emerson James sounded wonderfully prosaic and he was giving me something to do besides panic. Also, it was easier to talk to the living poet, Emerson James, than dead poet, Edgar Allen Poe. “I got some cat eyes for Halloween. I still have some of those saline drops.”
“Good. Call your optometrist and ask for a pair of contacts in your own eye color. You didn’t wear them for corrective vision?”
“No.” But I had needed reading glasses for the computer. Before. I didn’t need them now—hadn’t put them on since I came home. I hadn’t noticed this either. It was like someone had given me an epidural of the brain, blocking out awareness of physical changes to my body.
“Excellent. Wear sunglasses when you pick them up if there is any chance that people will note the change. Has anyone else seen your eyes? Is this why you are upset?” There was a loud hiss of static and what sounded like the roar and crackle of a fire. The signal was degrading.
“No. I just finally looked in the mirror…. Hello?”
Emerson James chuckled. He chuckled. I didn’t like being laughed at but it was bracing and it pushed my panic back further even as it made me feel scatter-brained and stupid.
“Look— I was busy before. I had to get the magazine out. And I know I look like hell when I’m working. It’s been months since I cut my hair so I just didn’t look for a while.” My voice was getting louder, so was the static on the line.
“Understandable,” he said gravely, but I was betting his eyes were still laughing. “Commendable even, to be so removed from the usual feminine vanity. Would that more of your sex followed this example.”
“Hmph. So what else should I do?” I calmed and the static did too, though in the background I could hear wind and either hard rain or hail. Wherever he was, it was storming.
“Have you had any feeling of being observed? Any sense of being followed?”
“No.” And I hadn’t, not until he mentioned it. Suddenly I was skittish. I peered out the window but the only thing in my garden was a deer grazing on my snow-covered hydrangeas. This was reassuring. Deer were wary and would run at the first sign of danger. Obviously there were no monsters in the yard. I did not yet need to begin looking for fiends lurking in every shadow. I checked with my inner-voice, but it was silent too. Had it been gagged and thrown in a closet? Somehow I didn’t feel that I could ask Emerson about this.
“Excellent. What would be best is for you to stay at home, away from anyone who might notice a difference in you, at least until you get your contacts.”
“Okay. I’m snowed in anyway.”
“Good. If your paleness bothers you, there are chemical tanners that you can use to darken your skin. They will only last a day or two though. Less if you are physically active. Your hair can be colored, but again, it will last only days. That should be sufficient though.”
“Okay.” I didn’t like the smell of tanners or hair color but I was willing to give it a try if it added to safety.
“I shall make arrangements to come to you as soon as possible and we will discuss things then.”
This gave me pause. I wanted some help, but did I want him here?
“Is that wise?” I asked, thinking of his recorded message about an emergency that remained unexplained. “I mean, if that creature was after you?”
“I have since been unmolested and I do know how to cover my tracks with monste
rs and media alike, which is convenient since I have a new book out and the vultures are being obnoxious. Though even if discovered by some reporter, it would not be strange if Emerson James came to see his sometimes publisher. There wouldn’t be any real story there, no need to ever mention your name.” This he said to himself.
“Okay,” I said, too worried by the growing dark to argue. “You will probably say that I shouldn’t tell anyone about this—this eye color thing either.”
“Discretion would be best,” he agreed.
“Why? I mean, I wouldn’t blab to the world but I trust my sister.”
“With your life?”
“Yes.” And I did. Clarice and I were perhaps not as close as some sisters, but we loved each other and have reached a working relationship. She doesn’t expect me to be completely forthcoming about my daily reliance on intuition and inner voices, and I don’t expect her to be completely open-minded about all things psychic. By scaling back expectation we had achieved a comfortable arrangement. Anyway, we were all we had left.
“If you told your sister what happened, what would she say?” This gave me pause. When most girls were sweating out those grueling years waiting to grow into those gorgeous Victoria’s Secret bras in the catalogue and out of their facial acne, I was waiting to see if I would grow into my gift or go insane like Mom’s Aunt Sharon. And Clarice had been working just as hard to shed her unwanted intuition along with the baby fat that she feared would keep her off the cheerleading squad. I read big books about witches and psychics, and Clarice read teen magazines. I got weirder and she got more practical.
Emerson’s voice was soft as he gently pressed the point. “If you showed her your eyes, what would she ask you to do?”
“See a doctor.” I didn’t like where this was heading.
“Yes, and what would this doctor do when he couldn’t explain your sudden heterochromia?”
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