Poe - [Anthology]

by Edited By Ellen Datlow

  “All right,” she said, and that is how she came to hear of the disappearance of Edgar Allan Poe, and what happened to his heart.

  * * * *

  The curator, a young man with bright, clear blue eyes set in a very large face and a morbidly obese body, came into the room and shook her hand.

  “Sorry, Siri,” Tony said, blinking at the alliteration. “Didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”

  “Was the gentleman first?” she said.

  Tony turned a shoulder, physically blocking the old man from his view. “He’s some Poe nut. We get them.”

  Siri offered the horsehair heart to the old man; he held his hand up, shook his head!

  “I’ll tell you on the train,” he said.

  Tony held the door open for her and she followed him into the hallway. “You’ve brought the rain with you,” he said, grinning widely. Siri had dealt with him via phone before and knew that, once you got beyond the jovial “aren’t we fun, even though we’re scientists” surface, he was an intelligent, informed man who could be relied upon not to gloss over details such as cost and potential audience of an exhibit. He was vocal in his defense of truth in presentation. He liked current thinking and the latest research to inform the way the exhibits were presented, whereas others thought that old descriptive passages were part of an exhibit’s nature.

  * * * *

  They walked through the hallways and down stairs to his office. Siri liked the environment: boxes in the hallway labeled “beaks,” posters for past exhibits, notices to “wash hands after handling human remains.” All so interesting compared to her plain office with its matte pastel walls and sensible carpet.

  His room was dark, the window covered by stacks of paper sitting on a table near the window sill. The lightglobe was so dim she wondered why he bothered. The spare chair was covered with small boxes (knuckle bones, he told her, shifting them off.)

  Siri took her papers out. “Your application is a good one. I’ve seen the figures, run through them, and looked at your proposal. It is good; I wouldn’t be here otherwise. Most institutions can’t write a report. Something to do with their idea of their importance, I think.”

  “The head curator’s daughter did it. She’s studying business. She thinks we’re all crazy. Playing with bones and bodies. She doesn’t see where the money making happens.”

  He poured coffee into mugs. Siri wished she’d thought to walk in with one to avoid this. The mug was crusty around the lip, looking like it could be in an exhibit itself. She took it, all sticky and dusty, and found room on a stack of papers on the desk.

  “Tell me what your inspiration is. For the exhibit. Why you want to do it.”

  “I think it’s a good local exhibit as well as an international one. People will love it. It’s interesting. They’ll come to see the Poe knife at the very least.”

  “No!”

  The old man had crept into the room. He said again, “No!”

  “Sir, you’ll need to wait for a junior curator,” Tony said.

  “This is not the knife that killed Poe.”

  “I thought he died of alcoholism,” Siri said.

  “This is not the knife!”

  Tony stood and gently ushered the man out. “We can discuss this when the exhibit goes ahead, okay? We’ll need your expert opinion.”

  Siri waited until Tony was seated again.

  “Nice local touch. Poe stayed nearby here?”

  “He did, for six months or so. Disappeared on his way to New York. Turned up in Baltimore.”

  Siri nodded. “So the thing is, Tony, for all the worth of your application, the committee has voted to say no. You will be invited to submit again. If I were you I’d do it. You’ll need to add your passion, though. This, while excellent financially, has no passion. You’ll need both, to win funding. I’ll give you an example. I saw a mural of three men, linked arms. They’re meant to symbolize brotherly love, but the mural is out of shape. They look angry and sad. Something like that on the front cover of your report might help.”

  * * * *

  She caught her train easily; the old man was there ahead of her. He’d saved her a seat, which he patted. Even before she’d sat down, he said, “So many of our geniuses end badly.” She fussed with her papers but he wanted her full attention, leaning in to her. “Impoverished, murdered, unappreciated, starving, unhappy, hated. Afterwards we feel badly for this, guilty, but then it is too late.

  “Edgar Allan Poe was on his way from Richmond, Virginia to New York City, a simple journey he looked forward to. Peace and quiet on the steamer because often he wasn’t recognized. He could ride without talking about why, why the horror, the nightmares, why do you inflict those images on your readers?

  ‘“You think it’s any easier for me? I am the one dreaming,’ he told one inquirer. That was reported, repeated and it was good in the long run; with the reputation of a bad-tempered, nightmare-driven man, people were less likely to bother him.

  “This trip, however, was not destined to be peaceful. Poe was recognized by a struggling writer, a very poor writer in both quality and funds. He convinced Poe (so perhaps he did have a way with words after all) to get off the steamer midway through the journey.”

  The conductor came their way. The old man physically shrank back and his jitters returned.

  “Tickets, please.” The old man’s hand shook so much he could barely hold his ticket. Siri took it and handed both to the conductor.

  “We’re together,” she said.

  “Good girl,” the conductor said, approving a daughter out with her father, or grandfather, approving of a girl looking after her old relative.

  “Three days later, a man thought to be Poe was found in Baltimore, beaten beyond recognition and close to death. Three days. Long enough for readers to gather in great and terrible lamentation. His family gathered but he was to have no last words. His tongue was split down the middle and every finger was broken. He could not even wriggle a toe with both ankles shattered.

  “Such thoughts must have been in his head. Such frustrations and fury, such sadness and loss.

  “His eyelids fluttered four times. Maybe five. And twice flicked open to reveal blood-filled eyes. His mother-in-law couldn’t recognize her own dear son-in-law. Try as she might to read his thoughts she couldn’t, to her everlasting regret. He was buried as Poe and that is how it remains.”

  “But you said he was only thought to be Poe?”

  “That man was not Poe, but an indigent sailor found dead drunk in the street. Poe was dead, but his body was never found. His heart? Removed. Preserved. His body? Cut up, I would say. Fed to the rats.”

  Siri lifted the horsehair heart. “Preserved? In here?”

  He nodded. “Oh, yes. They wanted to keep it safe. Protected.”

  “But why? Why did that writer kill him?”

  “The writer believed in tales of the macabre. He was certain that if he owned Poe’s heart, he would own Poe’s nightmares and his genius as well. He was half right.”

  Siri tilted the heart again.

  “The writer was never caught. He never became famous, either; never put another word to paper. He was already quite a skillful silversmith, so he built this box to keep the heart in. His sister, a lace maker of high reputation and dry existence, wove the horsehair over it.”

  The old man’s throat was dry. Siri bought him a soda from the cafe carriage and he drank it in three deep swallows.

  “I like sugar,” he said. “It’s sweet.” The corners of his mouth twitched up and she was glad to have made him happy.

  Siri ran her fingers over the smooth, sharp horsehair lines of the heart. He watched her for a moment.

  “The killer earned a living as a silversmith, as time went on. He made magnificent, intricate necklaces that fitted tightly around the throat, accentuating length and grace. It is said that his creations tightened on contact with perspiration, though. If a woman stayed perfectly cool, silent, motionless, she could breathe.
Once she sweated, the necklace would constrict, and if there was no one there to help her remove her jewelry, she would choke.”

  “Did that ever happen?” Siri could feel her own breath thickening in her throat.

  “They say so. They say he made watch chains for the gentlemen, also. These chains had a magnetism about them which sucked time. The men aged more quickly than their counterparts, without the subsequent maturity.” He tapped his fingernail to the horsehair heart.

  “The killer’s nightmare?”

  He nodded. “I knew you were the person I needed to tell. This heart gives you an understanding, an appreciation, of your nightmares. The power to harness them.”

  “I never have nightmares.”

  “What you think is a nightmare may not be the true nightmare. It is what lies beneath, in your heart. That’s where the true nightmare is. I was told the story of the heart the way I am telling you, by an old woman, close to death.”

  The heart smelled of mothballs and Siri imagined it resting on a woman’s bedside table for sixty years. Or sitting in a kitchen drawer, the third drawer, full of oddities and mysteries. A spoon with a twisted handle, Rupert James Military Hospital. An unusual corkscrew, a penknife set in a miniature Dutch clog, clumps of costume jewelry.

  Siri wished she had the whole imaginary drawer. Unsorted, straight from the dead woman’s kitchen. Siri wanted clues; she wanted the story of the woman’s life.

  The old man watched her. “I was told the story and the heart became mine. My dreams were of damaged people and I did the damage.” He looked out the window, his jitters still for a moment. “So you see why this must go to a good person? A deserving one?”

  Me! Siri thought. I’m always good.

  The conductor headed their way again and the old man shrank back, his shoulders up to his ears, his eyelids squeezed shut, like an ostrich hiding away. Siri tried to read the hospital bracelet, at least to see where he’d come from. His name was Carney, she could see that, and the hospital Saint something.

  The old man excused himself to go to the bathroom. Siri hoped he’d be careful; she didn’t fancy sitting next to him smelling of piss and shit.

  She placed her hands over the horsehair heart. It felt warm, as if the metal inside had heated gently in the sun, though no sun had reached it. She closed her eyes. She could smell a dream coming from around the corner. Strawberry syrup. Fresh paint. Singed hair.

  The train pulled into a station but Siri thought nothing of it; her stop was fully ninety minutes away. She looked out though, as you do. Looking for differences, some indication of place.

  The train began to pull out. She worried about Carney; he had been in the toilet for a while and she hoped he hadn’t fallen and hit his head.

  But no. There he was on the platform. Had he said he was getting off? She’d thought he was on board for longer than she was; yes, his ticket had him three stations further than hers did.

  He waved at her, joyful, two-handed, full-armed waving. He leapt up and down, spun around like an excited dog. Smiled. Yellow-toothed pure joy.

  His bag was at her feet; she held it up to him as the train pulled away. He shrugged, I don’t care! And he waved at her, more gently, as the train left the station.

  Siri sat in shock for a few minutes. That was too fast; he hadn’t finished the story. And he had left his bag of belongings and... the horsehair heart.

  She looked in his bag and found some chips, opened and stale. Three books, airport thrillers, airport pickups. A shirt with St Gerard’s on it, and his name. Nothing more. St Gerard’s was a hospital for the dispossessed. Some called it the hospital for the possessed; most people who ended up there had more than one voice to listen to.

  Siri shook the heart gently. She found the thud comforting, like something fitting into place neatly. Once home she’d read into Poe’s life, see if there was any hint that it was not Poe buried in Poe’s grave.

  She felt the horsehair; sharp and slightly slimy, her finger slid easily along its strands.

  She would call Tony at the Museum, tell him she’d send the heart to him. If the old man didn’t reclaim it, the Museum could have it. Poe’s Heart, on display? People would line up for that.

  One stop from home she felt her eyelids drooping, so she stood up, stretched her legs, got her bag ready. Siri lived as close to New York as she could without it being New York. She liked it that way; could take New York when it suited her.

  In the seat behind, a thin, tall woman with a felt hat squashed on her head. She was asleep; glancing at her travel card in the luggage rack, Siri saw she was one stop from home, also.

  Siri leaned over and tapped the woman gently on the knee. She used the horsehair heart; her free hand kept her steady, holding the seatback.

  The woman’s face screwed up and her mouth opened. She sucked in a lungful of air; the ferocity of the breath choked her, and she woke up.

  She saw Siri watching her. “I had the worst nightmare. These children, like a swimming pool of children...” She stopped. “Sorry. You don’t need to know that.” The woman was shaking so hard she couldn’t stand up.

  “I think yours is the next stop. Can I get your bag for you?” Siri said, and, shoving the horsehair heart into her pocket, pulled down the woman’s hot-pink overnight bag.

  The woman recovered, and thanked Siri on the railway track. “You’re a kind person. I’ll help someone else like you helped me, okay? Pass it on.”

  Siri nodded. She felt as if she had spent her life being kind; listening, helping, advising.

  * * * *

  On the way out for drinks with her fiancé that night, he had the news playing on his tiny car TV. “You can’t live ten minutes without news?”

  “You gotta be informed.”

  “This isn’t information. It’s mostly opinion.”

  Siri wondered how he concentrated. The picture was gritty, the colors mixed, with blue close to red, and red very yellow. So when footage of a swimming pool came on, she at first couldn’t tell what it was.

  “Can you see what that is?” she asked her fiancé, curious, because it looked like an indoor swimming pool, and that woman’s nightmare...

  “It’s a bunch of children,” he said off-hand. So off-hand she wanted to hit him. “They pumped something into the pool by mistake or something.”

  She could see now; children in the pool.

  He parked out the front of one of his favorite bars. Siri could see the drinkers inside, pressed up against the steamy windows.

  “Here?” she said.

  “Come on.”

  As she stepped out of the car, something flashed red and like a crow she swooped for it. Heart-shaped, cold and hard, it was garnet, she thought, smooth and rounded.

  Her fiancé, taller than her by four heads, tugged her back. “Don’t scrabble in the gutter. Disease down there.”

  She slid it into her pocket for safety and took her fiancé’s hand.

  Once inside, pressed, up against the wall with her glass of cheap wine, she showed him the small red heart she’d found; perfect it was, smooth-edged, ruby redness making her hungry for jewels.

  He touched it, placing it in his huge palm. It looked like a blemish in his hand, shiny scar tissue.

  “Why did you pick junk out of the gutter? You don’t know where this has been.” But she did know, she knew very well that this had been given as a necklace in love and torn off in anger. All of that was in the stone. She squeezed it in her palm and knew the young girl who’d owned it and lost it.

  A fight broke out around them. Her fiancé smiled, hitching at his pants. He said she was so proper, so smart, he liked to see her in the rough, in the middle of it.

  She hated him, felt it powerfully and so blindingly she failed to step aside as a body came towards her, knocking her sideways and smashing her into a table full of glasses.

  She didn’t faint from blood loss. Never had fainted; her brain didn’t have the shut down facility.

  Knowing
most of the people in the bar to be drunk, she got to her knees, assessed the most gushing wound and applied pressure to it. It was in her thigh but not too far up. The gash on her head bled furiously but would stop. The others were closer to pressure points

  “Ambulance coming,” the bartender told her. “Are you all right?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said, reassuring him. Being kind.

  Her fiancé knelt beside her but his weak face made her angry. She was done with him, over him; the thought of kissing him made her ill.