The Macabre Tales of Young Edgar

There was a smell of rain, which was the smell of urgency, sweat and cleansing, precipitating thoughts, and moments to be savoured. Lord Edmund could have sworn that the last lightning strike had transported them back to a primeval age, a time when there were no other people- no other humans in the world.

The lightning was illuminating, stark, and violent.

The rain was an awakening. It pattered on the pert ivy leaves, which had turned upright to receive it. It quenched the earth, soaking soil and nerve alike with memories. It was an aromatic rain, with just a hint of the sea mixed in to underline the presence of another ghost in the room- Edgar's father, who had perished when his ship was wrecked on the rocks beneath the cliffs.

Edgar's father, who now lived on only in the slightly more corporeal spectre who was his son.

Edgar's father, who had been Lord Edmund's original lover, and who was supposed to be replaced...

Naturally, the Lord had invited the youth inside. There, he had explained most of what he knew, before lightning had struck, and his confession had been cut short.

'There is a curse on my house,' he had said, setting his face into a hard mask, so that he looked simultaneously older and stronger. 'I alone among my ancestors have attained the age that is now my burden. For the most part, we are struck down before the rose of youth can fade from out faces. We are like flowers laid upon our own graves.'

'What is this curse?' Edgar had asked, avidly. His grey eyes had suddenly become clearer, like the sea when clouds recoil from the bay. He was less simply ghoulish, and more hawkish, like a hunter in appearance.

'It is centuries old,' Lord Edmund had replied. His stutter was gone, and he was speaking evenly now that purpose drove him. Both he and Edgar were painfully aware of the seconds trickling between them, like they were two bulbs in an hourglass, one passing histories to the other.

'Even I don't know the details of it. Or at least, I could not tell you of its origins, nor of the precise identity of its maker. Your father came here once, to aid me in unraveling it. We were very nearly successful. He was on his way back, with your family, when...'

Apology stirring like a drowned remorse in the whiskey of his eyes, Lord Edmund looked away. There was no need for him to say what had happened next. Out of respect for the dead, he stayed silent.

Edgar nodded. 'I understand,' he said. Then, he had placed a bony hand of his on own the Viscount’s shoulder, the better to guide him to a seat.

He would have to be cunning, he thought to himself. There was something Lord Edmund wasn't telling him, and he knew that, whatever it was, it was going to be difficult to extract.

'I had hoped,' said the Viscount, sounding troubled, 'that your visions would provide some further clue. I must confess that this was my true motive in bringing you here. Or, at any rate,' he corrected himself, shining a smile on Edgar's countenance, the better to read the younger man's reaction, 'it was my first motive.'

Edgar shifted uneasily. He was suddenly conscious of his jacket, and the way it constrained his chest and shoulders in the growing humidity. He longed to be rid of it already. Though he was nervous, the conclusion of this meeting was now inevitable. His nervousness was not an obstacle that could be shifted. It would have to be confronted, accepted, and swallowed whole. Nevertheless, Edgar wished he could move either forward or backward in time.

The rain outside was picking up speed, lashing itself ever more mercilessly against the glass. It hurried his heart along, and drummed up his blood as effectively as if it were many fingers tapping on an execution notice. Lately, he had glimpsed such a notice over and over again, spread out on a tabletop splattered with what he could only hope was ink. In spindly writing that looked more closely aligned with talon than with quill, he had seen that notice embellished with his own name.

'I am sorry,' Lord Edmund continued, so that the image which had held Edgar's gaze steady vanished in a puff of smoke. 'I am so very sorry that I ever sought to use your talents without your consultation. I truly do believe, however, that the secret to this riddle is being shown to you in your dreams. Only you can see the monster that rules my household. Only you are being shown what it most desires. I cannot image why. '

The old Lord's eyes glazed momentarily, and his expression became distant. His lips parted, as if to speak to things neither man could see. Edgar felt it necessary to bring him back to the present.

'That is all well and good,' he said. 'But what, pray, is the manner of this curse?'

'We are a stricken household,' said Edmund, vaguely. 'We all die so young. So very, very young. Your father knew...'

'What did he know?'

Lord Edmund turned slightly. For a moment, Edgar thought the longing in his eyes was being cast in the direction of a faded portrait. Its subject, he saw, was a young woman who could not have been any older than he was when her image had been painted. Then, he realised that the manner of the Lord's distraction was entirely different. His eyes slipped past the picture, and onto Edgar himself.

While Edmund was mesmerised, seeing apples, cherries, plums and all manner of forbidden sweet things, his young protégé saw only that this manner of questioning was fruitless. He would have to harden up, and move faster.

'If only you could see the things I've seen,' said Edmund. 'Maybe then you'd understand.' He seemed to be pleading with himself, searching for a means of justification, or distraction. He would be easy to control now, in this moment of weakness.

Edgar sensed his opening.

Inhaling sharply with anticipation, he stilled his fears and braced himself to plunge into another state, just as he braced himself for writing. He pursed his lips, pressing them like rose petals to increase their colour. As he did so, he thought of the act as one of dipping a pen in ink. This would be just like writing, he promised himself. It was just another kind of manipulation. It would not a betrayal of his true desires, so abuse himself so.

Inflating his chest so that the opening in his shirt would be all the more obvious, and noticing himself the way his breath already lingered on the air, he leaned forward. A static electricity followed him, like tension around a storm cloud.

Edgar leaned forward, and kissed the Viscount.