"Yes—sort of dream-like encounters. Real enough, but with a special feeling to them."

"Beyond the experiences themselves," he said, "have you any understanding as to what they represent?"

I shrugged.

"Impossible to say, sir. We've discussed it occasionally but never found any satisfactory answers."

"You and Poe inhabit separate worlds, similar yet different," he said. "As for Annie, though, I am not certain which might be her true home—possibly yet a third alternate Earth. I see you nod, sir—as if the notion of other versions of your world were not unfamiliar."

"The possibility was discussed—once, briefly," I said.

"Oh? Poe's idea?"

I nodded.

"Interesting mind there," he remarked.

I shrugged.

"I suppose so," I admitted. "A trifle melodramatic, and inclined to take off after chimera, though."

"He was right."

"Really, sir."

"Really. I am telling you the truth, as I understand it."

"I can follow you," I said. "I can even believe you, I guess. But I suppose it bothers me a bit to see the man right again—and in such a bizarre matter."

"He was often right in odd matters?"

"Yes. As you say, interesting mind, interesting ways of thinking."

"Imaginative," Ellison supplied.

I finished my drink.

"All right," I said then. "Premise accepted. What follows?"

"You, Edgar Poe, and Annie constitute a sort of psychic unit transcending the several worlds," he began.

"It is Annie's exceptional abilities along these lines which provide the motive force of your connection.

A number of people who see a way to profit by her mesmeric talents have kidnapped her and confined her in this world. It could only be done by switching around everyone in your triad. Hence, it was necessary that you and Poe also be exchanged—"