The Dark Missions of Edgar Brim Read online

  “Frankenstein!”

  The big boy stood up again. He stepped silently into the hallway. The fevered exclamations were coming from the new boy’s room! Fardle moved to the thick wooden door and peered through the barred window into the darkness within. He couldn’t see anything but he could hear Brim begging someone, something, to spare him.

  Fardle grinned. He moved to another room farther down the hallway. “Maggett!” he whispered as loudly as he dared. “Rise up, Maggett!” In seconds he had Smith and Jones with him too. They stole back to Brim’s door.

  “NO!” Edgar cried out. There was absolute terror in his voice this time, so chilling that for an instant the four bigger boys were frozen in their places. But then they broke into giggles.

  Inside the room, the hag was upon Edgar Brim.

  7

  Dear Friend

  Edgar tried to avoid Fardle, scurrying quietly through the dim halls and sitting alone at a long wooden table in the cathedral-like Great Dining Hall, where students were required to consume their meals with a minimum of fuss. It had the appearance of the nave of a medieval church, all wood and stained glass windows, though neither Jesus Christ nor even the Queen looked down upon the proceedings from the eight-foot portrait that hung above the stage. The subject was Headmaster Griswold himself, apparently the dictator of this place.

  Neither Griswold nor his professors, collectively known as “the dismal dozen,” were any help to Edgar at meals or any other time. The towering headmaster and his three closest colleagues, Professors Lovecraft, Numb and Lear, sat together in their robes on the Hall’s dais, distant from others and unapproachable.

  Edgar heard the other students whispering about them. Lovecraft was the only instructor they liked: he never struck a boy or raised his voice in anger and he taught literature as if it were a never-ending story. Barely over five feet tall, he was an elf of hope in a world of darkness. But he had a strange habit. He became monsters. He liked to dress up as literary villains and walk the hallways at night, supposedly to scare students who might be late getting back to their rooms. His portrayal of the vampyre from the novel of the same name was a particular killer. The boys were thankful that Griswold, or the muscular Numb, or especially the hooded “Driver” (who seemed everywhere) didn’t do such things.

  But Edgar was most unnerved by the bearded Lear. There was something frightening in his very presence: one-armed and massive and with a full head of dark hair streaked with gray, his silent ways seemed to inspire dread in every boy, even from a distance. And right from the beginning, he appeared to take an interest in Edgar, staring down at him from the dais.

  The dark stone hallways, the looming portraits of dead professors on the walls, and the men who now inhabited the college, were unsettling enough during the day, but at night the ancient building seemed possessed. Edgar could swear there was something large moving about in the cellar two floors below, something moaning; he thought he heard sawing, the pounding of a hammer, and little shrieks. Outside his window, the wind howled over the moors and things seemed to be running for their lives. One night, Edgar found himself alone in the entrance hall, having lingered in Lovecraft’s classroom finishing an essay. It was pitch black outside and the big dim room and its shadows were silent. As Edgar hurried toward the stairs, he saw something moving at the top of the first flight: a black, red-striped robe swirling and the side of an ancient face like a cadaver’s. The figure was floating upward. A ghost!

  Then the apparition vanished and Headmaster Griswold somehow took its place, his big master key ring jingling from his hand. Or was he in pursuit?

  “The creature from the moors is coming to get you tonight,” Fardle loved to tell Edgar. “Something is out there, you know.”

  “At least five boys have seen it!” Maggett added.

  “There’s a demon in the cellar too!” cried Smith.

  “And a madman in the turret!” said Jones.

  Only Fardle, it seemed to Edgar, spoke without some fear in his voice.

  Edgar Brim put up with villainy and taunts, even as his torments increased. He avoided confrontation and kept to himself.

  “Can’t you do something to help Brim, Headmaster?” asked Lovecraft one day as they spoke in Griswold’s office, a room with one window on the third floor. The big desk was littered with papers, great stacks of lists of rules and documents on conduct. The shelves held just a few books and not one of them was within arm’s reach. Griswold leaned over Lovecraft and looked down his huge, aquiline nose from more than a foot above.

  “It would run counter to the beliefs of our institution, sir. He must learn to be a man. He has a challenge before him and he must take it up or perish! He has never complained, anyway.”

  In order to survive, Edgar concentrated on his studies. Within a few months, he was at the top of his classes (which didn’t help his popularity), strong in every subject, but best in literature. Lovecraft pronounced Master Brim “a genius” and wrote in his reports that “his empathy for the characters is unparalleled in a student in my recollection.” He didn’t know that Edgar actually entered the stories he read, or that when he wasn’t studying or focused in class, he was disturbingly anxious.

  But then, at midterm, a sort of present arrived for Edgar. It took the form of a boy named Tiger Tilley. He wasn’t a big lad. In fact, he was about Edgar’s height and just as slender, maybe even more so. He was pale and smooth skinned with black curly hair and big dark eyes and a rather full mouth above a fragile-looking chin. But there was nothing fragile about his spirit.

  “What of it?” he demanded of Fardle his third day at school, coming out of his room across from Edgar’s and encountering the big boy. Fardle pointed toward Brim’s door and sneered.

  “You heard it, didn’t you? He whimpers at nights, talks of monsters.”

  “Yeah, I heard it … fatty.”

  Fardle almost fell on the floor. If there hadn’t been professors near enough to come running, he would have splattered this upstart against a wall.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Maggett, Smith and Jones gathered behind Fardle, peeking past him at this skinny little boy who had dared to question their leader.

  “He seems like a nice lad to me.”

  “Nice? He is afraid of his shadow.”

  “That isn’t true. He merely has a nightmare every now and—”

  “Join us in taking the piss out of ’im, Tilley, or we’ll roast you.”

  “Roast you, we will,” said Maggett.

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s right.”

  Jones and Smith often said the same thing.

  Edgar emerged from behind his door. He had heard every word. He couldn’t believe the new boy was defending him. They were in a few classes together and had barely spoken, but this fellow had seemed to like him right away, had even complimented his unique red hair, staring right into Edgar’s blue eyes, holding his gaze. Tiger smiled at Edgar now, then turned back to Fardle, who had stepped closer. Tiger stared up at him.

  “Edgar Brim has more intelligence in his left nut than you have in your skull, Fat-tle.”

  It looked like Fardle was going to faint.

  “Say … say that out on the rugby pitch at five o’clock behind the tree.”

  “See you then,” said Tiger.

  When the other four trotted off, the new boy put a hand gently on Edgar’s shoulder. “You can be my second, Edgar.”

  “Second?”

  “You know, like the way it is in a duel.”

  “A duel? Are you going to be shooting each other?”

  Tiger smiled. “I don’t think so, my friend. You are such a worrier.” With that, he clapped Brim on the back so hard that Edgar nearly fell down himself.

  Out behind the tree by the rugby pitch at five o’clock, big Fardle and little Tiger went at it tooth and nail. First, the smaller boy knocked the large one flat on his face by sweeping his feet from under him with a kick. It was a most u
ngentlemanly maneuver. Then he leapt on him and popped him hard on his noggin four or five times before Fardle could use his superior strength to shove him off. The big one continued to take blows from the little one, all delivered as if he knew his art quite thoroughly. But Fardle’s strength, in the end, was too much for Tiger. It was like the power of Frankenstein’s creature. Oh, Fardle looked the worse for wear in the end (a bit like Mary Shelley’s famous monster, in fact), his nose red from being soundly pinched, some of his hair pulled out, his cheeks scratched and his shins bruised, but he finally succeeded in sitting on Tiger for an extended period. Not that Tilley surrendered. He refused to say “give” even when it seemed he might die of the pressure on his lungs from the weight of his huge opponent. At last, Fardle staggered to his feet.

  “I hope that teaches you,” he said. But his tone was unconvincing. He was breathing hard and seemed absolutely done in, as if he wanted no part of Tiger Tilley ever again. Fardle turned away. By the time he reached the school, he was leaning on his followers’ shoulders.

  Edgar helped Tiger to his feet. The little battler could barely breathe at first but soon regained his composure.

  “I don’t think he will bother you as much now, Edgar.”

  But Tiger was wrong.

  Fardle, whose wounds convicted him of the crime of fighting, was shamed not just by the brutal whipping he took from Headmaster Griswold but also by the weeping he did because of it. The fact that Tilley bore his lashing without a single tear made it worse. From then on, the big lad was careful to keep clear of Edgar if Tiger was with him (and Tilley tried to stay by Edgar’s side as much as possible) but still found moments to torment him. Edgar stuck to his old plan: avoid Fardle and keep silent. He only spoke in class … and sometimes, now, to Tiger.

  Edgar was called to the headmaster’s office right after Griswold thrashed Fardle. The sweat was still dripping from the tall man’s brow, the excitement still evident on his face. The knock on the door was strong.

  “Ah,” said the headmaster under his breath, “there is some courage within the boy, but still, he won’t fight back.” He cleared his throat. “Advance!”

  The door creaked open and Edgar’s head peeked around it.

  “You wanted to see me, sir?” His voice was barely audible.

  “Come in and sit.”

  Griswold eyed him, this curious boy with that unruly red hair and dark brows, brilliant mind and violent nightmares. The headmaster rocked back and forth in his wooden chair, his few books—none of them novels—behind him along the stone wall. A portrait of Griswold’s predecessor, a frightening man named Emeritus, who still lived somewhere in the building—some said in the dark turret way up at the top—loomed over them. Edgar looked back at the headmaster without flinching. Griswold stood up and moved to the window, which afforded a view of the moors. The sun was shining today, a rare thing. He didn’t speak for a while.

  “Brim,” he finally said, “do you know where I have just been?” His features extended forward on his face as if they had been sucked outward from his skull, culminating at the tip of his long nose and protruding mouth. He was like a pale-faced praying mantis on a six-foot seven-inch frame, with thin limbs too long for even him, held inside his robe and ready to strike. He spoke as though he were teaching others how to pronounce.

  “Yes, sir, all the boys know when you are away, sir. I believe you were in London for a few days.”

  “And do you know what is going on in London now, my boy?”

  “I would imagine many things, sir.”

  The headmaster actually smiled, still turned toward the window. Many things had gone on for the Reverend Spartan Griswold while in the teeming city. He had, for one, taken part in a meeting of a secret organization called the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. They discussed the occult. They discussed evil. They talked about the invisible powers that ran the world. There he had seen Bram Stoker, Henry Irving’s manager at the Royal Lyceum Theatre. They had had a marvelous chat and Stoker had been kind and given him complimentary theater passes. Griswold had loved Irving’s performance in Macbeth. There was cannonading thunder and blood and a severed head on a pole.

  “But there is one particular thing that has been going on for some time there, Brim. Murder. In the East End, a great deal of it. A man, well, one thinks he is a man, has been on a rampage.”

  “I have read that, sir. It sounds beastly.” Edgar often read the Times of London in the school’s library, though it was always several days behind.

  “Do you know exactly what this beast does, my boy?”

  “I believe he kills women with a knife.”

  “Indeed, a good long, sharp one. He appears to know a great deal of anatomy, and though he kills his victims with brutality, he carves them up with careful thought and some knowledge of their interiors. The police think he may be a doctor or a butcher. He is scaring the life out of the women of London, many men too. There is a sort of electricity in the air down there. What do you think should be done?”

  “Well …” Edgar swallowed, “they should seek him with all they have and arrest him, and if they can prove that he did these terrible things, they should hang him, sir.”

  “But what of the people, Brim, now? They are in danger. Should they not do something immediately, something preemptive? Should good men not take to the streets with weapons and track this demon and murder him in cold blood? Is that not what he deserves? Is that not almost necessary?”

  “It might not be justice, sir.”

  “But are there not times when we must take an eye for an eye? This sorry excuse for a human being, if that’s what he is, is murdering left and right!”

  “It is difficult to say, sir.”

  “And what of this Fardle fellow? How shall you deal with him? You know I beat him, just now.” Griswold’s smile was again cast through the window.

  “I am sorry for that.”

  “Sorry?”

  “One never likes to see anyone beaten.”

  Griswold turned on him. “You think he didn’t deserve it?” His voice was raised.

  “He did, sir. It is just that I do not take pleasure in anyone else’s pain, even Fardle’s.”

  “How noble of you. I will not suggest how you deal with this boy, but the day may come when you will want to take justice into your own hands. That is all, Brim. You are dismissed.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Griswold remained at the window. The muffled sounds of students moved through the hallways. “Ah, the Ripper,” he said quietly, “and Irving as Macbeth. It was like he wasn’t acting! I believed he knifed the king to death in his bed. All that red dripping from him, his big blade gleaming with it! I swear he looked out at me!” The headmaster shivered.

  When the students in Edgar’s grade were initiated into full-contact rugby the following year, intimidation and physical poundings were not just allowed but encouraged.

  “Kick it to him, right to Brim, and then stand back and let him pick it up,” Fardle instructed Smith, Maggett and Jones as they lined up together the first time they all played a real game of rugby. They spread the word among their team (and the opposing squad) that everyone was to make Edgar field the ball.

  Tiger was on Brim’s team. He wasn’t told of the plot.

  On Fardle’s side’s first possession, Smith had a clear opening to run with the ball all the way to the other team’s goal line, but instead, he searched for Edgar, who was keeping far from the battle and behind his team, hoping the action wouldn’t come his way. Smith booted it hard in his opponent’s direction, apparently giving up possession to make the other team field the ball deep in their end. Edgar was his own worst enemy that day for he was so far away from the others that no one was near him to handle the ball. It had been kicked right to him, though, so he had to take it up.

  But Tiger saw what was happening. “LEAVE IT!” he roared as he raced back toward his friend from the midst of the action. Tiger still hadn’t grown much, but he
dove upon the ball and turned to run with it aggressively, right back at the other team.

  The whistle sounded.

  “That was Master Brim’s ball,” smiled the wide-headed Professor Numb, pronouncing each word carefully in a ridiculously smooth voice, still wearing his black and red-striped robes on the field of play. “Master Tilley, you must allow Brim to play the ball!” he shouted with excitement. Numb had a disturbing tendency to admire wounds when the boys were injured. “Now, both sides line up!” He tossed the ball to Edgar and licked his lips.

  Edgar dropped it immediately, of course. Then he looked down at it. A good portion of both squads readied themselves to pummel him the instant he laid a finger on the leather again.

  “Now, Brim! Play the ball, please!” cried Numb, barely able to contain himself.

  Edgar had to do it. He reached down. The instant he touched it, his classmates flew at him like wildcats. Maggett hit him low and Fardle high, knocking him unconscious. Professor Numb, eyes on fire, made the boys stand back and they all gazed down at Edgar. He lay still for a long time. The color drained from Tiger’s face. No one had ever seen him frightened before.

  Edgar was absolutely motionless. But finally, deep in his unconsciousness, swimming about with the spectacular characters of his imagination, he saw Baba Yaga, the child-eating witch, and awoke, ready to run from her.

  “It was good for the boy!” exclaimed Griswold when Numb told him of the event over dinner that evening. The athletics director could not agree more.

  During the ensuing few years, as the boys moved into adolescence, Fardle grew bigger and more muscular and then leveled off, Edgar turned long and lean and approached his enemy’s height, and Tiger became taller than both for a while but then seemed to stop growing altogether. And these sorts of rugby-field scenes continued to play out. Edgar learned to get rid of the ball quickly. He never fought back.

  But then, it all began to change.

  8

  The Journal

  Edgar was sure that Professor Lear was watching him. Sometimes, he even thought the old man was following him. The boy would sense something, glance over his shoulder, and see Lear moving down the hallways a good distance behind, head above the crowd, looking in his direction. Once or twice, Edgar could have sworn he glimpsed Lear’s craggy face through the barred window of his bedroom door at night. And then, one evening late in his fourth year, he woke to find the one-armed man inside the room sitting on his bed!