by Lucian Bane
“Romance Province you say.” She thought to entertain the notion and see how far it took her. She handed the boy the reindeer cup filled to the top with hot chocolate and marshmallows. “I do think I will agree with Mr. Poe and say those people are most certainly confused.” She cast a look at the man to see what he thought of her opinion of romance. “Cream and sugar Mr. Poe?”
He stared in her direction, curiosity evident on his face. It would seem the harsh intensity there was second nature to him. “No thank you.”
Hm. She was eager to know what he thought of her opinion of romance. He probably never heard of a woman not into such things. He had no idea what a scrooge she was when it came to that. She was cupid’s archenemy. Charlotte prided herself in the fact that none of her stories had any of it. Every story had a romance they said. Well, not hers. Not a one. And if he were the least bit worried about such things with her, she couldn’t wait to lay his fears to rest. She realized that she liked him and didn’t want to defile that rarity with romantic trifling.
She held the cup out to him. “Your coffee is here before you.” He moved his hand toward her, a mile off. “Just… hold still and I’ll bring it to your hand.” Charlotte placed the cup in his palm, moving it so the handle could be grasped. His fingers brushed her hand as she pulled away and she gave an “Oops,” while biting back a smile at his pained reaction.
His utter distress over her physical touch was downright entertaining, and a very naughty part of her was taking more pleasure in it than was nice. Ah, but the horror traits ran deep in her, despite years of effort to rid herself of them. While she loathed the genre, she was still gifted in its disingenuous appetites.
Using his other hand, he grasped the cup. “What is this contraption?”
She giggled. “It’s a cup. Well, kinda.”
He stroked the outside of it with his fingers. “Feels like a rodent made of glass.”
“It’s Santa Claus,” she said, oddly happy.
Kane sucked in his breath. “I know of him.”
“Do you!?” Charlotte gasped back. “And do you know of this?” She hurried to the Christmas tree in the far corner of the room and plugged in the light show.
The boy’s unadulterated fascination drew more satisfaction from her than she ever thought possible.
“Can you see it, Mr. Poe?”
“No, Kane.”
“It’s red and green, and yellow—and blue, and white! Like colored stars everywhere.”
Charlotte watched the man and saw the harsh lines on his face soften with his smile at the boy. “It sounds spectacular.”
“It is, it is!” He wiggled in his seat and Charlotte noticed he held Mr. Poe’s hand. It warmed her to see their shared affection. Made her quite glad. Oddly so.
“I don’t really get a lot of company.” Charlotte returned to sit in her chair and drew her feet up. “I come here to…” she nearly said write away the madness. “Un-wind. From assisting Mr. Howe, he’s a very vigorous…” she reached for her coffee, “Scribbler, I suppose.”
“Is that so?” Mr. Poe said.
Charlotte paused at his tone. Almost like… he didn’t believe her. Thoughts suddenly crept into her happy space, reminding her of one fact. She was really no closer to knowing who these two strangers were and why they were there. She realized something else in disturbed shock… she’d quit caring about it. Those anal voices of her mother and siblings whined in her head. “You need to get out into the real world. You spend too long cooped up and you’ll see, you’ll forget what being human is. And then one day knowing how won’t be there when you go looking for it.”
Was that her? Now? So out of touch with humanity that she’d lost the ability to connect, interact, be a human herself?
Obviously not. She was interacting just fine with these people. And perfect strangers to boot-- in her own home. Of course they didn’t feel like strangers but technically they were. And technically, they too had a reason for being there, and she really did need to find that out. But the question bothering her at the moment was how Mr. Poe had heard about her, and then what had he heard would be next. “Mr. Howe has many books published. I’m amazed he has time to breathe, really”
A moment of breath-holding silence stretched between them before the man mumbled, “Interesting.”
Oh, wow. Charlotte was pretty sure he’d just called her a liar to her face. It was right there in his tone. The damn nerve! The nerve of whoever had the audacity to slur her name to a complete stranger. And the nerve of him to believe them without even meeting her. Sure she never published much of her work, or finished most of them even, that wasn’t her fault—entirely. Everything had to be top secret in order to preserve the family Horror name. To write out of “The Lineage’s Ancient Sacred Genre” amounted to crushing a dynasty. Her first cousin Jeffery found that out the hard way while Charlotte had taken sickening, but careful mental notes. The poor man ended up leaving the country to escape the detrimental hysterics his confession of writing fantasy had provoked. It was like he announced an illegitimate child to Satan. All the family hype they were pumped with growing up about being what you were destined to be, true to yourself—your soul—your heart. All Oscar Meyer bullshit. That’s what it was. They didn’t want you true to anything but power, money, fame and name, so it didn’t matter that she wrote more than her father and grandfather put together at the age of twenty-nine. It wasn’t Horror. But oh, she was this close to getting the guts and becoming the unthinkable and loathsome family enemy—an Independent Author. The equivalent of whoring out your soul to the Devil’s Uncle Joe’s three legged dog.
“So tell me… Mr. Poe. How did you come by my place out here in the middle of nowhere?”
Slight hesitation preceded a calm, “I followed the Plank.”
Charlotte barely maintained her cool façade at the unfamiliar term—and that she didn’t know its meaning. She offered the same hesitation before repeating him, “The plank.” Just what the hell was that supposed to be? Her mind raced, itching for her thesaurus. The idea that he was insane presented itself then. That would explain the boy’s odd vocabulary. One didn’t say they came from some space ship, dressed in character mode, believing they were one thousand percent who they claimed unless they were insane.
Too bad she was poorly qualified to recognize insanity. She was a doctor of make-believe and was paid damn well for her disorder.
“So you rode the plank in. How is that these days? Was it busy?”
“When do you suppose Mr. Howe will return?” he ignored.
“Did you crash your plane near here? Your helicopter?” she ignored back.
“We rode in a bullet!” The man put his hand on the boy’s leg and he cringed with a whispered, “Oops.”
“A bullet you say!” Charlotte absently fingered the crevices on her Mrs. Santa cup. “A capsule, a bullet. What’s it like to ride in a bullet? Is this a new type of vehicle?”
“We need to be going.” Mr. Poe reached to set his coffee cup down on the table, using his other hand to guide his efforts. “We will return tomorrow. Do you suppose we can speak to Mr. Howe then?”
“You will do no such thing.” She set her coffee down, ready to tell all and offer them a place to stay.
“Why not?”
“Because, I am Mr. Howe. I am the scribbler you seek, as you put it.”
Chapter Eight
“You’re the Scribbler?!” the boy exclaimed as though he’d thought so all along.
The man turned to him and muttered, “She is not the Scribbler.”
The joy Kane’s reaction had given was replaced with anger that he doubted her words. “I am Mr. Howe. I am J. P. Howe.”
Mr. Poe shook his head. “You cannot be.”
“And why not?” Charlotte was quickly becoming nothing short of pissed now.
The boy looked at him as though waiting to hear as well. “For one, you are Charlotte Pane. For another, you are a woman. And finally, you know nothing of Scrib
blers.”
She sat forward. “And what does me being a woman have to do with anything? And yes I am Charlotte Pane. And I am J. P. Howe. I’m also many other names, Mr. Poe, as I am a writer of many things. More than you can ever imagine. And I may not know what The Plank or a Scribbler is, but I surely know how to write! My family’s, family’s, family are writers unto the tenth generation.” She stood now; feeling like it was the moment of some finality. “I am a writer, an author, and… a scribbler if you absolutely must, which you clearly must. Mr… Poe.” She nodded sharply and then sat.
“I knew it! I knew it!” Kane bounced.
“She is not my Scribbler. It’s not the same voice. I heard another. I heard the voice of J. P. Howe.” He pointed in her direction. “She is not that voice.”
“I am many voices, Mr. Poe. I am whatever voice I choose to be.”
“If you are my Scribbler,” the man injected, “Tell me who Octava is.”
She slowly quirked a brow, assuming he meant to say octave. “Octava is not a who my friend, but a what. It means eight.”
“See?” the man said to the boy.
“I think she is,” Kane said, grabbing the man’s arm.
“If you are my scribbler,” the man looked toward her, “then tell me who I am.”
“What do you mean your scribbler? Who exactly do you work for? Who do you represent, Mr. Poe?”
“I work for J. P. Howe. I am his creation. Jeramiah Poe, Muse Rider, Diviner of Destinies.”
Charlotte was suddenly dizzy and her head filled with a buzzing. The words came but she vaguely realized and heard them as she spoke. “How… could you know that,” she whispered, shaking her head. “I never told anybody about that story. Not a soul. I was very careful. I mentioned to Tommy that I was working on something new but no details.”
Charlotte shot out of her chair in fear and paced, chewing her thumbnail. This was it. She’d reached that doorway, that window in the fabric of fiction. The one some writer’s found, entered, and never returned from. She glanced at him, finding him still there. That was good. If he vanished, she’d call 911 and commit herself before she lost herself to insanity entirely. Immediately. Of course she would.
“What are you doing?”
She looked at him, confused by his question and why he needed to know the answer to it. “I’m pacing, you ever heard of that? It’s what you do when you’re worried.”
“What are you worried about?”
She shot out a laugh as she paced faster. “What am I worried about?” She shook her head emphatically. “If I voice it, I might go crazy. It might push me all the way over the edge. I’m barely hanging on.” Her voice went frail and she bent over and gasped. “Oh my God, God please, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all the Horror stories I’ve written, I am. I am not proud of them and you know I have been trying to cleanse myself of them. You know this!”
“Miss Howe?”
“Shhhhh, shhhhh,” she held a hand out toward him. “Don’t say my name, don’t say it. Can’t you just go away? Disappear and make me forget?’
“Miss Howe, I don’t understand.”
“What!” She faced him, feeling sick. “What is there for you to understand, oh figment of my imagination? Are you being real? Jeramiah Poe? Who sent you? Is somebody behind this? I don’t understand.”
He stood and fought his way blindly toward her and Charlotte didn’t have the ability to move. “Come here,” he said.
The gentle tone in his voice called to a place inside her she couldn’t resist. She obeyed until she stood before him. “What?” she whispered. The sting of tears hit her eyes and she tried to remember the last time she’d ever done that.
“Take my hand.”
She looked down at the large hand and didn’t think twice about putting hers in his. The warm fingers were large as they slowly closed over hers. She looked up and saw he closed his eyes. “Dear Divinities,” he gasped, before slowly opening them and seeming to look at her. “How is it… that you don’t know me? How can you not know me?”
“How can you ask that? You are not supposed to be real. You’re…fictional.”
He jerked his hand out of hers, making her jump. “I am created for fiction but I am real. As is Kane. As are all the characters created by Scribblers in the realm of Octava! Scribblers created the realm. Without the Scribblers we would not be!”
Oh God, the things he was saying. They weren’t helping. “You called yourself a Muse Rider.”
“You made me that.”
She stared at him and covered her mouth at realizing how she knew him. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “That’s why I like you. That’s why I’m not afraid of you. Why I’m so comfortable with you, and why you look so familiar to me! But…” she shook her head. “It was you… you came to me. You did that! I was looking for something special and amazing, and you came to me. You told me what you were. You were already alive when I met you, fully formed. You showed me things! You told me things!”
“No,” the man argued.
“I can’t do this,” she wailed, shaking her head as her sanity slowly unraveled. “I’m going to lose my mind, I can feel it. I’m losing it.”
“Stop this!” The man gripped her shoulders and the connection sent Charlotte careening inside herself. The room tilted sideways and she felt herself lowering to the floor as she gazed into an utter darkness.
“Help me,” she fought to say. Something ice-cold trickled inside her brain, spidery fingers racing to embed and grip her mind. She struggled to reach in the darkness. “Help me!” she cried, terrified.
His bright eyes appeared just before her, then his face, then his arms. Around her. “It’s the Shadow Gorge. Don’t let it take you. Hold on to me and do not let go. Hold on to me.”
She peered into his eyes, holding on with everything she had, her body and her mind as terror choked her. The voices came, millions, whispering, growling, wailing—pulling her, calling, demanding. She clutched him tighter.
“Don’t close your eyes, whatever you do. Look at me. Don’t stop looking at me.”
Oh God, what was happening? Charlotte couldn’t voice the question. The force inside her pulled too hard, she felt its dark intentions, to rip her mind from her. She felt what that would be like, to have her mind torn from her. She would be lost forever, unable to return, not even knowing she was lost. The voices grew louder and more heated, more demanding, licking at her skin from the inside.
“Do not close your eyes!” He seemed to yell the words but the noise around them roared, voices taunting, more than her mind could process, a buzzing saw on her sanity.
She finally screamed from the force all around her. Screamed in resistance. It was the only voice she had left. Words were gone, thoughts, memories. There was only the terror of being taken and Jeramiah holding on with an equal ferocity. Then she found words, but they were wrong. “I caaaaaaaan’t hoooold oooooon!”
Fear flashed in the bright blind eyes before her, staring at her somehow, seeing the unseen thing. “You cannot have this Scribbler! She is mine, Shadow!”
The voices screeched until her ears burned and pain pushed inside her head like it might explode. She stared at Poe in silent agony and then, as though in a desperate final attempt, his mouth covered hers, firm lips pressed into hers, those brilliant eyes locked onto hers! The cold fingers in her mind loosened and the voices shrieked and howled in reverse.
He kissed me. It was all she could think, even while his lips remained locked to hers with his intense gaze burning her deep.
He suddenly broke the kiss and Charlotte gasped, finding herself locked in his embrace on the floor, clutching on to him with her cheek pressed to his chest. The room had returned as did her mind, back in full possession.
“It’s over,” he whispered. “I’m so very sorry. I didn’t know what else to do.”
She remained still, his massive chest heaving beneath her. She wasn’t ready to move. She was still shaken, still scared. What if it c
ame back?
“It won’t come back.”
She lifted her head and peered up at him.
“I can hear you when we connect this way.”
Oh dear. Charlotte suddenly became aware of every contour of the man’s giant body beneath hers and quickly untangled herself from him. Especially at feeling his sudden dire need to go back to the not touching rule. Fair enough. Very much so. “I’m sorry you… had to do that. It was like mouth to mouth, really,” she slowly climbed to her feet and righted her clothes. “You saved my life, I’m pretty sure.”
She took hold of his arm to help him up. “I can manage,” he mumbled.
“Okay.” She smoothed her hair, feeling lost and still shaken to pieces. She remembered Kane and found him a few feet away, mouth open, eyes wide and fixed on Jeramiah.
“Mr. Poe?” he gasped. “What’s wrong with your neck?”
Charlotte looked and saw markings there that were barely glowing. His scars? Only they looked different. Then she remembered he was her creation. She’d given him scars and never really decided what they were from or if they might be something else altogether. “The scars.”
“My scars?” He turned, his brows drawn together.
“I think it’s a puzzle, Mr. Poe. There’s a puzzle piece glowing on your skin.”
Mr. Poe angled his head to the boy. “Can you understand it Kane?”
“It’s covered.”
Charlotte took another step back as he quickly removed his outer coat.
“It’s still covered, Mr. Poe.”
He appeared distressed before he unbuttoned a white cotton shirt, something you’d see in the eighteenth century, and lowered it from only his shoulders. Charlotte swallowed at the sight of him. Certainly the body of a warrior. Focusing on the glowing design rather than the body below it proved to be a very difficult task.
“It’s a map, Mr. Poe.”
“A map? To what?”
The boy ran to the small chair near the wall and dragged it to Mr. Poe and stood on it. “It’s in the shape of music.”