This is evermore Poe, the turbulent and tragic youth of Edgar Allan Poe.
And now, for part two of this chapter, in evermore Poe.
A blast of air shook him into the moment, and he turned to leave, on the arduous walk home.
Eddie decided the dramatic story might not go over so well at the dinner table,
and his pension for embellishment. Poe wouldn't believe a word of it, even though it was entirely true.
So Eddie walked home, down the city's prominent hill, passed the market where the slave traders held their auctions.
He turned on to tobacco alley, passed a few barns and outbuildings on the backside of the city's modest townhomes.
This way, Eddie could enter the Alan House through the back, thus avoiding everyone, especially Poe.
Along the way, he sucked in the fresh sweet smell of dried tobacco, seeping out of the adjacent shacks that gave the alley its name.
The kitchen screened or slam shut as he entered, there, the cooked julyette, was busy preparing dinner.
What in the world, Eddie? You'll get in here this instant! She heard a cross-room.
What happened y'all?
Nah, he's evening for a mhm... mhm... like, swim? He joked through chattering teeth. Y'all gotta get out of them wet clothes right now.
Gonna catch your deppy will! Julyette wiped her brow as she took in the soaking wet boy.
Y'all go on up and change into something dry and come on up back here and I'll get you some hot tea.
Eddie gave her a stuttered nod and turned to climb the back stairs.
Ma and Pa hated that he used the rear stairwell. They preferred that their proper young boy used the stairs in the foyer with emphasis on the word master stair.
The back stair is for the help they would say.
Eddie couldn't decide if he thought the constant us versus them dynamic. His foster parents always adhered to, was more offensive or out of touch.
Regardless, the off-to-use term always made him cringe, especially since he felt closer to them than he ever did his parental guardians.
Simply put, Eddie saw the so-called service stairwell as the faster, more practical way to get to his room at the back of the townhouse.
Plus, there was virtually no chance of running into his guardians this way, and at times like this, avoiding them was the smart choice.
Eddie did exactly as Julia had instructed. He returned to the little kitchen in his night shirt, cradling the wet bundle,
exchanging it for a warm blanket and a string of demands sit here, put your feet by the fire.
Drink this, be careful, Tishaat.
Thank you, Eddie said. He took seat by the crackling fire.
In any other southern home, such demands from a servant to her junior master would be reprehensible and in subordinate offense worthy of a good lashing for all.
But this wasn't any other home in Virginia, and the relationship between Eddie and Julia wasn't like others.
Julia had been born into her position. The daughter of Mr. Ellis's cook, she had been a constant in Eddie's life from the day the Allen's brought home the orphaned boy.
From the start, the two children were fast friends and easy playmates who spent their care for each summer's running around the plantation owned by Ellison Allen.
Eddie loved going to the plantation with the man he called Pa.
There, he would meet up with his friend Juliet, who would be in attendance with her mother,
cooging lunch for the foreman overseeing the slaves in the field.
Eddie always thought it ought that these fat foremen outfitted in their linen shirts and straw hats were served their food and drink along before the hard-working laborers who did the actual work under a blistering hot sun.
At the time, he was too young to understand what was really going on.
Instead, Eddie lived in the blissful innocent world of childhood.
On those long hot days with Juliet, when catching butterflies and nets turned into catching lightning bugs and jars,
the two children enjoyed listening to folk tales told by the elderly slaves too frail to work in the fields.
Most of their stories told of the creation of the world and explanations of nature that only a child can believe.
There were stories that trees were nothing more than frozen music caught in the night air, and that the stars were the many children of the mother moon.
But Eddie always lit up when the African folk tales turned to a darker variety, filled with tales of magic and evil haints, dragging tortured souls away to their doom.
These frightening but exciting tales were the stories the two children couldn't resist as they sat clinging to one another and joyous fright on the edge of a log.
Eddie and Juliet prayed the fun would never end. Unfortunately, it did.
Within a year, the Allen's left for England onboard the Shiploat fair, and Juliet was being groomed to follow in her mother's service destined footsteps.
The change was a slow and harsh new reality for Juliet, and an all-out shocked to Eddie when the family returned home to Richmond just five years later.
By the time the Allen's made their woe be gotten returned to the States, Juliet was officially a housegirl.
Gone was her quick smile and infectious laugh, replaced by a young woman whose demeanor was as gray as the dishwasher she was made to work in day after day.
Despite being warned about the big differences he would experience once they returned home to Richmond, Eddie was shocked to see anyone let alone his childhood playmate, his unparalleled equal in her oppressive new role.
While living in London, Eddie had become accustomed to slavery being viewed as an antiquated experiment recalled only in British history books.
In England, all people of color were free, and while many still predominantly held the roles of maid or valet, they were most certainly paid for their work.
Now back in the United States, Eddie couldn't wrap his head around the idea of slavery.
To him, it was the most acute display of hypocrisy. On the one hand, Virginia was home to colonial heroes like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and James Madison, men who cried for freedom, and yet these same men all held slaves.
Founding fathers clung to some gentility of England, going so far as to call their newly minted state the commonwealth of Virginia when the wealth was not common at all, but highly disparaging.
Even the very city of Richmond was created to replicate Richmond till just outside of London, and yet slavery was live and well in America, and this was the grotesque look of it.
Eddie's discomfort with Juliette's new role only worsened when pause business partner Mr. Ellis offered their family now penniless after their losses in England.
One of his slaves they referred to as one of our girls, namely Juliette.
But even beyond the awkwardness of the arrangement that his childhood playmate would now be made to serve him, there was the added problem that Juliette had blossomed into a stunning young woman whose apron cinched waste Edgar just couldn't get his eyes off of.
Juliette wore her long hair pulled back in a wrap, dark curls cascading from the back, impossibly hide cheekbones framed her twinkling hazel eyes that gave Eddie tingles if she looked it in for too long.
Juliette's physical beauty was only exceeded by her natural deep intellect and insatiable zest for learning. This he loved most of all. Juliette had long mastered the domestic skills of sewing and cooking and weaving, but under a veil of secrecy.
She had also been taught how to read by others who weren't exactly as opposed to know how to themselves. It was an act as bold as it was illegal for a slave girl to read and yet Juliette took to it like wildfire and it certainly had its benefits for Eddie too, whether he cared to admit his motives were selfish or not.
Juliette found an audience and editor and amuse, plus when he wasn't around to read Bible passages to Ma, Juliette could and lately hearing stories and poems seemed to be the only thing that awoke Ma from her perpetual melancholy, but even Eddie didn't know Juliette's own literary secret.
When no one was looking, she enjoyed reading Paws newspaper and was learning more and more about the world on a daily basis. Eddie stared deep into the fire and the kitchen getting lost in the dancing flames.
With one hand he cradled his foot and with the other he mithaws the pins and needles away. You know Eddie, I'd never pry Juliette said, but if you ever wanted to tell me what really happened tonight, you know I'm all ears.
Maybe he replied, Juliette sensed his hesitation and instead changed the topic. Say, have you written any poems of late? You know I love the way you weave them words. He thought about the poems that were collecting on his desk upstairs.
There's one that's interesting, he said, oh, do tell, please. Eddie composed himself and recited. Last night I dreamt I had a dream, her hand I held through the night, trying as she might to hold it back, a gutter or a gulfa burst from Juliette's nose. What's so funny, Eddie asked?
I am so sorry she said trying to compose her laughter. It's just that you'd dreamt.
And bear us, Eddie turned away. Oh, Eddie, please don't be upset. I'm sorry, you know I love your poems. I don't want to talk about poetry anymore, he said, that's fine. Oh, Eddie, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.
I know she changed the subject. So why won't you tell me what happened tonight? Have I lost your trust? It's not that at all. It's just, it's just very troubling. And if Paul heard my story, he'd almost definitely say I was lying. I know I'd get a good lashing for it.
Well, I believe you, she said, won't you please tell me, I won't laugh, I promise, I won't cry, I'll just listen, I promise.
Feeling out of sorts, it wasn't sure how much he wanted to talk about it, so he crafted his half-truth.
Well, it's like this, I was walking home along the falls and I lost my balance and I fell in. I'll tell her the whole story some other time, he promised himself.
The falls, lands, Eddie, that water, tis rough in the spring. Now you tell me, that ain't funny. Folks die in that canal all the time.
Julia realized her reaction wasn't helping. She took a breath and continued in a softer voice. I'm just glad your old bride is all.
Talking about the canal was the last thing Edgar wanted to do, and yet he couldn't stop thinking about it. The fact that he almost dismissed that peculiar cry at the canal as wind in the trees
or as screeching cat, the thought that a dying child's last image of this world would be of him walking away in the distance.
The whole thing sent shivers down Eddie's spine.
Evermore Po is the historical account of a teenage Edgar Allan Po. If you'd like to learn more about Eddie's devolution to become the master of the macabre, please don't forget to follow and share this podcast.
Evermore Po was research written produced and edited by yours truly journalist Chris Kossatch. I began my research more that a decade ago using vetted journalistic methods with corroborated fact checking from respected sources including the library of Congress,
periodicals obtained from multiple poem museums, notable scholars and the national archives among other collections, strung together in a narrative style. In other words, my story is mostly true.
Our music today is from Esther Abrami. It should be noted that some of the characters in Evermore Po are composites of real people, including servants and slaves who lived in the Alan home at the time of our story.
No, while Evermore Po is based on fact, it should not be confused with the historic record.
For that, I hope you will go down your own rabbit hole to research one of the most thrilling American authors of all time.
Our story continues again next time on Evermore Po. Until then, I'm Chris Kossatch. Thank you for listening.