SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

A hand pulled at one coat sleeve. “Ist tha’ druffen o’ yonderly?”

The northern accent was almost too thick to understand. “Ill,” Edward managed, crawling to his knees. “Not drunk.”

Strong arms tugged him to his feet. “Tha’s bist git ter ‘oome.”

Home. Samuel.

Edward nodded and waved off further help. He moved forward once again.

When Edward finally reached his house, he groped for the skeleton key. Throwing the door open, he stumbled to the under-stair cupboard. He dropped to his knees and rummaged for the first bottle he could find.

Lifting the glass to his mouth, Edward exhaled the dreadful echoes. Instead of flowing out easily with his breath, they came out reluctantly, thick and sticky. He corked the bottle, folded himself on the floor, and wept.

The next morning, Edward was unable to rise from bed. He needed to deliver the potion to Mrs. Winston today to collect the rest of his fee, but even that failed to motivate him. His mother’s despair had been too heavy and he had carried it too long. It had formed a bond with his loneliness, with unhappy memories of his childhood, his wife’s death, and with the gloom that poverty brought. He had become a victim of his own potion, the echoes blending with his native emotions until there was no telling one from the other.

Guilt plagued him over the thought that Samuel would live now with his depression, just as Edward had lived with his mother’s. Samuel brought him tea and pleaded for him to rise. Edward knew he had to get up; he had to get the money for Samuel.

When they arrived at Mrs. Winston’s, Samuel went with Simone to the garden while Edward was shown to the sitting room. He handed the phial to Mrs. Winston.

“And now?” she asked.

“I take no part in giving the potion,” Edward replied.

“Yes, Mr. Ferris, I am aware of that. How do you suggest I proceed?”

“The man must breathe the potion in. It’s best done by placing the open bottle close under a person’s nose when they’re asleep, and whispering them a suggestion.”

“I see,” Mrs. Winston said. Her steely gaze pinned him. “Do you believe this will work, Mr. Ferris?”

“I do,” Edward said, chilled by the thought of the strength of the echoes in that tiny jar.

Mrs. Winston strode to the mother-of-pearl box and returned with the remaining five gold sovereigns. They gleamed when she placed them in the palm of his hand. She saw him to the hallway where the manservant stood waiting, having just called Simone and Samuel in from outside. Samuel was shoving something into his pocket.

“What do you think?” Samuel asked the maid, eyes shining with a happiness that Edward rarely saw.

“I think it smelled like summer,” she replied in her lilting accent, smiling at the boy.

Edward wondered what new treasures Samuel had collected from the garden, flowers perhaps. Simone looked up then and saw him, as did Samuel.

“Come now,” Edward said. “Time to leave.”

“He’s a lovely boy,” Simone said. Her gaze lingered on Edward a moment longer than necessary, appraising him and making him self-conscious. She smiled her crooked smile at him.

They followed Simone through the kitchen. “A cup of tea before you go?” she asked.

Samuel looked up at him with pleading eyes.

Despondency rang inside Edward like a funeral bell and he was in no mood for flirtation. Even if he mistook the look in her eyes, he was not fit company for conversation of any sort.

“I cannot,” he said.

She ruffled Samuel’s hair in farewell and stood watching from the door as they left.

Edward awoke the next morning to find Samuel staring at him. The boy was already dressed, standing at his bedside with an anxious expression.

“Can we visit Miss Simone today?”

Simone. The name stirred something warm inside him. It sounded sweet on Samuel’s lips, familiar, as if Edward had just heard her name a moment before. Perhaps he had been dreaming of her. Of her sweet, crooked smile.

“We’ll not be going round to Mrs. Winston’s anymore.” The thought disturbed him. He realized that he wanted to see Simone again.

Samuel continued to stare at him. Edward looked into his young face, tight with hope. “We don’t see clients afterwards, you know that, and anyways they’ll be moving soon.”

“Maybe you could have a note sent afore they go, an’ we could meet her at a tea shop or somewhat, as you could pay with the money you made.” It tumbled out in a fountain of hopeful words.

Yes. What would be so wrong with that?

Edward sought inside for the despondency of the past two days and felt it lessened, diluted. Instead of a depression he had believed would drag him down the same well as his mother, a buoyant anticipation overlay it now. He remembered the appraising look Simone had given him before they left, and smiled to himself.

And then he remembered waking to Samuel at his bedside as he dreamed of Simone.

Edward sat up in bed and stared at Samuel. The boy’s face went wide and guilty.

“I just thought it would be nice to see her again. I liked her so much and she reminded you o’mother.”

How did Samuel know that? He couldn’t have felt the echoes of such a flitting emotion. Or could he?

Edward threw off the bedcovers and hurried downstairs in his nightshirt. He pulled open the under-stair cupboard and yanked the box out. Both love potions were there.

Samuel appeared at his side, looking as contrite as only an eight year-old could. Edward rested on one knee in front of the cupboard, confused. “Samuel, what have you done?”

The boy answered in a mumble. “She liked you, an’ you’ve been so sad.”

“Did you use a potion on her, Samuel?”

“No.” He shook his head emphatically, looking surprised at the accusation.

“Did you use one on me?”

Samuel studied the toes of his boots.

Edward reached forward and fished in Samuel’s pocket, coming up with a blue phial. “Where’d this come from then?”

“I took an empty to Mrs. Winston’s yesterday,” Samuel confessed without looking up. “I talked about you to Miss Simone an’ then told her I was smelling the flowers I held, and then I said I was breathing the flowers into the bottle I brought.” He looked up, pleading. “She’s a’feared to lose her job an’ her home. An’ she does like you. She likes me too.”

“Samuel,” Edward squeezed the phial in his hand nearly to the breaking point, “you’re telling me you harvested echoes from her?”

The boy nodded, tears welling in his eyes.

“What could you o’possibly harvested?” Every echo Edward had ever harvested, even love, had been obsessive, nearly violent in strength. He had felt nothing from Simone.

“The liking you and the hoping I guess,” the boy mumbled.

Edward pushed himself off the floor and sank into the hall chair. He should rage fit to match one of his father’s rages. He should beat the boy for using a potion on him, even though he had sworn he would never raise a hand to his son. Instead, Edward sighed. He was the one who had taught the boy after all.

When he let go of the anger, other feelings drifted to the surface and he recognized them now—hope, desire and anticipation—the gentle aspects of early infatuation. They muted his despair until he hardly felt it. He had never imagined such quiet emotions could counter such brutal ones.

So Simone liked him. Unlikely as it seemed, perhaps it was possible. After all, she had touched something in him just in their brief time together. She missed her son and her husband, and genuinely seemed to like Samuel. Perhaps tea was not such a bad idea.