Edgar comes suddenly out of a deep sleep in his bed that night, but the culprit is not the hag or a sound at the door or even a jolt of fear. It is almost as if someone has entered his room and shaken him by the shoulders to bring him to consciousness. He lies very still, imagining that his door is opening and then closing, that footsteps are traveling very softly down the stairs. He is not sure though. Then he feels something moving in his bed. It is down near the bottom, accompanied by a strange rustling sound: his blanket is quivering, as if its flesh is crawling. Something is coming toward him.
In the dim light, he sees the snake in the covers: gigantic and lurid green.
Edgar leaps to his feet in his bed. The snake’s huge head is emerging from under the blanket, its forked tongue darting toward him. He steps back to the wall and throws his arms flat against it and the creature pauses. It regards him silently and appears to smile, but the tongue reaches out again and the big serpent makes for him. Edgar jumps to the floor, runs out the door and slams it behind him, crying out for help.
Instantly, the house is alive.
“EDGAR?” shouts Annabel from down below.
“MASTER BRIM!” cries Beasley, who sounds like he is running.
Seconds later, Thorne House is full of people carrying lanterns and charging up the stairs, quickly surrounding Edgar in the hallway outside his closed door. A male and female servant, known to be sweet on each other, are part of the rescue party, somehow dressed and awake at this hour.
“What is it, Edgar?” asks Annabel. “You look terrified!”
“In…in there!” he cries, pointing toward his door.
“In your bedroom?” asks Annabel.
“A snake! A giant one! Green and horrible!” He feels ridiculous saying this—his voice sounds like it belongs to someone else again, this time someone who is falling apart.
“I shall survey the room,” says Beasley.
“No,” says Edgar, “no, don’t go in there!”
“I had occasion to meet a good many snakes in India, sir,” says the butler. “One must not be frightened. It does not help, for they sense it. One must do as is required. If I can throw a blanket or sheet over it, then it will likely settle nicely.”
He opens the door gingerly, inch by inch, and it creaks as he peeks into the dim room, shedding light around it with his lantern. He steps inside and closes the door behind him. There is silence. It goes on for a good two minutes. Edgar is ashamed that he is simply standing there doing nothing and wonders how he could have let the butler go into the room on his own. He reaches for the doorknob, but the door opens and out comes Beasley, holding on to a blank expression.
“There is nothing in your room, sir. Or at least, no snake.”
“But that can’t be.”
“I’m afraid, sir, that it is.”
Annabel frowns at Edgar. The other servants drop their gazes to the floor.
“I’ll show you!” says Edgar and rushes into the room, turns on his electric light and regards his bed. Nothing. He opens his closet door and searches inside. Nothing. He gets down on his knees, looks along the floor from one end of the room to the other and sees only the gleaming hardwood planks and his rugs.
“Well…it was here.”
“If…if that is the case, ma’am,” says the young female servant to Annabel, “then might it be on the loose in the house!”
“Nonsense!” says Beasley. He glances in Edgar’s direction. “Nonsense, that is, that it might still be slithering about the house…do not worry yourself, my dear. We have had enough excitement. Let us make our way back to our rooms.”
As the others depart, Edgar and Annabel remain outside his door.
“You know, my son, those books by this Freud fellow are translated into English. You can find them in the British Museum Library. He has invented something called psychoanalysis…and you can do it on yourself!” She lets out a laugh, slaps him on the back and makes her way downstairs too. When she reaches the next floor, however, she looks back up at him with a worried expression.
Though Edgar doesn’t sleep another wink that night, by the time the sun has risen, he has convinced himself that the snake was a figment of his imagination, and that fact scares him almost as much as if it had been real.
There are two messages on Beasley’s little silver plate in the morning and both are for Edgar. He reads them as he and Annabel take a quiet breakfast, during which he several times catches her examining his face.
The messages are strangely similar.
Could we meet sometime today? reads the first. Something happened last night. Lucy.
The second says, I went home last night. Something happened. Come to the Lears’ today if you can. Tiger.
“Anything of interest?” asks Annabel.
“Uh, nothing, no, just social notes from friends.” He wants to tell her more, but right now, his adoptive mother does not seem like an ally.
When Edgar arrives at the hospital that day, he finds a note saying that the chairman will be away for the day. Lawrence, however, has left a good deal of work for Edgar to do, mostly involving his carrying signed papers to various locations in the city, among them banks and insurance offices. His shortest trip, however, intrigues him the most—the delivery of a thick, sealed brown envelope to Dr. Berenice, one floor down. The package is not stacked with the other items, but it seems evident that it should go out, so he descends to the alienist’s office, intrigued by who will answer the door and what he might see inside, and immediately notices the blinds drawn down on its door again. As he approaches, he hears voices on the other side, speaking in low tones. He could swear that one of them belongs to Sir Andrew Lawrence.
“I must stop being ridiculous,” he whispers to himself, “imagining things. I am letting the fears in my mind control my nerves.”
He knocks.
The voices stop.
Suddenly, someone speaks to him, a woman, from right at the other side of the door, though there was no indication that anyone had approached.
“Yes?”
“I have something for Dr. Berenice.”
“Slide it under the door.”
He jams it partway through and then feels it pulled the rest of the way by a strong hand. The woman does not say another word.
Edgar finishes the rest of the work set out for him, and about three o’clock, an hour before he is scheduled to leave, departs the hospital and almost runs all the way northwest to Kentish Town, making the ninety-minute walk in less than an hour, perspiring in the heat.
The first thing that strikes him when he enters the quiet home is the presence of William Shakespeare sitting in one of the big comfortable chairs in the living room, his feet dangling well above the floor, his big face beet-red with sweat. The others look stone-faced.
“Why is he here?”
“Well, Edgar Brim, Broom, Brim! It is indeed a pleasure to see you as well! I just happened to be about the neighborhood and thought I might stop by and see our inestimable acquaintances, when what should I be told but that you were going to make your glorious presence felt as well. I thought I should stay to greet you! And I have been informed of some rather disturbing occurrences in the residences of our friends this past evening.”
“I thought you didn’t get out much.”
“I don’t.”
“Are you sure? Do you have business in the East End, in Whitechapel?”
“OH! Whitechapel! Such a mess in our multitudinous and meretricious metropolis, such a scandalous and scurrilous section of squalid sprawl!…Never been.”
“I thought I saw you there, yesterday.”
“You were mistaken.”
“And yet, here you are, far from home, at just the right moment to hear whatever news we might have.”
“Edgar,” says Jonathan, “what are you talking about? The little boob just happened to drop by.”
“Boob?” says Shakespeare. “You must have me confused with another gentleman. I knew a Boob once, two Boobs, in fact, three, now that I think of it!”
“I had a visitor last night,” says Tiger.
“And so did we,” says Lucy.
“Snakes,” says Jonathan.
Edgar, in the process of sitting down, straightens up. “I beg your pardon?”
“We both had snakes as guests,” says Tiger. “One in my bed in Brixton, another in Lucy’s here in Kentish Town. Not very friendly chaps.”
Edgar falls back into the chair. “There…there was one in my bed too! I didn’t think it was real!”
“This isn’t good,” says Shakespeare, “not a good thing at all!”
“Such brilliant analysis,” says Jonathan.
The little fellow smiles. “Thank you, Master Lear. You see, I just put together three intriguing facts that—”
“What is after us now?” asks Lucy, her trembling hand reaching out for Edgar’s. “I cannot go through this again. I cannot.”
“I told you all it would be worse! And now, it has come!”
“Hold your tongue, little man,” says Jonathan.
“It isn’t his fault, Jon,” says Lucy. “He is just telling us the truth, like he’s done all along. I have to escape from all of this and you three must come with me! We must flee and get as far away as we can, to the continent, maybe to America.”
“The devil is everywhere,” says Shakespeare in a dramatic voice. “You will not be able to elude him, no matter where you go.” He stares off into the distance as if he were seeing something horrific. Edgar has never seen the little man look so distraught.
“I told you to be quiet!” Jonathan is pacing now.
“What happened to the snakes? Are they still loose in your homes?” asks Edgar, rising and stepping toward the hallway and peering down it. “The butler did a thorough search at Thorne House but found nothing. What were they like?”
Lucy speaks in a monotone. “It was gigantic and green, like a monstrous worm in my bed. I screamed when I saw it and ran from my room, and Jonathan met me outside my door. He went in with his cricket bat, but could not find any sign of it, though the window was slightly ajar. It has not come back. At least, we don’t think it has.”
Edgar is wondering about the window in his own room. He will have to examine it when he returns.
“Anacondas, squeezers, lethal,” mutters Shakespeare.
“How do three gigantic snakes suddenly appear in our homes on the same night?” asks Tiger. “Is there an army of monsters against us this time?”
“Satan,” says Shakespeare. “He can take any form, be in many places at once!”
Edgar tries not to react. He returns to his chair and sits down, holding himself rigid.
“There goes my vacation,” says Jon. His smile is forced.
Tiger scratches her chin. “How do we fight this?”
“We don’t,” says Lucy. “We must pack our things tonight and get across the channel…to France.”
“The home of the devil,” says Shakespeare.
“We can’t run, sis. We have the cannon and the rifle, and we have our brains and our resourcefulness. Grandfather killed Grendel; we eliminated the vampire and a Frankenstein creature! We can do it again. We have a responsibility to protect others too. We know about the creatures, what they have done in the past, about our loved ones whom they killed! I will employ the weapons myself!”
“To shoot at what? Three giant snakes in three different places at once? An evil, a force as powerful as God?” says Lucy.
“I don’t think that’s quite—”
“You could…negotiate,” says Shakespeare.
“Ah, yes, a deal with the devil,” snaps Jon.
“It has been done before. In the Faust story for example, and in many other tales,” says the little man.
Edgar remembers the great actor Henry Irving portraying the devil so convincingly in the Faust play at the Lyceum Theatre, he and his friends and Professor Lear watching as if entranced from the seats…the night the vampire creature first appeared to him, right on that stage. He remembers murdering it just a few days later.
“Exactly. Stories!” shouts Jon.
“And what did the devil want in Faust?” asks Edgar in a monotone. He knows the answer.
“I believe it was a soul, Master Broom.”
“Ah, yes,” says Jon, “a small price to pay.” He strides to the fireplace and seizes Alfred Thorne’s remarkable rifle from the mantel, the one with the expanding bullets, the one that took off three-quarters of the vampire’s neck. He snaps the chamber open and sees that it is loaded. He smiles. “Let’s stop talking nonsense. I am not running away. If it can incarnate itself as something, then that something must be made of flesh and blood, a visible living being of a sort, and that means we can kill it. An anaconda, big as it is, would not react well to one of these bullets exploding its head into a million pieces.” His face is flushed. “Let it come, I say!”
He points the gun at the door, then down the hall. Edgar, however, can see the fear in his eyes, doubt behind all the bluster, doubt that is creating the bluster.
Edgar lowers his head into his hands. “I’m not sure what to do. I do not think fleeing is the answer either. It wasn’t the other times we were pursued. They keep coming. We simply have to figure out how to defeat it.”
“Or them,” says Shakespeare. “As Miss Lear pointed out, there were three of them in your beds!” His foot is tapping wildly, as if someone else were controlling it.
“Three or six hundred and sixty-six, we’ll be ready!” says Jon.
Edgar lifts his head. “I’m going to stay here tonight and maybe tomorrow, maybe all week. I think it is best we are together with the cannon and the rifle. Tiger and Lucy should share a bed, and Jon and I another.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” says Jonathan.
“Every precaution, everyone alert, every weapon primed.”
“I have seen him,” says the little man under his breath.
“What did you say?” asks Edgar.
“We’ve all seen him,” mutters Tiger. “One way or another.”
“It will not work!” screeches Shakespeare. “OH! We are all doomed!”
“We?” says Jon. “You haven’t been a target yet.”
That is true, thinks Edgar, very true.
Edgar leaves for the hospital the next day with some trepidation. He wishes he could remain with his friends all day. He sends a note to Annabel, telling her that he has decided to stay at the Lears’ home for a few days and that Beasley should send some clothing to the Kentish Town address for him.
When Edgar reaches the second-to-top floor, he sees that the blinds on the nerve specialist’s door are down once more and the lights dim again too. He rushes past it without pausing.
When Edgar is shown into Sir Andrew’s room, the chairman is too wrapped up in the invisible woman he is squiring about the floor in a waltz to notice his assistant. He is singing too, just as Annabel did, though he is butchering his song, an operatic piece sung at an ear-injuring level. His happiness makes Edgar feel as though they are living in different realities. The chairman is positively floating on air, a man unquestionably in love. It is such a contrast to the evil that Edgar feels is closing in on him and his friends.
Edgar stands quietly inside the office door until Sir Andrew comes to the end of his dance. “Ah! My boy!” he finally says. “Sit down.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Sir Andrew takes the chair behind his desk and Edgar the one in front of it.
“How is your mother? You know, I am not quite myself when I am with her. I feel a sort of intoxication, almost. It is very strange. I know I should have told you that I asked her to walk out with me, alone. I am sorry for that, not like me to do that, normally, but she seemed so accepting of it when I asked. How is she, indeed?”
Edgar wonders how he could have doubted Sir Andrew Lawrence. “She is well, sir.” He pauses. He thinks of the fact that there is not a single man left in his life to whom he can talk. “I have something of pressing importance to share with you.”
“Well, no beating around the bush, I see. If it is a bad thing, then let us hear it. I think I could bear anything right now, even about your mother, though I shan’t believe it if it is too unsavory.”
“It is bad, yes, but it’s about me. It is something that I must tell you. I desperately need to tell you…because I believe I can trust you.” Edgar’s hands are shaking and Lawrence notices.
“This sounds serious indeed. You have my full attention. Whatever I can do for you, I shall.”
Edgar pauses again. “Do you recall that I said something about monsters the other day?”
“Yes, yes. You and I share a vivid imagination. We enter the stories we read, the plays we see, and the paintings we regard. Though I do have the sense such experiences are more intense for you. So…monsters? You have encountered them in the sensation novels that are about these days. That is nothing to be ashamed of, even if it upsets you greatly. It is not unmanly. It shows you have feelings and that you care. It might actually be a good—”
“They are real.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I should not say that. They are not all real. I don’t mean that…but some of them are.”
“I don’t follow you. What is real?” Lawrence’s light tone is diminishing.
“There are aberrations in the world, sir.”
“Aberrations?”
“There are monsters; there are creatures alive on this earth like one might find in our imaginations, in their darkest corners. Some have appeared in famous stories.”
“Whatever do you mean? Are you referring to the beasts in fairy tales? Surely you—”
“I mean like Dracula.”
“Dracula?” Lawrence sits back. “Isn’t that the repulsive character which that fellow Stoker, the manager at the Lyceum Theatre, Irving’s man, put in that trash of a novel he wrote this year. There is a lascivious tone in it, lascivious indeed! Look here, I do not recommend that you read such things. I saw a review of it in the—”
“The monster in it was real.”
“Surely you can’t mean—”
“But we killed it.”
Edgar’s voice has dropped low, and though Lawrence barely hears him, he hears enough.
“Edgar…”
“I don’t mean to suggest that Mr. Stoker found a Count Dracula living in a castle in eastern Europe. Nor do I mean that he knows of a revenant that sucks blood from women’s necks, taking their essence from them in their bedrooms while their husbands are absent. And I am not suggesting that he knows of women who have been infected by such a beast and thus had to be staked through the heart by men with iron—”
“Edgar!”
“That is not what I am saying.”
“Then what, in God’s name, are you saying?” Sir Andrew is sitting bolt upright now.
“Mr. Stoker accidentally stumbled upon an aberration, one he didn’t know was a monster, and it found its way into that novel.”
“And…you killed it?” Lawrence pushes his chair back from the desk.
“Not just me. Me and three friends and a professor who destroyed Grendel.”
“Grendel? From the story…Beowulf?”
Edgar is not listening. He speaks as if in a trance. “A professor, a dear man, and a brave one, with just one arm…who is dead now…his throat crushed by another aberration…”
“Edgar, get a hold of yourself.”
“Frankenstein!”
Lawrence gets up from his chair, walks around his desk and puts a hand on Edgar’s shoulder. “Listen to me. You are suffering from delusions, a phobia of some sort, some neurasthenia, or nerve problem. I…I know about those things. I told you we have someone here now who can help with such difficulties. There, now, I won’t judge you.”
“Frankenstein’s creature…we murdered it too.”
“That is not something you—”
“We had to, sir. We had to!” Edgar is shouting now. “It was coming after us! I killed it with a harpoon gun from a whaling ship. It had gone north to the Arctic…like in the novel. Mary Shelley had seen it, though she was not aware she had. She put that thing into her novel and did not know that it really existed. Can you imagine that?”
“No, Edgar, no I cannot. You are in a real place here, right now. Look around this room, an office, my office, in the London Hospital in London, England. You are not in a novel, a play or a painting. You are here with me.”
“Dr. Godwin…he was Frankenstein’s creature!”
Lawrence’s eyes widen. “All right, Edgar, you really need to come with me.”
Edgar leaps to his feet. “I can prove it to you! Godwin was trying to make another creature just like himself. He was trying to eliminate us because we knew. That is what he was doing in that laboratory at the top of the Midland Grand Hotel! The reason he wasn’t found was because he escaped; his face burned off, yellow and scarred, stitched up, a marvelous brain placed in his skull. We chased him, though! We tracked him and destroyed him! They believe they cannot live if people know about them! There may be more of them. Who knows? Someone told us that if we killed one, another would come after us. I see a hag, sir, an old woman. She sat on my chest as I woke in the mornings when I was a child, but now she comes all the time…the hag phenomenon, sleep paralysis…no, it isn’t that…it is real! It talks to me now! My father read horror stories when I was a child; he did not know that I heard them. They came down through the heat pipes! They electrified my brain!…Find out where Godwin came from, sir. You will see. Because he came from nowhere and was not born of a woman. Find out where he was before he took up residence here, what hospital recommended him, and where he was before that! We dropped the dead vampire into the basement of the Lyceum, buried him in a grave along with his severed head—we cut it off in a guillotine—yes, put his head in there with him! Go there, sir, dig up the earth in the basement of the Lyceum Theatre! You will see!”
“Edgar, I am going to take you by the hand and lead you to another room now, a special room one floor down. I have mentioned it before.” Lawrence’s hand is shaking as he takes a hold of Edgar. “I will inform your dear mother of your situation.” His voice sounds choked.
Edgar pushes him away. “Shakespeare says that the next one that comes after the likes of us is always worse!”
“Shakespeare?”
“Do you know what is after us now?”
“Edgar, I—”
“DO YOU KNOW?”
“No.”
“There were SNAKES in our beds! SNAKES!”
“Edgar—”
“The devil! SATAN himself!”
Lawrence stares at him. Edgar Brim is quivering from head to foot.
“You must…God, SOMEONE must help us!”
Edgar runs from the room.