Friday Fiction: Edgar

 

EDGAR

 

It seemed our family was always moving in those days. We would come to a new town, move into a congenial house, and start meeting people. But sooner or later the local newspapers would be full of stories of terrible crimes and mysterious disappearances. Father would sigh as he looked up from his reading and remark to Mother that the neighborhood was becoming most unwholesome. Mother would agree, saying in her quaint way that things were getting hot, and my sister Elizabeth and I would know it was time to move again.

My parents were the most charming people I have ever known, always well dressed and strangely magnetic to all who encountered them, no matter how briefly. My sister, Elizabeth, was at fifteen already a beauty, and a very talented and powerful performer in the arts.

I alone was the sole weed in this splendid garden, or so it seemed to me when I was twelve. I was shy, reserved, and bookish, preferring to spend my time with the tales of Poe and Hoffman, the poetry of Baudelaire, or musing over the history of the twelve Caesars.

My father always worried that I wouldn't be able to make my way in life, but Mother said there was an aesthetic as well as a practical side of things, and some little refinements that I timidly suggested would find their way into our family activities and were often the most notable feature, and lingered on in memory long after.

Father needn't have worried, as I proved to him just before he died. He passed away confident that I could take care of myself as well as any member of the family.

But, as I say, at the time I was only twelve, and we were on the move again. We had settled on a small university town in a southern state as our new location, and though there were plenty of the elderly Victorian houses that Mother and Father generally patronized, this time we put the down payment on a fairly new home, only thirty or so years old, done in what the real estate agent bumblingly called the Spanish Inquisition style.

Its retired position, dense oak trees, and mossy bricks seemed to draw us, and Elizabeth, who was sensitive in such matters, claimed its aura was very rich and active. Father liked the security of the iron gates, tipped with arrow-like spikes. Mother liked the sense of privacy and the large rooms, which would be so good for functions. But I was fascinated with the fountain.

The house, though Spanish in style, was Roman in form; that is to say, it consisted of a large main entrance room the whole width of the house, with a rectangular horseshoe of rooms attached to it. In the middle of this horseshoe was an open courtyard. There, amid grimy concrete benches and overgrown planters, stood a fountain.

It was easily eight feet high, and almost twelve in circumference, and had not run for some time. The prominence from which the water fell was in the shape of a craggy hill or hump, on top of which stood a hooded figure like a monk, done three-quarters life size. The water must have flowed from below its feet, if the dried brown-green stain that trailed down to the stagnant pool was any clue.

The pool itself seemed to my childish fancy to be of unguessed depths. Though patches of algae floated on top of the waters and the bottom was obscured by slowly waving emerald that deepened to black, there was a zone between of dim translucency that hinted at depths more than any opacity could.

I was sitting in that courtyard reading my book on a chilly November afternoon, only a couple of days after we had arrived, when my sister came to me. Father was attending to business making connections, and Mother was out looking for household essentials. When we moved we always traveled light, and preferred to take houses already furnished. As Father often remarked, too many possessions only slow one down.

Elizabeth was looking lonely and bored, as she must have been to seek me out. Though I worshipped and adored her, she had all the contempt of an older sibling for the insufficiencies of a younger brother.

She too would soon be making new friends, I knew, and she would have no more time for me. I was very happy when she sat next to me on the coping of the fountain and after a few moments started to talk, if not to me then at least at me.

"Edgar, I'm so tired of all this moving! I'd like to settle down somewhere long enough to sink my teeth into life, get a handle on what makes the local people tick, and have a deep personal influence on them! For Father it's all right, it's business to him, and Mother loves to support him, but I want to be a leader and have an impact on the community. You're too young to understand, but I want to be a somebody, someone folks will point to and say, 'Look! There's the great Miss Elizabeth! You'd better watch your step around her!'"

"Perhaps I do understand, Lillibeth. Perhaps I do." I put my book down gently and began reaching over to pat her hand, but she moved it up to wipe a tear from the corner of her eye. I drew back, rejected.

Just then the courtyard door flew open and Mother entered, talking a mile a minute to a lady she was pulling along in her wake. Mother was wearing her peacock-colored dress and her abundant red hair blazed around her head like a smoldering halo. Her dangling jet earrings and triple-looped necklace swayed and clashed with each enthusiastic move she made.

"Darlings, this is Mrs. Gallagher, a very nice lady I met at the Pottery Barn. I told her we're new in town, and she's going to help me decorate! Isn't that sweet? Millicent, these are my dear children, Elizabeth and Edgar."

"Pleased to meet you, ma'am."

"H'lo," I said, ducking my head in acknowledgement. Mrs. Gallagher, though a nice enough looking lady and tastefully dressed, seemed only half-alive next to my mother. The thought of her giving Mother advice on anything seemed patently ludicrous to me. But that was Mother's flattering way. Mrs. Gallagher gave a feeble smile and waved.

"Edgar's the shy one," Mother gushed. "But so clever! Now, darlings, here's Millicent's handsome boy Charles, just Elizabeth's age. I'm sure they'll be in school together!" She herded a tall, sandy-haired boy forward from somewhere behind them out into the pale sunlight of the courtyard.

"Why don't you all get to know one another while I take Millie around -- may I call you Millie, dear? -- and get her expert advice on what to do with these daunting rooms. You can tell Elizabeth about school, Charles, like what security measures they have and so on. I always say you can't be too careful..." Her voice faded as she led Mrs. Gallagher away and the door closed behind them.

The boy strolled over to Elizabeth, completely ignoring me. I instantly detested him. He had a pale pink shirt and white pants on, and a sweater tied around his waist. His face, though tanned, seemed like a blank moon, untouched by thought or emotion. An air of easy arrogance hung about him like his expensive aftershave. Both made me want to retch.

"Your mother is quite a lady," he said. He put his hand out in greeting.

Elizabeth put on a fetching smile and demurely took his hand.

"She is that, Charles."

"Oh, please, Chaz," he laughed. "Only my mother still calls me Charles."

"All right. Chaz." She dimpled prettily, then turned to me and said in a different tone, "Edgar, why don't you go in the house a while and see if Mother needs any help?"

My cheeks burned from being dismissed so summarily, but I stood up, clutching my book, and started to make my way to the door. Elizabeth patted the spot where I had been sitting and Chaz eagerly took my place next to her.

"See you around, Eddie," he called after me, and I turned, bridling at the familiarity. Then I saw Elizabeth's expression. I contented myself with shooting him a baleful look and marched inside. And so it began.

For almost two weeks Chaz and his mother would drop by in the afternoon. Mrs. Gallagher, who in fact owned the Pottery Barn, would disappear into the house with Mother and a load of items ordered on a generous credit line which she had confidently extended. Elizabeth would command me to vacate the garden courtyard, which at other times I inhabited as my own little kingdom. I would obey, reduced to covertly watching Elizabeth and Chaz out of my bedroom window.

She would toss her thick black hair, flash her fine gray eyes, laugh, and otherwise flirt with that great dolt, who looked like he had been carved out of cheese.

Once or twice I complained to Mother. But she, if anything, approved, and remarked smilingly that Elizabeth was born to break hearts. I could only seethe.

The crisis came late one Saturday afternoon. The Gallaghers arrived as usual, and as usual I was driven from the garden. The skies were overcast and an uneasy, cool wind was rippling the surface of the fountain's cold water. I sensed a new note of barely hidden excitement in Chaz as I stalked by him. Once inside I hurried to my window to observe whatever might be happening.

They were sitting on the rim of the pool as they had that first day, and they were holding hands, his left in her right, and looking into each other's eyes as he spoke. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out something that glittered even in the dull light. It was a silver bracelet.

Elizabeth's face lit up, and she extended her arm. He clumsily put it around her wrist, fumbling with the latch. She looked from it to him, smiling and talking, and turned, taking both his hands in hers. And then they kissed.

I was appalled, but it was nothing to what I felt when he drew her in a close embrace and kissed her again, more deeply and passionately. He was sullying my sister! I flew from my room, swiftly but silently, and with firm intent. I passed unseen by the drawing room where Mother and Mrs. Gallagher were engrossed with wall sconces. I flung open the courtyard door, not altogether noiselessly. Chaz was so besotted with his gamy passions that he heard nothing.

Without a pause I grabbed up a rusty shovel from where it leaned unheeded against the wall. As Chaz came up for air, I brought the tool around with all my strength against his skull.

There was a muffled klonk, and with the smallest of sighs Chaz toppled over backward into the chill dark waters of the pool. I watched with dazed but savage satisfaction as he sank down into obscurity, the last few bubbles of his breath floating to the top and then ceasing altogether.

"Edgar, what have you done?"

I turned to my sister. Although she had jumped nimbly out of the way as I struck, she had not escaped a few drops of algae-specked water that now dappled her white dress. She dabbed at them petulantly, silver bracelet jingling around her wrist. I smoothed the hair back that had fallen over my eyes.

"I have avenged the honor of our family," I announced haughtily.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes and groaned at my posturing.

"That's as may be," she said acidly. "But there's a time and a place for everything. Now what are we going to tell Mrs. Gallagher?"

I was immediately ashamed and confounded. I had ignored all the principles and rules of our family. I had struck out unthinkingly. Elizabeth sensed my vulnerability as I hung my head, tears springing into my eyes.

"You dope," she said, not unkindly. She jingled the bracelet vigorously. "There's no telling how much good stuff he might have given me before I called it quits. You could have talked to me about it, anyway."

"What'll we do now?" I squeaked.

"Be quiet and let me think." She sat back down on the coping stones, her chin in her hands. Her eyes got that abstracted look that they had whenever she contemplated her work. An agonizing moment crawled by. Then with an unsatisfied shake of her head she bounced up and drew a piece of colored chalk out of her pocket.

"I don't know," she said. "It won't fix everything, but it might buy some time." She turned to me. "Look, go inside my medicine cabinet and get bottles Two, Three, and Seven. I'll start setting up here. And check on Mom and Mrs. Gallagher."

I went back inside and ran down the hall to Elizabeth's room. Something growled as I entered, but after a hasty propitiation it let me pass.

I went to the ancient leather case she called her cabinet and picked out three of the old-fashioned bottles labeled only with numbers. Holding them carefully so they wouldn't clink, I went stealthily down the crook in the hall to the wing where Mother was still enthralling Mrs. Gallagher. My heart stopped when I heard the trend of their talk.

"Now it is getting rather late," Mother was saying cheerfully. "I suppose we'd better see what the kids are getting up to!" In desperation I stepped into the doorway. Mother could see me, but Mrs. Gallagher's back was turned toward me. Frantically I stretched my hands apart silently again and again, in the family signal for more time. Mother hardly missed a beat.

"But first I must show you a simply gorgeous old family portrait, I have no idea where I'm going to hang it! I think it's rolled up in the desk..."

I slipped past and headed for the courtyard.

Elizabeth had been busy. She had drawn a double circle in blue along the rim of the pool and marked the cardinal points with red knotted seals. As I came up, she wrote the last Name of Power in yellow chalk. I felt a surge of pride. Most people had to copy such things from books. My sister had them all in her head.

"Here they are, Lillibeth." I handed her the bottles. "I don't know how long Mother can stall. Is this everything you need?"

"Almost," she said. She took them and shook out a certain amount from each into the pool, thumb over the opening to regulate the powders. When she was done, she put them in her pocket with a sigh.

"Ah, little brother, the things I do for you."

She took my hand and brought it to her lips, as if to kiss it. For a second, I knew their soft velvety touch. Then she bit down, hard, till her teeth ground in my knuckle bones.

I tried to leap away, stifling a cry, but she held my bleeding hand tightly and calmly over the water until a goodly amount had fallen in. She let me go and handed me a handkerchief to bind up my wound.

"Your murderer's blood," she began. She unclasped the silver bracelet, looked at it ruefully, then tossed it in. "Your token of love. Now the circle is complete, save for invocation sweet."

She looked at me and said in her normal voice, "I think you'd better stand over there." She didn't have to tell me twice. Nursing my hand I moved away, whimpering, to stand in front of the door, to forestall anyone interrupting. Or to make a quick getaway if necessary.

Elizabeth turned to face the fountain. With elbows at her side, and raising upturned palms, she began quietly, firmly, and clearly to speak in the old tongue, which sounds like Latin, but isn't. There are some who will beg and plead when they do this. Elizabeth said that only makes those invoked scornful. They will grant something that suits their purposes, so the best thing is to give them good reasons to do as you ask. In the last resort, you can bargain with them. But Elizabeth was very persuasive and seldom had to part with anything.

Her request seemed to be drawing considerable attention, too, for the air was growing dim and charged. There was a low brool of thunder. She finished the invocation and stood looking expectantly up, it seemed, into the fountain statue's face. There was a pause of absolute stillness and silence.

Then the chalk markings blazed like magnesium in all their colors, blue and red and gold, and the statue split with a crack. The green waters bubbled like soup coming to a boil, and out of the roil came the body of Chaz Gallagher, shedding streaming water, rising stiff and upright, like a puppet being pulled up on a string. When he cleared his full height, feet dangling just over the surface, I saw an aura of flickering flame outline his body, and caught an awful stench like a rotten egg.

He floated forward over the rim of the pool, seeming to follow Elizabeth as she took several measured steps backward. As he passed the outer edge of the circle and his feet touched the ground, the blazing marks went out all at once. I could see they were gone, as if burnt away, leaving nothing behind. Gone too were his fiery aura and bitter smell. But Chaz Gallagher was still a far from pleasant sight.

The least of his problems was that his fancy clothes were dripping wet and spotted with slime. As I came closer, I was pleased to see that he was not obviously wounded. My blow, while denting his skull, had not even broken the skin. He carried himself awkwardly, as if he didn't have perfect control, and all his flesh that showed was pale. The worst of it was his expression.

That round face that had been such a smug blank was screwed back in a rictus of terror, the jaw clenched so hard that the cords in his neck stuck out like wires. His red-rimmed, appalled eyes were open so wide that they looked like they had no lids. They didn't blink.

I stopped in awe and hung a little behind Elizabeth as she tried to straighten his clothes and make him seem more natural. "Why," I stammered. "Why does he look like that?"

She shook her head, a pitying half-smile on her lips. "I'm afraid Chaz has visited a very nasty place in the short time he left us." She put her hand out and patted my shoulder. "It seems you were right, Edgar. He must not have been a very nice boy, after all."

Elizabeth had just time to give Chaz a few simple commands on how to act when Mrs. Gallagher came bustling into the courtyard, Mother behind, still valiantly trying to delay her. Mrs. Gallagher stopped aghast when she saw her son, but before she could say anything Elizabeth started in.

"Oh, Mrs. Gallagher," she cried, all fright and concern. "Chaz was doing the silliest thing just now to impress me, and he slipped and fell in the pool! He seems alright, but he's a little dazed. I'm afraid he'll catch his death of cold! You've got to get him straight home and into dry clothes. Mother, get a blanket!"

With a flurry of fuss and feathers the Gallaghers were hustled out the front door. Mother shut it behind them with a dramatic sigh. She stood a moment, looking from me to Elizabeth. Finally, she said, "Now which of you is going to tell me what's going on? And why is Charles dead but still walking?"

Elizabeth began to explain, but just then the door opened. We all jumped. But it was only Father, home for supper, still looking dapper after a day of work, his tailored suit flawless and not a hair out of place.

"Hi-ho, people," he said, as his eyes twinkled, and his smiling mouth turned up the corners of his moustache. He cast his briefcase aside. "What gives? I passed that Gallagher woman on the highway coming home, and she was driving like someone lit a fire under her."

Elizabeth began explaining again, and as she spoke Father grew grave and Mother looked concerned. I stood there hanging my head and denied nothing.

"Well done," my father told her when she was finished. "And now, can he go on like this?"

"Not very long," Elizabeth admitted. "He's not alive again, just re-animated. There's a he-, a very big difference. When he starts to smell, it won't take long for them to figure out something's wrong. This cold weather might help a bit." She added thoughtfully, "Of course, if somebody takes him onto consecrated ground, that's it."

"Oh, dear, and tomorrow's Sunday," said Mother. She brightened. "Perhaps they'll let him stay home since he looks so unwell."

"I'm afraid we can't count on it." Father looked at me with melancholy disappointment, then put his hand over his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He looked up and took a deep breath. "All right, folks, Condition C. In the garage in twenty minutes."

I went to my room to pack my luggage, a suitcase for clothes and a trunk for my books. I stopped in the courtyard on my way out one last time. As I took a moment to rub the rusty shovel with sand in the murky water, I looked around in farewell. I wondered what the previous owner had been like, and who the next owner would be, and if either had or would ever feel as I had done there. I rinsed my hands as clean as I could, put the shovel back against the wall, and left the garden forever.

I met Mother and Elizabeth with their luggage in the garage, and then Father joined us. He was dressed in more plain work-a-day clothes, with a baseball cap. Before he had packed, he had taken time to shave off his moustache. Elizabeth had pulled back her hair under a scarf. Father took the tarp off the non-descript but serviceable gray van we used for moves, which had been covered since we had come to the neighborhood.

As we loaded the luggage and Father put the safety deposit box in its compartment under the driver's seat, Mother mourned the fact that we would leave behind the luxury town car we'd obtained at our last home. We took our positions, parents up front and kids in back, and without a word or backward glance Father started the van and headed for the highway.

It was not until we had been driving for half an hour, and Mother had started to suggest we eat the picnic dinner she had thrown together, that Father spoke at last. I had been dreading it.

"Well, Cassandra, I think that must go on record as our shortest residence ever," he said, glancing at Mother. "We didn't even last out the first deposit." He pitched his voice to the back seat. "You know, my son, it is a foul bird that soils its own nest."

"Yes, Father," I said humbly.

"Now, there are some positive aspects about the whole affair," Mother said comfortingly, as she tucked a stray strand of red hair into her newly donned dark wig. "Think how beautifully Elizabeth handled things, and under such pressure! And Edgar. I know you never would have thought before this he'd have the spirit or the strength to do such a thing, now would you? I tell you, the boy bears watching."

"I suppose so," Father agreed absently. "But I had several deals that I was priming that never had time to mature. This whole debacle will set me back a pretty penny."

Poor Father! Always worried about his business associates, and never paying enough attention to his family. I think that was the one thing he really regretted, just before he died.

"It might be sometime before our finances recover. In the meantime, there will have to be cutbacks and precautionary measures," he went on sternly. "Edgar, I'm afraid for a while you shall have to wear hand-me-downs."

"Yes, Father," I said, outwardly chastened. But inside, I felt oddly thrilled. Before us, the endless highway stretched into darkness. We were on the road again, in search of fresh fields and pastures new.

 

Notes

It scrolls my knurd that I was unable to find a more suitable picture to illustrate this story, especially when there are tons of pictures in the Family Files of the actual place that the house in the story was based on. It was my grandmother Nanny’s house, the same house the style of which one of Mike and John’s friends described to her face as ‘Spanish Inquisition’, and that John himself called ‘the dream house of a nightmare couple.’ The only real difference is that there was no fountain in the courtyard. It is hard to believe that not even the ruins of that place remain today.

I must have written the story before 2006, because I gave it to Mike for his critique. He wondered if perhaps the ‘Addams Family’ type setting might have been a little overdone. I thought that the idea of a cheerfully grifting, seriously Satanic, mass-murdering Addams Family would be singular enough to justify the tale.

As I looked it over this time, I decided that it might be a little Gothically overwritten, so I removed some superfluous adjectives and adverbs and downplayed several suggestions of incestuous passions stirring in Edgar’s lonely breast. I hope things do not run as awkwardly with this version.