The Macabre Tales of Young Edgar

'It is just as I suspected!' Lord Edmund, Viscount of Anchorage, had declared, clapping his surprisingly plump hands over young Edgar's cheeks. 'You are the spitting image of your father.'

Though his voice trembled with a sudden, remembered sadness, he was much healthier than Edgar had expected him to be. Where he had envisioned a gaunt man with a lined face like weathered wood, and eyes ringed with sleeplessness like his own, he found instead robustness and vigour. He wondered whether the Lord might have seemed closer to Death's door when he had been more forlorn; before he had known that Edgar would be coming.

Indeed, he had the look of a person who was airing out, like a coat freshly unearthed from a closet in early winter, and which still smells faintly of mothballs. Just as the air lifts the odours from such a garment, so it had lifted the years from Lord Edmund. The transformation was so amazing that Edgar now puzzled to see the resemblance between his benefactor and the man whose miniature he had scrutinised inside the locket, though the silver-streaked hair and the cane he walked with remained.

Edgar's own pale hand, with its long, thin fingers went to that locket in his lower jacket pocket. He stroked it absently. The silver oval, engraved with wreaths of acorns and oak leaves, had been sent to him as a present, while he had been staying at the hotel. One half of it contained Lord Edmund's picture. The other half was empty.

'Well, we should not tarry out in the cold! It's bad for my health, you know,' said Lord Edmund, this time slapping Edgar between his bony shoulders. 'And yours, too, I'm sure,' he added, sounding both startled and terrified.

'Is it always like this in Moorhaven?' asked Edgar, as Lord Edmund led him up the sloping path. 'Not cold, exactly, but like the tepid and the arctic air and water have mingled, so that nothing is anything in particular. The sky isn't even washed-out, so much as it is washed about, like a ruined watercolour, I should say. Just look at this.'

Hands buried deep in his pockets as he slouched along, Edgar motioned at the choppy water with his chin, which was covered with a soft down in place of a proper goatee. The waves returned his stare with a hard, dark look, glinting like chipped onyx.

'It is like a thick stew,' he remarked, 'composed of soggy clouds in chunks of seawater. It is a single, roiling, seething thing, the consistency of soup bubbling in a pot, but of a much less appetising nature. Here, even, are some thinner clouds, mere oily smears, such as glisten on the surface of a thin broth. It is a recipe for misery, all stirred about the horizon and served up in the bowl of the bay! It lurches, and my stomach with it.'

'Hmm,' said Lord Edmund after a while, drawing out the thoughtful syllable. His hum was less appreciative than concerned, as though he feared he might have gotten more than he bargained for. He gripped his cane to steady himself- some of Edgar's nausea had apparently infected him through his words.

'Well, we do often have, erm, hearty weather at Whirlpool Manor, but a different recipe every day. Not always misery. Yes, a different recipe each day, my dear boy.'

With his firm hand extended once again around Edgar's shoulders, he guided him along, away from the exposed cliff top. The wind buffeted them and tore at their clothes, so that he was forced to use his free hand to secure his top hat. Like the rest of him, this hat had an expensive yet neglected appearance, and actually did smell of storage.

They continued up the hill. Tufts of sea grass, tousled by the wind, followed them along the otherwise barren cliff side. From time to time, Edgar would lean over to sneak a glance at the sheer drop from the land into the ocean, and Lord Edmund would usher him back. The foot of the cliff, Edgar saw, was slowly crumbling. It had left behind it an untidy garden of splinters and spikes, through which the sea raced rabidly, foaming with delight at these newest obstacles.

'It is a beast, tossing its white mane and roaring in anger at its containment,' he commented. 'It rushes against the walls of its prison, dashing itself to salt and spray. Can you hear it wailing?' He turned, imploring the older man with his leaden eyes.

'Erm, yes,' Lord Edmund replied, offsetting the pause with a curt nod. 'Yes, yes, very good.'

His own young, brown eyes, which were the distilled colour of whiskey, slid longingly in the direction of the fatal drop, as though he wanted nothing so badly as to jump off it. He did not even seem to notice when they passed the open gates, and crunched over the gravel strewn out for the benefit of carriages.

'Ah, now. Here is the Manor!' he sighed, with great relief. The hand that had been holding his hat took a break to mop at his brow. 'You will be wanting to see the inside, I presume?' His chest inflated a little with pride, but he did not sound confident. Edgar was carefully studying the Vile insignia, and stood so perfectly still that he might have been just another pillar of masonry.

'Erm, you will be wanting to see it?' Lord Edmund asked again, more tentatively.

'Oh,' said Edgar, slipping effortlessly from astonishment back into indifference. 'Yes, I suppose so.'

His stare stayed glued to the coat of arms as they passed under it. The insignia appeared to be another octopus, with eight looping, twisting, folding and re-doubling tentacles clutching at the corners of a shield, or else wriggling freely over the squares, stripes and lozenges embossed there. The whole coat of arms was wrought in black iron, like the barred gates that had preceded it, and set above a roofed patio that looked like the entrance to a mausoleum.

Black granite columns supported the ceiling of the entrance, and spread out to flank the monumental doorway. Here, a bronze knocker was moulded in a similar motif. single, curling tentacle formed the handle. The eyes of the cephalopod against whose round head it beat were ominous slits.

Inside the Manor, the main hallway was lined with oil paintings in ornate, golden frames made up of delicately peeling leaves and petals. Most of these also portrayed denizens of the deep. Giant squid clashed with ferocious, toothed whales. Suckered limbs burst forth from storm-tossed seas, or hovered over soon-to-be wrecks. Ships with broken masts leaned dangerously beneath tidal waves, armoured crabs were as large as islands, and hybrids that were part fish or seal and part man populated pebbled beaches. Lord Edmund feared that some of these scenes might upset his new ward, and so hurried past them, but the boy lingered where the paintings had transfixed him.

'This is a kraken,' he said, identifying a lumpy villain with eyes as large and round as the portholes of the ship it was devouring. 'An assassin of binding limbs, beguiling movements and blinding ejaculations. This is what was on your family crest, and on your seal, on the letters that you sent me.'

'Ah, yes,' Lord Edmund affirmed, although his tone was slightly disheartened. 'You are quite correct, of course, and quite the wordsmith, too. We will put you to good use.'

He unhooked a candlestick from its socket on the wall. 'It is darker, up ahead,' he explained. 'I am a conservative man, even if I am wealthy, and you must forgive me the ways I have learned in my long seclusion. I have not bothered to light every oil lamp in the house. It is only myself and a few servants who live here, and I must confess that I never saw the point in it. Oh, what an old fool you must think me! Bumbling about in the dark, and wallowing in my self-pity...'

He cursed beneath his breath, for he meant his last, agitated statement. Whatever Edgar was, and no matter how strange the boy might prove, Lord Edmund was determined not to be rejected. Only since he had had company almost within his reach had he realised how much it meant to him. He did not want to die alone...

'I don't mind. I like the dark,' said Edgar meekly, but Lord Edmund's heart swelled as though it had been a bold proclamation.

'Well, that is very good then!' he said. 'We have plenty of it!'

A weird, contented smile, which did not extend to his eyes, curled the edges of Edgar's lips. He seemed to imitate a purring cat, but as he still trailed behind the older man, Lord Edmund did not see.

'Where will I be staying?' he asked.

Lord Edmund, who had not been expecting the question, nearly tripped up on the long, hall runner carpet. 'Oh, well, um... it's just ahead, actually.'

'Will it be dark?'

'Certainly, if you like.' The old aristocrat was starting to sound flustered. He counted the doors beneath his breath as he flew by them, his long waistcoat whispering along the floor.

'One, two, three, four, um, five... Here we are!' he announced, stopping in front of a polished mahogany door. He placed his hand on the lever, which was, like all the other brass fittings in the Manor, shaped like a tentacle. He pushed it down, and the door sprang open.

Inside, dust motes swirled in the growing wedge of candlelight. The countless eddying particles put Edgar in mind of planets, moons and asteroids spinning in an incredibly detailed mobile of the solar system. He was about to say so, when Lord Edmund interrupted him.

'There's your bed,' he said, indicating a four-poster with a canopy that even the dim light revealed to be quite dusty. 'That there will be your desk.' He pointed at a large workstation set with crusty inkwells and padded with leather that was beginning to crack.

'It belonged to my brother, before... Well, you know. Some of the drawers might be a bit difficult. Just let me know which ones, when you get around to it, and I'll have one of the lads see to them. Likewise with the shutters. Your trunks and things will be sent up from the train station very soon, I should expect. In the meantime, you are welcome to make use of the adjoining bathroom, though some of the taps might be a bit rusty, and some of the plaster, I am ashamed to say, is slightly flakey. Dinner is at eight.'

Edgar nodded, his hands still deep in his pockets. He was admiring the plush carpet, and the many, misty pictures on the dresser. Their tiny windows seemed to have clouded up with grease expelled from the lamps, which, he was pleased to see, there were also a great number of. He preferred them to natural daylight.

'So this,' Lord Edmund continued, smiling broadly, 'is where you will be fulfilling your half of our bargain, should you find my hospitality to your liking. A story each day from that head of yours, due on the table in my own office by midnight, beginning tomorrow. What do you think?' he asked. When this was not a sufficient prompt, he added, 'Eh?'

'I like it,' Edgar said simply. His eyes did not return his benefactor's hopeful gaze, however, but remained on the writing desk. It looked to him like an animal that was just about to emerge from hibernation. Some play of the candlelight upon its glossy lacquer seemed to wink in his direction.

'I like it a lot.'