Sam hardly recognized Poe like this, his forehead shiny with perspiration, his eyes wild and frenzied. The friendly poet she met on the Pocahontas had transformed into one of his unhinged protagonists. Sam shuddered and tightened her grip on JB.
JB's eyes were glued to the elucidator in Poe's hand. "Where did you get that?" he asked cautiously.
"I will ask the questions," Poe shot back. "Who are you?"
Somehow, JB remained calm. "Mr. Poe, I implore you to hand me that device so we can have a civil discussion. Believe me, you do not wish to yield that which you cannot control." Sam had no idea how JB could maintain historically accurate speech at a time like this. If she were in his place, she doubted she'd be able to mutter anything remotely intelligible.
Poe only tightened his hold on the elucidator. "You do not believe I am capable of using this? Then perhaps I will tell you how I came to possess it. Then you will not doubt my threat."
"Go on," JB said.
"There was a man," said Poe. As he said it, his mustache quivered for a moment, though his stance remained firm. "I could not see his face, but he claimed to be a time traveler. I, of course, did not believe him until he grabbed hold of my arm and transported me to an unusual place…a time hole, he called it—" Time hollow? Sam thought "—and he showed me an incredible wall of moving portraits. Portraits of you, 'Mr. and Mrs. Blossom,' appearing out of thin air in a large field. You wore outdated clothes—the kind I recall my mother and father wearing in my youth."
"This man," said JB, "You said you couldn't see his face. Did it happen to be beneath a hood?"
Poe nodded. "He said you knew him."
Sam's flesh seemed to crawl right off her body; like a snake shedding an entire layer of skin. Poe had encountered the hooded man.
"What else did the man show you?" asked JB. His voice remained steady, but with her hand tight on his elbow, Sam felt the subtle quickening of his pulse.
"He showed me moments from your life," said Poe, speaking directly to JB now. "I saw how a single pill cured the visions that plagued you as a child. I watched a needle cure all your lung ailments within seconds. You may not be a physician like your companion said, but I am certain you can save my wife."
Of course, Sam realized. Of course that's what all this was about. A twinge of sympathy for Poe mingled with the terror.
JB softened a little. "I'm very sorry, Sir, but that isn't possible. The paradox of doubles won't allow it."
"The paradox of doubles…" murmured Poe.
"It's when—" JB started, but Poe cut him off.
"I understand what it means. The name is self-explanatory. Nonetheless, I must try." Before Sam or JB could make a single move, Poe snatched JB by the shoulder and pressed a button on the elucidator. Sam tightened her grip on JB as the Baltimore streets dissolved into outer time.
"Hang on tight," JB whispered to Sam in the swirling darkness. "I'm going to try and grab his elucidator." Sam could not possibly hold him any tighter than she was now, but she braced herself as JB wrestled Poe for the elucidator.
Poe was not a large man, but he was nimble. Every time JB seemed to overpower him, he squirmed and contorted until his hand was out of reach. Sam freed her left hand and dug under JB's coat for the pocket watch. If they couldn't get Poe's elucidator, at least they could use their own.
She patted his waistcoat, searching, searching…there! She reached into the waistcoat pocket, curled her fingers around the round metal case, and yanked it out. "JB, here!"
Too late. JB hardly had time to turn his head before Poe caught the chain around his wrist and swiped it out of reach.
"No!" Sam screamed. "No, we need that!"
"And I need a cure for my wife!" Poe hissed back at her.
Helpless now, Sam gritted her teeth and prepared for a rough descent.
...
They landed with a crunch onto frosty grass. The sky was clear and sunny, but the air whipped her bare arms with a sharp chill. A few yards ahead stood a simple white house. There was no sign of a front door, so Sam concluded they had landed in the backyard. The left side of the roof sloped downward at an angle and smoke curled up from a chimney. Sam recognized the place from her last visit to New York. The concrete buildings and parking lots were gone, of course, but the house had hardly changed. This was Poe Cottage, Poe's home since 1846.
There was no time for further examination. JB and Poe were already rolling around on the grass—JB grappling for the elucidators, Poe curled up in a protective ball.
"JB, stop," she said. There was no way either she or JB would be able to pry anything out of someone so desperate. "Look where we are. This is Poe's house in the Bronx."
"January, 1847," Poe grunted as he continued to fight off JB.
JB stopped fighting and glared at his opponent. "That isn't possible. Elucidators won't allow anyone to travel to a time they've already lived through. If this was 1847, Poe wouldn't be here."
"See for yourself," said Poe with a smirk. "Look in the window." He pointed to a window on the left side of the cottage. Sam noticed two people inside.
JB must have seen them too because he gasped and dashed behind a nearby tree trunk. "Don't let them see you!" he warned. Sam leapt to his side and smooshed her petticoats together as tightly as she could. Poe stuffed the elucidators into his coat and joined them behind the tree. JB's eyes darted to Poe's pocket, but Poe stuffed his hand firmly inside and glared back at JB as if to say, Don't even think about it.
Sam peered behind a low branch into the window of the cottage where she had spotted the figures. Upon closer inspection, she realized there were actually three people in the tiny room. The third individual could only be identified as a lump under a pile of sheets on a little bed. The bed faced the opposite direction of the window, so Sam could not see the person's head, but she had a pretty good idea of who it was. A tortoiseshell cat was curled up on top of the bedridden lump, its fluffy body rising and falling in a soothing rhythm. A square-faced woman dressed in black clutched the posts at the foot of the bed, muttering what looked like a prayer. A man with wavy dark hair and bloodshot eyes knelt beside the bed and cradled a delicate hand that reached out to him from under the sheets. This man was none other than Edgar Allan Poe—the mirror image of the Poe huddled behind the tree next to her.
"You see?" whispered Poe triumphantly. "It is possible."
All color drained from JB's face. He shook his head. "No, no, no. This isn't right. It's only happened a couple of times before, and that was because time was on the verge of collapsing."
Sam's insides twisted into a knot. She'd known time was in danger—JB had explained that on day one—but "on the verge of collapsing" was a whole other level of terrible. Just when she'd come to terms with the fact that a maniac was hunting her down, now time itself could collapse? That meant the end of everything, the end of everyone.
"Look, there," Poe pointed at the window. "In just a few minutes, Muddy and I will leave Virginia's bedside to start making supper."
"Muddy?" said JB.
Poe motioned toward the woman at the end of the bed. "My mother-in-law."
"Her real name is Maria," Sam explained. "Maria Clemm. Muddy was a nickname—is a nickname." It was so strange, speaking in the present tense when recalling facts she'd read in biographies and history books.
Poe waved his hand to hurry them up. "Yes, yes, now listen. When Virginia is alone, we will teleport inside the room and bring her to a time hole, where you will cure her."
"What about your fiancé?" said Sam. "Elmira Royster, right? Don't you love her?"
"I love Virginia more," said Poe without hesitation. "Please, let me continue. You will cure Virginia, then you will take her and me to the future where we will live out the rest of our lives in good health."
JB snorted. "You want to go to the future? Ha. You'd stick out like a sore thumb."
"And why is that?" asked Poe.
JB hesitated, but eventually shrugged and let out a humorless laugh. "You know what, fine. I normally wouldn't let an 1840s time native in on this, but since you're about to ruin time anyway, maybe I can at least convince you that the future is not the place for someone like you."
"Someone like me?"
"I think he's talking about your views on slavery," said Sam. "I can't speak for JB's time, but in the twenty-first century, slavery is long gone. Racism still exists, but people will call you out on it. Black people can vote, black women can vote, there are black singers, actors, writers…We've had a black president! Come on, Mr. Poe, can you really hear all of that and still think that being pro-slavery puts you on the right side of history?"
Poe blinked and stood in a stunned silence until JB made a lunge for his coat pocket. Poe dodged him and pulled out the elucidators. He aimed one at JB and one at Sam, and pressed a button on each. Sam screamed as everything from her neck down went completely numb. She couldn't move a single muscle—it was like her body didn't even exist anymore.
"Sam, stop screaming," JB pleaded. "We can't let anyone hear us."
"But I can't move!"
"I know," said JB through clenched teeth. "Neither can I. It seems our hooded pest taught Poe a few tricks on the elucidator."
"I'm sorry," Poe said, and to his credit, he sounded genuine. "I did not want to do this. On the contrary, I like both of you very much. But I love Virginia and the only way to save her is to bring her to the future so she can be cured."
"So are you saying you're fine with there being no slavery?" Sam didn't intend for it to come out sounding so hopeful. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw JB sigh and shake his head.
"If what you say about the future is true," said Poe, "I have no complaints. I've always maintained that I am a man of logic, and that only logic will sway my views. You see, I do not—or did not—believe that a society without slavery could survive. It is woven into every part of our economy. Besides, where would the freed slaves go? Is it not their masters who mercifully provide their housing and food and…"
"I am literally going to barf on your lawn," Sam warned.
"But," Poe continued, "it seems that my concerns are unfounded. You say slavery is no more and that the world thrives nonetheless—"
"'Thrives' is a bit of a stretch, but that's a whole different issue," said Sam.
"—then I can only conclude that I was wrong."
Sam couldn't help it. Even frozen in place while time was on the verge of collapse, she grinned at Poe. So he was capable of change, even without Emily Dickinson.
JB seemed less impressed. "It doesn't matter. You can't just make two people disappear from history and not cause ripples. The future you plan to live in? It may not even exist if you go through with this plan."
"Ripples?" said Poe.
"Ripples," JB repeated. "They're the consequences of messing with history. If Virginia disappears from her deathbed, people will notice. You're only here with us now because Virginia died. If she vanished, the lives of everyone who knew her would be altered. And when so many lives are changed, so does history."
Something occurred to Sam. "Wait, but weren't you able to save some of the Romanovs by planting fake remains for people to find? Could we do the same thing for Virginia?"
"First of all," said JB, "I didn't plant those remains. Second, those remains were skeletal. Virginia's body is supposed to be found only minutes after her death. Even if the time agency had the desire or the budget to fake another historical death, we'd need a body at around the same stage of decomposition—and for it to be ethical, it would need to be from a donor. Then we'd have to disguise it with very complicated technology to resemble Virginia both in looks and in DNA. I know for a fact that no cadaver donors have died recently enough to pull that off."
The fiery determination that lit Poe's eyes flickered out. He leaned his back against the tree trunk and buried his face in his hands. "There must be something we can do to save her…Wait." His hands fell from his face and the spark was back, even fiercer than before. "I will be the body."
"That's not how it works," said JB. "The body has to be dead."
Poe gave a sullen nod. "I know."
Sam wished she weren't paralyzed so she could run to Poe and give the man a much-needed hug. She hated this. It wasn't Poe or Virginia's fault that they'd been born before the tuberculosis vaccine. And here they were, right outside Virginia's window, with the ability to cure her, but at the cost of the whole universe.
"Mr. Poe," said JB compassionately. "May I offer a compromise?"
Poe raised his eyebrows. "What kind of compromise?"
"A final goodbye. If you unfreeze us, I can take you and Virginia to a time hollow right now, and you can say your farewells on your own terms."
"If I unfreeze you, how can I be sure you won't attack me again?" said Poe.
JB sighed. "You'll just have to trust us."