Edgar Allan Poe and the Empire of the Dead Read online

  Para Santiago

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  Ye who read are still among the living, but I who write shall have long since gone my way into the region of shadows. For indeed strange things shall happen, and many secret things be known, and many centuries shall pass away, ere these memorials be seen of men. And, when seen, there will be some to disbelieve, and some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much to ponder upon in the characters here graven with a stylus of iron.

  (Edgar Allan Poe, “Shadow: A Parable”)

  Books always speak of other books.

  (Umberto Eco, Postscript to The Name of the Rose)

  1 WEDNESDAY, 3 OCTOBER 1849

  It began with a cat. I was walking along the High Street in Baltimore and a brisk wind stirred up the street’s detritus, which whirled around my ankles, sent grit into my eyes. Despite the leaden sky, the foliage gleamed with unnatural color, and beams of light jumped from one pane of window glass to another until the street echoed with their harsh brightness.

  As I wandered, the glare made my head ache and my legs were unsteady. My throat felt strangely tight and I tugged at my neckcloth, tipped down the brim of my hat to shade my eyes. First, I heard her, a mewling call, then she appeared from nowhere and crossed in front of me so that I almost stumbled. She was a tortoiseshell, a common enough breed, but there was something in the shape of her, in that gentle but insistent cry, that recalled my own cat, who was hundreds of miles away, safely at home in New York. I watched as the tortoiseshell trotted daintily along the footpath, then paused to look back over her shoulder, entreating me to trail after her. This continued for a time, the little cat weaving along, disappearing into shadow and coming forth again. I simply followed. Reason told me it could not be our Catterina, but the more I studied the creature, the more I felt in my heart that it could not be any other.

  And then she was gone. I surveyed the street intently, searching for her, and my gaze was captured by a woman approaching from a side street. Catterina was prancing along next to her. Immediately my head began to pound. I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again—she was still in plain view. When I tried to run to her my legs buckled.

  “Virginia!” I called out, but the silence remained undisturbed. “Sissy, my darling,” I tried again, and my voice was turned to dust, by joy mixed with fear and disbelief. Even so, my wife—my darling Sissy—looked up from Catterina, where her attention had been fixed, and gazed directly into my eyes. Rather than run to me and enfold me in her embrace, she turned away and commenced walking, with Catterina at her heels. A wave of biliousness roared over me and the sunlight blazed in my eyes. When the glare finally diminished, she had vanished.

  I dashed to the end of the road, thinking she could not have gone far. The street was curiously empty and I was distracted by the glint of golden letters painted across a window: Apothecary. Displayed in the window were two sizable carboys, one filled with a violet-colored liquid, the other with a citrine fluid. The dimly lit shop was fitted out with elegant wooden counters and cabinets upon the walls, each drawer neatly labeled in Latin: Artemisia absinthium, Chininum hydrobromicum, Oxymel scillae, Oleum pini pumilionis, Opio en polvo, Calomel, Syrupus sennae, Papaver and Tolu. A cabinet of gruesome curiosities was on display, with large glass jars holding malformed creatures preserved in brine and oddities of nature, all presided over by a small stuffed crocodile with razor teeth. It was a strange place, yet oddly familiar. My skin prickled.

  The apothecary, a man with thin gray hair and pale blue eyes, was busy at his counter, decanting medicines into vials and packets. A woman came into view and I pressed my face closer to the glass, for it was Sissy. She stood there quietly, watching the apothecary work, yet he did not seem to notice her presence at all. His concentration was focused on a sheet of paper that he consulted as he prepared his concoctions. I observed his eyes narrow as he reread the script, brows knitted, then he turned and selected the apothecary jar labeled Atropa belladonna.

  The apothecary mixed a tincture from the belladonna and as I watched I was certain that I had seen him do this very thing before—had it been in a dream or was I within one now? He poured the medicine—the poison—into a small, cobalt blue bottle and slid it across the counter.

  At that moment, I was overcome once more with nausea and my breath fogged the window. When the discomfort subsided, I rubbed at the glass with my coat sleeve and peered through, only to meet the frightened gaze of a young woman stationed behind the counter of quite a different shop. I stepped back, bewildered—I was on Lombard Street, somewhere else entirely, very near the tavern I had been in earlier, a suffocating place so fraught with menace I had escaped to the street.

  Filled with confusion, I struggled to breathe as the air became warmer and thicker, as the light sizzled and shadows darted all around me, until I crouched down to alleviate the dizziness. There was a nudge against my leg and Catterina tiptoed about my feet and sat down, her green eyes fixed on mine as if she were a mesmerist. As my vision began to ebb away, I realized where I had seen the apothecary shop before and when I had witnessed the very same scenario that had just played before me. And I prayed that I would find a way to tell my most honorable friend, the Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin, the truth about how I had finally been murdered and by whom.

  2 SUNDAY, 17 JUNE 1849

  The dénouement has been decided and cannot, I think, be undone. Let me start at the beginning, or what I know of it, and give all the facts regarding my delivery to this grim place.

  It was June of 1849—the seventeenth, I believe. I had spent the morning writing, or trying to, but the weight of the silence stilled my pen and, finally, the prison of my chair become intolerable. I unfurled a gently purring Catterina from about my neck, left her curled up on the table and escaped my study for the sanctuary of the garden.

  The cherry and apple blossoms had flurried down weeks previously and there were nubs of fruit on the boughs as spring ambled into summer. The foliage was still a tender green and rain in the night had scented the air with the richness of loam. I examined the wildflower garden I had planted in the shade under my wife Virginia’s guidance; the violets which formed a border were in bloom, peeping out from heart-shaped leaves, their cheerful faces deep purple, lavender and white with blue embellishments. Stern jack-in-the-pulpits, some fully green and others striped deep purple and emerald, watched over a bevy of gossiping lady’s-slipper orchids. Sissy had marveled over those peculiar deep pink blooms. In the sunny patch away from the fruit trees, the earth was covered with a crazy quilt of flowers, all sent as a gift by Mrs. Carr of Bartram’s Gardens in Philadelphia. She and Sissy had become fast friends just prior to our move from the Quaker city to New York in April of 1844. It was two years before we found our perfect home in the village of Fordham, fourteen miles from the city, and Sissy immediately wrote to Mrs. Carr, describing the little cottage set on two acres of land that we rented from Mr. John Valentine, whose name my wife found perfectly delightful. We moved into the cottage in May 1846, and two weeks later a crate from Bartram’s Gardens was delivered by coach. The cleverly constructed transport box was filled to the brim with bulbs, seeds and potted plants. Included were detailed instructions of how to plant and care for each specimen.

  “You will soon have a hummingbird and butterfly garden,” Mrs. Carr had written, “for these plants attract both.”

  My wife was thrilled with this notion, and Mrs. Carr’s promise was quickly fulfilled. The young plants took to the good earth, and later that year produced drifts of ebullient color that had butterflies gliding around them like sailing ships encircling tropical islands. My wife was most pleased by the ar
rival of what appeared at first glance to be an enormous insect.

  “What a comely gentleman he is, with his emerald cap and coat and ruby-colored neckcloth,” she said fondly.

  The hummingbird visited the garden most days and did not seem to mind our presence as he darted from flower to flower, watched suspiciously by Catterina, who seemed to fear him—perhaps with good reason, as he was a pugnacious little creature. To my surprise, my wife would not name the bird; she said to do so would tether him, and his true beauty was to dart and wheel and dip amongst the blossoms before disappearing into the wind itself. But when she spoke to the creature, thinking herself alone in the garden sun, she conversed with her “little Seraph” and the dazzling creature would hover, listening, then flit back to the blossoms as if depositing her secrets there.

  When the weather turned in mid-September, bringing a sharpness to the morning air, my wife waited patiently on the front porch for the hummingbird’s morning tour, but he did not appear. Sissy refused to leave her station until the sun dropped to the western horizon and the sky was stained to match the fading blooms that shivered near the porch.

  “He’s flown south,” I told her, “to winter in Mexico. Wouldn’t that be glorious? To migrate with the hummingbirds and return to our garden for spring?”

  But Sissy would not turn her mind to my fanciful notion. “I hope he is safe. I could not bear it if something happened to him.”

  “He is sipping exotic nectar, I am sure of it. Be pleased for the little fellow. He was clever to escape before the first frost.”

  “You’re right, my dear. He is obeying the law of Nature.” She was silent for a moment, her face pensive, then she murmured, “It is selfish, I know, but I had hoped to see him again. Summer left us sooner than I thought it might.”

  “You’ll have to wait until spring, I fear, but I promise he will return, for undoubtedly he has made our garden his summer home.”

  Taking pity on me, she mustered a smile and joined my wishful reverie. “I’ll be glad to see him when he does, for truly you have made a garden that is perfect for hummingbirds and for us.” She clasped my hand in hers and we said nothing more as twilight gathered in around us.

  * * *

  On the day in question, the seventeenth of June, I worked in the garden for an hour before lunch. Three years had passed since I’d first planted it and the borders were thriving. Dahlias, mignonette and heliotrope had joined the showy parade assembled by Mrs. Carr. Each morning I would drag my fingers through dirt, assisting the industrious earthworms; I pulled out weeds and doused the thirsty greenery with rainwater from the barrel. The air was scented with jasmine and sweet honeysuckle; our hummingbird had returned again and he was not alone this year. A female had arrived in our garden soon after he did and crouched in the cup of a nest attached to a dogwood tree branch, warming a pair of tiny eggs. He was a neglectful husband, though, and sped from flower to flower, greedy to partake of them all, but he brought no nectar back for his mate to sip, nor did he take his turn upon the nest, an intricate assembly of twigs, leaves, lichen, bound up with spider webs. She sat there alone, a fierce little warrior of the air.

  When Muddy, my mother-in-law, opened the door and announced that she’d baked a fresh loaf that was ready for eating, I made my way inside, quickly washed up and sat down at the kitchen table. The scent of bread was thick in the air and hunger seized my belly. Muddy poured coffee for the two of us and set down a plate with two thick slices spread with melting butter. We wolfed down the warm bread, swigged coffee and did not speak a word to each other.

  “That was delicious,” I finally said.

  The hard angles of Muddy’s honest face were eased by a smile.

  “The garden is coming along well,” I continued. “And the hummingbirds—there are two eggs in the nest. I’m looking forward to the little ones. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a bird as small as they will be.” I sipped some coffee, waiting for a response, but none was offered. “Have you?” I prodded.

  Muddy thought for a moment. “No, I don’t believe I have.”

  “Well, it should be quite something to have a family of hummingbirds living in our garden. It will be enjoyable to watch them.”

  Muddy gave a nod of her head, then briskly reached for my plate. Her large, capable hands seemed to scoop up all the dishes at once and deliver them to the sink, then she refilled my coffee cup. “I thought we would finish yesterday’s stew for supper.” She looked to me for an opinion.

  “Perfect,” I murmured.

  Muddy turned away and began to wash the dishes. If Sissy had been at the table with us, we would have talked about the excitement of the hummingbirds, how beautiful the garden looked, and all the other blooms we might grow in our little sanctuary. But Muddy would not be engaged in fanciful talk of the garden, and I had tired of trying to find some nicety to offer up, so the silence gathered until the air grew thick with our loneliness.

  * * *

  I returned to my study that afternoon, but did not manage to write anything I much cared for. After supper I went upstairs to read, but I lost my place several times when my eyes slipped closed and the pages of my book whirred shut. Catterina leapt onto the bed, caught my sleepy gaze with her peridot eyes, then gracefully curled into herself. Hypnos had defeated me so I set the book aside and blew out the candle.

  Later—how much later I do not know—I came awake. It was utterly quiet and I could not think what had caused me to leave my dreams, but as I stared at the surrounding shadow, there was a quivering over my skin. Then a glimmer of moonlight seeped through the curtains, and I saw that Catterina was sitting up, the triangles of her ears alert. She did not move and nor did I. Moments later, there was a stutter in the darkness, like the faintest ripple in very deep, very still water when something lurks beneath the surface. Then there was a smudge of soft white in the black and it grew and spread as if someone were drawing onto night itself with an unearthly phosphorescence. My unease grew, but I was unable to avert my gaze as a shape slowly formed, her shape. And there, moments or perhaps hours later, seated in the chair by the window, hands folded in her lap, her face turned toward mine, was my wife. I whispered her name, then said it louder still, but she did not reply and I did not know what I should do.

  Death is never simple. It may be sudden and a shock or so protracted it comes as a relief. Many fear it, others fight it, some welcome it. The mourner weeps over what might have been—a future thwarted, a promise lost, the legacy of a family curtailed. I had dreamt so many times that Sissy had come home again, that a diabolical error had been reversed and she was revived. I had dreamt that our life together would resume, even more perfectly, for she was alive and fully well again.

  How cruel it was to awaken afterwards.

  So I sat in my bed and simply gazed at my darling wife while she smiled gently back at me. I thought I heard her say my name once, but the birds called up the dawn and Catterina and I watched as she dissolved, silently, into the pink morning light.

  3 MONDAY, 18 JUNE 1849

  My morning began like any other but something had changed. There was a peculiar hum in the air and invisible sparks seemed to dance around me. Catterina followed me from room to room, her tail held high in the air, her eyes constantly seeking mine. When we adjourned to the porch, the colors outside seemed more vivid, the gardens perfume intoxicating. I wondered if the veil between this world and the next had torn when Sissy came back to us in the night and whether she was watching us as she had promised she would. When Muddy appeared on the path home, clutching a basket of pigweed, garlic mustard and spring onions, she was startled that I hurried to meet her, Catterina at my heels.

  “Here, let me help.” I pulled the basket from her arm and fell into step beside her. “How did you sleep last night?”

  “Very well, thank you.” Muddy looked at me warily, perhaps anticipating complaints that insomnia had returned to trouble me and that I might resort to various calmatives to quiet my restless min
d.

  “Did you see anything? Or feel a … presence?”

  Muddy frowned and shook her head, her discomfort growing.

  “Sissy came. We saw her.” I nodded to Catterina. “Just before dawn. She sat in her chair near the window. It was almost as if she never left us.” The details of the scene flooded my mind. “She did not speak,” I added. “But she smiled.”

  “You poor boy.”

  My fearful joy dissipated when I saw the pity on my mother-in-law’s face, and I was left feeling wounded.

  “I was happy to see her. We were happy to see her, to know she is all right. It was not a dream,” I insisted. “And I had nothing to drink if that is what you are thinking. I have made a pledge, and I will keep it.”

  “I know you will.” Muddy patted my arm, but her attempt to soothe me had the opposite effect, and I was thoroughly disgruntled by her lack of faith. We had both suffered enormously during Sissy’s final decline, but I had done my best not to add to my mother-in-law’s hurt, and when I could not help myself, endeavored to make amends. When one loves acutely, the pain of loss is correspondingly acute. At my lowest, it seems that love is not worth the agony, then later I feel nothing but shame at my morose thoughts, for it is necessary to swim on through the murkiest waters, knowing that pain will slowly ebb away.

  I decided a tramp through the countryside would be a good tonic and fetched a letter I had written to Annie Richmond—I would take it to the post office in West-Farms, which was a few miles away. Annie had proved to be a sympathetic friend in the time since my wife’s passing, and I was grateful, but had been a poor correspondent.

  As I struck out for West-Farms, Catterina followed me down the front path and onto Kingsbridge Road, which was odd in itself as normally she was content to loll on the porch or curl up on my chair when I went for a ramble. As I walked down the road, she paced back and forth on the verge, her tail twitching in agitation. When last I looked back, she had settled on her haunches like a sentry guarding the boundaries of our little homestead, the early morning sun seeping through the trees. I paused to admire our cottage of Dutch shingles; it was rustic and plain and very beautiful—a place of incomparable joy and sadness.