Demon

by Shane Peacock

  Edgar does not want to think about that, not now. He must focus on the task at hand. He slides onto the front seat and gets behind the steering mechanism. “Now,” he says, trying to sound calm, “how to operate this.”

  He thinks back to the day when he sailed through London with Lawrence and considers how this machine was piloted. He recalls Lawrence did very little to start it, simply turned a key, if he is correct, somewhere under the seat. He reaches down, finds it and turns the switch to start the battery. Nothing seems to happen. That makes sense though. This is not one of those petrol-powered cars with a starting crank that can break your arm and a noise that pierces the eardrums of anyone within a mile. It is much simpler and quieter. Edgar pulls the tiller bar toward himself, finds the two foot-brakes and settles his hand onto the lever that extends up toward him from the floor, just to the right of his right leg. There are goggles on the dashboard and he puts one pair on and hands the others to his passengers. He remembers how careful Lawrence was with this lever that accelerates the vehicle, pushing it forward in slow motion, as if it would allow the car to travel at a certain speed partway up and faster and faster as the lever was pushed forward.

  He realizes that his heart is pounding and it surprises him to feel the sort of fear that has plagued him in very different circumstances throughout his life. This is not psychological…or is it?

  “This is ridiculous,” he says out loud. “This is a machine. It is new and different, and everyone fears things that are different, usually without reason. Be rational, calm down, pilot the carriage.”

  “Are you talking to your father?” asks a frightened little voice from behind.

  “Just to myself,” says Edgar, “trying to talk some sense.”

  He pushes the lever forward and the car moves out onto the street. He only allows the machine to advance very slowly at first, trying to get the hang of the tiller steering mechanism. He pulls up to the intersection with Whitechapel Road, decelerates and gently touches the brakes. The car lurches to a stop. He falls forward and Shakespeare comes crashing into him from behind, banging his big head on the back of the seat. He groans. Somehow, Allen Brim sits there as still as a statue.

  “I beg your pardon,” says Edgar, and then he looks out onto bustling Whitechapel Road. Fear envelops him again. The wide street is teeming with activity—horses and carriages, hansom cabs, rivers of pedestrians, shouting hawkers and even the odd motorized vehicle. It seems as though he sees all the colors of a rainbow out there and smells all the odors known to humanity. For an instant, he cannot move. It is as though the task of stepping from the womb into life confronts him.

  “There is a solution to this,” says his father, “and you know what it is.”

  Edgar steels himself, pushes the tiller forward, and turns left onto Whitechapel Road. “Oh, my Lord!” shouts Shakespeare from the back seat and covers his eyes as they enter the melee. Edgar wishes that he could conquer all his fears this way.

  “It is possible, actually,” says Allen Brim.

  Edgar drives cautiously through the mob of traffic as he makes his way out of the East End, picks up the pace through the Old City and then hums along the Embankment beside the brown River Thames into Chelsea until he reaches the Battersea Bridge and crosses over that narrow, five-span passage into Brixton and the southern suburbs. He knows the way to the road to Portsmouth. It takes a while to emerge out of the heavily populated area, which worries Edgar, since he thinks they are easy targets there for anything that might be pursuing them, but once they reach Wimbledon, the population begins to decline. They are soon near the countryside, buzzing southwest into the sweltering county of Surrey where the roads are dirt or gravel, meant for horses and coaches, rough for the hummingbird motor vehicle. Mud flies up and splatters on their goggles as they whizz along at something that seems terribly in excess of thirteen miles an hour, trying to find the smoother parts of the bumpy road. As the natural world around them grows greener and more beautiful, Shakespeare sits on the back bench, looking terrified; Allen Brim in the passenger seat, a picture of intensity; and Edgar at the tiller, frightened that their enemy may be finding a way inside his very soul. He wonders if it has already done that to Lucy and Tiger. Perhaps it has taken them away to join the evil side, against him. “Perhaps they are all against me,” he says to himself, “every single one of them. Perhaps that is what this is all about, what it has always been about.” All the while, he is worrying about material problems: that they will break a wheel and, left alone in the country, become sitting prey. His mind swirls one way and then the next. “Is a dead man somehow in pursuit of me?” They pass through villages, past the great Epsom Downs horseracing park and onward, drawing stares from people everywhere they go. It takes them several hours to get to their destination.

  Edgar begins to calm a little as they near the village of Hindhead where Lawrence’s estate must sit on one of the hills overlooking the surrounding area—Berenice said it has a “stunning view of the countryside.”

  Then the car begins to slow. It does so on its own, as if possessed. No matter how far forward Edgar pushes the lever, the car keeps slowing down, and then it comes to a complete halt.

  “Edgar Broom? What is going on?”

  “We have come to the end of our ride,” says Allen Brim. “This is an electric car powered by six batteries at the front and rear of the machine. They have limitations and thus the vehicle has a finite range. Thirty miles or so, I would say, and we have done it.”

  “We have to get out and walk,” says Edgar, looking up at the sun, which has descended a good deal in the sky. He gets from the car. They are in a heavily wooded area. Something could emerge out of the trees and attack them without giving them much chance to respond, or run. “The vehicle is spent. We have, I’d say, another half hour to walk.”

  “But it will be pitch-black in an hour or two!”

  “All the more reason to hop to it,” says Allen.

  Edgar pushes Lawrence’s amazing horseless carriage a couple of feet into the trees. Then the two Brims begin to move along the wooded road and Shakespeare scrambles to keep up to them, moaning and whining as he comes. In ten or fifteen minutes, the scenery suddenly changes. In fact, the entire world appears to fall away to one side of the road. It seems that the trees, the rocks, the earth are instantly miles beneath them, and the vista is extraordinary. It is as though a giant or a god reached down and shoveled out the ground with one enormous hand for as far as one can see. It is remarkable to behold. They are moving along the road on the edge of this mammoth pit and one has the sense that if you took a couple steps toward it, you would vanish into its depths. Edgar stares at it.

  “It’s beautiful,” he says. Is it real? he asks himself. What delusion is this?

  “I don’t like it,” says Shakespeare. “It isn’t right; it isn’t natural!”

  “Look,” says Allen Brim, “there is a sign here.”

  Expecting to see a marker giving them the distance to Portsmouth or hopefully even an indication that Hindhead is just around the corner, the sign instead contains no numbers, just four words.

  The Devil’s Punch Bowl.

  The three of them stand stock-still for a moment, listening to the breeze, to the crows cawing in the distance as they fly high above this aberration in the earth.

  “It is just a coincidence,” says Allen Brim.

  “Yes,” says Edgar.

  “Yes? Yes?” cries Shakespeare. “What does that mean? There is no ‘yes’ about this. This is a ‘No!’ A NO ALL THE WAY! We must remove our posteriors from these premises and skedaddle at unheard of speed back to London!”

  “I am going to Hindhead and you are coming with me!”

  Edgar’s mind, however, is swirling again. There are too many coincidences, too many delusions. He has to press himself to keep moving forward.

  Two more signs, however, almost make him tu
rn back. One marks the death of a sailor here long ago, killed by three highwaymen later hanged for their crime on a nearby hill, and the second is a remarkable stone Celtic cross sitting on the very edge of the abyss, described by the engraving as being erected there to ward off evil spirits. “The Devil Made This Place,” someone has written across it in chalk.

  “We are not in a story,” says Edgar to himself. “This is not just inside my mind. This is real.” By another force of will, he keeps himself and his companions moving farther, and in ten minutes, they pass a few homes and a public house, just past the sign for the village of Hindhead. They have no need to ask for directions to Lawrence Lodge. It appears above them before they have gone far, huge and looming on a hill that must command a magnificent view of the countryside. From the road, with the setting sun behind it, the big house, stretching along the horizon, has a dark, ominous look.

  “I am not going up there, no indeed,” says William Shakespeare, who turns and begins to walk back the way they came.

  “Then we shall leave you to the wolves,” says Edgar.

  “Wolves?” asks Shakespeare, stopping on a dime. “Are they not extinct in England?”

  Edgar gives him an evil smile.

  A dirt road winds up the steep hill toward the residence. Edgar and his father begin to climb it. In a second, their little companion is following them.

  “Berenice wanted you to come here,” whispers Allen. “I think she has sent you here. It is a trap.”

  “What did you say?” asks Edgar, but his father does not respond.

  * * *

  —

  The house does indeed look down upon its surroundings. Once they reach the grounds, a whole world opens up, as if separated from the rest of Hindhead. There is a small dark pond in front of the building and vehicles must travel across a short causeway to reach the front door. Lawrence Lodge is an elongated brick home, almost the full length of a ridge, with a sloping lawn laid between it and the water. It has three floors with gabled windows and a wide wooden entrance bearing Lawrence’s trademark A and L doorknocker.

  Edgar expects a liveried footman to step from the huge door to greet them, dressed in the family’s red-and-cream-colored uniform and with a phalanx of other servants behind him.

  The house, however, is silent.

  They walk across the causeway and up to the entrance. The big doors do not open. It is as if the building is dead, while its backdrop of singing birds, wind in the trees, and the beautiful scenery descending below it, are alive with sound and sensation. The setting sun lights it all in an eerie way.

  The stables are to the left of the main house, but they are dark too, giving no evidence of whether or not anyone has come here recently.

  They stop and stare at the doors. None of them says anything for a while.

  Then a light comes on in an upper room and then another dim one on the ground floor. A big black bird sits in the upper window.

  “It is time for us to leave this place,” says Shakespeare, and it is as though his tiny voice is broadcast across the county.

  “No,” says Edgar, “we are going indoors.”

  Edgar leads the way. He walks up the six steps, presses the latch on one of the big wooden doors. It is hot like a furnace, baked by the boiling country air. In all his life, he cannot remember weather this searing. He pushes the door wide open and waits to see if anything comes at them. There is silence. He goes in. No one greets them in the vestibule. It is not entirely dark, one of the lights they saw from outside remains on in an adjoining room—the dining room, perhaps, or a sitting room—and it is dimly illuminating the vestibule too. Edgar leads them toward that light. There are animal heads nailed to the walls amongst clutters of paintings and dark paisley wallpaper in this hallway that leads inward. The eyes of these creatures seem to be staring at them. They reach a large sitting room and see that there are papers left on tables and knitting with the needles still in them on a love seat, as if the room’s occupants have disappeared from the premises in a flash. Then Edgar sees something that chills his heart. It is a bonnet, but not any bonnet. It is black with peach lines in it, little threads that spell out the word Love. Annabel’s!

  He gasps and picks it up.

  “What is that?” asks his father.

  “It belongs to my mother!”

  “That may not mean—”

  “It means HE is here!” shouts Shakespeare and his voice echoes in the big room, bouncing off the paintings and the animal heads. “He has her here! Lawrence is in league with him!”

  “Nonsense,” says Edgar, but his voice is quavering. “There is no proof of that.”

  They remain silent for a moment, listening for sounds in the big house, but it seems deserted.

  “Let us go upstairs to where the other light is,” says Allen Brim.

  Edgar starts moving toward the staircase.

  “No!” cries Shakespeare, as loudly as he dares.

  “All right then, you stay down here, alone.”

  “But we are not even armed!”

  “We have our courage,” says Edgar, as if trying to convince himself, “and our stealth.” He notices a suit of armor standing against a wall near the foot of the stairs, the headless figure holding a long sword. “And we have this.” He takes it into his hands, surprised at its weight. It reminds him of Professor Lear’s big sword-like kukri knife. He wonders where that weapon is.

  They ascend the stairs onto the first landing, then up the second set to the third, and tread carefully since there is almost no light here. Then they begin to hear muted voices.

  “Lucy!” says Shakespeare, and Edgar has to put his hand over the little man’s mouth. It isn’t just her voice though; he can hear Lawrence’s and Annabel’s too.

  Shakespeare seizes Edgar’s hand and tries to pull it off, mumbling about their friends and loved ones being near.

  “We cannot trust them,” whispers Allen Brim.

  “He is right,” says Edgar. A part of him is thrilled that they are alive and another part terrified of them.

  “What?” mumbles Shakespeare.

  “We cannot trust them. None of them.”

  “What?” repeats the little fellow, this time a little louder.

  “Lucy ran off on her own. She was acting suspiciously before that. Lawrence deceived me more than once and…and my mother, lately she has not been the person I knew as a child. She threw herself at that man just weeks after Alfred died!” There is anger in his voice.

  “What?” says Shakespeare again. Then he mumbles something that sounds like, “You cannot be serious, Edgar Broom.”

  “They mean you harm, Edgar,” says his father. “Dr. Berenice as much as said it. They are talking together as if they are in conspiracy with each other. And where is that strange girl, Tiger Tilley?”

  Edgar does not want to think about it. It is bad enough that Lucy and Annabel are against him, perhaps plotting with the devil up here in this strange house, drawing him out to a lonely place in the countryside, but Tiger is another story entirely. Her capabilities are formidable to begin with, and if she were in league with Satan, her powers would be so much worse.

  Edgar takes his hand from Shakespeare’s mouth and puts a finger to his lips to make him keep silent. “We need to get closer to them, hear what they are saying.”

  The little man’s eyes are wide. He looks at Edgar as if he terrifies him, but he nods his big head.

  They move along a hallway in the direction of the voices, which grow louder and soon appear to be coming from inside a room at the end of the hall. The door is closed and a line of light is apparent under it.

  “We cannot stay here forever,” says Lucy.

  “We have no choice but to wait.” Lawrence sounds tense. “Who knows what is out there and what they are capable of.”

  “Are you referring to Ed
gar or the devil?” asks Annabel. She sounds unlike herself, like someone impersonating her.

  Shakespeare draws in his breath and Edgar puts his hand on him. Then he tightens his grip on the sword.

  “Either,” says Lawrence. “I don’t like saying it, but it is the truth.”

  “If Edgar is indeed mad,” says Lucy, “if what you say about him is true, sir, then he could be capable of anything. I just hate to think of it.”

  “I will kill him if I have to, with one of these.”

  Annabel says nothing in protest and Edgar drops his head.

  “Your guns won’t be useful, sir,” says Lucy, “if he has Alfred Thorne’s rifle or the cannon. Common shotguns like these might as well be from the Middle Ages in a fight with those weapons.”

  “Why are we assuming he has them?” asks Annabel.

  “How do we know he hasn’t?”

  “Maybe Tiger has them.”

  There is silence for a moment.

  “I have no idea where her loyalty is in all of this,” says Lucy. “I don’t understand her at all, never have. Lord help us if she is against us.”

  Edgar thinks of Lawrence telling him that he would excavate the revenant’s corpse from the basement of the Lyceum Theatre. He had promised, but it seems he had not done it. In fact, he had never mentioned the subject again. Had he ever intended to do it?

  There is a sound in the building, a thud like something or someone falling to a floor. Quiet reigns for a minute, both inside and outside the upper room.