The Black Cats

The Hundred-Dollar Bug

A MIRACLE OCCURRED AFTER Eddy and I left the Arnold house that day. He gave up spirits, home and away. Sissy’s mood and overall health improved, too. I cannot say that Eddy’s sacrifice caused the upturn—it may have been the dry weather—but more and more time passed between her coughing spells. This, in turn, lifted Muddy’s spirits. For the next half moon, Poe House took on a breeziness I could not explain but enjoyed nonetheless. Sissy filled our home with piano music and laughter again, Muddy whistled during chores, even waltzing with her broom on occasion, and Eddy wrote. He took up a quill pen each morning, prepared his ink and paper, and wrote to my heart’s content.

Musing occupied me most days. There were papers to weight and desktops to tail-dust and curtain cords to be batted when Eddy needed distraction. But when my companion took a much-deserved break, so did I. During one such respite, I caught an omnibus to Rittenhouse and told Midnight about Mr. Arnold and the penalty he’d paid for killing Snip. Midnight and I decided to remain friends and nothing more since neither of us fancied a long-distance relationship. I also made several trips to Green Street to gossip about the ghost cat, giving the facts of the case to George and Margaret, Silas and Samuel. During one such visit, I learned that while Mr. and Mrs. Arnold still ran their shop, they had taken up residence a few blocks north. As for the Snip’s grave, one could scarcely see it through the morning glory vines.

One summer afternoon, after a long session at his desk, Eddy and I entered the parlor in search of Sissy and Muddy. The two women sat on either side of the hearth in their rocking chairs—the elder knitting, the younger darning. “It is official,” he said to them. “I have finished ‘The Black Cat.’ It is an excellent eulogy, if I do say so myself.”

Sissy set down her mending and took the scroll he offered. She unrolled it and crossed to the open window. The sheer curtains blew into the room, fluttering against the page.

Eddy put his hands on his hips. “You don’t have to read it now, my—”

“Shhh!” Sissy said. “It has been weeks, and I cannot wait any longer.”

Eddy left to pace the hallway. I stayed, alighting to Sissy’s square piano. Certain we’d turned in our best work, I wanted to receive congratulations first. Sissy read to herself for a spell then finished by speaking aloud. “‘The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.’” She glanced at me, her eyebrow arched.

She continued, “‘Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse, and this lack of regret sentenced me to a hell beyond any imagined. The Black Cat had taken his revenge!’”

Muddy stopped knitting. “Is that it?” she asked.

Sissy flipped the scroll over and found it as Eddy had left it—free of letters. “Yes, that’s it.” She dropped into her rocking chair and gave her mother a troubled look.

The creak of wood called Eddy into the room. His hair stood on end, as if he’d been pulling it again. “Well?” he asked.

“It is…amusing,” Sissy said.

Muddy resumed her knitting. The needles clicked furiously.

“Amusing?” His eyes turned dull. “Is it not to your liking, Virginia? I worked so hard on it. I thought for certain—”

She rose to take his hands. “It was a good story, Edgar. I liked the supernatural elements. And the main character is sufficiently mad. I’m just not sure of the ending.”

“Did it not satisfy you?”

“It lacked your usual…well, your usual severity.”

He let go of her and crossed to the piano. I nudged his fingers. They remained limp. From the furrow on his brow, I knew we had more writing ahead of us. “Since the story is for you, wife,” he said. “I will try again. It must be perfect.”

“Don’t make it too perfect,” Muddy added. “You need to sell it and make rent.”

Sissy joined him. “The parts about the cat were realistic.” She tousled the top of my head. “Perhaps a little too realistic, considering Cattarina’s involvement in the fire.”

“Alleged involvement,” Eddy corrected her. He chucked me under the chin.

“Yes, yes, alleged. But the ending felt, I don’t know, incomplete, as if the horror hadn’t run its full course yet.”

“Did you at least like the beginning? Because I spent—”

A knock at the door cut him off.

Eddy left to greet the visitor and returned a moment later, his teeth in full view. “I have done it, ladies! I have won the Philadelphia Dollar contest with ‘The Gold Bug.’” He waved the torn envelope, and I wondered if someone had mailed him a bug and if they had, why it pleased him so.

“Husband, I could not be prouder!” Sissy said. She clapped her hands.

Eddy handed the mail to Muddy and bowed. “Mr. Alburger’s rent, Mrs. Clemm. One hundred dollars ought to cover it!”

***

The gold bug turned our lives catawampus, and Eddy forgot about the black cat story. After the letter, Poe House overflowed with goodness. The first night, we celebrated with a feast to shame Christmas: corned beef with brown gravy, cod cakes, potato whip, succotash, cold slaw, rolls, and teacake. I could not attest to the vegetables or the sweet finish, but the beef and cod were delicious and their supply plentiful.

In the following days, Eddy lavished everyone with gifts. Muddy, he bought a brass soup ladle. He called it a scepter, and told the old woman to go forth and rule the kitchen when he gave it to her. I did not pretend to understand this. Sissy received a new dress to replace the one she’d burned after burying Snip. Sewn from grey-green silk, the frock rippled about her frame as she walked, mimicking the current and hue of the Delaware River. Tiers of bows, crafted from the same fabric, adorned the skirt hem and neckline. She called it her new town dress. But I thought it more a river dress. Eddy also gave her a mother-of-pearl cameo that she pinned at her bosom and a red leatherette box in which to store the trinket.

And me, he bought the most wonderful gift of all.

One hot, prickly afternoon, Eddy snuck from the house and left me napping on the settee. When he returned, he called Muddy and Sissy into the parlor and set a cat-sized wooden box on the floor in front of me. “Watch and be entertained,” he said to the women.

Sensing the chest had been purchased for me, I obliged him and jumped to the floor to investigate. Wonder of wonders! The smell escaping the interior drove me wild. I bounced straight in the air and chattered my teeth. Had Eddy bought me a hen? When I pawed at the lid latch, he unfastened it, revealing the treasure inside—chicken feathers, heaps and heaps of glorious chicken feathers. I dove into their midst, sending the smaller, lighter ones into the air.

Sissy and Eddy laughed.

Even Muddy laughed and stamped her foot. “Where did you buy such a thing, Eddy?” she asked.

“I bought the box from Fitz. But the feathers came from the butcher. Didn’t pay a penny for them.”

I poked my head above the box rim and let the feathers cascade around me like falling snow. I loved the smell. I loved the squish. Far and away, this was the best gift I’d ever received, outside of Eddy’s love. I dove again and buried myself amidst the Poe family’s laughter. Sissy laughed loudest until a coughing spell overtook her, and she had to be led upstairs to bed. The gold bug had fixed many ills but could not right the one that mattered most.

Alas, our joy lasted only until the next wave of misery. After Sissy’s health scare, Mr. Cook gave a copy of the Daily Forum to Eddy that sent my companion into a rage. “‘The Gold Bug,’” he read from the paper, “a decided humbug? What rot!” I wanted to understand the new words that surfaced in the wake of Mr. Cook’s delivery—accusations and plagiarism—to comfort Eddy. But alas, I could not. Then things got worse, proving once and for all that misery plagued every member of the Poe family.