Page 6 of Malevolent Hearts

“She’s not here.” My whisper gets lost in a gust of wind, but as I twist on my heel to leave something floats through the air before eventually landing a few feet away from me. “What the fuck?”

Closing the space between myself and what looks like a charred piece of paper, I hunker down and reach for it. It only takes me a second to register what it is—a page from one of my favourite poetry books, The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.

I left this book on the bedside locker in the room above my library. What the fuck?

My eyes scan the remaining print, at least what is left of it, and a chill runs down my spine as I read through some of my favourite verses of all time.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love?—

I and my Annabel Lee?—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me?—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we?—

Of many far wiser than we?—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul