Marc Olden - Poe must die

As Rachel stood alone in front of the fireplace, hugging herself, Poe and Figg stood at the window looking out at Larney, Volney Gunning and Miles Standish as they leaned close together and talked in the cold, sending steamed breath into each other’s face.

Poe spoke in a small, sad whisper while he stared at them. “That lovely child is Larney’s whore, Mr. Figg, a most lamentable business. Once or twice I have seen the two of them from a distance. However, to be in her company magnifies greatly my discomfort regarding any claim of Larney upon her.”

“You has men in the world, Mr. Poe, what fancies little girls. Never seen the appeal in it meself.”

“This little girl is a startling reminder of my late wife when she was that same age.”

Figg scratched his bulldog chin with the back of a blackened thumbnail. “Wondered why you was diggin’ at that little fop, Larney. He seems to place great store by that huge blackamoor what drives him around. I know the look of men who do bodily harm and the big black fits into that selection. Anyway, you best keep your mind on things at hand. We gots to look up them Renaissance Players-”

“You do, Mr. Figg. I shall point you in the right direction, but the business of slaying I leave to you.” Poe watched Miles Standish climb into his carriage and reach for the reins.

“Fair enough, Mr. Poe. Sun comes up, sun goes down and what happens in between ain’t usually worth what you scrape off the bottom of yer boot. Things is bad in the world, always has been. Change ’em and you only make ’em worse. I know you worries over women like a mother hen but I have the feelin’ that this little girl whats with Larney can handle herself.”

“I do not want Larney to have her.”

“From where I sits he already does.”

A vein throbbed on Poe’s high, wide forehead. Figg watched the writer and slowly shook his head. Little Mr. Poe getting himself all worked up over a tiny judy. You’d have thought God died and left him in charge of the welfare of all the ladies in the world. Beatin’ his breast, sobbin’, gettin’ a lump in his throat every time a petticoat and laced boots come strollin’ by. Hope the rest of the bleedin’ men in bleedin’ New York ain’t like this.

When Hugh Larney’s carriage, with the huge Thor sitting up top on the driver’s seat, pulled away onto snow covered Fifth Avenue, Poe let the green curtain fall into place and turned to look at Figg.

“I know of her so-called Dutch uncle, one Wade Bruenhausen, who is a flesh peddler with foul habits and more than a casual share of nature’s cruelty. He is possessed of formidable hypocrisy.”

“Sounds darlin’, he does.”

“Prior to sending forth the children to steal and whore, Mr. Bruenhausen stirs their tiny hearts with a reading from the bible and occasionally, a hymn into the bargain.”

“Right peculiar sort, ain’t he.”

“Paracelsus, Miles Standish, Bruenhausen and now Hugh Larney. Such men make me ill. They use women and I find such men despicable.”

Figg watched Poe’s thin mouth quiver under the writer’s mustache. Lord high protector, thought the boxer. Never got the chance to protect his mum and ’e can’t protect his wife now’ cause she’s in the ground, so he’s got to find some lady what needs him. Or he thinks needs him.

“You best face facts, Mr. Poe-”

“Facts!” Poe threw both hands up in the air.

Over by the fireplace, Rachel Coltman flinched at the sudden loudness of his voice. She’s stayed away from their conversation at the window. Somehow she’d sensed that Poe and Figg were talking about the child Dearborn in a manner that no nineteenth-century lady should overhear. Modesty was much in fashion and there were things between men that the ears of no self-respecting woman should encounter.

She watched an angry Eddy stalk away from Mr. Figg. In the center of the book-lined study, Poe stopped, his glittering eyes boring first into Rachel then into Figg. It was times like these that he frightened and attracted her. She found herself breathing faster, drawn to him despite a tiny voice of caution within her.

“Facts?” snapped Poe again. “Heed me now, sir. You think me a buffoon around women?”

Figg sat down on the leather couch. “I minds me manners in front of a lady. I do not recall sayin’-”

“I am about to demonstrate a clarity of mind which you surmise I lack. I shall prove to you now, sir.”

Figg reached for a cup half filled with cold tea, dwarfing it between his huge hands. He mumbled, his wide mouth hidden by the cup. “Mr. Dickens says you have the cravin’ to prove your superiority over one and all.”

“Speak up, sir! We are all of us here fluent in the mother tongue.”

Rachel walked over to Poe, placing an arm around his shoulders. “Dear Eddy, calm yourself.”

Poe patted the back of her hand. “Thank you, beloved friend, but be at ease. I am not the maniacal and dangerous fellow my enemies have created from their own ignorance. Sit and listen, for I shall now say more of this business of Paracelsus, of Jonathan and the grave robbers. Both you and Mr. Figg shall listen and observe that my intelligence functions most incisively. Yes, the sorrow of my existence has forced me to live in constant disappointment and discomfort. Mine has been a life of poverty and depression, but-”

He aimed a forefinger at Figg. “But sir, I never guess at anything. I analyze most intelligently. Facts, you say. Well hear me. Let me tell you of the original Dr. Paracelsus, the original-”

Figg, with a two-handed grip on the fragile tea cup, paused in his drinking. “You sayin’ there is two of ’em?”

“The original Paracelsus was Swiss, born in the fifteenth century to a poor nobleman. Christened Theopharastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, the son studied medicine and became a doctor while also possessing psychic skills. These talents allowed him to perform unusual cures which soon brought him fame as well as appointment as professor of medicine at the University of Basel. Von Hohenheim took the name of Celsus, that famed physician of ancient Rome, adding Para which means beyond in Greek. It follows from all of this that von Hohenheim ranked himself as greater than Celsus.”

Ain’t got a patch on you, mate, thought Figg. You and him both thinks you can walk on water.

“As Paracelsus,” Poe continued, “our fifteenth-century man of medicine was also a sorcerer, magician, a sensitive believed to have the power to read the future as well as the minds of men. He became egocentric, a man of extraordinary vanity. He began to drink too much and he developed a violent temper, as well as a strong belief in his self-created legend. He ordered his students to burn the books of those men who disagreed with him and he made numerous enemies. He imagined many plots against him and in truth there were plots against him. When his enemies grew larger in numbers, Paracelsus was forced to flee the university, thereafter wandering Europe for fourteen years, becoming even more violent and abusive. He saw a world filled with enemies and he was both correct and in error in his thinking. Some were his foes, some were not. The death of Paracelsus only increased the mystery of the man.”

Poe walked over to the fireplace, extending the palms of his hands towards the warmth of the flames. “Some say he was poisoned, others say he became drunk, rolled down a hill and died as a result of injuries. In death, he gained even more fame. Today those who follow the dark sciences consider Paracelsus a patron saint, an icon to be worshipped and imitated. It is safe to call the man both an adept and a charlatan, for in truth he did possess the power of healing as well as a talent for deception. On occasion, yes, he could call up from deep within himself those strange powers which have eternally baffled man. But Paracelsus was boastful, proud and often dangerous.”