The Circe Spell

by Joe Andriano



133.






20. The Fever Is Conquered

Providence—Fordham—Philadelphia—Richmond—Baltimore, 1848-49

 
            Helen was not thoroughly convinced that Eddy was capable of abstaining. She knew what addiction was like; she had her ether, and feared what might happen if she could no longer depend upon it. They could help each other avoid excess, especially if they devoted themselves to The Stylus. She assured him they would get married as soon as her mother agreed to it. Mrs. Power would consent only after Eddy signed away any right to Helen's money, which he did readily. The support she could give him, he told Mrs. Power, was not monetary, it was spiritual and intellectual. She remained skeptical at best.

           After giving his great lecture on the Poetic Principle at the Providence lyceum in front of two thousand people, he thought his fame now might finally make his fortune; he wouldn't need Helen's money. But he also knew that she was too much like him ever to be his savior. A few days after his triumphant lecture, he took a bolstering glass of sherry at his hotel before walking to Benefit Street to visit his fiancée. A servant led him into her parlor.

Bill Peabody was sitting there next to Helen. He had helped Eddy survive his recent cerebral congestion, and somehow Eddy knew instantly from the way Peabody was looking at Helen and holding her hand that he wanted her for himself. So Eddy wasn't surprised when Peabody stood up and immediately accused him of tippling. "Ah, Mr. Poe," he said, tilting his head in the air and shaking it, "I could smell it as soon as you walked in. And here I was, just about to deliver this note to the Reverend Crocker to publish your marriage banns."

Helen reached out from her sofa and grabbed the note. "Mr. Peabody, why don't you go give your respects to my mother? Mr. Poe and I have something to discuss." After Peabody left, she simply asked, "Why? After your solemn promise, why?"

Eddy sat down next to her. "I don't know what he was smelling, Helen, but I swear to you I have not taken a drop."

           "I can smell it, too, Edgar. And all week I've been getting letters from people I trust that you've tippled several times since your promise. You and your lies are giving me palpitations. I need my medicine." Helen suddenly produced a handkerchief and drenched it with the contents of a little vial, from which the aroma of ether wafted as she breathed the vapors and lay back, partly draped over the arm of the sofa. Eddy knelt beside her as she began to lose consciousness.

"Say something, please, Helen, don't abandon me. Just one word."

"What can I say?" she asked, barely audible.

"Say that you love me."

         "I love you," she said smiling, then fell into a stupor. He covered her with a shawl and, with some difficulty, picked her up and carried her to the other sofa, nearer to the fireplace. Kneeling again, he attempted to warm her ice-cold hands with his. Her mother appeared then, with Peabody.






134.

"This is your influence, Mr. Poe," said Mrs. Power, gesturing toward her daughter. "I will never consent, never. Leave this house immediately."

"You see," said Eddy to Peabody, "how I am insulted." Taking one last look at Helen, still in her stupor, he left, feeling both rejected and relieved.

And once again, back to Fordham and more letters to Annie. There is nothing in this world worth living for but love, not love as I once thought I felt for Helen, but love that burns in my very soul for you—so pure—so unworldly. And to Muddy he promised, "From this day forth I shun the pestilential society of literary women." Helen wrote to him and assured him that she still loved him, that she would never have broken the engagement if he had kept his promise never again to taste wine. Your sweet and gracious nature, your rare and peculiar intellect have given a new charm to my lackluster life, she wrote, but your other nature, the darkness of your doom, no living eye can look unscathed upon such dread despair.

Even without her, he convinced himself, there was still hope for The Stylus. Fame will make my fortune, it must! A young enthusiastic editor, Edward Patterson from Oquawka, Illinois, offered to publish the monthly magazine as soon as Eddy could come up with a signature list of a thousand subscribers. He told Patterson that Richmond would be the best place to start building the list, and Patterson forwarded fifty dollars to the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger for him. Eddy put off the trip for over a week until he would get a letter from Annie, but none came. Why am I really going to Richmond? To get those signatures or to find a savior? If it can't be Annie can it be anyone? Elmira? I was a child and she was a child. . . .

"Don't go, Eddy, please," said Muddy.

"I have no choice. Look around you! What can we sell to buy my train ticket? We have no money at all, Muddy. I refuse to let destitution be my destiny! I feel it, Muddy, I feel that The Stylus will reverse our fortunes. It will make us rich, just you wait and see."

"You feel it, Eddy? I'll tell you what I feel. That I will never see you again." She did what he asked, however, and got the money, but did not tell him she had to sell some of Virginia's clothes. At the end of June, she went with him to New Jersey to see him off to take the steamboat to Philadelphia, where he would board a train to get to Richmond. Since he planned to be gone for months, going from city to city building the list, he took a valise of clothes and a trunk full of books and manuscripts, including lectures.

"Do not fear for your Eddy," he assured her as they hugged. "I promise to be good, Muddy, no tippling. When I come back, you'll never have to sell another heirloom, I'll never have to beg and borrow, my fame will finally make our fortune."

           "There's cholera in Philadelphia, Eddy. Go straight to the train station. Don't be looking up any old friends."

He wasn't on the steamboat for more than twenty minutes, standing on the second-class deck not far from the luggage, when he noticed on top of a trunk a quivering black mass resembling a blanket or canvas of some sort catching the wind, taking on the unmistakable form of a black cat with its long fur gleaming in the sun. Suddenly it leapt to the deck and started his way.

"You see that?" he asked the man standing next to him, leaning as Eddy was against the railing, both of their backs to the bay. "That cat slinking toward us?"

"Do I look blind to you, sir? I do indeed see it. Yours?"




135.

She was already purring as she rubbed against his pants. He bent down and picked her up. "Circe? Is it you?" He knew even before he saw the scar. "As soon as I left Kate, you found me, didn't you?" He turned to the stranger. "A singularly resourceful cat!" He thought for a moment of throwing her overboard. Instead, he put her down. "I believe I will find the bar. Good day to you, sir."

He had wine for lunch and spent most of the trip trying to walk around the boat, wherever he was allowed. When he disembarked she did not pursue him, and he did not see her when he boarded the omnibus. Nor did he see her at the train station. He wasn't sitting for more than a minute on the train to Philadelphia before he heard her purring underneath him. She kept out of sight and he did not say a word to anyone. But some men a few seats behind him were talking about him, he was sure of it. He couldn't quite make out what they were saying, perhaps he filled in too many gaps.

Isn't that the Raven? Wish I had my gun! I hear he's engaged. Wouldn't let my sister marry such a madman even if he was filthy rich, which he ain't, just filthy, period. I'd shoot him, if only I had my gun.

Another voice: I have a pistol. Let me shoot him now, before the degenerate marries someone's sister. We can't have that.

He bent down just in case and peeking underneath him he saw her amber eyes turn black. He bolted from the train at Bordentown, still in New Jersey, absolutely certain he had left both Circe and the belligerent men on the train.  When he finally got to Philadelphia on a later train, he arranged to have his trunk and valise, which he'd left behind on the previous train, delivered to his friend John Sartain's engraving office. Then he found a tavern, booked a room, and started drinking away the last of his money in the barroom until the bartender demanded that he leave. Rather than go up to his room, where he knew the black cat would be waiting, he wandered the streets until a policeman detained him. Perhaps I can escape her in jail, he thought. He was taken to Moyamensing prison at Tenth and Reed Streets. In his cell, where the dank walls were spinning, mania à potu set in, a heavy dose of D.T.s.

Circe was there, growling and growing. From house cat to panther before his very eyes, and suddenly Muddy was with him, Eddy, you promised you wouldn't drink, oh Eddy what's to become of us now? The panther now leapt upon her and began tearing her apart, her blood spattering the gray walls. Soon he was engulfed in Muddy's blood, it was everywhere, he was drowning in it as the panther began to devour her torn limbs.  When he was rudely awakened in the morning and dragged in front of the judge, his fame suddenly paid off. "Why, this is Poe, the poet. A rough night, I see. Glad we gave you the opportunity to sleep it off. I will exact no fine at this time, but," he winked, "make sure it happens—nevermore!" Eddy cringed and thanked him.

Walking now on Sansom Street, between Walnut and Chestnut, toward John Sartain's house, looking back every few minutes thinking he would see either Circe or those men who wanted him dead. He felt less fear of them than he did of her, for what else could she be but a demon after his soul? But what I saw in prison was certainly a hallucination; maybe I was also hallucinating on the steamboat and on the train. No, those men behind me were real, and they wanted me dead. They want to shoot me before I marry someone's sister?

Sartain, in his shirt sleeves, was busy in his studio, but as soon as he saw Eddy he came to his side.

"It's good to see you, Poe." They shook hands. "But you're looking a bit pale, my friend. Please, come upstairs."

 Eddy followed him up. "I am in desperate need of refuge."

"You know you're welcome here. You can stay as long as you like."

"My trunk and valise. Did they arrive?"

"No. You had them sent here?"

Eddy nodded. "I fear they're lost. I had to leave the train, you see. Some men sitting behind me were conspiring to kill me." He did not mention the black cat.

Sartain attempted levity. "Not some bad writers you tomahawked in Graham's or the Journal?"




136.

Eddy didn't smile. "No, no. They want revenge over . . . woman trouble. If this mustache of mine were removed I wouldn't be so readily recognized. Will you lend me a razor?"

"I don't shave, Edgar. But I do have scissors." He took Eddy to the bathroom and snipped off his mustache. "There now, you almost look like the Edgar I knew at Graham's. A little paler, though, and certainly more haggard."

            Sartain was a native of London who spoke with a hint of cockney. Robustly handsome and impeccably groomed, he was the antithesis of Eddy's decrepitude and dissolution. They had met when Eddy worked on Graham's, for which Sartain had done some engraving. He now had his own magazine, and he helped Eddy as much as he could, readily agreeing to publish his most recent poems, "The Bells" and "Annabel Lee." He also lent him some clothes, including a pair of slippers he wore because his shoes were so worn they’d begun wounding his feet.

"I need to get out and get some fresh air," said Eddy.

"I'll go with you."

"I need to see if I'm followed. Let's go out to the Fair Mount. I always liked it there." The waterworks and reservoir, fed by the Schuylkill River, was a favorite spot for excursions out of the city. They walked to the corner of Ninth and Chestnut—Eddy, in Sartain's slippers, constantly looking over his shoulder—then took the omnibus on Callowhill Street west, then northwest to Fairmount. "They're not on the bus. I'm sure no one followed me." Not even Circe.

Walking now with the Schuylkill River on their left and the waterworks—the engine house, mill house, and pavilions built on the mound dam—coming up on their right, Sartain kept between Eddy and the river as they approached the new wire suspension bridge.

"Never seen anything like that before," said Eddy, looking up at the four giant concrete pillar supports and the five thick cables that arched between them. "It was wooden when I was here last. Looked like something over a Venice canal."

"That bridge burnt down a few years ago."

"So modern! A voice from out the future cries!" Or is it the past? Why do I feel like I've been though this before? A new bridge?

Sartain guided Eddy away from the river, off to the right by a gentle pressure until they reached the foot of the lofty flight of steep wooden steps that led up the hill to the reservoir. "Let's climb the stairs, John. I'm feeling much better now."

"We really should be heading back. It's getting dark."

"Nonsense. I need exercise!" Eddy shouted, beginning to climb."They won't find me here!"

"Who are they? Those men on the train? They are all chimeras, Poe, figments of your imagination. You were delirious, remember?" Sartain caught up with him and they continued up the steep stairs.

           "I wish I could forget!" He stopped climbing. "I thought I saw my own dear mother torn limb from limb in front of me." The image came rushing back, making him nauseous. He grabbed onto the railing and vomited over it in convulsions that nearly took him and Sartain, holding onto him, over the railing.

"And you know Mrs. Clemm is safe in Fordham." Sartain held him steady with both hands on his arms, keeping bodies as far apart as he could. When Eddy seemed a little calmer he gave him his handkerchief to wipe his mouth. "The D.T.s, Poe. Figments of your feverish brain."

"I hope you're right. But there is also the demon, and I know she is real. She is a portent of impending doom. She needs to be near me when I die, or so I have been told."

Sartain practically carried Eddy up the few more steps to the landing, where they rested on a bench until Eddy could walk without help. As they renewed their ascent, Sartain positioned himself between Eddy and the railing. "Who is she?"

           He must already think me mad. I won't mention Circe. "Madeline Usher. In her grave clothes of white linen."




137.

Sartain smiled. "You're joking, of course, which is a good thing. We really must be getting back, Edgar. I was hoping for a full moon, but it's clouded over."

"Indeed, Sartain, the clouds hang oppressively low in the heavens." He spread out his arms. "It's all a great tomb! And the Conqueror Worm is waiting to devour me. I feel that I have little time left. I wish I had the courage to throw myself into the reservoir!"

"I won't allow it. I'm here to save you from yourself."

"Only a beautiful woman can save me."

"I mean in the short term."

"Just wish I had a little something to steady my nerves."

"You do understand that alcohol is the cause of your mania, not the cure."

"Long-term cause, short-term cure."

"Most recently, it cured you of your engagement."

"True, true. But I would have been most unhappily married to that Yankee bluestocking. There is another widow in Richmond. She's more my type. In fact we were childhood sweethearts, we got secretly engaged just before I went to University. But her father prevented her from seeing any of my letters, and convinced her I was beneath her class."

"So you see, something else to live for." They had reached the top landing. The reservoir looked like a giant black pit. "It's too dark to see anything. Let's head down, carefully." They began to descend the steep stairs slowly and cautiously, holding on to the handrails.

"It's Annie Richmond I really love, an unearthly love for an angel of heaven. But she is married. If I must marry before I die, then let me marry my first love, my lovely Elmira. Let my first be my last. But now, Sartain, I can only love where Death is mingling with Beauty's breath."

"Ever the morbid poet! Can you recite 'The Bells' as we descend?"

"For that I would have to be drunk."

"The refrain is easy!"

"Bells, bells, bells, bells." They bellowed one bell for each step, and when they reached the walkway by the river, Eddy recited, "'They are neither brute nor human, they are Ghouls.' Yes, that's it! Circe is not a brute and the phantom isn't human."

"Circe?"

"My dear Sartain. Will you do me one favor? After my death will you make sure that my mother—my aunt—gets the portrait of me that Fanny Osgood's husband painted?






138.

             "At least I look healthy in that one. Daguerreotypes of late have made me look like a corpse."

"I can do that, I promise. But I am quite sure that you have many years left. Tell me all about The Stylus."

That night Eddy slept on the sofa in Sartain's dining room while Sartain, without undressing, slept on three chairs placed in a row beside him. Eddy ended up staying in Philadelphia for the last two horrible weeks of June. Ostensibly he was waiting for his trunk and valise, but he lingered because he knew that he was in no shape to court either prospective subscribers or southern belle. He kept trying to allay his anxieties by drinking cheap wine, which took its inevitable toll; he was often sick to his stomach, once soiling the only pantaloons he had. To Muddy he wrote, My dear, dear Mother, I have been so ill—have had the cholera, or spasms quite as bad, and can hardly hold my pen. Am taking calomel, which only makes things worse. And I've lost my valise, my two lectures gone! I'm losing the will to go on, but I don't want to die in Philadelphia! When I'm in Richmond you must come. We can but die together. It is no use to reason with me now; I must die. I have no desire to live since I finished Eureka. I was in prison for a few hours for getting drunk, but I swear on my mother's miniature which I now clutch in my hand that I hadn't drunk a drop. I had the D.T.s without imbibing. You must come—and with Annie! She made a promise! I'll do a lecture from memory if I must, to raise the money to get you both there. I should have fifty dollars waiting for me.

Just before he left, Sartain gave him five dollars above what he had already paid him for "The Bells." "I wish I could afford more," he said.

"You have done more than enough, my friend. I'm going to visit Lippard. He should be able to help. I heard his Monks of Monk Hall has sold over 200,000 copies in five years."

"Yes, but he is not rich. The bloke put all his money in his paper."

"Where is his office?"

"On North Seventh. Not far from where you once lived, as a matter of fact."

George Lippard was a young writer with almost as much fame and notoriety in Philadelphia that Eddy enjoyed in New York.  His Monks exposed the seamy side of the Quaker City, as he dubbed it in his sensational mystery whose monstrous villains were thinly-disguised plutocrats.  He and Eddy had met through George Graham when Lippard was a mere boy, hired as a proof-reader. He came to idolize Eddy, and their friendship was sealed when Graham became their common enemy, whom Lippard later dubbed "Gray Ham, the autocrat of American Literature." Taking such stabs at enemy literati was one of many things the two writers had in common. Both had also been penniless disinherited orphans whose mothers died of consumption. Lippard had already lost his sister and two children to the disease, and his wife Rose was beginning to show signs.

         Unlike Edgar Poe, however, George Lippard had actually made over $3000 a year in the mid-1840s, although now he was struggling. Also unlike Poe, he was a social activist, championing the working class. He had recently started the first reform newspaper in Philadelphia, The Quaker City Weekly. Finding his printing office, Eddy was disheartened to see that it was up four flights of stairs. The long walk had worn him out, and one of his shoes, which now had a loose sole, dangled dangerously beneath his toes. Before climbing the four flights of stairs he discarded the ruined shoe.

Lippard's wavy dark hair, smooth face and thick womanly lips had made him seem to Eddy a bit effeminate as a younger man, but now the thick eyebrows, long sideburns and intense expression made him look entirely masculine. His hair was more stringy and a bit greasy dangling over some papers he was perusing. He looked up as Eddy stumbled through the door.




139.

"Poe! I heard you were in town. I was going to look you up but I've been so damn busy."

"Quite all right. So good to see you." Eddy lurched, practically lunged toward him, took his hand and would not let go. "The truth is, I am a desperate man. No bread to eat. No place to sleep."

"And only one shoe, I see. I'll put you up, but I have no money. Just paid my rent for this place. All my money's in this paper."

"A worthy cause."

"Did you know I just started a labor union? The first in America! The Brotherhood of the Union."

Eddy wasn't listening. "I am sick—sick at heart. I've come to see you before I leave for Richmond. I am homesick for Virginia."

"The state, you mean."

"Of course the state!" He let go of Lippard's hand. "I don't even have the fare for the cars."

"I'll see if I can scrounge up some money. I know several people I can ask. Please, sit down." He guided him to a chair at a small table in the corner. "I'll give it a go right now, since I have a meeting this afternoon. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Do you have anything to calm my nerves?"

"No, sorry, not here." He tied his cravat, put on his jacket and left. Eddy slumped over, cooling his forehead on the table, rubbing his hands through his thinning hair. Hair thinning to air. Arms now wrapped around ears. Eyelids lowering. Listen to me, said the phantom, placing his hand on top of Eddy's head. Can't you get it through this thick, oversized head of yours that Circe is not a demon? Eddy sensed the robed figure standing over him. It is not she leading you to doom. Only she can save our soul from utter loss and ruin. She keeps track of our soul when it migrates; she won't stop tracking until it can unite again with spirit and find the Ultima Thule, which meandering soulless spirits and floundering spiritless souls can never reach. Now get some sleep, and yes, go to Richmond, but not to die. To be remarried and reborn, to overcome your infirmity and to give the world The Stylus. I cannot fuse with you in your present state.

Eddy ended up sleeping slumped over at the table through the night. When he awoke, Lippard had not returned. After getting up and stretching his aching back, Eddy sat down again, wondering where to go next. He was starving, which he took as a good sign. Perhaps the calomel's effects were wearing off. Lippard came through the door, wearing different clothes than yesterday. What a luxury.

"I thought you deserted me," said Eddy.

"I went from door to door. Everybody’s out of town. Cholera bulletins on every door, half-deserted streets. And it was blazing hot. I went to my meeting and then had to go home."

"I got the cholera as soon as I came to this wretched city," said Eddy. "Or something just as bad. Then what I thought would be the cure made me crazy."

"This morning I had better luck. You can be on the ten o'clock train tomorrow, Poe. Here's twenty-five, thanks to Sartain, Godey, and the Reverend Mr. Burr, who by the way invited you to stay with him tonight. Much more comfort than I can provide, I assure you." He pressed the money into Eddy's hand.

"I knew I could count on you, George." Eddy embraced the young man, wishing he could absorb some of his youth and energy. "You always look after the downtrodden, don't you?"

           




140.

"People don't realize what a treasure you are. What kind of country is this that allows its greatest man of letters to be destitute? What kind of a system—"

While he was flattered by this praise, Eddy wasn't up for socialist rant. He needed breakfast. Suddenly he felt motivated again. "In Richmond, wait and see, I will be a new man!"

As if Fate agreed, when Eddy, Lippard, and Burr arrived at the depot the next day, his valise and trunk were there, behind the counter. When he looked through them, however, he could not find his lectures. The men who wanted him dead must have stolen them, but why? His optimistic mood evaporated. Before boarding the train he held Lippard's hand for a lingering moment. "Give my best wishes to John Sartain," Eddy said. "Have a drink with him, and toast me then. To Edgar Poe, may he rest in peace."

       "None of that, now. We will drink to your health. Now go find Elmira."

          

            In Richmond, Eddy was sitting at a desk in his room at the Swan Tavern, feverishly trying to recreate his lost lecture. The missing manuscripts had caused him so much stress he had binged in August, resulting in the usual week-long debilitation.  The doctor told him another such attack would kill him. Now he was drinking only coffee, which made his heart flutter.

The heart beats ten and intermits. Elmira was already charmed by her childhood sweetheart. He still had enough of the southern gentleman in him, enough of his Richmond upbringing to summon the gallantry she required. And she retained a hint of the rare beauty he had captured in a pencil sketch when she was fifteen, those bright eyes now darkened and somewhat stern, the gently pursed lips now prim with frown lines, her long black locks now in a bun. She had become more religious since he had known her. When he first showed up at her door, she was about to go to church. His unannounced presence did not detain her, but there was no question that she was delighted to see him, when she returned from services. They sat in her parlor, Eddy all in black but with a violet flower on his lapel.

"You and Virginia were newlyweds the last time I saw you, Edgar. I was so sorry to hear of her passing, especially up there in the frozen north."

"I was devastated by her death, it’s true, but life must be lived, Elmira, not merely endured. You got my letters; you know I'm here to court you. I remember sensing that you were jealous when I married Virginia, even though you were married to Mr. Shelton, married to the man your father forced upon you. You still loved me!"

"You could tell I was in agony, couldn't you? Wishing I were in . . . Virginia's place. But I managed to banish those poisonous reptile thoughts of mine, those evil temptations, and was relieved when you left Richmond. Yes, Edgar, I loved you still. I'll always love you." Suddenly they were embracing, kissing.

        Elmira was pious like Loui but passionate like Helen. She still actually desired him. She will be thoroughly disappointed on that score, thought Eddy. The last time he had even attempted erotic lovemaking was with Fanny Osgood, and he had failed rather miserably. But he felt that if anyone could rekindle him it would be Elmira, the first woman he had physically desired.

         So things were looking up. He got the fifty dollars Patterson had sent, and started gathering subscribers. He managed not to drink and even attended a meeting of the Sons of Temperance. The healthier he felt the surer he was that Circe would not return. She had not appeared on the train nor did she materialize in his room. That fact alone helped him feel better. Although he could use her right now as he tried to rewrite his lecture, the way she used to perch upon his shoulder, enabling his vision if not actually dictating, always able to knock off his writer's block. But now, alone, nothing came. He gave up.

        I'll give the lecture without a manuscript. Elmira will be there, she'll inspire me. He'd given the same lecture in Providence in front of Helen. One widow for another. And he made the same promise to Elmira that he'd made to Helen, taking it one step further. This time he actually joined the Sons of Temperance and signed a pledge that he would never drink again. It was so public it appeared in all the papers—in several cities. And he was so proud of himself he sent a copy of his pledge to Muddy in mid-September, a couple of days before his lecture. Every time he wanted a drink he drank strong coffee, too much of which gave him fibrillations so bad he thought he could hear his heartbeat, or was that Circe purring? Has she come to be near me at the moment of release? Let my heart be still a moment . . . .




141.

He got up from his desk and looked under the bed. Nothing there but dust and dirt.

He gave the lecture from memory several times in Richmond and Norfolk, always to small and very appreciative audiences. Reviews were good, and the pattern continued: fame and no fortune. But Elmira was so impressed with how much respect he commanded in his element that she assented very quickly to marry him. She had a fortune, but her husband's will prevented any subsequent husband from getting any of it. But as with Helen, it didn't matter to Eddy, who still clung to the Idea that a woman could save him.

All he had to do was keep his pledge. Eddy in eddies, vortices and vicious circles, been through all this before. Just as Helen's mother had been dead-set against her marrying Eddy, Elmira's grown children and, worse, her three nasty brothers, urged her not to make such a mistake. The Royster brothers fed her all the same slander and calumny Helen had been fed. But Elmira wasn't listening to her highborn kinsmen. She struck up a correspondence with Muddy, assured her of her love and devotion to "your dear Edgar." When he wrote to Muddy, he told her he hoped to bring Elmira north to live, to get away from her resentful brothers, who were even beginning to follow him, claiming to make sure he didn't sneak a drink.

Was it them on the train? Was that a vision of the future? No, the only threat they made was to tell Elmira as soon as he broke his pledge, in their view inevitably. The Roysters didn't have to physically follow him, they had connections all over Richmond, they had their spies. I love Richmond but I cannot live here with all that resentment. He wrote to Muddy, How about Lowell? I must be somewhere where I can see Annie. I need to live near Annie. Do you still hear from her? Don't tell me anything about her—I cannot bear to hear it now, unless you tell me that her husband is dead.

           He was doing fairly well obtaining subscribers, but he was also running out of money; his lectures were barely covering his room and board. An opportunity came up when the doting father of a poetaster in Philadelphia offered him a hundred dollars to edit her manuscript. For that much money, he would even go back to Philadelphia. I don't really want to travel again, not that long on a train. I'll take the steamer to Baltimore, then the cars to Philly. He felt dizzy and somewhat faint as he set out on foot to Elmira's house to tell her he would be away for a week or so, and that he hoped they could get married as soon as he returned. When she held his arms she felt his pulse.

"You look awfully pale, Edgar. And forlorn. Is this trip necessary?"

"Oh yes, I am in desperate need of the money."

"Not for the ring, I trust."

"Well, yes, partly. But mainly for survival."

"I'm so sorry I can't assist you. My hands are tied."

"I quite understand," he said, kissing her hands and caressing them. "Soon they'll be tied in the conjugal knot."

"Just promise me you'll see Doctor Carter before you go. He can give you something for your fever." Her cool bare hand on his forehead again. "I do think you have a fever."

           He promised, and as he walked on Broad Street he felt again like he was being followed, but he saw no one. At Seventeenth Street he found the doctor's office. The handsome young Dr. Carter assured him with confidence that he had no fever, but that he did have an irregular heartbeat. He gave him a small dose of laudanum and told him not to drink coffee.  Somehow, when he left, he grabbed the doctor's walking stick instead of his own. He decided not to return it when he discovered, several blocks later, that it was a Malacca sword-cane. Perhaps he would need it to fend off the Roysters, or their spies, who surely must be following him.

When he arrived at Sadler's Restaurant, he was actually feeling a little hungry. He could also use a stiff drink, but the Roysters surely had a spy here. He drank water, ate some beef brisket and biscuits, and actually felt human as he socialized a while with the owner and his landlord at the Swan. After they left, he took some paper out of his valise and started writing a letter to Annie. 

My dearest angel, my Annabel Lee. Wait, isn't Elmira your Annabel Lee? Dear Annie, yours is the last face I want to see before I go. I need to be looking into those angelic gray eyes, holding onto those chestnut locks. I need to be near you, so you can keep your promise. I will be marrying Elmira Royster Shelton in a couple of weeks, and I intend to move with her and Muddy to Lowell. Why marry when I know I am dying? you ask. So your honorable husband knows I am not there to woo you away. And I always manage somehow to rebound from death's door. I have been dying for years. I will make it there, and then I will be ready to take my last loving look into your eyes. He wrote for over an hour, then tore up the letter and threw it away.




142.

As he walked to Rockett's Landing around midnight, valise in hand, he began to think he was being followed. But it wasn't until the next morning, on the steamboat Pocahontas bound for Baltimore, shortly after the boat followed the James River into the Chesapeake Bay, just as it was passing Sewells Point, that he saw Circe again. Sitting under the empty seat next to him, cute little head sticking out just enough for him to see, as he squatted down, the horseshoe scar. He had to laugh, he couldn't help but laugh a laugh that contained no smile, indeed he hadn't truly smiled in years, maybe even a decade. "So you're back, finally. And where is your phantom friend?" He poked at her with the cane. She scurried off and hid under another seat.

"That wasn't very nice," said a little girl nearby. "Poor little kitty."

"I didn't wall the monster up within the tomb. I only gave her a little kick. Why does she torment me so?" Eddy looked at the child as though he expected an answer.

"Well, that was a poke, not a kick," her mother said as she took her child by the hand and pulled her away.

He kept moving about as much as he could on the second-class deck for most of the trip. No sign of Circe when he disembarked at Light Street Dock, Baltimore.

They can't have spies in Baltimore. I cannot go on without a drink. Not with that banshee on my trail. 

On Camden Street, not far from the train station, he found one of his old haunts, where he spent the last of his cash, drank methodically and grimly, then staggered out to find a pawn shop, always looking back over his shoulder as he walked now on Barre Street. Not the cane, keep it, you may need it. These clothes, all fairly new. I'll sell them and buy something cheaper to wear for now. When I get the hundred I'll buy something better in Philly. If I get there.

            He sold his cream-colored Panama hat, frock coat and pantaloons, practically the only clothes he had that weren't black, and bought a cheap and soiled palm-leaf hat without a band, an old alpaca coat, and worn gray pants that were too small for him. He put on these clothes in the dressing room of the store and emerged without vest or cravat onto the street. As he continued on to Camden Station, striding now with sword-cane,  valise, and enough money in his pocket for the fare, he again felt strongly that he was being followed. There were two men a block or so behind him, and as he stopped they waved at him. One of them looked to be in his fifties, portly, bald and fully bearded; the other was at least twenty years younger, with well-trimmed mutton-chop sideburns and long dark hair.

"Monsieur Poe! You are well-met."

French? Certainly not the Roysters. "Do I know you?"

"Très drôle, Monsieur. You created me. I am Auguste Dupin, at your service. And this is Monsieur Pym."

"Pym? How did you get back from the South Pole? I left you there, remember?"

"I have wandered here but newly."

"Never mind, I know you're not real."

"Monsieur Poe," said Dupin, "you must, how you say? come to terms with your malaise. The lectures, you must know, were not purloined; you yourself threw them away and then proceeded to forget."

Pym was shaking his head. "Eddy, poor Eddy, surely you must also know that all this"—waving his arm to include the depot and the surrounding city—"is not real. Only we are real now. Aha—and her too!" Pointing at a shadow trembling against the building, then slinking toward them, tail seeming to grow right out of the shadow.

"Circe! Yes, I know she is real. Others see her." He pointed at Dupin, then at Pym. "But they don't see you. See how these strangers look at me! Keep your distance!" He waved at them with his cane, which he then thrust at Pym. He vanished. Another thrust, and Dupin also evaporated. When he saw a policeman eying him he quickly picked up the cat, tipped his hat and walked on. Can't board a train now, he thought. I'll find a room.




143.

A cheap hotel on East Lombard, where he sorted out a few remaining sellable items, including the valise. Circe sat curled up on the bed. He had no idea how she’d gotten there. "So where is your friend? Where's that phantom monk?" He lay down and put the cat on his breast. "Sissy thought a cat's purr added heartbeats to her life. But it was all her fancy, wasn't it, my tracker? There, I didn't call you a demon. Satisfied? I know what you are and why you're here. But if I'm going to drink myself to death I need more money."

"Not a good idea," said the phantom, suddenly materializing at the foot of the bed, an emaciated Dominican monk. "Violent death or suicide will not do at all. Did I not make that clear? You still have a chance to die of natural causes. But if you hasten death, soul and spirit will split. A life cut short is a life cut in two."

Eddy got up, grabbed the sword-cane and valise and ran out of the room. He sold the valise and found a pub not far from the hotel, Ryan's. He ate and drank there for several days, returning to the hotel with scraps for Circe. He would sneak her out when he left, and sneak her back in when he returned. He kept writing to Annie and tearing up the letters. On the fourth day he stopped eating, and he went to Ryan's one last time to spend the rest of the money. For the first time, Circe followed him as he walked to the pub, but she did not follow him in. Today was the city's election day, and Ryan's had become a polling place for the election of sheriffs and judges. Shortly after Eddy drank up the rest of his money, a coach pulled up and a group of armed ruffians began herding a motley crew of apparently drunk compliant sots into Ryan's, telling them who to vote for, and what would happen to them if they did not comply. One of the ruffians noticed Eddy as he tried to sneak out the door. "You, get in line!"

"Cornelius?" Eddy cried to the owner. "Can you get the constables?"

"Ha! They're in on this cooping, don't you know?"

          Eddy drew the sword out of the cane's scabbard. He brandished it drunkenly but effectively enough for the man to back off. Now on the sidewalk outside the pub, he managed to stand his ground with the help of the cane until after the ruffians and their unfortunate victims left for the next polling place. Then he felt his knees buckle, and his head smacked the pavement.


"Where am I?" Eddy tried to focus his eyes.

"Washington College Hospital. I'm Dr. Moran. Do you have any family here?"

"I'm the end of the line. I have a wife in Richmond." Well, almost.

"Any friends, anyone in Baltimore who can help you?"

"The best thing a friend could do now is blow my rotting brains out with a pistol." He was vaguely aware of a nurse coming in and conferring briefly with the doctor.

"I just learned that you are Edgar Poe, the famous poet."

"Dupin? Pym? Where are you? Don't desert me now. Pym, wasn't it Reynolds who described the vortex at the bottom of the world? That's where you were headed when you saw the White God. The Conqueror Worm. How did you return? No one who sees it ever returns. Dupin, you found the killer ape, you found the purloined letter, you found poor Marie's murderer, but you can't find me now?"

"Mr. Poe, I believe you have a cousin. Neilson? We are attempting to contact him."

"No! Not that scoundrel. I need Annie. Annie Richmond. Reynolds, I near your vortex, I descend into the maelstrom!"

"Reynolds? Who is Reynolds?"

"Annie! Oh Annie, please, don't abandon me." He grabbed the doctor by the arm. "I see the phantom, out of the corner of my eye! Lord help my poor soul." . . . the lingering illness is over at last . . .  and the fever called living is conquered at last. . . . Circe, are you near me now? Are you ready?

She's in an elm, across the street. Quite ready, I assure you. Best now just to move on. Let us hope our soul has better fortune next time, or we will be forever in this limbo of lunary souls.

 



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