Nevermore: A Novel of Love, Loss, & Edgar Allan Poe by David Niall Wilson

feel – somehow – as if it's something I have to do."
    "What in the world are you talking about?" Lenore asked.   "You know nothing of the swamp, and it appears to me that if you manage to get too close, what's likely to happen is you'll be shot.   You are a handsome man, Edgar, but you will be much less so with an arrow protruding from your heart."
    "You are forgetting about the girl," he said.   "You freed her, Grimm carried her.   I won't abandon her to some crazy woman in the swamp without at least trying to save her."
    "What if she doesn't need saving?" Lenore said.   "What if this Nettie knows what has happened, and knows what to do, and all you manage is to interfere?"
    "You'd really be content not knowing?   This is not as simple as one of my stories, or one of your drawings.   There are powers stretching out through time.   There are tales within tales, and powers within powers.   It's like walking the roads of a dream within a dream.   I can't just let it go.   It's begun, and that's how it is with stories. There is a beginning, conflict, and an ending.   I'm afraid I'd go mad without knowing all three."
    As Edgar talked, the boy, Tom, had worked his way closer across the room.   He pretended to sweep the floor, but he'd been eavesdropping, and he already knew more than most.
    "I can guide you," he said.
    He stood, red faced, expecting to be silenced, or sent on his way. Instead, Edgar turned and regarded him seriously.
    "You've been in there?" he asked.
    "I fish in there, and I've hunted with my pa, and my uncle," Tom said.   "I can take you in, and I know the old stories.   I know where to take you – where she might show up.   If you find her…that's probably as far as I go."
    Edgar nodded.   "I will need to see something from your father, and from the tavern keeper, showing that you are allowed," Edgar said.   "You may tell them that we are going hunting, which is true.   If I find Nettie, you are released with full pay."
    Tom could barely contain his excitement.
    "I believe," Edgar said, "that you'd better get back to your work, if you want a favorable decision from the bar keep.   He's watching you, and he is not smiling."
    Tom turned and hurried away, swiping the broom randomly at the floorboards.
    "You really mean to do this?" Lenore asked.
    "I do.   I had hoped that you…"
    "I cannot," she said.   "I would, if I was free to, but I have my own quest – my own nightmares and demons to exorcise.   I did not come here randomly, as you guessed.   Tomorrow before you leave, I will tell you – but at that point, I'm afraid, we must part ways, at least for a time."
    Edgar smiled, but there was little humor in it.
    "It seems I am always parting from someone," he said.   "But this one time, I will allow myself the hope that when our tasks are complete, our paths will cross again.   It would give me hope, and that is something I am too often without."
    Lenore smiled.
    "Let's finish these drinks, split up, and see if we can get any more information," she said.   "I think we've had about enough adventure for one day."
    Edgar nodded.
    At the table next to theirs, the veterinarian who'd patched up the unfortunate Mr. Nixon sat with a large mug of ale.   He'd pulled away from the others, and seemed lost in thought.
    Edgar walked over.
    "Good for that man you were here," he said.   "He might easily have bled out from a simple wound without proper care."
    The doctor looked up, momentarily confused as he was pulled from his thoughts.
    "Oh, thank you," he said softly.   "I'm certain someone would have helped him.   There are military men here, and more than a few of them have encountered injuries much more serious without a doctor's aide."
    "Still," Edgar said, sliding into the chair opposite the man, "I believe he was lucky, if there is such a thing.   My name is Edgar, Edgar Poe."
    "Simons – Brentley Simons.   It was a brave thing you did, pulling him out of the water as you did.