The Eyeball Collector by F E Higgins Read Free Book Online Page B

– within. She thought of Hector and his fine set of teeth and it caused her to smile sadly.
    Hector’s arrival, near two months ago, had made Lottie think more of her own son, Ludlow. He would have been Hector’s age the last time she saw him. It pained her newfound conscience greatly to think how she and Ned had so cruelly driven him away. She hardly blamed him for going. They had not been fit parents by any manner of means. So much of Lottie’s previous life was just a blur that she even had trouble recalling exactly what Ludlow looked like. He had brown eyes, hadn’t he? Or were they green? She could ask Ned. No, he probably wouldn’t know either. If Lottie’s mind was rather addled, his was ten times worse. He had certainly out-drunk her down the years.
    For most of her life, like many Urbs Umidians, God and his mysterious ways were of little interest to Lottie. But that distant winter’s night when her other half (neither better nor worse) Ned fell in the Foedus proved to be a life-changing moment for the two of them. They had arrived at the river that snowy evening simply because they were in desperate pursuit of their son, Ludlow. If truth be told, they were trying to sell his teeth. Ludlow was not at all keen to be caught, not only because his teeth were still in his head, but also because he had no illusions about his place in his parents’ affections – somewhere after gin and money. The chase culminated in Ludlow’s wrestling for his life with his father on the river bank. Ned lost his grip and fell in the Foedus and Ludlow escaped.
    As soon as Ned’s head slipped under Lottie wailed and screamed, as was expected, but other than that accepted his demise rather rapidly. Fortunately for Ned people had gathered around at the commotion and, wouldn’t you know, one of them had a rope. He tossed it to Ned who, more by luck than design, managed to grab it. He was then hauled ashore.
    ‘I can’t feel my legs,’ he had groaned as he was dragged up the bank. Lottie didn’t believe him and kicked him sharply in the shins but he didn’t so much as flinch. In all probability they were numb from the freezing water but that didn’t explain why he hadn’t walked since that day. Lottie had been disappointed at this outcome, namely his survival, but the cries of ‘It’s a miracle!’ and ‘God be praised!’ from the assembled crowd had struck a chord with her and it was at that very moment, on the snowy banks of the Foedus, that she had her first vision.
    There appeared in front of her the ghostly shape of a young child on his knees. He was crying, his thin arms outstretched searching for food in the snow, and Lottie was suddenly and unexpectedly moved to tears. In fact the child was not a vision, but flesh and bone, just particularly pale. In the crush of the crowd he had dropped a hot chestnut, which was immediately trodden underfoot, and he was scrabbling for it.
    Lottie turned away to see Ned being dragged off to the Nimble Finger, a haunt of his, for a warming drink by the fire, and when she looked back the boy was gone. She thought to follow his ghostly footprints in the snow and eventually came to Hookstone Row, some five or six streets away from the river. The footsteps led directly to a large abandoned house crawling with orphaned boys. As she stood in the doorway and saw their dirty faces looking hopefully at hers, Lottie felt even more profoundly the very recent loss of her own son and vowed to come to the aid of these unfortunates. And thus was founded Lottie Fitch’s Home for Exposed Babies and Abandoned Boys.
    Whether or not there had been divine intervention that evening, at least one miracle had occurred: Lottie was a changed woman. She immediately gave up the Juniper Water and threw herself into her new role as mother to the waifs and strays of Urbs Umida. Ned, still numb of leg when he moved in also, had not given up gin but, out of respect for Lottie, he pretended he had and had it