Poe Party (Rewritten) - Heliot

Chapter 10: Annabel Lee

Ernest walked into the living room. He looked down at the bowls of soup still on the table, now long gone cold. He walked over to his seat and looked down at his name tag in carefully curled letters. He looked to Mary Ann's - which said George Eliot - and picked it up. He slipped it into his pocket.

"What on earth are you doing here?" Charlotte's voice made him jump and he dropped the knife that was in his hand into his bowl of soup. He fished it out again.

"I'm just..." he couldn't keep the slight tremble out of his voice. "Looking around."

"Hah, right!"

Ernest turned and Charlotte was leaned up against the wall in the corner of the room, watching him suspiciously.

"I didn't kill them," Ernest said. He paused. "Wait a second..." he pointed his knife to her, not meaning to be threatening, but she screamed.

Lenore and Oscar ran into the room seconds later.

"Look!" Charlotte said tearfully. "His knife is all bloody! He just stormed in here all crazed!"

He looked to the weapon in his hand and then turned back. "Uh, no it isn't, I dropped it in the damn soup."

Edgar stepped into the room. "Annabel is dead."

There was a silence, broken by Charlotte. "It was Hemingway! He was about to attack me before you came in!"

"You lunatic," Lenore said. "What, are you just trying to kill off people who write in purple prose?"

Ernest gritted his teeth. To be accused of killing the others - of killing Mary Ann - in cold blood. "As much as I think brevity is the strongest asset of composition, I would never murder anyone! Competition is the fire that fuels the author within, right?"

"Ah! So you admit we're competitors!" Charlotte stated triumphantly.

"Annabel wasn't a writer. I had no reason to kill the woman. The obvious killer is the one who invited us to this god-forsaken mansion in the boondocks - Edgar Allan Poe. Confess or be damned!"

"Woah!" Lenore said. "You do not understand how much my roomie loved that ginger!"

"You can walk through walls," Oscar said. "I see no other explanation here! You straight-up murdered these biddies with your magic beans - you were jealous of the life Annabel had, and you want her, and all her friends, dead!"

"Way harsh, Wilde," Lenore said.

"Now that the shock of Hemingway lunging at me with a soup-stained knife has subsided," Charlotte said. "Grow up," Ernest muttered.

"I still think it was Annabel! She's the one who invited us all here. The poor girl couldn't handle what she'd done - what, with all the murdering in cold blood - so she killed herself. Maybe you were even in on it, Ernest. I doubt that waif of a girl could have dropped that portrait on George Eliot."

Ernest's hands curled into fists. Not my Mary Ann.

"Oh, goodness, that Mary Ann," Charlotte continued. "I mean, all of us ladies use a male pen name to get published, but she went over the top!"

It was exactly what Hemingway had told her, but it was so different coming from Charlotte. So wrong. Mary Ann.

"She doesn't have the face for a moustache."

"You used a male pen name?" Edgar asked, his voice low.

"Yes," Charlotte laughed, "I'm sorry, are you hard of hearing? I just said that."

"And your sisters, too?"

"Yes. It's ridiculously hard to get published with names like Charlotte, Emily and Anne. People think you're all fluff and bunnies."

"What was your pen name?" Edgar asked.

"Currer Bell. Androgynous, no? I quite liked it. I'd certainly allow a Currer Bell to escort me to the Vivian Nightingale Memorial Ball is you know what I mean."

"And... what were your sister's pen names?"

"Anne was Acton Bell and Emily was Ellis. I remember, she thought it was silly, but I insisted it was terribly professional."

Edgar turned and left the room, returning moments later with the red handkerchief they had found by Louisa May's body. "Acton Bell. A Bell. This handkerchief belongs to your family. It's yours."

"Guy wasn't saying Annabel wasn't able," Lenore realized. "He was saying she wasn't 'A Bell'!"

Oscar gasped. "You crazy, contemptuous cow! You murdered my best fri- my acquaintances! Let's call them acquaintances, mm?"

"What the actual heck is wrong with you?" Lenore demanded.

"I'm going to the police," Ernest said.

"Wait." Edgar held up a hand.

"Why? This woman is an admitted murderer!"

"She didn't do it alone."

"How could she have done this all by herself?" Lenore asked.

"That's what I was saying just now, Lenore," Edgar said. "This is a time for listening, okay?"

"Alright, well I'm just trying-"

"I always have the idea and then you piggyback-"

"This is just like the time the cleaning lady-"

"No, don't- don't tell me it's just like the time- It's just like the time-"

"It's not- I'm-"

"Oh, stop your bickering, you two!" Charlotte said, standing up. "You're just as pathetic as the characters you create. But I do thank you for helping me fulfill my dream of creating the perfect gothic novel in real life."

"Oh, ew," Lenore said. "Is that why you're doing this? To create some literary fantasy you can fulfill?"

"Oh, no. I did it for family."

"Gentlemen!" Everyone gasped and looked to the doorway where Charlotte's sister stood holding a proper knife. "Ghosts. Let me introduce myself. I'm Anne Brontë. So sorry I'm late for dinner."