There was a lighter glow that must have been Anita, pulsing, close, but with no particular power. Between the two he felt an immense darkness. It seethed and roiled, but was contained in a small area. It held them apart.
"Estrella," he breathed.
There was another. Some distance from the three, bright, as Estrella was dark, a fourth essence called to him. It felt different from anything he'd experienced. Then, as he grew nearer, he realized this wasn't absolutely true. It was unique, but not unfamiliar, because it reminded him of the bond he felt with Grimm – of the images and visions he shared with the bird, particularly in darkness, when he was working. Something was out there, and powerful as it was, it meant him no harm. In fact, he thought, if he could find a way to reach it, there was the chance it could aid him. Just a chance.
"How much farther," Edgar said, fighting to run and speak and breathe at the same time.
"Not far," Tom said. "I see a glow ahead – if there's a fire…"
Edgar didn't answer. He poured all that remained of his strength, concentration, and energy into increasing his speed. Whatever was going to happen, he would only be a part of it if he reached Lenore in time.
Grimm split the night with a great cry and began to circle, dropping at each pass, until as Edgar and Tom burst through the final ring of trees and onto the shore of Lake Drummond, he dropped to float just above the ground, looping back each time he pulled too far ahead.
Across the water, Lenore's fire was clearly visible. Edgar could make out a figure standing near that fire, and not far away, he saw the crooked form of an old tree. There were shadows huddled at the tree’s base.
"Lenore!" he cried out as loudly as he could, and then, not wanting to waste any more breath, he tore off down the shoreline with Tom hard on his heels.
Lenore worked steadily. She was aware on one level that Anita stood nearby. She thought, very faintly, that she heard a voice from farther away, calling her name. Edgar? It didn't matter. She was focused, and trapped in the drawing, and her fingers flew over the paper now, erasing, brushing away the crumbs and erasing some more. Again, the experience of changing the drawing and freeing the trapped spirit had proven different.
Her normal method was to draw the trapped spirit and the object that imprisoned them, then to remove the trapped spirit, and finally to return to the inanimate prison – the drawing of that prison – to perfection minus what she set free. This time, it was different. She had no sense of the tree behind the woman. The two were inseparable, as if they'd never existed apart from one another. When all traces of the woman had been removed, there was very little left of the tree. Though her mind balked at this, her hands worked on – her fingers pressed the pencil to the drawing and she realized after a moment's horror what was happening.
She was recreating the tree as what it was – a prison. For it to truly exist, it required a prisoner, and she fought with every ounce of her being to prevent what was unfolding on the paper. It was a perfect likeness. She knew the image well, knew every crease and fold age had applied, how certain strands of hair would never stay in place, no matter how they had been restricted or styled. She knew the face as well as she knew anything on the Earth because it was her own. She was replacing the woman in the tree with herself and though she fought until the tendons in her arms felt as if they might snap, she could not prevent it from happening.
As the inevitability washed over her, she began striving to find something else, some way to divert the power that coursed through her and claimed her. If she could not free herself from this perversion of her talent, perhaps there was something else, some way to fight back that did not involve direct conflict.
She had already tried closing her eyes. Though she was able to complete the act, her fingers worked on, as sure and sound in their art as if she'd given her strictest attention. Now she tried something different. She relaxed her combat with the entity possessing her, and slowly turned her head toward Anita.
The girl was watching her intently, and when she saw Lenore's gaze swing to hers, her face lit with hope.
"Lady?" she said.
"Hurry…" Lenore croaked. "The deer. You must free it. No … time for detail. Draw it in the sand – the tree – erase the deer – set it free. Draw the…tree."
As whatever possessed her seemed suddenly to grow aware of the words, Lenore felt her gaze drawn back to the work at hand, to the drawing and its final details. She struggled to remain in control for a final word.
"Quickly!"
She tried to turn her head back, to plead with the girl with her eyes, to make her understand, but she could not. She sensed – or thought she sensed – Anita stumbling back. Then all she could do was work the details of the portrait unfolding on the paper, adding highlights, stretching out the act of creation by adding in more and more subtle lines and shades. If she could not prevent the drawing of this picture, she could make it perfect. She could make it take as long as possible to complete. She knew that the one part of her gift that could not be stolen was that moment of completion. If she could think of anything – any bit or piece of how the thing should look when finished – that had not been completed, she could delay that completion, and if she knew no other subject in the world well enough to play this sort of stalling game – she knew her own face.
Anita turned, and she ran. She had understood Lenore's message, and its urgency, but her heart hammered with doubt over what she might do. She had no gift, and she had no time. She had considered trying to drag Lenore from the fire, and the drawing, but the moment she recognized the lady's features in the tree, she knew she couldn't chance it. If things had progressed too far, who would be destroyed?
The deer was not far away, and it was close enough to the water that the sand was moist. She searched and quickly came up with a long, pointed branch that she gripped tightly. A voice – so faint she thought it must be wind in the limbs of the trees, or rippling waves on the lake – drifted to her.
"Clear your mind. See the deer. See the tree. There will be little time, but I can lend you strength. When I complete this drawing, I don't know what will happen to me, but I will have energy – strength – and I will lend it to you. What is in that tree – the animal, the spirit – it is important. It can help. You must hurry."
Anita did as she was told. She closed her eyes and listened to the night – the silence hanging over the lake and the crackling, blazing voice of the fire. She thought back to other times on that same shoreline, fishing with her brothers, studying the deer tree. It was almost a shock to realize she had done this, but now it seemed a part of the moment – something she'd seen in her own future beckoning, or some voice she had always heard there by the lake, just part of the experience that had slipped around her and become a part of her without any acknowledgment.
She knew this image. She knew this energy – this power. She opened her eyes, and, by the light of the moon, and the flickering flame of the fire, she drew. She had never tried before – never done more than doodle on the side of a paper while her mother taught her letters, or a scratching on the wall of the barn with a bit of charcoal. She had no idea what would happen –whether she'd end up with a childish stick picture of a deer, or…
The first line caught the swooping muscled shoulders. Her hand took on a life of its own, and she worked the tip through the soft sandy dirt quickly. Where it piled between lines she brushed it with her fingers, feathering it into shadows and dark highlights, moving faster and faster as she felt the energy behind her build. She fed off of it. Somehow Lenore channeled it to her, and the deer – the spirit – trapped in the tree joined itself to the creation.
Everything was funneling to a point. The drawing in the sand. The fire – the night – the power that flowed in and around and over her – the image that had trapped Lenore – all of it whirling like water into a deep hole, faster and faster until it was a blur. The deer came to life and at some point, a voice whispered – "Now…it has to be now" – and she st
opped, beginning the act of dissolution – thinking strokes backward. She remembered her father taking her deep into the swamp when she was a little girl. She'd been afraid of being lost – afraid she'd never see home, or her mother again – and he'd told her to let the fear drop away. Think about what you did, and reverse it. Like flipping the egg timer, the sand flows one way, and then it flows back, always the same.
"You've taken all the steps, girl, just take them back."
And she did. One stroke at a time, she removed the deer. She didn't worry about the tree, she'd never seen the tree – but she had seen trees. She trusted her heart, and wiped the antlers, the flanks, the strong muscled chest from the earth. The time – the sand – had almost run out. She felt it approaching as if she'd dived from a cliff and saw the ground approaching ready to slam into her. That was the key – to ignore it – to time the completion so it coincided, and then – let it go. She had to let it go. She didn't know why, but she knew that she had to break all the connections binding her to the moment at that point, or be caught in it forever.
The deer disappeared, and with broad, strong strokes, she drew a tree. It was just a tree – a cypress – with gnarled knees and twisted branches. She filled space, severing all ties between the drawing she'd created and the tree she'd grown up knowing. Nothing existed but the need to reach completion.
Edgar's feet seemed to float above the surface of the shoreline. Never had he moved so swiftly, or with such purpose. After a hundred yards, he left Tom behind and continued to pick up speed. Each time his feet touched ground, his strength was renewed. His senses were heightened as well, and he quickly made out the two trees, the two women, and the fire. It was impossible to tell from so far off exactly what was taking place. He sensed some imminent event so crucial it could potentially break him into tiny bits and send him flying out over the lake, but still he ran.
Ahead of him, he saw Grimm gliding like an arrow, straight toward the farthest tree, and Lenore. It seemed as if he intended to dive straight into her, or into the tree. Edgar wanted to call out to the bird, or to form the now familiar link, but there was no time. He cursed softly and flung himself forward.
He was not going to make it to Lenore. Whatever Grimm planned, whatever else happened, the best he could do was to try and help the girl – Anita. She knelt, frantically scratching at the ground with a stick. He tried to concentrate, to figure out what she might be doing, but again, there was time only to move and to act. If he hesitated even for a second, he would become irrelevant to all. Instead, with an almost feral cry, he dove headlong, arms outstretched.
Lenore searched her memory for something, anything she might have left out – any part of herself she might add to the drawing and draw out the creation. She found nothing. It was the most complete, the most amazingly accurate drawing she'd ever penned, and she was a single line from completing it. She wanted to glance over to see what Anita was doing, and she had heard Edgar's voice clearly more than once, though she had no idea how close he was, or what it would matter, in the end. She reached out with the pencil, placed it against the paper, and drew the final short line into the image.
As she did this, a huge, compressed burst of energy, power, anger, laughter, and so many other emotions and sensations that the intensity of it erased all thought from her mind burst forth. The tree shivered, and something huge, malevolent, and powerful dragged itself free. Lenore watched in fascination. The thing moved as if gripped by hot tar in a pit – dragged itself out of the wood and bark one limb at a time. It was vaguely shaped like a woman, but only vaguely at first. It was shadow, and that shadow was more concerned with freeing itself than with maintaining its earthly form.
Lenore screamed. It was the first sound she'd been able to utter since the vision had claimed her. She tried to rise, to turn and run, but her feet were rooted in place, and she was drawn up, formed, sculpted to the proper shape as she fought wildly – and futilely – with every thread of her being.
Something small and even darker than the thing climbing from the tree dove between her and what she'd set in motion. In, and then gone, so quickly, that Lenore only glimpsed a flicker of white as Grimm grabbed the drawing she'd made, bit into it with his beak, causing a tear, and soared off into the night.
The thing in the tree screamed as if that beak had torn into its flesh, but instead of slowing it, what happened next was final, dramatic, and horrifying. The creature – Estrella – shot up from the tree like a black flame. She poured over and out, shifting away from the curved limbs and torn bark, screeching in fury and wild laughter. As she tore free, shards of ice drove into Lenore's heart, and she snapped sideways, assumed the position of the bent old tree, and with a cry so soft no one but she could hear, winked out of existence.
Anita felt the end coming and drove the stick into the dirt. She joined two broken points on the image, completing her mind's creation – a tree with nothing trapped inside it; a tree with nothing but branches and leaves, jutting from the shoreline of the lake. She heard something, but could not make out what it was until – flying through the air like a crazy man – Edgar hit her, wrapped his arms around her and carried her on past the tree toward the water. There was a huge roaring sound, and what light the moon and the fire had lent the night was snuffed like a candle.
Edgar didn't hesitate. He rolled on top of the girl, clutched her tightly in his arms, and buried his head beside hers, keeping as low as possible, and not glancing up. He didn't know for sure what had happened, but he knew facing it at that moment would be the end of him, so he held very still, breathed in the scent of the loamy soil, and waited.
Behind, and to the side of him there was a splintering crack. He knew that it had to be the tree – the deer tree – but he couldn't turn to watch, or to wonder at what was taking place. Whatever had been freed, whatever was unleashed, let out a cry to match that of the initial burst of energy, and now – where the air had grown deathly cold and stale, there was a balance. On one side Edgar felt warmth – fueled by anger, but not by malice. On the other, there was nothing but shadow and rage, power and an unrelenting fury that prickled his skin as if he'd been pierced by hundreds of tiny needles.
"What can we do?" Anita said, trying to pull away.
"Nothing," Edgar said. "Do nothing, and be still."
He clutched her more tightly then, and closed his eyes.
Chapter Thirteen
Miles away, Nettie raised her head. She had brought the girl to a safe place, a place where her power was strongest — where the roots of the trees and the soil had been joined for more than a hundred years. There was a sort of natural cave created by curving cypress roots and wrapped with vines and moss. She often came there to meditate, or to sing.
She had known the man would be too late. The events unfolding were long in coming, longer than most men or women had been alive. Nettie had lived many lives. Generations turned, and she was always there, along with the younger one. The Harvest brought the old magic to bear, and the great, horned creature she both loved and feared reared his head when he was called upon. It was as it had always been, before men, when the earth was one huge entity, not carved into swamps and forests, glens and fields.
Others had come and gone. She had known creatures and men, old powers, and new. She had remained – as she would always remain – guarding the land, protecting when she could – driving out the shadows. There was always new evil. The good wore away over time and was harder to replace, but the darkness swelled eternally.
The trap she'd created so long ago had held very well. It had served her, and the land, but all things change, and entropy was a strong taskmaster. Now the time had come for old confrontations to be renewed. She knew she had to protect the girl, if she could. Nettie had no idea where they came from, the dark lady and the bright, beautiful girl, but she knew they did not belong together. If left to her own ends, the sorceress would suck the youth from this one and use that power to fuel a revenge so cold those it was served u
pon would not even comprehend it.
Parts of Nettie remembered an older country. She was of this land, but her spirit – the belief that fueled her existence – had come from far away. The swamp had drawn them, and when they came, they brought her with them – her festival, and her bonfires – her dark, horned lover – the girl. All of it a cycle to be repeated as long as the hands on men's clocks ticked forward – and beyond. Time meant nothing to one such as she. She remembered a time when time itself was not even a fully realized concept. For her, all times existed. All the lives she'd lived were one.
She wove the vines more closely around the protective alcove and waited.
Then, something changed. Something unexpected – something she had not planned for and had no defense against. She heard the release as the darkness spewed forth from the old tree, but there was a second sound – a brighter break – a snapping of something rotten that revealed vibrant, brilliant life. Was it possible? How? Who could have freed him?
She rose and stepped away from the girl. She stood on the almost invisible trail and stared off toward the lake. She sensed the growing darkness, but there was another. Something stood against that shadow – something bright and pure and so familiar she ached at the deep, sensual psychic touch of it.
"Oh no," she said softly. "You cannot beat her. She will crush you. Alone, you will fall."
The woman let out a whistle, and then, simply, was gone.
From the weeds beside the trail, the young girl stepped out and turned, staring out the way Nettie had gone. She felt the conflict, but she was a creature of rules and discipline, strength and courage born of allegiance. Her place was here – to defend, and to guard. She was the vessel, and one day she knew she would see the world through other eyes. Older eyes. For the moment, she ducked in under the covering of vines and moss and drew them back over the opening, camouflaging herself, and her charge from sight. She didn't know what to expect, but it was not her nature to worry at such details. She would stay, and she would guard. All else would just…be. It was her way.
Nevermore: A Novel of Love, Loss, & Edgar Allan Poe Page 13