Eddie
Page 1
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people,
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Copyright © 2011 by Scott Gustafson
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Manufactured in the United States of America
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2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gustafson, Scott.
Eddie : the lost youth of Edgar Allan Poe / written and illustrated by
Scott Gustafson.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Edgar Poe, aided by the imp McCobber, has twenty-four hours
to prove himself innocent of an act of mischief committed at the home of the judge
who lives beside John Allan, foster father of the orphaned author-to-be.
ISBN 978-1-4169-9764-1
ISBN 978-1-4169-9766-5 (eBook)
1. Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809–1849—Childhood and youth—Juvenile fiction.
[1. Poe, Edgar Allan, 1809–1849—Childhood and youth—Fiction.
2. Demonology—Fiction. 3. Orphans—Fiction. 4. Authors—Fiction.
5. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.G982127Edd 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2010037390
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Introduction
THIS IS EDGAR ALLAN POE: scholar, editor, author, poet, and pioneer of American literature. But it isn’t for these accomplishments that he is best remembered. Horror stories are what people think of when they hear the name Poe: grisly, terrifying horror stories. His just happen to be some of the scariest ever written. It is because of these tales that Edgar Allan Poe has been dubbed the “Master of the Macabre.”
Macabre is a great word. It refers to things that are ghastly, gruesome, and disturbingly frightening. Poe’s stories at their best are all that and more.
But why Poe? you might ask. Why after almost two hundred years and thousands of horror stories by other authors does the work of Edgar Allan Poe still tingle our spines and make us squirm?
For that question there is, of course, no simple answer. Writers, like all other people, are very complicated characters. And yet, Poe had something extra, a gift that set him apart from other writers of his day and from those of future generations.
But part of the answer, at least, can be found in one of his own short stories entitled, “The Imp of the Perverse.”
If you have ever stood at the window in a tall building, or on the brink of a scenic mountain overlook, you may have heard a small voice whisper, “Go ahead, jump!” Then, most likely, you also felt that chilling jab in the gut as you, just for a moment, imagined yourself plummeting over the edge. If so, dear reader, you too may have had a brush with what Poe called the Imp of the Perverse.
Now, most people know just how to deal with this nasty little demon; they ignore it and it scurries back into the dark corners of the imagination from which it crept.
But that’s where Poe was different. When his imp suggested that he jump out of a window, Edgar not only paused to listen, but also engaged the little fiend in a lively conversation. Together they lingered on the edge and peered over. And then they got creative. While Edgar imagined himself hurtling through the air, they each took turns adding grisly details to the fall. Until finally, after crashing through tree limbs and bouncing off boulders, he came to his bone-splintering, imaginary end.
But it didn’t stop there. Together, Poe and his imp poked into those dark corners of the imagination then peered, by flickering candlelight, at the gruesome and terrifying things they found there. As the imp rousted the menacing shadows and faceless horrors into the light, Edgar the author got to work, writing detailed descriptions and weird stories of all that swirled and slithered within view of his mind’s eye.
And it wasn’t just creepy things that got them going. The simplest things fed this duo’s dark imagination—costume parties, clammy cellars, a family pet, and the beating of a human heart—all inspired wonderful tales of murder and mayhem. Such horror classics as “Hop Frog,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Black Cat,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” all sprang from such seemingly innocent beginnings.
And yet all this still doesn’t solve the puzzle that is or was Edgar Allan Poe. To truly unravel that life of mystery and imagination, we have to start at the beginning, when the man was just a boy, and when Edgar was called Eddie. For before Poe became the Master of the Macabre, it seemed that the Macabre was master of him.
IT WAS COLD THE NIGHT EDGAR POE WAS BORN. January 9, 1809, was bitter cold in Boston. The child’s parents, David and Elizabeth Poe, were actors, and acting meant constant travel. Touring the country, theater by theater, they might play for a night, a week, or a month, but then they always moved on.
Edgar and his older brother, Henry, had been born into that theatrical life, much like their English mother before them. As a girl of nine, Elizabeth had begun her professional stage career. Petite and pretty, she was an audience favorite from the very beginning. David, her husband, on the other hand, was not so lucky. As a young man, he left the study of law for the love of the stage. Unfortunately, the stage, or more precisely the critics, did not love him in return.
And then, there was the drinking. More and more frequently, just before an evening’s performance, an announcement had to be made. “The part that was to be played by Mr. David Poe will be played by another actor instead. Unfortunately, Mr. Poe is indisposed this evening.”
“Indisposed” was a polite way of saying he was drunk.
Sometime in 1810, David Poe deserted his family. History has no record of where he went or what he did, but at some point before he left, he must have paused to bid his sons good night. Through a haze of alcohol he swayed up the boardinghouse stairs, then on to his sleeping boys’ bedside.
As he leaned to kiss each good night, a thing, tiny and quick, flitted from the father to Eddie. As it turned out, David Poe left his youngest son something to remember him by—one of his own demons. And the little demon, otherwise known as the imp . . . why, he was there to stay.
There, in the dark, young Edgar’s new companion nestled close.
“Ahh, this is cozy,” the imp purred. “By the way, the name’s McCob
ber and ya know, Eddie me lad, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
The imp snuggled next to the boy’s ear and pulled the covers up to his chin. Eddie soon learned that he and he alone was the only one who could hear or see McCobber.
Life as an actress in early nineteenth-century America was already difficult enough for Elizabeth Poe, and the stress and hard times began taking their toll. Whether her husband had realized it or not, he had also left her expecting a third child. Somehow Elizabeth managed to keep working during her pregnancy and within a week of baby Rosalie’s birth, she was back on stage. By the fall of 1811, she was unable to care for all three children and work, so her oldest boy, Henry, had gone to live with his grandparents. Elizabeth, along with Eddie and Rosalie, joined a group of players in Richmond who were planning to tour the south that winter. She started rehearsals, but illness had left her too weak to take the stage.
With every passing day she grew weaker, and on the morning of December 8, Elizabeth Poe made her final farewell. Homes were found for the now-orphaned Poe children. Henry would continue to live with his grandparents in Baltimore, Rosalie went to the Mckenzies in Richmond, while Eddie was taken in by Frances and John Allan of Richmond.
John Allan had, at first, said no to his wife’s idea of bringing this three-year-old boy into their otherwise childless home. But Frances was very persuasive. So, on December 9, these two well-meaning strangers took home a young orphan named Edgar Poe, though John Allan never officially adopted Edgar Poe.
McCobber, on the other hand, welcomed Eddie into his itty-bitty impish heart like a long lost member of the family. The boy was smart, quick-witted, and had an imagination that just wouldn’t quit. And Eddie responded. The pair became fast friends.
As Eddie grew, so did the little demon’s influence. Everything the boy experienced—home, school, friends—all were seen through the lens of the imp’s slanted vision. Eddie’s world took on a decidedly McCobber tone. Monsters lurked in every corner. Teachers couldn’t appreciate his genius and jealous schoolmates hated him because he was too clever. The night wind moaned for his soul and dead branches waved him closer, waiting only to ensnare him.
And then, upon a midnight dreary, everything changed.
It was a stormy night, and Eddie and McCobber were well into their second nightmare of the evening when suddenly they were awakened. Years later, as an adult, Edgar the poet would write of it as a “gentle rapping,” but in reality it was more like a cold, wet thwack.
The boy opened his eyes to see the black shape of a dazed bird, flapping helplessly outside his rain-splattered window.
Grabbing a towel from the washstand in his room, Eddie opened the window and enfolded the wet, storm-battered bird into the soft, dry cloth.
All the while McCobber ranted and raved, “Stop! What are you doing?” He fumed. “Get away from that thing. Look at those claws! . . . And that beak—it’ll rip your throat out!”
Oddly, for once, Eddie paid no attention to his demon companion. Gently, the boy carried the slowly reviving bird in.
“NO!” screamed McCobber. “Throw it out, I tell ya, before it’s too late!”
“Well, forevermore . . . ,” said the raven, not quite trusting his refocusing eyes. “What’s with that little jerk?”
At that moment, two things became perfectly clear to Eddie. After all these years, somebody else had finally seen the imp. He wasn’t imagining it, and he wasn’t crazy. And the other thing . . . he had just made a new friend.
The town, the street, and the houses were all dark and quiet, all except one. In the attic window of the Allan house, a candle burned as the young Edgar Poe grappled with a rhyme. His ink-stained fingers clutched a quill that scratched out yet another unsatisfactory verse, while his other hand propped up the head of the struggling poet. The wondrous words that had crowded his brain earlier that night were gone. They seemed to have slipped through his fingers and flown out the open window into the night, or at least, wherever they had gone, they were now beyond his reach.
Just a few short hours before, he had crept up the stairs to this makeshift attic study for a nightly rendezvous with his imagination. At that point the words, his words, had come to him so fast and furiously that he had barely had enough time to scribble them down. The rush of creativity had made him feel as if he were flying. He had soared on the wings of inspiration. Every word that had flowed from his pen had felt absolutely perfect, landing with grace and beauty upon the white page.
But now, as he read and reread those same lines, they stiffened, curled up, and died—becoming lifeless black squiggles on the shroud of paper. In disgust he ripped the offending scrawl from the roll of otherwise clean paper, crumpled the piece, and then tossed it into the graveyard of similar wads that lay at his feet.
“Ah, why don’t you just quit!” a small, unpleasant voice rasped in the boy’s ear. “Call it a night and hit the hay. Or, better yet, let’s climb up onto the roof and howl at the moon!”
“Arrgh!” Eddie flopped backward into the dusty upholstery and exhaled a frustrated sigh. “Where did it go? I almost had it. The words were right here. . . . They were so sweet. . . . Now they’re not only sour, but they’re rotten and they stink!”
“Ah, maybe you’re all washed up!” the voice tossed in.
“Shut up, McCobber!” Eddie ran his fingers through his hair and, sighing once more, sank farther back into his chair. “Some help you are.”
“Nice way to talk to your old pal,” McCobber said, pretending to be hurt. “Why, who is at your shoulder day in and day out, helping you through all the hard times by offering you his many centuries’ worth of sage advice?”
“Hmmm . . .” Eddie was not listening. He was watching as the flickering candle flame made the strange shapes of Uncle Galt’s collection appear to move and breathe.
His foster father’s rich uncle had a passion for collecting. Years ago, long before Eddie had come to live with the Allans, Uncle Galt had started what learned men called a “cabinet of curiosities.” He had filled it with fossils, natural specimens, ancient relics, and whatnot. But long ago the collection had outgrown the cabinet, or even a closet, and it was now stored in the back rooms of several buildings that Uncle Galt owned, as well as here in the Allans’ attic. John Allan called it a rat’s nest, and had it not been for all the favors he owed the old man, he would have gladly chucked every scrap of it into the street.
Eddie, however, loved it. The dusty fossils, the moth-eaten specimens, the musty antiques, and the sooty old paintings all held secrets from past lives. That was one of the reasons Eddie had carved out a little niche for himself up here. He found inspiration nestled in the moldering decay.
Eddie’s thoughts drifted as he absentmindedly ran his fingers over the battered face of an old devil puppet that hung from the rafters near his chair. It was part of a set of hand puppets once used by a traveling puppeteer. Eddie had seen a show something like it on a street corner when he was younger.
“I’ll bet you were a real star in your day,” Eddie thought out loud. He smiled at the gruesomely funny features. “You probably saw more of the world from your puppet stage than most humans ever will. . . . If you could only talk. . . .” He sighed.
“Yeah,” McCobber interjected sarcastically. “I bet that would be fascinating. Hey, maybe he could tell us what it’s like to have sweaty puppeteer fingers wiggling around in your head.”
On second thought, Eddie decided, maybe it was best that this devil couldn’t speak. Eddie personally had more talking devils than he needed.
McCobber stretched. Looking from Eddie’s shoulder into the night, he yawned and said, “Aaahh, it’s late, laddie. Maybe that little prince of darkness doesn’t need his beauty rest, but I—YONNIE CO-HONNIE, DID YOU SEE THAT? THERE’S A MONSTER OVER THERE!”
Eddie shot forward in his chair and peered out the open window. Across the backyard in the boardinghouse next door, all was dark—with the exception of a sing
le light burning in a lone window.
“Where?” he asked. “I don’t—”
“THERE!” McCobber shouted. “LOOK! There’s a monster in that house, I tell ya!”
Eddie watched in horror as indeed a truly monstrous shadow moved across the drawn window shade.
“I told you!” McCobber yanked on Eddie’s ear and waved wildly. “Look at that hairy fiend, will ya! That’s no man. It’s not even an animal. It’s . . . It’s some kind of . . . a . . . a . . . a WEREWOLF! Just look at it hulking around over there. By Godfrey, I hope it doesn’t come through that window!” The little imp was frantic now and barely able to keep his balance on the boy’s shoulder.
“Look, look. . . . What’s it doing? It just lunged for something. CRIMONETTELY! It just caught a poor little bird in its clutches . . . and . . . and . . . Ahhh, jeez! Did you see that? That horrid creature just swallowed a wee, helpless bird! It was HORRIBLE. That big shadow just swallowed the little shadow. Oh, ICCK! . . . WAIT! WHERE’D HE GO?” McCobber’s horrified eyes bulged from their sockets. “I bet he saw us! Jeez-loweez. I just know it! He’s comin’ for us!”
The poor imp dove behind Eddie’s collar and peeked out. He cried, in a fear-strangled whisper, “Quick, Eddie boy! Douse that light!”
Suddenly there was a rush of air, as a flapping black shape burst from the darkness and landed on the sill next to them.
“AAAAAHHHH!” McCobber screamed in Eddie’s ear, the boy started.
“Are you boys still up?” It was Eddie’s pet raven, returning from a late-night outing.
“Whew.” Eddie exhaled in relief. “Raven, it’s just you!” He took another deep breath and hoped his heartbeat would slow to a normal rate.
“What’s going on?” Raven asked, smiling. “You lads look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
“We’ve just seen an evil bird-eatin’ monster, that’s all!” spat McCobber.