The Raven King's Chair Read online

  The Raven King’s Chair

  By Jamie Sedgwick

  Published by Timber Hill Press

  Copyright 2009 by Jamie Sedgwick

  Cover art copyright 2011 by Timber Hill Press

  All Rights Reserved. You may not share, transfer, or reproduce this document in any fashion under penalty of law. This story is a work of fiction and any similarity between real persons or events is strictly coincidental.

  The Raven King’s Chair

  It was a black day. Trees swayed, branches shifting on the breeze, leaves dead and broken, tumbling across the streets and rooftops in a clatter like breaking glass; but silent and distant, safely removed from Ben’s sterile writing loft. He hung up the phone and stared out the window for a minute, gathering his courage. A family photo leered at him from the corner of his desk. The image of Janice and the twins wrenched at his heart and he turned away.

  Ben rose from the desk, snatching up his keys and jacket, and headed downstairs. He thought of leaving a suicide note on his way out, but realized there was really nothing to say. Anyone could look at his life –this miserable collection of failures and broken dreams- and understand. If they had doubts, his agent Sandy could clear them up. Her words still rang clear in his head:

  “I’m sorry Ben, I think this is for the best. It’s been almost two years now. Maybe... maybe it’s time to give up. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.”

  His mind had been spinning with arguments and denials, none of which could have changed her mind. Sandy Aldrich was an agent of mercenary business sense. Once her mind was made up, nothing short of an act of God would change it. He grasped, offering up all that he had. The words rang hollow even as he spoke them:

  “Are you sure, Sandy? This manuscript I’ve been working on is different, it’s special. I know it’s been a long time...”

  “It’s been two years since you sent me anything publishable, Ben. Look, I like you. It’s not that I don’t. It’s just that my reputation is on the line. I can’t keep sending this stuff out. When an editor sees my name, she’s got to know it’s going to be worth her time opening that envelope.

  “Maybe you just need some time off. You’ve been working hard and it’s making you a nervous wreck. Why don’t you go out and get a normal job for a while? Do some labor or something, get some fresh air and get your head clear.”

  “I jog for fresh air.”

  It was hard to refute anything Sandy had said, harder still to admit that she was right. Her literary agency was one of the most respected in New York. If she couldn’t sell Ben’s work, no one could.

  Sandy had snagged Ben’s first novel out of a slush pile five years earlier. Six weeks later, it went to auction. The sale had been worth three quarters of a million dollars. It had paid for his house, a second car for his wife Janice, and still left them a nice nest egg in the savings account. The critics raved, and Ben became a phenomenon. The world was his for the taking.

  A year later, the book hit the shelves. The critics loved Ben’s novel, proclaiming it a “breakthrough,” and a “breath of fresh air.” Unfortunately, the critics’ tastes were different than the buying public. Sales had been less than spectacular, and Ben’s luck hadn’t improved. A collection of short stories bombed a year later, and two of the three manuscripts that followed never made it past Sandy’s desk. The first was salvageable, in Sandy’s opinion. The other two were garbage.

  Now even the nest egg was gone.

  Sandy’s voice droned on in his ear. She could go on like that for hours. She’d turn the conversation around and convince him that firing him was a good thing, if he gave her enough time. He cut her off:

  “I’m sorry you feel that way, Sandy. I know this new piece would change your mind.” There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line.

  “Look Ben, I’m not saying you can’t send me stuff. I’m just saying that we don’t have a relationship now. Your manuscripts don’t go to the top of the pile anymore. If I see something I like, you might hear from me. Otherwise you might not, just like everyone else.”

  “I understand.” Ben hung up. He crossed his arms on his desk and put his head down, too jaded to cry and too desperate not to. His chest hurt. His mind buzzed with a thousand random thoughts, none of which would come into focus.

  The brass ring was there, dangling just out of reach, but still a million miles away. The closer he got to it, the harder he landed when he missed. It was the story of his life, the dismal failure of a man who dared to dream and failed miserably. Broken dreams eventually lead to a broken man, and Ben was if nothing else, broken.

  Ben glanced out the window and saw the blackness in his soul reflected in the world outside and that was when he made up his mind. It was a black day. It was a good day to die.

  It had seemed like a simple plan at the outset. Find a good, tall bridge. Walk to the middle. Jump. A few seconds of free fall and a landing he wouldn’t even feel. But then none of the bridges had seemed tall enough, and he found traffic everywhere. He wanted to be alone when it happened. He didn’t want people rushing to the rescue. He wanted it to be quiet. And he certainly didn’t want to break his legs or paralyze himself. Then he’d be even more of a burden.

  It began to rain and Ben stopped for a cup of coffee at a small café on the north end of town. While he waited, the floodgates opened with a fury. He got soaked on his way back to the Land Rover, and had to juggle the coffee and his keys while trying to get the door unlocked. Once inside he was dripping wet, and there were splashes of water on his coffee lid. That ticked him off. It set his mind to thinking about all the unfairness.

  “They all love you on the way up,” he muttered at the dashboard of his Land Rover. “They all hump you on the way down.”

  He drove back out of town, no longer certain what he was looking for. The windshield wipers flashed back and forth, offering momentary glimpses of clarity in a washed-out world. He got on the freeway and headed south, for no better reason than a change of scenery. It was getting dark. Janice and the kids would be home by now. Would they be worried? Not yet, he thought. They would assume he was running errands, or meeting with a writer’s group. Or hanging out at a bookstore. Those were the sort of things writers did. Those were the things he used to do.

  Ben slowed as he entered the freeway and saw the flashing blinkers of a stranded driver. It was a moving truck. It appeared to have a flat tire. He saw an elderly man fumbling with the back door, probably trying to find the spare. Ben’s sense of chivalry flicked on, causing his foot to stumble towards the brake pedal, but by then it was too late. He’d already passed the truck, and he was jamming up traffic by merging too slow. He hit the gas and decided that it wasn’t his problem.

  They had insurance for that kind of thing. All you had to do was call the rental company and they’d send somebody out. He was pretty sure it worked that way. If not, someone else would help them, he told himself. Someone else had probably already stopped.

  The next exit appeared out of the fog and Ben’s guilt was still gnawing at him. Take the exit and flip back around, he thought. What will it hurt? It’s only a few minutes. Besides, you’ve been driving nowhere all afternoon. Don’t be a jerk.

  He drifted down the ramp and made his way back across town thinking -if nothing else- it would clear his conscience to find the truck gone. Only it wasn’t. The old man was still there, now accompanied by an elderly woman. They had a small pile of furnishings out behind the truck and they seemed to be arguing. Ben frowned as he pulled up behind them, wondering what might possess them to be standing out in the downpour. Certainly the argument wasn’t worth the risk to their health.

  He got out and they stopped fighting as he approached, wraith
like in the glare of his headlights. “Evening,” he said. “You having some trouble?”

  “Can’t find the spare tire,” the old man said. He was tall and thin. Ben was six feet tall, and he guessed the old man must have been about six-foot-four. He wore a heavy wool suit like most old-timers, and he was soaked to the bone. The woman was dressed in a seventies-style jumpsuit with orange pants, and a god-awful paisley jacket. She hadn’t been out as long, but she was getting wet fast.

  Ben knelt down, pressing his hand into the mud so he could see under the rear of the truck. As he’d expected, the spare was bolted to the chassis between the frame rails. “I don’t think you’ve been looking in the right place.” He scooted forward and started twisting the bracket loose.

  “Good Lord, Henry. It wasn’t even in the truck!”

  “Do I look like a mechanic, woman?” Henry said.

  Ben stifled a grin as he pulled out the spare. “Why don’t you two wait in the truck? I’ll have this changed in a couple minutes.”

  “What a kind man,” the old woman said. “What’s your name?”

  “Ben.”

  “Thank you, Ben. I’m Elizabeth Stowe and this is my husband, Henry.” She turned to face her husband. “Henry, we still need to get all this stuff back inside. It’s getting ruined.”

  “Get in the truck Elizabeth,” he said. “I’ll load it up while he changes the tire.” Immediately Elizabeth started to argue. She wanted to make sure it was all stowed properly. Ben smiled and headed around to the flat.

  Henry had already removed the spare, and the jack was still in place so it wasn’t much work to finish the job. Still, it was a nerve-wracking endeavor. Traffic was flying by at about seventy miles per hour. Every time he heard a car coming, Ben froze up. The slightest slip in traction, and he’d be a memory. That’s what you want, isn’t it?

  Then came the splash. Ben’s jacket was water-resistant, but it became painfully obvious that it wasn’t waterproof. By the time he was done, Ben was soaked and muddy. When he finished, he hauled the flat tire around to the back of the truck. Henry and Elizabeth were still arguing. The pile of junk was all back in place, with the exception of an old armchair.

  “Looks like you’re about set,” Ben said. He bent over to put the tire in place, and Henry helped him bolt it back up.

  “We can’t thank you enough,” Elizabeth said as he stood upright. “Henry, give him some money.”

  Henry pulled out his wallet and yanked out a couple twenties. Ben held his hands in the air. “No thanks,” he said. “I couldn’t.”

  “Honestly?” said Elizabeth. “We’ve got to pay you something.”

  “Really, I don’t need it. You want some help getting this chair back in?”

  “That’s what we’ve been working on,” said Henry. “Danged thing keeps falling out. Three times in a row.”

  Ben climbed up onto the bumper. “Here, hand it to me.” Henry hefted it up, and Ben set it up on the rest of the furniture. He shoved it back a good three feet, to make sure it wouldn’t fall back out. “That should do it,” he said, dropping back to the ground. He glanced up at his handiwork just in time to see the chair come flying out. He caught it just before it slammed into the mud. “What the…?”

  “That’s what I meant,” said Henry. “Danged thing won’t stay in there.”

  Ben narrowed his eyebrows and shook his head. “That’s strange. Here, let me try again.” He clambered back into place, and then caught up the chair. Seconds later, it was back on top of the furniture. This time Ben took special care to twist it sideways. He shoved the chair legs under a cabinet, where it couldn’t possibly twist out. He dropped to the ground again, and glanced up just in time to see the chair come hurtling straight at him.

  Ben caught it, and the chair’s inertia spun him around before he managed to set it on the ground. He stepped back, totally perplexed.

  “Do you need a chair?” said Elizabeth.

  Ben gave them a twisted smile. “Not really... Don’t you want it? It looks like an antique.”

  “It is an antique,” said Henry. “All this stuff is. We just bought out an estate. We’re going to sell most of this furniture in our antique store, but it wouldn’t hurt to lose one piece. In fact, it’s got a very interesting history. It belonged to Edgar Allan Poe.”

  “Poe?” Ben said skeptically.

  “It’s true,” said Elizabeth. “The last owner offered it to the Poe museum, but they didn’t have room. Are you sure you don’t want it? You could put it in your study or your den.”

  Ben was skeptical as any reasonable person would be, but his curiosity was peaked, and not only by the odd coincidence that he happened to be a writer. If he could prove the chair actually did belong to Poe, it might have considerable value. In fact, if he could prove that Poe had written something memorable while in possession of that chair, the thing might be priceless. He found himself agreeing, despite the fact that he wasn’t even sure he could fit it in his car.

  “I’ll take it,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “No, thank you,” Henry said. “We’d have been here all night if you didn’t show up.”

  Henry and Elizabeth shook his hand and returned to their truck, and Ben hauled the chair back to his Rover. He had to fold the back seat down to get it in, and by the time it was done, they were gone. He pulled off his soaking jacket and tossed it in back, and then started up the car. He chuckled as he pulled back onto the highway.

  Crazy old kooks, he thought. Still, he was glad he’d stopped. They never would have gotten that tire fixed on their own.

  Ben brought the chair into the house with him when he got home. The smell of pot roast washed over him as he wrestled the chair across the threshold, and his stomach rumbled. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

  The twins, Alexis and Bradley came screaming down the stairs shouting, “Daddy’s home! Daddy’s home!” They jumped into his arms and the questions came pouring out. “What is that daddy? Where did you get that chair? It’s all wet. What’s that smell? It stinks.” Ben glanced across the room and saw Janice standing in the kitchen doorway. She had a ten-inch chef’s knife in her hand.

  He felt a pang of guilt as he saw her there, still wearing her work clothes, her sleeves rolled up and her blonde hair pulled back in a tail. She was tall, slim, and beautiful as ever. She was every inch the woman he’d fallen in love with, and then some. She had worked all day and now she was home cooking dinner. She probably even had a load of laundry going. And what had he done all day? Not a damned thing. He felt guilty for leaving so much of the work for her, and ashamed that he’d even thought about committing suicide. At least he could step up to the plate and do his share of the chores; live up to his end of the responsibility.

  “Ben, where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you all afternoon. And what is that thing?”

  “Oops, I forgot my cell phone,” he said. “Sorry.” He glanced down at the sopping wet antique. “This, my dear, lovely wife, is a very valuable heirloom.” He put on a pretentious tone, as if he were an art connoisseur discussing a classic piece in front of an admiring crowd.

  “Really?Because it looks like a stinky old chair. Did you go to goodwill again?”

  “No, Janice, I did not. I received this gift in return for the charitable act of changing someone’s tire.”

  “Ben, it’s an old chair.”

  “Yes, but not just any old chair. Because this chair just happened to belong to the great American writer Edgar Allan Poe.” Janice eyed him skeptically, as if she were waiting for a punch line. When it didn’t come, her look changed. Her eyes brightened up and the creases on her face disappeared.

  “Is it true?” she said.

  “Would I lie to you?”

  “How much is it worth?” Leave it to Janice to get right to the point.

  “Well I don’t know exactly what it’s worth. I was going to do some research tonight. If I can prove where it came from and when he had it, this chair might be worth
thousands of dollars.”

  Janice was across the room in a flash, suddenly intrigued. “It is very nice, isn’t it?” she said. “You can tell the wood is all hand-carved. And the upholstery is in very good shape, considering.”

  “Just a second ago you said it was a piece of junk,” Ben teased.

  “Yeah, but that was before I knew it was valuable.” They both laughed. The sound of hissing water came out of the kitchen. “The potatoes are boiling over,” she said, running in that direction. “Why don’t you get online and see what that thing’s worth?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  Ben hauled the chair up to his study. It was a small room on the second floor, a quiet little space decorated with a few posters of his book and a framed copy of the check from his first sale. His writing desk faced the south window and provided a fantastic view across town. He’d spent countless days gazing out that window when he should have been writing.

  Ben placed a towel under the chair to protect the hardwood floor from the dripping water, and then used a couple more towels to soak what moisture he could out of the upholstery. He hadn’t even fired the computer up yet when Janice called up the stairs that dinner was ready.

  From that point on, his evening was spent. Janice wanted help cleaning up after dinner, and the children needed attention as well. After homework and chores, they played a board game. Finally, they tucked the children into bed and read bedtime stories.

  When Ben finally got back to the study, he tossed the damp towels aside and placed yet another dry towel on the cushion. He thought about leaving it that way overnight, but then decided it was dry enough to try it out. After all, he was a writer and it was Edgar Allan Poe’s chair. He at least had to sit on it.

  He moved his office chair aside to push the antique up to his desk, and settled down. It was surprisingly comfortable, despite the fact that it wasn’t adjustable. He settled back, dropping his elbows onto the armrests, and fired up his computer.