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I blinked, looking down at the blood all over me, all over the car. My eyes met Frost’s and there was nothing but pain and understanding in his eyes. I didn’t know why yet, but I did believe he cared about me and wanted to help me. “My foster-mother is weak. She gets hurt as badly as I do, worse now that I’ve moved out. It’s not her fault that he broke her. He used to be a decent man, from what she tells me, but shortly after I came to them, he started drinking and changed. I went there to visit my foster-mother while he was at work, but he knew I’d be there.” Tears came to my eyes and Frost gently touched my face, wiping the blood from my cheeks, my chin, my nose, and my lips. “He doesn’t want me talking to her. He’s afraid I’ll make her leave him. He hit me, kicked me, and then…he threw me down the basement stairs.” I watched as his eyes seemed to harden, like a blade glinting in sunlight. “I got out through the basement window and made it about three houses before I fell on the ice and couldn’t get back up. And I called you.” I bent my head and started sobbing, not sure if I felt more ravaged or relieved by telling someone. Frost softly touched my shoulder and drew me to him, pulling me against the warmth of his chest as he wrapped his arms around me, into the comfort of the soft scent of his skin and quiet cologne. His muscles tightened around my aching back and shoulders like a protective shield. His body was warm, solid. He was like a very warm, very gentle rock.
For the first time in my life, I felt truly, genuinely safe.
“Poe,” he whispered softly against my hair. “We need to get you inside.” I realized wearily that I was leaning far too heavily on him. That my eyelids felt heavy, in fact. My hands that I thought I had put on his shoulders were limp at my sides.
“Oh God,” I whispered weakly. “The bastard finally killed me.”
I heard a car door open and grimaced as Frost dragged my aching body out of the car and up into his arms like he had the day before, like a china doll or a damsel in distress. Except that I wasn’t any average damsel. I was my own disaster, a monster in my own right.
Everything was very bright and pale-colored. The hospital sounds came and rose over me in waves, as if we were underwater. I felt Frost’s chest against me vibrate as he called, “Someone help me! Please! She’s dying!”
With those last two words left to echo in my muddled mind, everything fell away to blackness.
FOUR
I opened my eyes in a cold, white, misty place, squinting at the harsh brightness of the setting. I rubbed my arms to try to stimulate blood flow and realized in confusion that I had awoken from injury-induced unconsciousness standing up. That observation alone was bizarre, but of course paled in comparison to the eerie place. The floor seemed to be solid, not clouds, but the bright white around me and the numbing fog were foreboding. I turned slowly, looking for any sign of life. “Hello?” I called. “Is there anyone here?”
A dark silhouette began to materialize out of the fog and move towards me. I squinted harder to make it out better, inferring that the figure was a man in a long coat. He walked strangely; I could almost describe his step as weak or weighed down, as though he was carrying a very heavy object. Slowly, the figure emerged from the mist. He was middle-aged and dressed in early nineteenth century American clothing, mostly black, including a worn black suit and cloak. His hair was dark brown and his hairline was beginning to recede. He wore a mustache and was very pale. Even with him walking with his head lowered, I could see dark, almost violet circles beneath his eyes, as if he suffered from severe insomnia. “Elenora,” he greeted me quietly, his voice weak and melancholy. “It is a pleasure to finally become acquainted with you.” As he approached, he extended his hand and lifted his head, smiling sadly at me. The grey eyes and wan expression, the wavy brown hair, the sunken eyes, all were instantly recognizable.
It was Edgar Allan Poe.
I shook his ice-cold, clammy hand in confusion and hesitated, staring at his very tangible form and the place we were in. Finally, I responded, “Edgar. The pleasure is mine. I’m a great admirer of your work and I’d like to talk, but first, could you tell me where we are? Am I dead?”
His already depressed expression turned grim as he began to slowly pace nearby. “No. Not yet.”
“Is this purgatory, then? Some kind of waiting place?”
“Not that either,” he answered, his voice detached, as if his mind were on other less pleasant topics. “It’s more of a conference room, to put it in earthly terms. A place where the dead and the living can meet. Most people do not have the capacity to journey here from the world of the living or that of the dead. The dead who have very strong ties to Earth, however, can often successfully make their way here and call the souls of the living to confer with them. For example, many elderly widows believe they’ve spoken to their long-gone husbands. It’s very difficult, though, as the dead often call but the living rarely hear.”
I narrowed my eyes slightly in interest. “I understand. Could any of my family come here?”
Edgar frowned deeply. “Perhaps. The dead are discouraged from calling the living if it is not vital, however. In your place, I would not raise my hopes too highly.”
“Do you know them?”
“Yes, very well. In living and in death,” he said ominously, turning to pace back another direction. “I would often call your father in this same manner when he was alive.”
I tipped my head. “For what purpose? You said that interviews like this are discouraged unless they are vital. What qualifies them as ‘vital’? And why you, rather than one of my ancestors? How did you know my father?” Edgar turned to me and for the briefest moment, during which I was taking in only his eyes, reddened and sunken in sleep deprivation, I might have believed I was looking in a mirror but for the grey color. The same grey as my father’s. My eyes widened slightly and I swallowed hard. “Unless…but it’s not possible. You never had any children.”
“This is a conversation I think should begin with your foster-mother, Abigail Aaron,” Edgar said gently. “It is a long story and one better told by someone other than myself. We do not have much time here. In the meantime, I will answer your question about what makes an interview vital and to what purpose I met with your father and now you. The truth is, Elenora, that you are descended from me and it is my unfinished business that has bid me to call you here.”
I bit my lip to keep from letting my jaw drop in shock. I was too confused and awed to say anything in reply, so Edgar went on. “The entire Poe line has long been cursed to face monstrous occurrences that have been foretold and slowly unfolding over the past one-hundred and fifty years. Your family died fighting this curse and I have come now to warn you.”
“I don’t understand,” I cut in. “I don’t see how I could possibly be descended from you or be…cursed? This is…unbelievable. I must be dreaming or dead.” I stared into those all-too familiar eyes beseechingly, begging for some explanation that would make sense. I felt as though my brain was running in circles, spinning around and around and being shoved in arbitrary directions. “This isn’t possible. And it was no curse that killed my family. It was disease. A disease that could’ve been diagnosed and explained if the doctors had had more time. There was a mistake in the autopsies…” Distressed and beginning to panic, thinking I had lost my mind, I stared up into his eyes, full of that same darkness that I knew too well from the mirror. He had seen horrible things, no doubt even worse than I’d endured. After a moment, I asked, “Do the dead know everything that the living endure?”
I didn’t think it was possible, but that miserable countenance fell even farther with a terrible understanding in his eyes that told me he knew precisely what I was referring to. “I know all the secrets of my descendants,” he answered meaningfully. “And when they suffer, I suffer. It is far easier for the more restful dead to live at peace, but for those like me so strongly tied to the world, we see all its horrors far too clearly.”
“You are tied to the world by your curse.”
“Yes. And you must heed my warning. You are in very grave danger, Elenora, and I am sorry that it is my own blood in your veins that threatens your life. You must speak to Mrs. Aaron. She will point you in the right direction. Now, we are out of time.” The white mist began to fade to darkness and I stared after his vanishing form in confusion. “I will see you again, Elenora. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye…Edgar.” As the white mist slowly turned black and all the light fell away, pain began to grow like a rapidly-spreading disease through the back of my head, my face, my wrist and fingers, and my rib-cage. My whole head throbbed with a vicious migraine and I felt weak and ill, probably from blood loss. I seemed to be sinking into an uncomfortable mattress as my stomach rolled. Slowly, I pried my eyelids open, staring up into blinding LED lights for only a moment before wincing and shutting them again, trying to control the purple splotches dancing across my field of vision.
“Poe? Are you awake?” someone asked quietly. I opened my eyes much more slowly this time and took care not to look directly at the ceiling, gradually adjusting to the bright hospital room. The first thing I saw was the thick bandage on my wrist, reminding me horribly of another hospital trip many years before. I looked away from the bandage, instead examining the small hospital room I was in with its awful grey wallpaper and green curtains serving as three soft walls. I was wearing a hospital gown and covered with probably half a dozen hospital blankets. Maybe the cold in the strange Edgar Allan Poe dream had been affecting my real body temperature. Finally, I looked to Frost, who was seated in a plastic hospital chair beside me. He looked relatively well composed, he was a homicide detective, after all, but very drained. His eyes seemed tired, as if he’d seen more than enough blood for one day. “You stayed,” I whispered, my voice harsh like sandpaper. As the words came out, my throat felt like I had swallowed razor blades.
He nodded wearily. “The doctor said the MRI came back okay, but you’re very lucky to be alive. You suffered a concussion, but one you’ll recover from fairly quickly. For a while, the nurses were sure they were going to lose you. You sort of fell into a coma.”
I swallowed hard, wondering if it was really possible that the dream had sent me into a coma or if it had been my injuries. “What time is it?” I asked him.
