Still, these distractions were not sufficient to halt the speculative faculty for long; and Ligeia and I opened his casket once again. The tapers flickered, the mesmeric currents flowed. Shortly, a series of moans signaled our establishment of contact:
"Good morning, Monsieur Valdemar."
"Any chance of your letting me die today?" he inquired.
"Afraid not," I responded. "But I'll try to be brief. First, I've a general question. It wasn't clear to me from what you said the other day whether Annie had been forced to create the bond with Poe and myself."
"No," he replied. "I had merely to locate a person of her potential who already was party to such a relationship. Then Dr. Templeton caused her to create your kingdom by the sea."
"The odds, sir, on finding such a bizarre connection must be astronomical."
"It makes no difference—if one has an infinity of possibilities from which to choose."
It was not until that moment in my life that I began to appreciate the concept of infinity, a thing which was later to occupy considerable of my thinking. In the meantime, curiosity drove me but a step further:
"How can the human mind compass infinity?" I asked.
"The dead can view it from the vantage of eternity," he replied. "Speaking of which—"
"No. Not now," I said. "I will not discuss the joy of death with you."
"Eddie?" Ligeia said, accenting the second syllable as was her wont.
"Yes?" I answered.
"You have seen me about this business for some small while now, and I have observed you for just as long. You are not as sensitive to drink or to mesmeric influences as one who is native to this world. On the other hand, you have an enormous capacity for both."
"What are you trying to say?"
"It would be interesting to teach you the rudiments of the system—to see what comes to pass of it. We might start by having you return Monsieur Valdemar to his rest."
"I am not certain that I approve—" Valdemar began.
"Hush!" she said, taking hold of my hands. "What do you know of the subject?"
"I—"
Our first gesture silenced him, as I felt the current faintly.
"Well done," she said. "You really should keep at it."
I did, and though my efforts over the next few days met with some success they were accompanied by distracting side-effects. That is to say, whenever I would begin to employ animal magnetism as she directed there would come sharp rapping sounds from within the walls, from overhead or underfoot, furniture would be thrown about, and small objects would develop a tendency toward levitation or spontaneous shatterment.
"I'm going to have to give it up," I said on the third day. "It's simply too messy."
"It is appropriate for the place you came from," she replied. But perhaps it is hazardous to continue these experiments aboard ship. The ocean is deep."
So I restrained my animal magnetism and we returned to our former operating procedures. The very next day Valdemar informed us that the field of probability had narrowed. Paris was to be our destination.
... And the circumstances of his death were as mysterious as events in one of his stories, nor did matters end at that point. He was buried in the Poe family lot in Baltimore's Presbyterian Cemetery. His grave was not marked by name but bore only the number 80 which the sexton had placed there in identification. Several years later, Edgar's cousin Neilson Poe ordered a tombstone for him. It was broken, however, by a freight train which jumped the track into the marble yard where it was being carved. Nobody tried again till it was too late for certainty. The 80 was lost, and time and the vicissitudes had their way with the Poe lot.
While nobody knows for certain just where the hell his body is, there is now a monument to Edgar Allan Poe; and generally, on the eve of his birthday, he is remembered. A bottle of bourbon may turn up at his tomb, along with a few flowers and an occasional stuffed raven. Baudelaire and a number of his countrymen thought him one hell of a fellow.
Henry James disagreed, but he always was a bit of a spoilsport. Poe is one of those writers, as someone said, who holds a great special place in literature rather than a great general place.
It happened this year, too. But he doesn't touch a drop anymore.
V
There came a night when my sleep was troubled. I tossed fitfully, drowsing and rousing, and seem to recall at one point hearing the sounds of a November storm. My dreams were a rag-bag of ill-matched people and places, going nowhere. At some unmarked hour the storm faded. I found oblivion for a time and its taste was sweet... .
I found myself sitting up, listening, searching the shadows, waiting for awareness to catch up with my senses, uncertain as to what it was that had called me awake. It felt as if there were someone present, but moonlight streamed through a porthole and my eyes were entirely dark-adjusted. I saw no one.
"Who's there?" I asked, and I swung my feet over the side of the bunk, dropped to one knee and fetched out the saber from where I had stowed it beneath. No one responded.
Then I noted the glow upon the wall, near the apparatus table. Rising, I approached, halting when I realized it to be only the small, metal-framed mirror which hung there. The angle must be such that it was catching that intense moonlight.
Only, it retained a uniform luminosity as I crossed the room to inspect the armoire. Satisfying myself that no menaces lurked among the garments, I approached the mirror for a closer look.
It was not the moonlight, however, but an effect produced by its reflecting a foggy daytime beach, against which my own reflection was but a pale ghost. A young Annie, as first I had known her, stood before one of our sand castles. What I had heard now seemed to have been a call from her, for the ghostly echo of a plaintive "Edgar!" hung suddenly in memory's dim vault.
"Annie!" I said. "I'm here!"
But she paid me no heed. I continued to peer, but I could think of no way to make her aware of my presence. Then, through the fog which lay heavy upon the beach to her right, I saw a figure approaching, the form of a man moving slowly, unsteadily, toward her.
As I watched, she turned in that direction. Even before be came into view, I knew that it would be Poe.
But I had not anticipated his appearance. He had on a thin, ill-fitting shirt and outsize trousers. He staggered and swayed, leaning heavily upon a Malacca cane. His face looked far older than my own now, muscles slack, eyes unfocussed, so that at first I thought him intoxicated. Closer scrutiny, however, changed my opinion. The man was obviously ill, his mien one of fever and delirium rather than inebriation. Annie rushed to meet him, but he moved as if unaware of her presence. When she caught hold of his hand he collapsed suddenly to his left knee, a wild sweep of his cane toppling several towers and piercing a wall of the castle. For an instant, he regarded their fall. Then his eyes met Annie's. She rushed to embrace him, but a moment later he was struggling to rise. Footing regained, he continued on his way, heading, it seemed, directly toward me. Annie followed, and though her mouth opened and closed several times, I could hear nothing that she uttered. He drew nearer, nearer. He seemed to be staring into my eyes. I felt his gaze... .
A moment later his body emerged from the wall, his face from the mirror, and he continued his advance without any sign of distraction from the transition. His gaze moved beyond me.