The Forger's Daughter: a Novel by Bradford Morrow

The Forger's Daughter: a Novel by Bradford Morrow

Author:Bradford Morrow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2020-08-21T19:03:09+00:00


rather than the poet’s intended “In climes of my imagining.” I felt a twinge of fraternal pain for youthful Calvin and wondered why he never produced another book, fading into pleasant obscurity while Poe rose to tormented fame. But then, to be sure, our Tamerlane must by design keep its fabricators wrapped in an even greater obscurity, while its prototype should make headlines.

My transient pride flickered, faded, and snuffed out. What replaced it was the far less fanciful knowledge that this was nothing to be proud of, in fact, and that I had the unpleasant task ahead of handing the thing over to Slader.

Since I was firm in my decision not to add an inscription or autograph in Poe’s hand on the pamphlet, work on Tamerlane was done. Before heading back into the kitchen to wish Maisie a good time sailing the river, I pulled both twice-folded letters from the safe—the poet’s original and Nicole’s—and studied them with a magnifying glass. In each, the paper, ink, and script matched the other. Satisfied, I stowed the fakes in my fireproof safe, where they could be retrieved that afternoon for delivery downtown. Then I did something impulsive. Rather than place the originals alongside the copies, I pulled down a hardcover reference book of monotype ornaments from a high shelf of other seldom-perused volumes and tucked Tamerlane and Poe’s missive inside. Pamphlet and letter, which I’d preserved in a fresh archival polyester sleeve, were thin enough that when the reference book was closed, their presence, secured inside its many pages, was imperceptible. While a safe, I told myself, might be broken into—I’d noted Slader’s glance in its direction when he was here—a monotype reference book, in this case concealing a purloined letter, was invisible to even the most prying eyes. Shelving the volume back where it belonged, I recalled a time, as a boy, when I hid from my father my first forged letter using this very trick. I had been inordinately proud of that letter back then, before I stashed it in my father’s library in the second folio volume of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, figuring no one would ever bother to look there. I figured right. The dictionary was long since sold, but not before I retrieved my Doyle document from its hiding place. So it was that my first foray into the art of forgery, an imaginary log of my maiden voyage, survived to this day.

Nicole and Maisie were chatting away at the breakfast table when I returned to the kitchen. A place was set for me with jam and a scone. Maisie’s lunch was packed in her bright-pink backpack, which sat open on the counter, but Meghan was nowhere to be seen.

“You all ready, Maze?” I asked.

“They’ll be here in a few minutes,” she said, nodding.

“Got sunscreen?”

Nicole answered, “She’s got enough in that pack for a transatlantic voyage.”

“Where’s your mother?”

Nicole rose from the table, went to the counter, and zipped up Maisie’s pack for her, saying, “She ran into town to do weekend shopping, told me to tell you not to worry.



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