Aether Spirit

Chapter 2-1

2

Fort Daniels, 22 February, 1871

Chad finished his rounds and was relieved to find the barracks room he shared with Patrick empty. He slumped on the cot and moved his head back and forth, trying to loosen the tension in his neck. The hospital was intense enough without this particular wrinkle.

He reached under his bed and found the storage locker where he kept his personal belongings. It was time to remember what he needed to do for Claire, not for himself. He pulled out the letter that had been unfolded, read, and re-folded so many times it had almost disintegrated into a deck of heartbreaking cards.

April 4, 1865

Dear Chadwick,

Claire’s mother and I are very sorry to have to tell you this, but the doctors have said she needs to go to Europe for treatment. Her reactions to any reminders of the accident have been so severe that we and the medical professionals fear further injury should we continue our current course. The doctors have told us that any reminders of the night of the accident are forbidden at this time. As it occurred on a special night for you, this means she cannot see or communicate with you, as it might upset her already delicate state. We are hopeful Doctor Charcot will be able to treat her, but we will not know until he tries, and he may have to bury the memory of that night permanently for her to move forward. You can only imagine our pain at seeing our daughter like this and having to limit what we can say to her. Words of love are forbidden. If only I had checked the steam chamber before you two took the cart out… Her aunt always predicted something terrible would happen should I continue to “mess with God’s materials.” Luckily her other two aunts left her enough of an inheritance that she will be able to afford the best care in the world, and I have convinced the solicitors to allow her the money early.

I have enclosed the draft of the engagement announcement and the ring. Please know that whatever loss you’re feeling is echoed within myself, as I am losing both my daughter and my most promising assistant.

Please find yourself a nice girl without a crazy tinkerer father.

Sincerely,

Allen McPhee

That was the last Chad had heard from Allen McPhee, who had died only a year later. It was said he never recovered from the heartbreak and self-recrimination over what had happened to his daughter. She, meanwhile, had been released to see her family eventually, but her mother had warned Chad off, saying Claire was still too fragile to handle seeing her first love and former fiancé. He’d immersed himself in his medical studies to ease his heartbreak. The military had paid for his education, and he’d gone into battlefield medicine, which included some study of nervous hysteria caused by experiencing life-threatening situations.

Whatever they had done to her, they’d blocked more than they should.

“Going through your nightly ritual?” Patrick poked his head around the door.

“Yes.” Chad re-folded the letter. He needed the reminder to tread carefully. The last thing he wanted to do was cause her more pain. But tonight, instead of its usual effect of pushing him to read more, learn more, and try harder with his own patients, the letter induced a state of melancholy.

“It’s a good thing we were there,” Patrick said. “I’ve not seen anyone get that kind of cold shoulder since we stopped bringing the prisoners in for mealtimes.”

“Right, so much for social intervention.”

“You’re sulking,” Patrick pointed out. “You should stop reading her father’s letter. I wish he was still around—he was famous for his experiments with lens materials. Do you think she might recall any of Allen’s work?”

Chad shook his head. “If there’s anything in there, it’s probably locked away tight. We should leave it alone for now. Her work with him on that subject occurred at the same time I was courting her.”

“Hence the sulking.” Patrick patted him on the shoulder. “What did they do to her over there?”

“I wish I knew.” He stood. “I need something else to focus on. Shall we go to the workshop?”

“Sure.” Patrick gave him a quizzical look but didn’t say anything else.

They crossed the yard under a sliver of moon, which sliced through a break in the clouds. He’d formerly imagined it shining on Claire in some far-off land and uniting them in sharing its light, but it failed to cheer him now. Moisture from the rain seeped through Chad’s layers. He thought he could feel the cold in his bones, and his elbow twinged. All of it made him weary and reminded him he wasn’t as young as he used to be.

Patrick unlocked the padlock that kept their private workshop safe. The only light inside until he lit the lamp was the little aether worm, as Chad thought of it, swirling in the middle of its globe like a snake pulling itself along by biting its tail. While Patrick lit the lamp, Chad moved to his aether intervention device. He wished he knew more about how the substance worked, what it did. All he knew was that it did something to people emotionally, but it was difficult to determine how it would affect each individual.

“I need a grant to study this at my leisure,” he said.

“I’m sure some of the boys would volunteer to be subjects for you. They seem to like you, appreciate what you do for them.”

Chad put the device back on the table. “Too risky. Psyches and their neuroses are all unique. You remember how it had different effects on you and the professor in Paris. It seemed to bring out the worst in you and destructive melancholia in him. I shouldn’t have tried it on Amelie Lafitte—I was probably lucky that it worked as well as it did on her.”

He turned away, and Patrick caught him by the shoulder. “And do you think it might be getting to you now?”

“No. I wish it were that easy. This melancholia is all from seeing Claire.”

“You won her once. You can do it again.”

“At risk of injuring her, which I will not do.” He placed the hoses with little metal cups back in their case. “You tinker around in here. I’m going to bed.”