Imp: Being the Lost Notebooks of Rufus Wilmot Griswold in the Matter of the Death of Edgar Allan Poe

by Douglas Vincent Wesselmann

  “Jeffers knew, didn’t he? He sent us to you. So that you could use us.”

  “Jeffers is a fine man,” said little Hop-Frog. He winced with a shock of pain. I stroked his forehead. “He’s a fine man.”

  “That he is, Hop-Frog. That he is.”

  I looked over at Poe. He was bent over. His soft weeping carried across the room like gentle ripples in a calm pond. I left him to his tears and even hoped they might be cleansing. Hop-Frog and I sat in silence. I looked around at the gutted room.

  The workmen had much rebuilding left to do. Almost straight above me, the roof opened into a copula. Sunlight hit the white frame of the arches directly. A glow reflected down on where the black boy and I were sitting. For a few minutes I just watched the ray’s progression, like the hand of a Divine clock.

  The wooden door on the stairs creaked open. Jupiter emerged. I am not sure how long he had wandered through the dark halls of the asylum or how many doors he had unlocked before he found what he searched for. I hoped and, yes, feared for his success.

  He was being supported again, this time by a young mulatto woman. His massive arm was draped over her, she bore him as if he were a feather. Two young black men emerged. Jupiter pointed them towards the cellar stairs. They almost ran across the room, giving Hop-Frog and I only a quick glance before escaping out into the yard, the morning, and freedom.

  Jupiter still stood with his woman at the door. Then slowly, carefully, like a mouse emerging from a floorboard that senses a house cat’s whiskers, another figure emerged.

  She was of medium height, and her hair was a brown that, though unkempt, still had a rich luster to its strands. She carried a small box in her arms as a mother carries a babe, and her steps were small and timid.

  Jupiter and his Marie, for that was the beautiful woman’s name, led her across the floor towards me. He pointed the way and encouraged her, but her steps started and stopped. She looked at me with wide, frightened eyes. I might have stood up and gone to her, but I did not.

  My Caroline, hovering entranced between life and death, stood but steps from me. The twisted victim of my unholy pride – body and suspended soul – was within my reach. She had been the object of my damnable quest, and now with this ending in front of me, I did not move. I had not the heart to touch her. I had no release to give her.

  Halfway across the stones, she turned and saw Poe weeping by Molly’s coffin. She stopped, gave me a quick look of purest despair.

  “The shame is mine, Caroline. The shame is mine.” My words were soft, but carried well enough in the empty space of the cellar. I bowed my head to her.

  She bowed stiffly towards me. Her eyes were confused. They flittered from me to Poe, then back and forth again, and again. Then, as if she were a mote of iron pulled to a magnet – compelled by some invisible force – she jerked her body away from me and was pulled across the floor to him. She ran with the box held weightless in her hands. Her outstretched arms, stiff as needles, guided her towards her lodestone until she stopped of a sudden, like a broken marionette, swaying at his side.

  Poe looked up at her. He was trembling.

  “I’m so sorry, Eddy. I’m so sorry.” Her words came out in a rush. They were mixed with sobs and tears. “I’m so sorry, Eddy. Can you forgive me?”

  Poe just sat there staring up at her blankly. He was utterly destroyed.

  “I tried, Eddy. I tried. I took care of her. I played with her. I made sure she got her medicine.” She nodded towards the box. “I tried, Eddy. I tried. I did what you told me. I did what he told me. I was a good girl, Eddy, and I tried.”

  Poe fell backwards and splayed flat on the floor, looking up at her. She offered him the box again and he pulled back, shuddering in horror.

  Jupiter was beside me. Marie looked down at me with eyes glistening and gave me a small, shy smile.

  Jupiter spoke in a soft voice. “Poe had Fox mesmerize his Virginia – his Sissy, he called her. Married her when she was thirteen – his child bride. She was on the brink of death from consumption, and he could not bring himself to let her go. So he called on Fox, or Renard as he was known then – the famous doctor of the trance.”

  Her voice was rising in hysteria. “I tried, Eddy. I tried. She wouldn’t do what she was told. She wouldn’t take her medicine. But I still tried. When it… When she… I tried, Eddy. I saved her. Here she is, Eddy. I have her here.” She held out the small box. Poe did not move. She bent down and set the box beside him. “Here she is, Eddy.”

  Poe sobbed.

  Jupiter continued his story. “Virginia was suspended in that place between life and death, but she was fading. Poe called on Fox, and he took her away, promising a permanent cure – a trance that could not be broken. Fox took Virginia, and they disappeared. Poe searched, but could not find them.”

  The woman knelt beside Poe. “I saved her, Eddy. Here she is.” She reached inside the box and took out a long white bone – a human femur. The skeletal leg shone in the new light of the day as if it had been rubbed and polished a thousand times by a worried hand. “Here. See? Here she is, Eddy. As I promised you, my love.”

  Jupiter continued, “Then Fox returned and wanted money. Poe gave him what small amounts he had. Fox said that Virginia was lonely, that she would fail without company. That’s when Mrs. Whitman told him about your wife. Poe tricked the ether-soaked woman and arranged to mesmerize your Caroline. He had studied the process, and Fox had shown him some of the secrets. He stole your wife. Poe sent Caroline to Fox as a payment and as a companion for Virginia.”

  I sighed. My secret sin lived there for all to see. But there was no more burn that I could suffer. Shame’s acid had become mere vinegar. I had seen too much in Baltimore – These last days I had bathed in a bitter bile of greater guilt than any undead reproach could approach. I rubbed my face in my ashen hands.

  Caroline begged him. “Eddy? Eddy? Speak to me, Eddy. Have I done something wrong? Where is the Baron? I need my medicine. It’s past time for my medicine.” She was growing ever more panicky.

  Jupiter’s eyes twitched with a spasm of pain. “He was the one who brought her here to this hell.”

  “Poe was trapped,” I said. I was surprised by my words. Was I to forgive Poe this sin?

  “Trapped by his own selfishness and shame,” said Jupiter. “Fox asked for more money. Poe sent what he could, and not only money.”

  “No.”

  “Poe was at Fox’s mercy. The mesmerist would frighten Poe with stories of Virginia’s fragile condition. Only Poe could help her. Fox would coax Poe deeper. Then Poe heard of a slave who escaped bondage in a box. But Poe, in his desperation, and in his twisted cleverness, plotted to reverse the course.”

  “Henry ‘Box’ Brown.” I recalled the case. Henry Box Brown had been a slave in Richmond who had hidden in a crate and sent himself North to freedom as freight. “The opposite of Henry ‘Box’ Brown.”

  “Yes.” Jupiter sighed. “He came across the most marvelous of women. He used all his skills to trap her. He’d mesmerized my Maria. He’d taken her near Philadelphia. He enthralled her, drugged her, put her in a box, and Poe sent her to Fox.”

  “Eddy? Eddy? Eddy?” The woman was reaching for Poe, but he was backing away from her on his elbows on the floor. “Eddy?”

  “You found Poe in Richmond. Yes, I remember him saying…”

  “Mostly shit,” Jupiter spit. “I let him tell you what he would tell you. Forgive me, I didn’t care.”

  “Fox didn’t shoot at Poe, did he?” I was spinning on my heel at the summit of Mount Aetna. I was beginning to see it all.

  “Shoot at Poe? No, I spied on Fox and Poe when they met. I thought they plotted more evil. In truth, Fox was spinning out his hook again.”

  “Poe’s child bride was the bait.” The truth was a panorama in front of me.

  “Always the bait, always the prod. Poe was buried alive in his grief. Fox tempted him with a half-opened lid.”

  “You found Poe w
ith Fox.”

  Jupiter nodded. “And they saw me. They ran. I chased them, or rather, I chased Poe. Fox took off in another direction in the night.”

  “You caught Poe?’

  “I caught him.”

  “You killed him.” I was amazed with the implications of this truth. “Of course, you killed him.”

  Jupiter sighed again. He staggered against Marie. She held him up. “I killed him.”

  On my knees, I looked up at the black man – the black king of the grave. The truth was shattering. “You can do more than suspend people between life and death. You can bring them back. Poe was right. You are a God.” I looked at him in amazement.

  “No. I am a man.” There was a flash of Jupiter’s old anger.

  “The drugs?”

  “I have some knowledge of the Vaudou – some scientific knowledge of the mysteries they manipulate. That is all, Griswold. That is all. I am a doctor. I was trained in London and voyaged to the Indies in search of my lost family.”

  “You found them?”

  “I found the knowledge, and I found my Marie.”

  There was a loud clattering. I looked over at Poe and the woman. The poet had grabbed the box of bones and scattered its contents across the floor like some devilish dice.

  “Eddy! I did what I could. Love me, Eddy. Love me, please!”

  “You used the drugs on Poe,” I said. In the extremity of my exhaustion, I was barely able to speak.

  “I turned him into my tool – my hound – to track down Fox.”

  “Poe is your slave.”

  Jupiter winced at the word. “I have done what I had to do. But…”

  “But?”

  “You must understand this. Poe needed me for my skills.”

  “The drugs.”

  “Yes, he needed my ministrations. But know this, Griswold. Poe could have run. He could have betrayed me. He was not stripped of choice. Poe used me as I used him. We both sought the Baron. We both wanted Fox’s destruction. Poe chose.”

  “And the horror he visited upon Molly?”

  “Your vengeance on him would be a mercy.”

  “Perverse.” I understood.

  “He is the Imp himself.” Jupiter sighed.

  “On the boat…”

  “He was stabbed.”

  “You brought him back.”

  “The drugs are quite effective.”

  “He cannot die?”

  Jupiter sat down with Marie’s aid. She sat beside him. Her eyes were almost violet, and so deep. Her skin so smooth, she might have been a statue made from the finest brown marble.

  “He is dead. I need only break his trance.”

  “As you did at the Odalisk… of course.” The image of Molly’s twin writhing in that hideous release flashed through my head. I took a deep breath. “And Caroline?” I nodded towards Poe. “My wife?”

  Jupiter looked at Maria. She put a hand on his cheek to comfort him. Then she turned to me, and with the most musical voice I have ever heard, the Black pearl spoke to me.

  “She is no longer your wife, Mr. Griswold. Your vows were only until death. Only the trance prevents her from…” Maria left the worst unsaid.

  I bent my head and wept. I wept until I had no more tears. Hop-Frog looked up at me as I cried. He reached up and touched my cheek. It was the most loving touch I have ever felt in my life. To this day, that is true.

  Jupiter and Maria went over to Poe and Caroline. I watched as the Negro and his beautiful wife took Caroline by the hands and led her to my pine casket.

  “For me?” Caroline’s voice was soft, resigned. She gave one last glance to Poe. “Eddy?” He did not answer.

  She did not struggle or resist in any way. Jupiter had merely touched her lightly on the forehead and she obeyed as they steadied her. She stepped onto the stone platform, and with only the slightest of hesitations, she laid her body down in that ruined sarcophagus.

  I left Hop-Frog and went to the coffins. I stood between the wreckage of my Molly and the illusion that remained of poor Caroline. She looked up at me. “Do I know you?” she asked.

  “No,” I answered. “No, you don’t, my lady.”

  I watched, because I owed my wife the watching. It would not be just if I were spared the final step.

  Without looking at him, I gave the permission that he did not need. “Do what you must,” I said. My tongue was as dry as old bark.

  There was no ceremony. Jupiter took Caroline’s hand in his and turned it over. He took a long silver needle from his lapel and dipped it in some powder sprinkled on the back of his thumb. It was all so very simple. Jupiter pushed the needle into the meat of her thumb.

  “I need merely find the nerve,” he explained.

  There was no more to it than that. He withdrew the needle. For a second, nothing happened. Then Caroline’s eyes opened wide and froze. Her back arched and relaxed and arched again. Her legs shuddered. Her arms trembled as fast as a hummingbird’s wings. Her back arched again, but this time so far as to make one think it would surely snap. Then, of a sudden, she went limp. There was a small moan through her tightened lips, and the horror began in earnest.

  Her flesh began to shrink. Her body seemed to almost melt inside her skin. And her skin became thin leather. Every bone was visible and outlined as she decayed before my eyes. I turned away. My eyes were spared the progress of death’s feast, but my ears heard the liquid bubble of putrefaction, and the fetid miasma of life becoming meat reached my nose.

  Jupiter put his hand on my shoulder. “It is over. The death and decay that were delayed hurry to catch up. She is now as she would have been, had you allowed the natural end that she faced.”

  “I… I…”

  “You have come to Baltimore, and you have freed her. Now you must forgive yourself.”

  Marie touched my cheek. “We all love too much.”

  I looked into her lovely eyes. “The problem, Madame, is not that. My sin is one of selfishness. I have never loved at all.”

  “You loved Molly,” Jupiter said.

  I cried again. I looked at Molly’s face, and I cried.

  Another hand touched me. I looked down – Hop-Frog had painfully raised his arm to touch my side. I had found myself again.

  With Jupiter, Marie, and Hop-Frog at my side, I looked down at Poe.

  He would not meet my eyes. “I am ready, Griswold. Do it. Finish me.”

  “Give me your hand,” Jupiter said.

  Without looking, Poe held up the palm of his hand and offered it to Jupiter’s needle. The silver shaft plunged into his flesh, and a small red pearl of blood appeared. Jupiter withdrew the probe.

  Poe looked at us blankly. “There, now I can die again.”

  There was a long silence. Nothing seemed to be happening. Poe kept us in his vacant stare.

  “Jupiter, why isn’t…” I began the question.

  “The death and decay catch up.”

  I understood. “You only killed him three weeks ago.”

  “Yes. It will be worse for him – slower.”

  Poe heard his sentence. His eyes grew wild. “I feel it. I do feel it. My mind is… I cannot describe it. I am losing…. I am losing words. I am losing thoughts. God, you are cruel. Griswold, you were going to kill me. You wanted to kill me. I made sure that you would kill me when this was over. You have the gun. Take your gun and put a bullet in my brain.”

  “Would that finish it, Jupiter? A bullet in his brain?”

  “Yes. That would end him.”

  “Now is the time to remember. Remember what I have done to you, sir.” Poe was pleading. Or was he seeking to command me?” “Now you must avenge yourself.” Poe’s voice got louder. “I did it all for this moment.” Poe grabbed at my leg. “Now you will do what you must. You must do it now!”

  I took the gun out of my pocket – Molly’s gun. I had one bullet left. I placed the muzzle to his forehead. Poe smiled up at me. I cocked the hammer.

  “God bless you, Griswold,”
murmured Poe. “God bless you.”

  He leaned against the barrel. I could feel the pressure of his eager skull against the gun and my hand. His eyes looked at mine. I remembered Molly. I remembered my own eternity in the grave. I remembered Caroline gone from her tomb. I looked over at Marie, stolen from her husband.

  And I remembered something Jupiter had whispered to Poe only the night before: “No, Poe, no mercy from me. I forgive what you’ve done to me. But I cannot forgive you for your sin against him. I will leave with my account settled. You must depend on his mercy when the moment comes.”

  I turned to Jupiter. Poe’s head still bent against the gun. “The moment has come, Jupiter.”

  “The moment has come.”

  “You have forgiven him?”

  “I have.”

  “Mercy, Griswold,” Poe cried.

  I looked into Poe’s eyes. I looked at his hands. I looked hard at him – eyes that had seen so many wonderful visions – hands that had written so many miraculous stories and verses. Such treasures had sprung from this broken creature that now knelt before me in dirty clothes.

  The clothes – that is what made up my mind. Poe was wearing Molly’s costume. The shabby pants and stained shirt, the cracked boots and frayed coat, and tucked in his belt the bandless hat. The clothes decided the question.

  “Please. Mercy, Griswold.” Poe begged.

  I un-cocked the gun. When I pulled it away from Poe’s head, he almost fell over. I put the old pistol back in my pocket.

  “Nooooo!” he wailed.

  “Forgiveness is mine to give you, my dear Poe. As for mercy… I leave you to Molly’s. Seek it from her.”

  “Nooooo!” It was the scream of the damned.

  “Let’s go, Jupiter. The sun is up. We need to leave this place.”

  “Yes, we do.”

  Chapter 39

  October 3, 1849 10:30 a.m. - Mother of God, Be With Me Still -

  That was my last day in that kingdom by the sea. Jupiter and I, wounded and sore, but with Marie’s help and Hop-Frog’s encouragement, managed somehow to load the coffins back on the buckboard. We took them through Baltimore’s streets, towards the Old Western Burial Grounds.