Poe must die

merely a snoop who knew too much about too many things? Why had he been brought into this matter of Rachel’s husband? Because Rachel trusted him, because like so many other women she was drawn by the image of self- destructive poet. Standish had never hated anyone in his life as much as he hated Poe.

The lawyer spoke with his back to Poe. His voice was hoarse and that of a beaten man. “You will be made to believe. You will be forced to believe.”

Poe, remembering last night, shivered. His dead wife had appeared and called to him. But hadn’t that been a dream?

He stood up. “What did you say?”

Standish turned quickly to face him. “I, I said one is forced to grieve. I meant that life and circumstances leave one no choice but to grieve when death strikes. Uh, Rachel and her husband, her sadness at his death. I, I must leave you. Please excuse me, I shall return shortly.”

Poe watched Miles Standish, still clutching the bottle of brandy, hurry across the carpet. When the door to the billiard room slammed behind the lawyer, Poe was alone and still wondering if he had heard Standish correctly. Believe. Grieve. As the eternal fear of insanity came down on him once more, he went suddenly cold. He would never stop fearing it. Insanity. Where one laughed but smiled no more.

He walked to the red papered wall in front of him, to stand before three paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, a sixteenth-century Dutch artist in oils. Bruegel was vigorous, earthy, with strong, bold colors and figures. You could smell his peasants and barnyard animals, you could touch their clothing and skin. There was power in Bruegel, a vulgarity that was overwhelming and stunning.

The first painting showed peasants shearing sheep in front of a thatched cottage. The second showed three men in colored doublets and thigh boots, hands tied behind their backs and hanging from a gibbet. Their heads hung at an angle possible only in dead men. The third painting was the most striking. It was of a Renaissance carnival blended with a nightmare. There were dwarfs holding snakes and death heads, whores soliciting customers, a juggler, sword swallower, knife thrower and off to the side horned demons lay in wait for anyone foolish enought to enter the carnival. The painting was a powerful portrayal of a sinister world and time. It was alive with an intimidating energy.

Poe blinked his eyes several times. He was dizzy, sweating and it was hard to draw breath. Warm, too warm in the room and he heard noises, laughter, but he was alone, wasn’t he? He opened his eyes wide, closed them again and tried not to be sick to his stomach. What was happening to him?

He staggered backwards, coughing, his hands pressed against his throat and his eyes were closed. He smelled incense and he heard a harp. There was a harpist in the carnival painting.

Poe opened his eyes and saw two dwarfs standing in front of him. Living dwarfs. Both were dressed exactly as the dwarfs in the painting and each held a death’s head, a grinning skull. One shrieked, hurling his skull at Poe, who backed into the billiard table. The skull bounced off his knee.

Both dwarfs rushed him and as an unseen harpist played, Poe screamed and kicked at the dwarfs, driving them back. He turned to his right to see a woman dressed as one of the whores in the painting walk slowly towards him, snakes entwined around her neck and both wrists. She was wet lipped and open mouthed.

The painting had come to life!

A dizzy Poe edged away from the whore, one hand behind him and on the billiard table. He was in hell. At last his mind had betrayed him.

“Noooooo!” Poe’s scream filled the room.

A sound made him turn in time to see the knife thrower, two hands around the handle of his knife, bring it down towards Poe’s face. Poe’s left hand went up quickly and the knife slashed him across the palm. He screamed, falling to one knee, hands clinging to the billiard table, his blood smearing the polished wooden edge. The pain was real. The blood was real.

“Nooooo! I am not insane! I am not mad!”

Driven by a frenzy to survive, Poe grabbed a cue stick from the billiard table and swung with all his strength, breaking the cue stick against the knife thrower’s face. The man, thin, bearded with a flat nose, staggered backwards and fell. A crazed Poe, no longer sure of real and unreal, used the remaining part of the cue stick as a short spear and jabbed down at the dwarfs pulling on his legs. He was not mad, he was not mad.

A dwarf squealed, both hands going to an eye and the other dwarf spun around, hands covering a slash running from his ear and down the side of his neck. Poe was living a nightmare and could do nothing but lash out at the world. His head was light and his heart threatened to tear itself loose from its strings. The harpist sent gentle notes of music into the room and Poe fought to breathe. He heard the whore laugh and when he turned to face her, she threw snakes at him and laughed louder.

He felt the cold, wet body of a snake against his face and Poe couldn’t stop screaming. He was on his knees, hands pulling the long, green snake from his face. His head was filled with the noise of his own shrieks and when it seemed certain that he would never breathe again, Poe fell forward on his face, into a blessed darkness that alternated with a pain redder than the sun. The last thing he remembered was two horned demons reaching out for him.

He awoke lying flat on his back and gazing up at a tall, thin woman with a small, round head and black hair parted in the middle. She wore all black and no rouge on her unsmiling face and she clutched a bible to her bosomless chest. She was Miles Standish’s wife.

“I shall read over you, Mr. Poe, for the word of the Lord has power-”

Poe sat up. “The painting. It was alive.”

“I shall read over you, Mr. Poe.” She opened the bible.

Behind Poe, Miles Standish’s voice was again calm and sure.

“Nonsense from a quill pusher who survives by lecturing on the metaphysical. Conclusions springing from whiskey. Sound and fury signifying nothing.”

Mrs. Standish read from the Book of Revelations and Poe, clutching the billiard table, raised himself to his knees. “It was alive.”

He was on his feet, breathing heavily through his mouth. “It was alive.”

Miles Standish stared down at the backs of his own hands. “I believe in being blunt, sir. You are a drunkard, a man with a known mystical turn of mind. You reek of alcohol-”

Poe sniffed the air, touched his clothes. He did reek ofwhiskey. His shirt and coat were wet with it. A half-empty bottle and a glass stood on the side of the billiard table. Was he losing his mind?

A Negro servant held out Poe’s cloak, hat, walking stick. “I suggest you consult a physician,” said Standish. “I know of several. Perhaps Dr. Paracelsus would consent to-”

Poe shoved his left arm at Miles Standish, causing the lawyer to lean away. “Demons stretched out their hands for me and I say to you, this is blood, my blood!”

Poe showed his slashed left palm.

Both of Standish’s eyebrows crept slowly up his forehead. “I would agree. And do try not to break any more cue sticks. They are handmade and expensive. His eyes went to the floor and Poe followed his gaze. A broken, bloodstained cue stick lay on the gray carpet.

A silent, stunned Poe left the billiard room with the sound of Mrs. Standish’s bible reading following him into the hall and out into the cold. He heard Miles Standish say that all arrangements for the ransom would be made, but Poe paid no attention. He clenched his left fist to stop the bleeding and he wondered how much longer he would be able to function before his mind snapped and he joined his brother and sister in that world of permanent horror known only to the hopelessly insane.

EIGHT

Jonathan slashed Tom Lowery’s throat so that when the burly grave robber opened his mouth to scream, no sound came out. Lowery, fighting to free himself from a drugged sleep, willed himself to sit up, to rise from the straw mattress and destroy the man who had done this terrible thing to