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My eyes tightened in pain and fear. “Is it only after me?”
She nodded. “Yes, but often indirectly. Your father’s best friend died brutally as a casualty. Buried alive. The curse will try to destroy you psychologically and emotionally as well as physically.”
I shook my head and felt my nails drive into my palm as I fisted my good hand. “I cannot do this, Mrs. Aaron. This is…impossible and horrible. And I do not have the strength to handle it. I don’t want this.”
Tears streamed down her face as she looked at me with something eerily like grief, a foreshadowing of the tragedy to come. “Poe. If you can’t prevent these nightmares or find a way to end the curse, you will lose everything.”
Part Two
“…Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before …”
SIX
It’s amazing how your list of priorities can change when you have been told you are destined for annihilation.
I left The Heights shortly after the foreboding conversation with my foster-mother, slowly trekking through Baltimore to Dr. Grey’s office. The sudden triviality of an appointment with a psychiatrist made my stomach clench with frustration. As I walked, the nightmare that had plagued me two nights prior played itself out again and again in my mind’s eye, particularly the cemetery scene. How many around me would die in the crossfire of this curse? Frost’s name, spelled out in harsh white lettering against obsidian stone, had burned itself into my retinas.
Inevitably, the curse would kill me. For nearly two hundred years, the Poe family had been trying to end the curse and this far down the road, I could be nearly certain that there simply wasn’t a way to do so. I would try, of course, but where could I possibly start? I might as well have been told I had a terminal disease, that my body was a ticking time bomb.
I had already resigned myself to my death, however. I’d seen life and death as equally favorable options for most of my life and had so far chosen life out of a no doubt vain hope that my lot would improve. My only regret at death’s door would be that I had not published a novel. Everything else, peace, my family, perhaps even love, could come after death. The ideology was even easier to look at after my dream with Edgar, in which I had learned that there was such a place after death where I could rejoin my family. Such an option was, as much as it twisted my stomach to think it, almost tempting.
The crux of the matter, however, was not my life hanging in the balance. It was others’. Mrs. Aaron would be a target. Probably Janie and Gigi as well. Carol. Anyone I was close to was in immediate and sudden danger.
And Frost. Of course, Frost.
All these years, I had been hoping and praying that I would find something in me that hadn’t been utterly eradicated, some measure of a soul, something that could love someone. Now, it seemed that the few people who mattered in my life, even in the most remote sense, were a mistake. I regretted allowing any of them in. I had known that I wasn’t good enough, that I could never be a decent friend to any of them, that I did not have the capacity in my broken heart to return their regard. And Frost…after all he’d done for me I had finally opened up to the point where I…cared about him? Trusted him? Wanted him? As shocking as it was, in the few short days we had known one another, Frost had healed some part of me that I had thought could never be saved. And as a reward for that, his life was at risk. The nightmare in which I’d laid a violet rose on his grave suddenly had so much more meaning.
I passed across the threshold of Dr. Grey’s small clinic and made my way through the depressingly familiar beige and grey lobby to the front desk. Shirley, Grey’s secretary, smiled up at me from the desk. “Poe. It’s nice to see you. How are you?”
The anxiety had been building in me ever since Mrs. Aaron had told me the truth about my lineage and Shirley merely asking how I was doing was enough to bring me to the verge of tears. I had tried to call Frost the moment I left the Aarons’, but only found my pathetic fossil of a cellphone dead, nothing more than a dark omen. “Honestly, kind of preoccupied and anxious. The shit hit the fan earlier today…” My eyes lit on Shirley’s phone, not two feet from my hand on the edge of her desk. “In fact, would you mind if I borrowed your phone? It’s urgent.”
Shirley smiled complacently and turned the phone towards me, standing and making her way towards the hall. “Of course. I’ll let Dr. Grey know you’re here.”
I thanked her and hurriedly dialed, putting the phone to my ear and tapping my toe. Once, twice, thrice the phone rang before the call went to voicemail. “Hello, you’ve reached Detective Caleb Frost. I’m on assignment right now or otherwise occupied, but if you leave your name and number…”
I hung up, my heart beginning to pound in my chest. I had only just found out about the curse. Was it possible that he’d already been hurt or killed? It seemed so cruel and unfair to consider. I dialed again and waited. Three rings later, the answering machine picked up again. “Hello, you’ve reached Detective Caleb Frost. I’m on assignment…” Once more, I hung up and tried again, this time waiting for the entire message and the tone. “Frost, it’s Poe. I need to talk to you, it’s…urgent. Please call this number as soon as you can and ask to speak to me. And be…be careful.”
As I hung up, my stomach twisted in fear and guilt. If he died because of me, I could never forgive myself. He did not deserve to be affiliated with me, much less to die for me. Suddenly, Shirley reappeared from the hall and asked in concern, “Poe? Are you alright? Did you get a hold of…?”
I shook my head. “I’ve asked him to call back at this number.”
“Okay. Don’t worry, dear. When he calls, I’ll patch him through to Dr. Grey’s office. He’s waiting now.”
Nodding, I slipped around the desk and down the hall, grimacing once I was out of Shirley’s sight. Dear God, what had I done? For all I knew, he was already dead. Buried alive, most likely, judging by the preplanned fates available to him. The image of Frost struggling beneath the cold earth, gasping for air, his blue eyes wide and searching in vain desperation for light, haunted me as I stepped slowly down the hall past the bathrooms, several fake potted plants and an ‘Employees Only’ marked door. Self-loathing and terror boiled in my veins like acid, eating away at my sanity, devouring the world all around me. The sounds of Shirley typing and the water fountain bubbling, the sight of the taupe carpeting and bleak wallpaper, the foreboding smell of unhappy plants and sterility, all melted away in favor of fingers clawing through dirt, the stench of mud and earth, the complete silence punctuated by futile gasps for oxygen.
Dr. Grey’s office door was slightly ajar, open just a crack as per usual, and I pushed it open softly, uncomfortably, as per usual. Nothing felt usual, though. I was barely registering the office unfolding before me, or the feel of the ice-cold door handle in my palm. “Dr. Grey,” I said numbly.
The psychiatrist looked up from some files strewn across his otherwise impeccably neat desk. His name suited him; his hair, eyes, even his fading suit were all various nauseating shades of grey. A beige tie completed his bleak image. He smiled warmly, in that immune, unfeeling way I had always known him for, and gestured to the fluffy armchair near his desk. “Poe, it’s good to see you. Please, sit.”
I made my way into the room slowly, dragging my feet. I didn’t mind the bi-weekly appointments with Dr. Grey, at least not nearly the way I used to. I did like his opinions and advice he could offer. But he never provided any sense of closure or even emotional understanding. He was of the book-smart line of psychiatrists and in four years of seeing him, I still hadn’t decided if that type of individual was really helpful to me at all. The situation was even more frustrating because the whole reason I needed a second job was to pay for these sessions. I sat in the oversized armchair and waited silently, staring down at my hands clasped between my knees. After a moment of quiet in which Grey finished scrawling notes in the file, I began to pick at a broken nail and slowly tear it across, barely above the pink. I sought for another to tear and was disappointed. All the others were already shredded.
“The nails again?” Dr. Grey asked passively.
I nodded.“Stress.Nothing new.”
A soft knock sounded at the door and Grey looked up expectantly. “Come in.” The door clicked open and in stepped the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, which was saying quite a bit after meeting Trina and Maddi. She was about my age with raven-black hair, dark, round eyes, and flawless fair skin. Her lips were painted a cherry red and she wore a black sheath dress that hinted at curves I envied, all finished off with black pumps. She carried a thick file and a yellow legal pad. “Dr. Grey, sorry I’m late,” she said.
