Edgar Did It
Alicia drank her Earl Grey tea and wondered what she could do today to make Killian’s life miserable.
Whatever it was had to speak to both his interior and exterior conflicts. It had to move the plot along, keep the reader invested, and be plausible. She couldn’t have something awful happen just to satisfy her inner sadist.
She set her mug down with a sigh. Being a writer was hard.
Rolling her shoulders, she sat up straighter and put her fingers to the keyboard. Sometimes, she needed to set aside outlines and intentions and just write what came, letting her subconscious do the work. She could fix it in edits.
For a little while, the only sound in her small office was the clack of her keyboard. She preferred the mechanical kind that made a nice tack sound with each stroke, almost reminiscent of a typewriter. It was the sound of productivity. From the top of her computer tower, a little bobblehead of J.R.R. Tolkien clutching a pipe smiled benignly at her.
A new character was taking shape. A mysterious someone, or perhaps more of a something, which left the magic-ridden Emberwood of her made-up world to invade Killian’s life. She paused and closed her eyes. She pictured the new character in her head, painting him with painstaking clarity.
He was a short, wizened little fellow wearing a green cloak and a pointed hat, and moved like a furtive animal. He had dark green eyes and a mole on the tip of his nose. No shoes. His feet were long and tipped with sharp claws. His fingers were also long, with sharp nails. Good. Now, he needed a name.
After a moment of consideration, she typed, “Edgar.”
Something dropped to the floor behind her. Her head whipped around, eyes searching for the source of the sound and settling upon a little owl figurine on the floor. It had fallen from its place on a bookshelf.
She frowned. Was her cat being nosey, again, about her knick-knacks? No. In a corner, Sir Pawsalot snoozed on his bed, wrapped around his favorite plushie.
“Gravity strikes again,” Alicia muttered, getting up from her desk. She checked to make sure the figurine wasn’t broken before placing it back on the shelf and returning to work.
“How’d work go today?” Brian asked, eyes focused on the pan in front of him. He gave the contents a stir.
Alicia leaned against the kitchen bar. She’d been sitting most of the day and the thought of getting back in a chair, even for supper, made her lower back ache. But whatever her husband was cooking smelled delicious. She breathed in the scent of peppers, onions, meat, chilis, and spices.
“It went all right,” she said.
“Is Killian closer to getting the girl?”
“Kind of. Right now, he has a new problem. Edgar.”
“Who’s that?”
“More of a what than a who. And I’m not sure of either, really. He just kind of came to me while I was typing.” A wide grin crossed her face. “He’s making Killian’s life miserable.”
“But don’t you need motivations and reasons for your characters? You once spent a whole day on why Killian would pick a brown mare over a chestnut gelding.”
Alicia scoffed. “Not for such a minor character. He’s only there to stir things up before the next big plot point.”
“Stir things up how?”
“He keeps taking Killian’s things and hiding them. Or overhears Killian say he wants something and gets it for him, but not in the way Killian wanted.”
“Like a house elf with bad intentions?”
“Maybe.”
“Hmm.” Brian lifted the pan off the stove.
“What’s for supper?”
“Stir fry.” He poured the contents into a waiting serving bowl. “Mind setting the table?”
“Sure. How was your work?”
“Just the usual complaints about slow Internet connection because they have a hundred tabs open. Or someone says their computer isn’t responding because they haven’t turned it on. Okay, that only happened once, but it was a pretty normal day, except we’re getting ready for a big software update.” He shuddered.
Alicia snorted a laugh as she walked over to the cabinet and opened it. She took down two plates before turning toward the table.
“Oh, you already put everything out.” She nodded at the plates, glasses, and flatware on the table. Though, everything was jumbled and not set properly. Glasses where plates should be and plates off to the side. The flatware sat in a pile in the middle.
“I did what?” Brian asked without looking up. He was spooning rice from the cooker into another serving bowl.
“You already put out the plates and stuff.” Alicia laughed and returned the ones she held. She walked over to the table and began bringing order to the chaos.
“No, I didn’t.”
“And then forgot about it.”
“Seriously, Alicia. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Her silly, sweet husband. She’d long suspected he had ADHD. Wasn’t it a symptom to do something and then forget that you’ve done it? Maybe he got distracted with cooking dinner and that was why nothing was in the proper order.
“Well,” she said, “I guess Edgar did it.”
Another day, another chapter.
Alicia sipped her cup of tea, Yorkshire Gold today. What should happen next with Killian?
He was on the road to fight a dragon and, ultimately, win his love. There were all sorts of political intrigues happening and not everyone wanted the dragon slain. And now, on top of it all, Killian had Edgar, his unwanted tag-along from the Emberwood.
Edgar’s presence didn’t seem to have anything to do with Killian’s internal or external conflicts, though. And her editor would be less than thrilled at a character running amok without it being clear what exactly Edgar was, or even why he was doing what he was doing. Though, now that Alicia thought of it, Edgar was serving a kind of purpose, in that he was slowing Killian down and preventing him from achieving his goals. Maybe she should lean into that more?
As she scrolled, looking over her previous writing, a bad feeling gathered at the back of her neck. She used a writing program called Scrivener and her favorite part about it was the fact that she could write her scenes as individual documents, all filed under separate folders to make chapters.
However, there were scenes missing. Specifically, the important scenes involving Killian being a hero appeared to be gone.
Horror formed a ball of ice in her stomach. She was fairly confident she could re-write the scenes, but they wouldn’t be the same. They wouldn’t have the same punch. Never mind the amount of time that would cost her with the deadline looming. She swallowed hard against her rising panic.
She set her mug down and started clicking through the various folders, even going to the seldom-used ones for character design. It wasn’t until she opened the trash folder that she found the scenes.
Alicia let out a long breath. However, on the heels of her relief poured in more questions. How did this even happen? Was it a weird glitch with Scrivener? It did update recently. Or had someone else used her computer? Brian knew better than to touch it, though, and he wouldn’t play such a trick.
“Had to be a glitch,” she said to herself as she moved each scene back to where it belonged. And, just to be safe, she synced the file with an external folder. Maybe that would prevent any further problems.
Something skittered down the hall outside her office door, little nails rat-a-tat-tatting against hard wood. She flinched and twisted around in her chair, the ragged edges of her previous panic flaring into new life. Sir Pawsalot was nowhere to be seen.
“Must be time for zoomies,” she said, and turned back to her computer screen.
Back to Edgar slowing Killian down, she thought. How about he hides the saddle and bridle for Killian’s horse?
“Okay, this isn’t funny.” Alicia stood in the living room, hands on her hips.
“What isn’t?” Brian walked in, buttoning the cuffs of his dress shirt.
“I can’t find my keys.”
“Did you check the bowl?”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course, I did.” She gestured at the green-blue ceramic bowl sitting on an end table. It had been the living place for her keys ever since the Airport Incident two years ago.
“Purse?”
“Checked there, too.”
“Hmmm.” Brian put his hands on his hips. His shoulder muscles bulged under his shirt, a product of his renewed fervor at the gym.
Alicia made a mental note to buy him some new shirts. While looking like he was going to bust a seam was sexy, she didn’t want him to actually do so.
He snapped his fingers. “I know. The fridge.”
“The fridge?”
“Yep.” He walked away to the kitchen.
Trailing behind him, Alicia asked, “Why would they be in the fridge?”
“Because when you came home last night from the parish council meeting, you made a beeline for the fridge to eat the last of the brownies. From the pan. With a spoon.”
“I can’t help it if my sweet tooth is provoked by boring meetings where the only thing that gets accomplished is the feeding of egos.”
“No judgment. Just saying, you were really in a rush.” He opened the fridge door and began sifting through the stacks of leftovers, jars, and bottles. “Though, we probably should get some ice cream.”
“Why?”
“You have the Beautification Committee meeting next Saturday, remember?”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“No one is forcing you to attend these meetings, you know.” He moved on to the shelves in the door.
“I keep thinking I’ll contribute something worthwhile.” She looked around the kitchen counters, lifting stacks of mail and dish towels. “Any luck?”
“Nope.” He closed the door. “I guess we’ll take my truck. C’mon. We’ll be late for our reservation.”
“But what happened to them?”
Brian huffed a laugh. “Maybe Edgar did it. Don’t worry. They’ll turn up.”
They came home a few hours later, and Alicia stumbled a little on the way in, giggling.
“Watch out!” laughed Brian, catching her around the waist.
“You watch out,” she said, kissing him.
They continued to kiss as they walked into the darkened living room. The back of Alicia’s legs hit a table. Metal jangled against pottery.
She broke off the kiss. “What was that?”
Brian, though, moved on to her neck, kissing her softly. She pushed him away and reached to turn on the overhead light, filling the room with brightness. She looked over her shoulder.
Her heart chilled, chasing away the pleasant buzz from the wine she drank at dinner.
In the green-blue ceramic bowl sat her keys.
“They couldn’t have just appeared there,” Alicia said, drying her face.
From inside the closet, Brian sighed. “But it looks like they did. We both saw the bowl was empty. And I looked at the security cameras. We were the only people who entered or left the house today.”
“Optical illusion, then? We didn’t see the keys at first because of a weird trick of the light?”
“There’s nothing about that bowl to provoke an optical illusion.” He came out of the closet in a shirt and pair of briefs. Leaning against the jamb, he crossed his arms over his chest.
She hung up the towel and began removing her earrings. “I don’t want to think about the house being haunted.”
They were silent for a long moment, contemplating the mystery of the keys.
Alicia gasped. “Oh! Remember when Sir Pawsalot was a kitten and would go around carrying things?”
Brian raised a brow. “You think he took the keys out and then put them back?”
“Can you think of a better explanation? You said you haven’t seen anyone enter or leave our house but us. Maybe I didn’t even put the keys there to start with. Pawsalot is smart. Maybe he knew the keys were supposed to go in there.”
He shook his head. “You really need to stop anthropomorphizing the cat. He’s an animal.”
“Animals do smart things all the time.” She took the earrings over to her vanity table and tucked them into a box. “But if you can think of a better explanation than that, then I am all ears.”
The weekend passed without any other weird incidents, and on Monday, Alicia found herself back in front of her computer. She stared at her manuscript, the blinking black line at the end of the last sentence almost mesmerizing in its pulsing.
Killian was trapped in an abandoned inn, a summer storm raging outside, with only his dog and Edgar for company. However, Edgar had turned mean, his mischievous tricks souring into something foul. He’d locked Killian’s dog in a closet. Luckily, her hero heard his dog’s wails and was able to break through the door to rescue him.
Re-reading the scene, it occurred to Alicia that her sudden inspiration no longer furthered the story. Edgar’s torments weren’t making Killian a better man and were turning in an unwanted direction. Hell, they weren’t even supposed to be at this stupid inn!
With a sigh of frustration, she got out of her chair and started pacing.
The office wasn’t very large. It had two windows that looked out onto camellia bushes lining the side yard. Beyond that was a thick wall of woods separating them from their neighbor.
Inside the office, potted plants grew beneath the windows, and shelves crammed with books and knick-knacks lined the rest of the walls. Pawsalot’s bed sat in a corner. Pictures and paintings ranging from family photos to the strange and mysterious took up what space remained on the walls and tops of shelves. A minimalist, Alicia was not.
She halted in her pacing, arms crossed, as she stared out into the woods. The sun was canting toward the afternoon, filling the trees with shadows.
She’d made Edgar to be unkind, and she was certainly used to characters wresting control from her. But something about this felt insidious, almost as if her inner sadist had taken on actual form. Or, maybe she was simply unnerved, still, from recent events, despite what rational excuses she came up with.
No solution to her problem was coming to her. And the more she thought about it, the more Alicia felt as if something was watching her, perhaps from those woods. Perhaps from the closet whose door stood ajar.
Turning sharply, she walked over to the closet and shut it. Then, she returned to her computer and closed the document. Maybe turning her mind to other tasks would help her get past her block. Her monthly newsletter needed to be written, and she needed to respond to some emails from her publisher and agent.
After an hour of emails and newsletter work, she got up to fix herself a fresh cup of tea. As she walked out, she glanced over at the cat bed. It was empty.
Weird, she thought. Pawsalot loved to snooze in her office while she worked.
In the kitchen, she started the kettle and opened a cabinet to get down a new box of tea.
“Meow.”
She stopped and listened. The cry had been high and plaintive.
“Meooowwwwww.”
“Pawsy?” she called. “Pawsalot.” She dropped the box onto the counter.
The burbling and hiss of the electric kettle filled the silence. She thought she heard another sound underneath it, like a soft thump.
Alicia walked away from the kettle, out into the dining room.
“Sir Pawsalot,” she called, and made kissing sounds. “Where are you?”
Another whining meow, muffled, came from her right. More thumping.
She walked through an archway and crossed the hall into the living room. Her gaze landed on a closed wicker chest under a window. It served as their cat’s toy box. A bunch of books were stacked on the lid. Alicia didn’t remember putting those there.
She removed the books, setting them on a nearby table. She opened the box.
Sir Pawsalot jumped out, complaining loudly.
“What were you doing in there?” she said. She picked up the cat.
He purred hard, snuggling under her chin.
From the kitchen, the electric kettle beeped loudly, the noise cutting through the air. In its wake, silence settled over the house, barely broken by Pawsalot’s purrs.
Alicia held the cat close as she slowly walked back to the kitchen, her mind turning over the strangeness of what happened. Shifting Pawsalot to one arm, she poured the steaming water into the waiting mug, the kettle shaking slightly in her hand.
A skittering sound came from down the hall.
With a gasp, she dropped the kettle. It smashed to the floor, splashing boiling hot water across the tiles. Pawsalot jumped out of her arm and ran off, disappearing into the next room.
“Who’s there?” demanded Alicia.
Her heart hammered against her chest. Slowly, she walked out into the hallway.
Alicia was standing by the mailbox, watching the police enter her home, when Brian pulled up in his tan truck. He parked in the driveway, hopped out, and ran over to her.
“Babe, what happened?” he asked. “Why are the cops here?”
She wrapped her arms around his waist, holding him tight. He slipped his arms around her shoulders.
“There’s something or someone in the house,” she said.
He rubbed her arm. “It’s going to be okay. Tell me what happened.”
Alicia told him about finding Pawsalot in the toy box, and of the skittering sound.
“And that’s not the worst of it,” she said. “I took Pawsy to Casey’s house because I-I just felt that he would be safer there. But when I got home, something felt wrong. I went into my office and on my computer, someone had written more paragraphs into my story. But it wasn’t about the story. It talked about our house and about Pawsy and someone locking him up in the toy box and laughing about it. And, then, five more pages of just the sentence ‘Killian is a pansy’ over and over. I ran out and called the police.”
“Why would someone do any of that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you check the cameras?”
“No. I didn’t think to.”
They lapsed into silence and watched their home for a few moments.
Alicia said, “I bet the nosey neighbors across the road are having a field day.”
Brian snorted. “Probably.”
Finally, the two police officers came out. One started toward his patrol car and the other walked over to them.
“We didn’t find anything unusual,” he said. He settled his hands on his utility belt. “Ma’am, what made you think someone was in your house?”
“My cat got shut up in a box, with books placed on top of the lid,” she explained, fighting a growing sense of embarrassment. She felt like a little kid sent into the principal’s office for lying to the teacher. “And then when I came home, there were new paragraphs on my computer that I didn’t write.”
“Uh-huh.” The cop looked from her to Brian, and then back again. “Maybe some kids did it? Did you have anyone over? A little niece or nephew? I have a little cousin who thinks it’s funny to put his cat in closets.”
“No, sir. I really thought someone was inside the house! What other explanation is there?”
The cop studied her for a long moment. “Well, it’s better to be safe than sorry. If you think the intruder has returned, call us. Have a nice evening.”
“You, too, officer. Thank you.”
The cop walked away, joining his partner in the patrol car. They drove away.
Alicia pulled away from Brian. “He thought I was crazy.”
“Well, at least he left without pushing the issue.”
“I guess.”
“Come on. I’ll make spaghetti. You check the cameras’ feed.”
Holding hands, they walked up the yard and onto the porch. Alicia hesitated at the threshold.
“I’ll go in first,” Brian said.
He did and she followed, her stomach twisting into a knot.
The house looked as it should. The books she’d taken off the wicker chest still sat on the table. Mail beside the blue-green bowl waited to be sorted. Everything was in its place.
“I’ll go get started on supper.” Brian left her alone in the living room.
She listened to him moving around in the kitchen while her gaze fixed on the books. An idea, an impossible idea, was beginning to take form in her mind.
Slowly, Alicia walked down to her office. She woke up her computer and called up the document. She read, again, the sentences that shouldn’t exist.
It wasn’t even in her style. It was written in first person, when she normally wrote in third. The words describing Pawsalot’s capture and confinement were stark and to the point, like Richard Matheson or Stephen King. She always thought of herself as more of a Charles de Lint, but that was a different genre altogether.
She typed out a brief scene where Edgar put the books back where they belonged, on a high, floating shelf by the window. And then, when Alicia went to check, she would see him.
Alicia sat there for a long moment, staring at the screen. She wondered which would be worse, if her idea worked or if it didn’t. One suggested that something beyond her understanding was happening, and the other suggested she’d just gone crazy.
When she couldn’t stand it any longer, she left her office and walked with heavy feet back into the living room. She stopped just inside the room.
The books were no longer on the table. They were now on the shelf where they belonged.
Trembling took hold of her. Her stomach tightened down into a knot. She slowly backed out of the room and into the hallway.
A giggle punctured the air.
Alicia turned toward the sound. There, where the hall bent toward office and bedrooms, stood a small figure. About four and a half feet tall, it wore a green cloak, a pointy hat, and had a mole on the end of its nose.
“Edgar,” she whispered.
Giggling, the figure turned and disappeared down the hall, his nails clicking on the floor.
Brian came out of the kitchen. “I thought I heard something.”
“Edgar.”
“What?”
She walked past him, her heart racing.
“Alicia, what’s wrong?”
The door to the office was shut. She heard the clacking of her keyboard. Brian stopped beside her.
“Is someone in your office?” he asked. “I’m calling the police.” He pulled his phone from his pocket.
She opened the door.
There was no one there. The chair swiveled, as if someone had gotten out of it in a hurry.
Brian shoved the door all the way against the wall. Brushing past her, he went to the closet and opened it. It was full of boxes, leaving no room for anyone to hide.
Alicia approached her computer and, with growing dread, read the lines.
“I don’t understand,” Brian said.
“Brian said, “I don’t understand.””
“What?”
She pointed at the screen. “It’s written right there. The last line is you saying you don’t understand.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Edgar did it. Somehow. I don’t-I don’t know how but--”
“Alicia, sweetie, you’re not making any sense.”
“Just look!” She grasped the mouse and scrolled to the top of the prior page.
Brian slid into the chair and faced the computer. He frowned as he read. And the frown slowly turned to horror.
“See,” Alicia said. “It’s everything that has happened from me calling the cops to you looking in the closet and saying you don’t understand.”
“And you didn’t write this.”
“No, of course, I didn’t.”
“Then, who did?” He looked around the room. “Who was typing?”
“That was Edgar. I saw him. He looks just like how I described him in the novel.”
The door to the room creaked, just a little. They both looked toward it. As if it had been waiting for their full attention, it continued its movement, closing with a click.
Edgar stood there, his mouth stretched in an unnatural grin, baring crooked, yellow teeth. There appeared to be far too many teeth. In his right hand, he gripped a knife.
My inner sadist. The realization went through Alicia’s mind like a cold wind.
“What?” whispered Brian.
Edgar took a step toward them.
Alicia said, “Oh, hell, no.”
Turning around, she closed the document, right-clicked on the file, and deleted it. Then, she went to the Recycle Bin, right-clicked again, and selected “Shred contents”.
When she straightened and turned around, Edgar was gone.
Brian, face white, had not moved from his seat. “It’s gone.”
“I hope so.”
“I watched it vanish. It winced hard like it was in pain, and then it was gone.”
Alicia laid a hand on his shoulder. “It’s really only the beginning of my problems.”
He looked up at her, a question on his face.
She continued, “Just what the hell am I going to tell my editor?”
I'm going to side eye all of my characters from now on. Well done! :D
Brilliant!