In a few short years, the boys of Clarke’s had gone from strangers and children to classmates and brothers. To those heading off to college, the future of the academy didn’t matter at all. but to others like Eddy, their collegiate futures hung in the balance. That afternoon, the majority of the student body paraded to the no-longer secret spot along the James and commenced inebriation. 
  Two hours later, the group dispensed in all manner of directions. Eddy and Tom Ellis were walking back to town when they heard an unexpected bell toll. Eddy double checked his pocket watch. 
“That’s strange. The bell shouldn’t be ringing. My watch says 4:22.”
 “It isn’t marking the time,” said Tom. “Someone died. It’s a Death Bell”. 
“How do you know that?”
“You can tell by the intervals. Listen.” 
The chimes came again. Slow. Steady. Somber. 
“Huh,” He said. 
After experiencing so much loss in his own young life,  Eddy wondered how many times he had heard it and never realized its dark message. 
Tom and Eddy entered a bookstore to see what was new. They rifled through new releases from Byron, Shelley, and Cooper. 
 “Hey, Poe. Look at this?” 
Tom held out a book called Confessions of an English Opium Eater.
 “What about it?” Eddy asked. 
“Want to try it? My brother has some.” 
“Your brother has a book? So what?”
“No, you nimrod. He has opium.” The mouthed the final word. 
 “Opium?” Eddy said. 
Shhhhhh! Tom stammered angrily. 
Eddy rolled his eyes and whispered, “I don’t know, Tom. That stuff is supposed to be addictive.” 
“Scared?”
“I’m not scared of anything,” Eddy said. A stare-off commenced, broken only by Eddy. “Alright. Fine. When?”
 “Right now,” said Tom, beginning to exit the shop. Eddy slapped the book closed on the table and followed his friend outside. 
They walked a half-block before Tom stopped and looked around covertly. 
“Wait here. I’ll just be a moment.” Tom slipped down an alleyway and through the back door of an office building. A moment later, he came back holding a small silver box. 
 “Here it is,” he said out of breath. 
 “You sure about this?” Eddy imagined his real father lying dead in a gutter from a similar addiction.  
“You are scared?!” 
“No I’m not,” Eddy grabbed the box and looked inside. It looked like small bits of tobacco set in a milky substance, with an oddly peculiar smell. 
The boys went further down the alley and leaned against the side of a shack. 
Tom looked back down the alley to make sure the coast was clear.  
“Right. So here’s how you do it,” Tom reached into the box. 
“You’ve done this before?”
“Maybe,” Tom smirked. 
Following the lead, Eddy reached in and grabbed a pinch larger than he would have liked. It was gummy, and pliable, like bees wax.
 “C’mon,” Tom goaded. “Do it!” Tom wiped the spittle dripping down his chin. 
Eddy placed the ball of gum in his mouth. A bitter taste hit him like punch to his senses. Even whiskey has a sweetness to it.  
Tom smiled and pointed. 
 “You should see your face. It’s all down your chin. You like a Guy Fawkes!” 
“Well, you look like the Bearded Lady of Bavaria!”
The two boys couldn’t stop laughing at each other.
 Finally, Eddy found enough composure to say, “What the big deal? I don’t feel anything.” 
 “Just wait,” promised Tom. “It hasn’t hit you yet.”
Eddy massaged his gums with his tongue, but he was impatient.  He spit the glob on the ground. 
“This is stupid. “I’m going home,” Eddy said.
“It’s not stupid,” Tom said. “Just wait a few more minutes.” 
“You wait a few minutes. I have things to do,” Eddy waved his hand, leaving Tom in his dust. He was already too far down the alley to be hear the retort. 
Turning onto the market square, Eddy made he way home. The area was mostly quiet now, with the last of the shopkeepers locking up for the day, otherwise the area was abandoned. 
So the sound of someone hot on his heels was startling. Eddy stopped and looked back at the empty street. There was nothing there. Thinking nothing of it, he began walking again. The bold and fragrant smell of gardenias crossed his nose, pleasant but odd for this part of the city. Eddy loved the smell of gardenias. They reminded him of his real mother, Eliza, who always kept a bouquet of gardenias in her dressing room. He looked for the plant so as to take a blossom home, but there was nothing to be seen. In fact, there was not a person. Not a mule. Not a single living thing save for the weeds sticking out from Byrd Street.
Eddy turned for home once more, but this time, a whisk of pink caught his peripheral vision, a lady’s scarf caught in the wind. It was clear that time. He was not alone. Eddy clenched his fist, ready to punch whoever was messing with him and looked around again. That’s when he spotted his dead mother. 
There she stood, plain as day in a second story window. Eddy froze. They stared at one another for a time, the long-dead actress and her lost and awestruck son. 
Eddy, she called from her perch. He blinked for a better look, and she was gone. 
Eddy she called again, only this time her sweet voice was impossibly close, no further than ten feet or so. Eddy, she sang . Her laugh trailed in the wind. 
She- it- was mocking him. He wandered into the street to have a better look. 
 “Where are you?!” He said aloud. “I can hear you!” 
 “On your left!” came the reply, loud, clear and practically on top of him. 
 “Watch out!!” the voice bellowed again. The passing wagon skimmed his shoulder. An inch more and Eddy would have been mowed down in the street. 
 “Christ’s sake. kid,” the driver yelled back. “Gonna get yourself killed.”  
A wave of nausea came over him. Eddy sat on the wooden plank of the sidewalk to catch his breath and watched a whirl of dust spin into the ether. 
It’s just the opium, he told himself, but for a boy versed in dark magic, he knew better.