The Macabre Tales of Young Edgar

The Viscount of Anchorage sat in a high-backed, leather armchair that was almost as old and shabby as he was. As the clock struck midnight for the second time, he caressed the letter that had arrived on his desk. Feeling the creases there, he soothed them as though they were the lines in his own forehead.

The story had arrived early.

Lord Edmund had been waiting up for it, sitting silently in this armchair, which was in the quiet study adjacent to his office. Trying not make the chair groan, or its cushion wheeze as it sagged, he had listened attentively for the creaking of the floorboards. Footsteps, he knew, would announce the presence of Edgar. His protégé would have to come to leave his night's work on the Viscount’s desk.

Lord Edmund couldn't wait until morning to read it this time. His mind reeled like a fishing rod that had been let loose to allow a wily fish to snare itself. It was out of control, but soon it would be reined in.

Soon...

There came no sound of footsteps or of creaking floorboards, however. Lord Edmund was left listening to the beating in his own chest, which seemed to fill the room, shaking the walls themselves and reverberating through the timber. It was as though his heart were trapped beneath those floorboards in the other room, and feared being trodden on.

Gradually, it climbed into his throat, forcing its way from his mouth with an exasperated, stricken sigh. Still in his dressing gown, and with a pipe clasped between his lips, Lord Edmund used his cane to extract himself from his seat. Then, he had paced cautiously to the door that joined his study and office, and leaned on the handle.

The door had obliged with a banshee screech, casting a spotlight into the centre of the darkened room. The office was empty. Light from the one lamp across the threshold polished the dusty floorboards, revealing musty carpets and even more patched leather. At its centre, it illuminated the lacquered surface of the desk. Most surprisingly, it showed the note.

Lord Edmund snatched this up, and his eyes flitted to the clock in the corner. Its spiky hands pointed to eleven and six respectively. Edgar must have come by in the evening, he deduced, muttering, before he himself had sat down to his anxious watch.

Leaning on his cane, he hobbled back into his study, and slumped once more into his battered chair. He began to read, sentence by sentence, losing his sense of time.

Are you Devil?

The words lingered on the tip of his tongue, smacking of fear.

I am not Devil, nor demon, nor any other kind of evil spirit...

As he continued, one line struck him in particular. A rare sliver of clarity, it was like a harpoon thrust from the paper directly into his sternum.

'So, also, like slippery hooks for a hapless fish such as I, they wrapped themselves around my heart...' Lord Edmund read those words aloud, allowing them to linger briefly before the vaulted silence in his shuttered room claimed them for itself. His sweaty hands clutched the paper as though were a lifejacket. He felt suddenly feverish.

How close the boy was! How close, and yet, how far!

Another pang of guilt shuddered out from his invisible wound. I should tell him, he thought.

I should tell young Edgar everything that has been told to me. I should confess my part in this misadventure. This has all gone too far, and I, an old fool, have allowed myself to be led along. I have grown fonder of Edgar than I had expected, and more than that- I had never anticipated that he might also grow fond of me. I must put a stop to this!

He was halfway out of his chair again when another, internal voice spoke to him, soothing and serpentine. Like the snake of Eden, it untangled itself from the branching tree of his thoughts, and slithered down the trunk to meet him where his deepest convictions held their roots in emotion. There, it offered him one, last, tantalising piece of fruit. Like every sin, it was a stroke of genius.

The voice offered Lord Edmund a chance.

We can fix this, it assured him. Edgar is the bait, but he needn't be a sacrifice, as your ancestors' bane has asked. We'll lure the nightmare here, and then slay it! Then you and he will both be free.

Edmund considered this possibility, stroking his moustache with his free hand. It bristled beneath his touch, like frightened hairs standing up on the back of a cat. It is too risky, he decided, and then hastily overruled himself. Yes, it is risky, and yet, it is the only way.

Even if he had never come here, the life of an orphan without family would be no life for Edgar. His is a talent that requires nurturing. He needs an estate to be getting on with. Though, even with that being the case, is this my decision to make? Who else is there to make it?

Finally, the Viscount stood up, throwing his gloved hands in the air. His pipe hung out of his mouth in silent exclamation. He could still hear his heart beating, underneath those floorboards. It was too loud. It was too much.

By life and limb and liberty, he thought to himself, recounting Edgar's words, I will not stand for this!

He turned to face the cold, dead eyes of his grandfather's marble bust, and thought of all the ancestors of his who had perished here, under the curse. He thought of his own dear sister, Eleanor, who was now lost, just as Edgar's sister was.

He thought of the dusty books and mouldy grimoires in his crowded library, each one a stone turned over without finding any solution to his familial imprisonment and servitude. There had been a desert of such stones- volumes of science and the occult alike were hidden throughout the house. Books also lined the shelves of his study, which was where Lord Edmund came to muse on his fate. Their covers were closed for their time being, their pages sealed around forgotten lore.

'Nevermore,' he whispered, throwing them a look of deepest resentment. 'Nevermore will I be caged here, devious in my cowardice.'

He spun around and pulled himself upright, feeling younger in this resolution. Before he could plan further, however, he was interrupted.

There was a knock at the door.