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

by Douglas Vincent Wesselmann

  I could see two pairs of muddy boots, toe to toe. The smaller pair suddenly stood up on tiptoes. There was a grunt and the sound of air exploding through some wet flapping thing. Then there was a loud liquid gurgling. Blood spattered on the ground between the boots. The smaller boots fell back on their heels and continued the arc as the toes began rotating skyward. Legs came into view, bent knees, thighs, waist, and body. A head hit the pavement and flapped back, falling away hideously from its gory neck. It had been nearly severed, and dark fountains sprayed in to the dark air, catching a hint of yellow lamplight as they spewed life on the stones. The man, for once he had been a man, jerked three or four times like a string in gusty wind. The body was bent oddly when the convulsions ended. One of the eyes was closed. The other was empty and stared at me through the tiny knothole.

  I smiled. “Open me.”

  “You fucking piece of shit. Look at my shirt.” Nabbity stamped his boot to shake off a puddle of blood that had gathered in a crack. The droplets struck my coffin.

  I smiled.

  “Now I’ve got to do it myself.” He spit on the dead man. “Worthless piece of shit.” The coffin jerked. Nabbity had picked up the end at my feet. I slid back against the head of the box on my skull. I felt a flash of pain, but I was quiet. The lid creaked as he began dragging the pine boards across the stones. Now I could see two nail shafts. The lid was opening, slowly.

  I heard Nabbity grunt, and the pine struck a curbing. I could see three nails. Then the coffin leveled. Nabbity was going down the steps. I tried to brace myself, but there was little protection even that could offer as the head of the box struck a step, then slipped and dropped hard to another, slid and crashed down into another… another… another… another…

  My head was smashed one way, then another. My teeth slammed together, and I tasted blood from my tongue – another step, and another. The crack in the lid grew dark. I lost sight of up and down. My mind was as dark as the air. Only my rage gave me a point of light to fixate on. I pushed to each side with my hands and arms, and I held on as best I could. Another step and another… the collisions continued.

  Then there was the scrape of pine on stone again. This time the stone was smoother – a floor? Yes, I was being dragged across a floor. There was a small bump, and Nabbity dropped the foot of the box, but it did not drop to the ground. It struck something hard. Nabbity’s boots passed my knothole. He picked up the low end with a grunt and, sliding the casket forward and level, he gave it a final shove. His final guttural exertion echoed off the walls and up. I had the impression that the ceiling was very high above me.

  There was blood in my mouth, and my eyes could barely focus. I braced again, but there came no further movement. I heard Nabbity walk across the stone floor and open a door. The door closed, and everything was quiet.

  Nabbity had left the lantern in the room. I could see the light flickering. I looked up at the crack in the lid. There, the lamp sat on top of the lid. I turned my head and looked through the small circle of light where the knot had been lost.

  The floor of the room was gray and smooth flagstone, tightly fitted. Against the far wall I could see the bottom of a ladder and some braided ropes hanging down from above. A very large bucket – the size of a quarter-barrel – with blackened, congealed pitch dripping over its edge and a well-used toolbox sat next to a few black, long-handled brushes. The ends of some long pieces of lumber sat in one corner, and the boards angled up steeply, out of sight.

  I sniffed. There was a strong smell in the room. The musk was gone. I remember wondering if Molly’s casket was still beside me. I tried to find the musk, but it was no use, the stronger odor masked everything.

  The scent was oily. It smelled like town gas, that spirit derived from heated coal – the gas used in the Baltimore street lamps. The bucket – I looked back at the bucket. That’s what the black globules were – coal tar and coal pitch for a roof or a foundation. Someone was repairing the building.

  I looked up at the crack again. If I moved my head to one side, I could see a sliver of the room in the direction my feet pointed. The lamp was visible, or at least its tarnished brass handle. And there was another wall, farther away, and dimmer. Between my feet and that far wall was a stone pedestal half as tall as man. To either side of the stand were tall silver torches or lamps. I could not quite see their tops. And there was a dim line, visible, then invisible in the dusty air, immediately behind the gray stone. My eyes caught sight of it. Then it disappeared again. But still, I thought I saw something there in the shadows. It was hard to be sure, but that was the impression.

  My arms were battered but still strong with my anger. I had husbanded my rage and banked it. Now I put my hands against the lid and pushed. There was a loud creak. I stopped and listened.

  No sound answered. I turned to the knothole. The door was still closed. Looking up again, I could see that I was moving the right side of the lid where the nails had come slightly loose in my rough transport. On the left, the lid was still tight. I pressed my hands to the left and pushed with everything I had. At first there was no give in the pine. I pushed harder. There was a small cracking and then a popping sound and a creak that echoed in the room.

  I stopped again. I listened. My breath was coming hard. I heard nothing and pushed again. The creak was louder this time. I could see the shafts of the nails on the left. I started to push again. I was gasping with the effort. Blood was pounding in my ears. The lid suddenly banged down hard against my hands.

  “You were right. He’s stirring.”

  It was Nabbity. I turned to the knothole. I could see his belt cinch. He was standing next to the coffin. Another bang, and the lid snapped down again. The nails disappeared. Then his footsteps hurried away. I could see him lugging the large tar bucket from the wall towards me. There was a loud thump. He’d dropped it on top of the lid.

  “That’ll hold him – eighty pounds of pitch.” Nabbity was huffing after the effort.

  “You are such a clever man.” Fox’s sarcasm announced his presence.

  “Fuck, I didn’t know I was bringing a live one.”

  “There will be more.”

  “More?”

  “You have your gun?” Fox was walking as he spoke – somewhere beyond my feet.

  “I always have my gun.”

  “Good.”

  There was a tapping at the foot of my coffin. Fox – or I assumed it was Fox’s footfalls I heard as he walked around towards the head of the box. He tapped again.

  “Are you napping, Poe?”

  I did not answer. I concentrated on my breathing and my rage.

  Fox knocked on the pine board lid again. “Came a tapping. As of someone gently rapping, rapping at your chamber door, Mr. Poe.”

  I pushed my arms down to my side. Something he had said to Nabbity. Yes, there it was in my pocket. By some good fortune it was still there – Molly’s little gun. I still had one bullet.

  Another light touch of his knuckle came in slow staccato. “’Tis some visitor tapping at your chamber door – only this, and nothing more.”

  I held the gun by the handle. Was Fox leaning close? His voice sounded very close. Would the bullet pierce the wood and his skull both, or would the slug be spent in the pine?

  Another fainter knock I was scarce sure I even heard slipped into my ears. Fox’s voice was an oily whisper coming from almost straight behind me now. “Stately raven, I have no bust of Pallas for your perch. Only this sad box and nothing more.”

  I wanted to kill him. He would pay for Molly’s perversion and my Caroline’s stolen death. I tightened my grip on the gun, cupping the unguarded trigger, and began to roll over. My shoulder wedged against the lid. There was so little room, but I pushed. I would push until it slipped through or burst from its socket. I would turn myself over. I would find a way to kill him. Every effort would have only that goal. He would die. I pushed my shoulder until the bone near tore through my skin.

  “Poe?” Why be
so rude?” Fox laughed softly. He rapped again. “Perhaps I am mistaken? A possibility.” He pounded on the lid.

  The impact bounced the box, and for a second the lid loosened. My shoulder turned free – I twisted. I was on my stomach. I began working my arm and the hand holding the gun towards my head.

  He struck the lid again, harder. “Ghastly grim, if you be raven wandering on the nightly shore – tell me what thy lordly name is on the night’s Plutonian shore.”

  “Nevermore,” came Poe’s answer.

  His voice rang out from behind my head and filled the room with a power I had never heard him express. The word rolled around the walls and rose into the empty space above.

  “Nevermore,” he said again.

  “Nabbity!” shouted Fox as he ran around my coffin. “Nabbity!”

  The answer was an unearthly scream. It started low in amazement and rose through the scale to piercing agony. The shriek went beyond hearing. Only the vibrating air gave evidence that the silent howl continued. Then, like a guillotine falling, the waves in the air were severed and stilled. A heavy weight tumbled to the flagstone. I felt it strike the floor through the wood.

  I could barely turn to see the knothole, but after some effort, when I wrenched my neck far enough and peered out, a thin red stream ran across the stones and towards the far wall. I strained my eye in the direction of Poe’s voice. I could get a glimpse of a muddy hand clenching a gun. Blood was flowing across the wrist, across the fingers, over the barrel of the pistol. There ran the headwaters of the hot river.

  “Poor Nabbity. I am startled by his sudden stillness.” Poe’s dry laugh ended in a small cough. “No doubt caught from some unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster followed fast and followed faster.”

  Now Fox laughed. I let myself fall back flat on my stomach. My arms could hold me to the knothole no longer. Another sound came from behind – a rounded tone, a soft burst of air as gas igniting. The room grew brighter. Light leaked into my pine box.

  “Such a nice blade hidden in the Malacca, Poe. Do the silver angels on the handle protect you?”

  “A friend’s cane.”

  “A borrowed sword for a borrowed life, eh, Poe?”

  “I will borrow yours.” Poe’s voice was almost a whisper.

  “Spare me the dirges of your hopes, Poe.” Fox was at my feet.

  I could see him. Facing away from him, flat on the pine bottom of my coffin, I could see him. There on the head wall of my enclosure, projected as by camera obscure, he stood at the gray stone pedestal. Fox was upside down. The torches to his left and right were light, or so I assumed was the source of the new illumination. The thin line wavered behind him, running down – for so the image showed – towards the darkness straight out of the top of his head.

  “Get Nabbity’s gun, Jupiter.” Poe spoke carefully. “Keep your eye on him.”

  “I know what I’m doing.” Jupiter’s voice was calm and cold.

  “Oh, yes. Keep your eye on me, Jupiter.” Fox waved his fingers, and a small golden box, sitting in front of him on the grey, stone column burst into a bright white flame that flared and then settled into a blue glow. Waves of heat in front of his face made it waver in the air, like a vision in some dark dream. His green spectacles reflected the blue light as if his skull hosted turquoise gems for eyes.

  “The Maryland Hospital for the Insane.” Poe’s voice assumed a bantering tone. “Such a poor empire for a man of your talents, Fox.”

  “The space is useful.”

  “Useful for chaining stolen Africans?” Jupiter’s voice was still calm, but barely.

  “The big, black ape speaks.”

  Poe broke in quickly, “Jupiter, easy. He will provoke you.”

  “Let me shoot him.”

  “We’ll let you go, Fox. We only want the women.” Poe was starting the bargaining.

  “I offered the barter, Poe. Now I have Molly. What do you have that I want?”

  “Me.”

  The image in front of my face flickered to black. I moved my shoulder. I pressed myself as low as I could get in the coffin. The beam returned, unblocked, and focused. Fox‘s head was thrown back in laughter.

  “Why should I want you?”

  “The bluff is tiring, Fox. You know what I can teach you.” Poe seemed to be coming closer to me. “You can stay death’s hand. You taught me that. But he can call the souls back. The Vaudou – I can teach you so much now. Think of the power you could play with, Baron Samedi. Imagine it, Renard. I will reveal the secrets to you, Fox.”

  “The teacher now?” The mesmerist’s voice became darker. “But, not always a teacher, eh? Weren’t you once a preacher, Poe? Didn’t Mrs. Whitman call you ‘The Preacher?’ Does our friend in the box know your avocation?”

  I had no air in my lungs. Poe was the Preacher? Deny it, Poe. Deny it. I almost shouted for him to deny it. Dear, addled Mrs. Whitman had sent Poe to my wife in secret? Poe was the Preacher? Poe had taken my Caroline?

  Of course, I thought of all the obvious connections. Poe and Helen Whitman were devotees of the spirits – locked together in the occult. Poe’s own wife, by his admission mesmerized at death’s door – and he has it. He gives it to me. He waves it in front of me to keep me in Baltimore. And now it is under my own living skin – my Caroline’s ruby – from Poe’s hand to mine. Poe is the Preacher!

  Rage was near uncontrollable. I pushed up. I had the aid of arms and legs, and I was stronger. The lid of the coffin creaked. Nails protested and gave way. The lid started to lift. My muscles burnt, and on the brink of success, they failed. The weight of the pitch bucket was too much. I fell back to the bottom of the box.

  “I see he did not know. Pity. Such a lovely woman, his wife.”

  I could see Fox’s face and his upside-down empty grin – and his black tongue.

  “Enough!” Jupiter shouted. I heard the gun in his hand cock.

  I watched Fox. Would his head explode when the bullet struck? There was an explosion. Fox’s hands fluttered, and a bright flash of light produced a cloud of purple smoke. Jupiter’s gun fired at almost the same instant – almost.

  The smoke cleared, and Fox was gone.

  “Ahhhhhhhh!” Jupiter shouted in frustration. “Where’s he gone?”

  “Quiet. Quiet.” Poe whispered.

  “Where is he?”

  “Come over here quickly. Get out of the middle…”

  Poe did not finish his sentence before a thunderous series of crashes and impacts began. The air was full of red dust. Through the knothole I could see bricks bouncing across the floor. Fox had dropped them from above.

  “Jupiter!” Poe shouted. It was too late.

  I saw the gun he had been holding skitter towards the ladder at the wall. I heard a moan and no more. Jupiter had been struck.

  “Fox!” Poe called out. “Renard!” he shouted. “I will teach you,” the Preacher yelled into the dark above him.

  “Open me!” I screamed back at him. I would at least kill him.

  “Where are you, Fox?”

  I knew where he was. I realized suddenly that I knew. The camera obscure had not been fooled. I had seen the trick. I could kill Fox. I could kill them both. I smiled and wondered at the keenness of my thoughts. I would kill them both. I smiled through broken teeth and torn lips.

  A sharp-toothed smile.

  Chapter 37

  October 3, 1849 4:35 a.m. - A Flambeau to the Flaxen Coat -

  To the few who love me and whom I love – to those who feel, rather than to those who think – to those who open themselves to every realm of experience – I offer this penultimate entry. Judge it as truth or as fable. Judge it as a poorly rhymed poem. I shall be dead and beyond your verdict.

  I do not ask you to believe, nor do I ask you to question. Whether your faith finds purchase in the ending of the tale, or tumbles headlong into doubt, I have no care. I shall tell you what I saw and what I did that dawn in the old west wing of the Maryland Hospital. The fates of liar
s, dreamers, poets, and sinners were decided there that morn – by a man in a box, and a boy on fire.

  “Where are you, Fox?”

  A voice answered Poe’s cry from high above the flagstone floor. It came from darkness. “I am above you, as always.”

  “Come down and deal with this, Fox.”

  “Oh, yes. Come down and open me,” I whispered in my box. I gathered my strength. I would kill them both.

  “Come down. Come down,” mocked Fox from the shadows.

  “Renard!”

  “Call me by any of my names, Poe. Call me the Baron Samedi, guardian of the Vaudou graves. Call me what you will.”

  “Come down!”

  “Step out into the room, Poe. Claim your prize. She awaits you.”

  “She is yours – my gift to you.” Poe stood back. From the origin of his voice, I assumed he was in the doorway that opened onto the cellar stairs.

  A laugh ran through the shadows. I adjusted my position. The image on the pine board in front of my face showed the pedestal and the burning box atop it, glowing with its small blue flames. Beyond was darkness – the upside-down darkness. I concentrated on my breathing. I needed air to arm my strength. The heavy smell of the coal tar and pitch leaked down from where it sat, heavy atop my box, and I took in deep lungfuls of dizzying vapors.

  “Your gift? You would give me my own.”

  “I saved her for you.”

  “You saved my Molly. And you brought her here for me?” Fox clicked his tongue. “I might not have known where you hid her, save for my servant. You would have hidden her from me.”

  “I gave her the drug. I can teach you how it works.” Poe spit out his words with urgency. “You taught me and now I can teach you. This Jupiter has taught me secrets without knowing.”

  A trace of Molly’s musk reached me in my box. Her coffin must be beside mine, I thought. But what drug had Poe given her? Had the small cup for her pain kept her alive? Or had it kept her not alive? Suspended between the planes – was my Molly cursed? Had she awakened in her box? I would kill them both.