My Clockwork Muse (5 page)

"Oh, of course not, Mr. Poe," she said.

I felt triumphant, for it was the first
complete thought I had ever heard her utter and I seized upon the
moment to press my luck.

"Please, Miss Coppelius, Virginia always
called me Eddy, and I would like for you to call me Eddy, too."

She would not meet my eyes, but I heard her
distinctly. "Eddy," she said in such a low whisper it might have
been a rustling of leaves. But it wasn't; it was "Eddy".

I was about to say more when a black shape
suddenly crossed my vision and landed upon my shoulder. The thing
struck me with such violence that I was nearly thrown from my feet.
I staggered and turned just in time to see it scamper away under a
bush. I felt a pain in my cheek and when I touched it, my fingers
came away bloody. Seconds later, a cat appeared out of the
bush.

But not just any cat. It was the loathsome,
one-eyed Pluto.

It crouched there, hissing at me.

It was Virginia's cat. She had loved it as
deeply as I detested the damned thing, and it hated me with a
passion that exceeded us both. That it had successfully ambushed me
at Virginia's graveside in the presence of Olimpia was an offense I
would not soon forget. For Virginia's sake, I still put out little
tidbits of food and milk for him, but the creature often went
missing for weeks at a time. Now I knew where he was, off in the
graveyard chasing rats.

I was scandalized that Olimpia should have
had to witness an attack by such a vile creature, but when I turned
to calm her fright, I saw that she had gone. I looked around and
found her already in the distance, gliding elegantly away down the
path, out of earshot.

"Nice going, Pluto, you damned thing," I
said, but Pluto had vanished too. Only the shuddering of the bush
showed where he had gone.

I wiped the trickle of blood from my cheek
and turned to the vault where Virginia's name was engraved upon a
slate-gray slab and thought about Olimpia calling me Eddy and saw
how our two roses stood side by side, like twins.

~ * * * ~

"So it's love then, is it, Eddy?"

It was pitch dark by the time I fished the
key from my pocket and opened the cottage door. The voice came to
me from the gloom inside. I didn't want to hear it but didn't
bother saying so; navigating the darkness required all my
concentration.

"Damn-it-all!" My shin struck a chair and
sent it scuddering across the bare wood floor. The voice chuckled
in the darkness.

"Yes, very funny," I said, feeling the little
spot of fire on my shin. Doubtless, a welt would grow there. I had
hit the chair dead-on and hard. I hobbled to the mantle and found a
match.

"I could have told you you were about to walk
into that chair."

"Thanks," I said, striking the match. I lit a
candle and turned.

The raven sat perched on the back of my
rocker. He cocked his head at me and then strained forward and let
out an ear-splitting
squawk
. I winced and the bird flapped a
little, clearing his throat.

"Sorry," he said. "That one slipped out. What
I meant to say was—"
"You talk too much as it is, Tap," I said, cutting him off. I
arranged some firewood and kindling in the fireplace, thinking I
might warm up some cold tea. "I could live without the squawking,
but, I must say, I prefer it to your incessant—"

"I said I was sorry," Tap replied crossly. "I
get excited when I actually have somebody to talk to. Sue me!"

"I didn't know you required an ear for your
endless chattering."

"Endless? Now, that stings, Eddy. You suppose
I sit here all day talking to myself?"

"Don't you?"

"You'd think I was crazy if I did."

"Well, what do you do, then? Perch there
quietly?"

"Perched upon my rusty chalice..." Tap said
in a sing-song voice.

"Your what?" I blew on the kindling and the
fire flared up around a charred piece of wood. Hot tea in
moments.

"Rusty chalice."

"You mean 'bust of Pallas'."

"Chalice ... Pallas ... Whatever, Eddy. The
point is, I got squat to perch on. Wait ... What were we talking
about?"

"How you spend your days."

"Oh, yeah ... Hardly endless chattering,
Eddy. For your information, I spend most days dodging Pluto—when he
manages to get inside. Thanks for asking."

"Why don't you fly off to live in the trees?
You know...like a bird."

"Window, Eddy," Tap said. "Can't fly through
glass."

I looked up from hanging a kettle over the
fire. "Ah, I have forgotten your window."

"Not to belabor the obvious..."

I stood and opened it a crack, giving Tap a
good six inches of open space. Without a word, he squeezed through
and hopped onto the sill outside. Then he flapped away into the
night.

I knew he'd be back, so I didn't get my hopes
up.

Neither did I bother closing the window. When
he had first appeared on the night of Virginia's funeral, I thought
I could rid myself of the wretched creature by allowing him to fly
away in such a fashion. But no sooner had I settled in with a
volume by the fire than I heard a tapping on the pane behind me—and
not so gentle either. Night after night, I would shoo the bird away
only to be assailed by its insistent tapping, its pecking beak like
a hailstorm on the glass.

"How do you expect me to get back in if you
keep closing the window?" he asked one night.

"Bird or devil! Wretch!"
I cried. Oh,
what was the use? Now I just left it open so he could come and go
as he pleased. Anything was better than his mad tapping.

I spent a few moments alone with my tea
before Tap came back. He squeezed through the crack in the window.
With two flaps of his wings, he resumed his perch on the back of my
rocking chair.

I saw his beak open and I winced.

"I believe we were—" he began but I quickly
held up my hand, cutting him off.

"Tap, please. In deference to my poor head."
It had only gotten worse and the tea hadn't helped. Furthermore, I
felt myself descending.

"—talking about love, Eddy," the bird resumed
without missing a beat, whispering now. "There. Is that
better?"

I sipped my tea. "I don't recall anybody
talking about love. Nobody but you, that is."

"Oh, but your head is filled with visions of
it."

"What do you know of my head?"

The bird soft-cawed a chuckle. "Your thoughts
are an open book to me, Eddy. You're thinking of that Coppelius
dame."

He had gradually left off his whispering and
spoke once again at his usual overloud pitch.

"What of it?" I asked.

"Nothing. Just saying..."

"Well, quit saying."

I stood and taking my candle and tea with me
walked over to my desk. Perhaps by leaving him in shadows and
sitting with my back to the bird, I could dissuade him from
blabbering on so. Alas, I knew better. Nothing dissuaded him.

But perhaps this time, he had a point.

I picked up my pen, but before dipping it,
mused aloud, "Oh, to hear my name fall from her lips..."

"
Gawk!
That's just plain embarrassing,
Eddy. I suppose there's no way I can un-hear that?"

I dipped my pen and wrote,
'To'
. I
wanted to write Olimpia's name, but all at once lost my courage and
just left a blank underline. Perhaps someday she would know for
whom my poem was intended. I was still scandalized by my feelings
so soon after Virginia's death.

Perhaps, because of this, words deserted
me.

"'To,'" Tap said, as I laid my pen down and
reached for a blank sheet. "Is that what you're going to call it?
'To'? Oh, brother! Do you want me to help you?"

"There are no rusty chalices in this one,
Tap."

"You make a guy famous and this is the thanks
you get?"

I had for days been formulating a new story.
Now was as good a time as any to put down the first lines while
they were still fresh in my mind. I dipped my pen.

'Berenice and I were cousins, and we grew up
together in my paternal halls.'

"It doesn't even rhyme," Tap said.

"Shut up!" I cried.

"Touchy," said Tap, but he gave me a few
moments of peace. I would remember to snap at him more often.

I wrote in silence.

"But it is not only thoughts of love dancing
in your head." His voice came out of the darkness that shrouded my
room. "There is still the matter of a certain corpse buried behind
a certain wall. Three corpses, actually, if you count the ladies
done in by the monkey."

I stopped writing in mid-sentence. The ink
made a spidery blotch on my paper.

"It is none of my affair," I said.

"Of course not, Eddy," said the raven.

"Gessler supposes me some vengeful Montresor.
But I tell you,
I am Fortunato
." I set my pen aside and
turned to face the bird. I could see him only where the firelight
danced feebly upon his beak and in the oily sheen of his feathers.
"It is
my
tongue that falls silent behind the suffocating
wall."

"Not Burton's?"

I felt a cold wrenching of my gut.

"Burton is alive," I said, and turned back to
my work.

"Still, someone is not."

I ignored him and wrote until my eyes swam.
If Tap kept up his endless commentary, I let it dissolve into the
fabric of silence. I looked up when I heard his wings flutter.
Pluto was creeping in under the window frame.

"Ah, here he is, fresh from the Night's
Plutonian shore!" Tap cried.

The cat leapt from the window sill and padded
across the floor towards me. I braced myself for an attack, but the
creature merely jumped into my lap. He curled up and began purring.
I had to raise his head in my hand to see his missing eye to ensure
that it really was Pluto.

"That's a nice kitty," Tap said. "I like him
better than the one that tries to kill me."

"Shut up, Tap," I snapped, but without the
force I had intended. The deep melancholy that had threatened me
all day had finally descended upon me, brought on by Pluto's
uncharacteristic tenderness.

"Aww..." Tap said, when he saw that I left
the cat where he lay, purring on my lap.

"Tap, give me some peace. My sorrow
overwhelms me..." I muttered as I laid my head down on my desk.

"So your father never loved you," Tap said.
"So what?"

When I opened my eyes, I felt as if I were
staring into the sun itself. I screwed them tight against the blaze
and immediately realized that cold air enveloped me. Tap's window,
I thought.
Damn the bird!
How could I continue to
accommodate the creature's comings and goings if it meant I must
freeze to death?

I gradually opened my eyes and found to my
dismay that I lay not at my desk with Pluto purring tenderly in my
lap, but in the gravel path at the foot of Virginia's tomb with a
freezing sheen of dew covering me like a wet blanket. I jerked my
head up with a start and found the full light of day staring me in
the face. I saw to my horror that the sun was already high in the
sky. I stood quickly, brushing the dust from my clothes and
smoothing my hair, wondering how many passersby must have seen me
curled up on the ground. It was a wonder that I had not been
awakened by a policeman's billy club poking me in the ribs.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. As I did so,
I felt the ache in my cheek where Pluto had scratched me the day
before. Just as I ran my fingers over the claw marks, I saw him
padding swiftly across the path in the same spot where I had last
seen Olimpia as she had walked away. I thought of calling to him,
but decided against it for the futility of the endeavor. Pluto had
only answered my beckon once before and probably never would again,
despite his seeming change of heart of the previous evening. He was
hunting rats now and I would just as soon avoid him when his blood
was up. I was afraid he might be planning another ambush for
me.

I was about to move on when my fingers
alighted on a strange welt on the side of my neck. I had noticed it
there once before, just below the level of my collar, but I had
thought it long ago healed. I pressed it and felt the same soreness
as I had from the claw marks. This old wound, however—whose origin
was a mystery to me—was a puncture and not a slash. I could feel
the little hole in the middle of the raised flesh. I assumed the
renewed soreness of my old bug bite—or whatever it was—was
accounted for by the damned cat.

I never would have foreseen this turn in my
life: I was plagued by animals. Tap was always complaining about
Pluto chasing him. I almost wished the cat would catch him one of
these days and choke on him, ridding me of both troublesome
creatures at once. I imagined the ghastly beast spitting feathers
with his final breaths and it almost brought a smile to my
lips.

I straightened my collar and hurried back to
my cottage, walking with an exaggerated dignity. I felt a
drunkard's remorse, as if my bouts of delirium were a moral defect
and not a mere physical malady of the brain. I supposed that it was
this same malady that also accounted for my acute sensitivity to
light. As I strode rapidly along the graveyard path, I shielded my
eyes from the glare of the sun which at this time of the year was
always too low in the sky, causing me constant torment. I probably
looked like a man trying to hide his identity. An observer who
might have taken me for a vagrant before probably suspected me of
much worse now.

Such was my lot.

By the time I reached the wrought-iron gate,
I saw through the leaves of the trees that someone was in my house.
I had caught just the merest hint of movement through one of the
back windows. I wondered absurdly if the police had been summoned
on reports of a strange man wandering around in the graveyard. Or
perhaps not a strange man at all—
perhaps Poe himself!