On a cold, rainy November afternoon, Clyde McBride left his house on Rosemont Court and walked two blocks to the bus stop at the end of Thomas Street. Overhead, the sky churned like dirty dish water and rivers of gray water swept through the gutters in mighty torrents, carrying trash, dead leaves, and small animals into the network of sewers beneath the town of Royal Woods.

Orange and red leaves were plastered to the sidewalk and Clyde had to step carefully to avoid slipping on them. Every so often a cold gust of wind would sweep water into his face and he would have to turn his head to the side. Dressed in thick rubber rain boots and a yellow slicker, Clyde made his way to the end of the street and stopped at the covered bus shelter. Fat beads of rain sluiced down the glass siding and hissed on the corrugated metal roof. There was a narrow bench inside, and Clyde perched uncomfortably on it like a bird of prey. Water leaked through holes in the roof and flowed in beneath the raised sides of the shelter.

It was a nasty day and Clyde would have preferred to be inside, sipping hot cocoa and reading a comic book, but tomorrow was his father Harold's birthday and Clyde had put off getting a gift until the last possible minute. That was not like him; he was not the type to fly by the seat of his pants, but he had no idea what to get Harold and had been putting it off for days. He prided himself on always getting the perfect gift, but Harold was the proverbial man who had everything and shopping for him was difficult. He would appreciate everything that Clyde got him, But Clyde wanted his present to be perfect, something that would really blow Harold's socks off. What that gift was, Clyde had no idea. Harold was a bibliophile who loved to read, especially the classics like Moby-Dick and A Tale of Two Cities, so Clyde had been thinking about getting him a nice leather bound book, the kind that would not be out of place in a warmly lit study where brandy flowed and Velveteen smoking jackets were required apparel.

The main problem with that however was that Harold already had pretty much every book ever published. There were stacks and stacks of cardboard boxes filled with books in the basement, with more in the shed in the backyard. There were tall and overstuffed bookshelves in every room of the house, including Clyde's room. Every so often, Harold would come home with piles of new titles that he would add to his hoard and never read. He had a small collection of books that he would read over and over again while sitting comfortably on the couch. Clyde wanted to get him a book that he would actually read, one that would not go into the basement or into the storage shed but onto his nightstand or in a position of pride on one of the many bookshelves crowding the house. Clyde knew his tastes well enough that he would recognize the perfect book when he saw it, but there was always the possibility that Harold would already have a copy.

There was nothing worse in Clyde's mind than receiving something as a gift that you already have. For that reason, Clyde was under extreme pressure to come up with the perfect book, one that Harold would not only like but also not already have. That was a huge burden; it was the reason why Clyde had been kicking the proverbial can down the street, putting off his little expedition until he could no longer put it off anymore. Thus, like a fool, he was forced to scramble at the 25th hour. He should have known that it would rain today, as it only made sense that the weather would be bad the day he chose to be out and about. He was not the kind of guy to complain or to throw himself regular pity parties, but sometimes he had the most rotten luck. Why couldn't the rain hold off until he was done? Why couldn't it be warm and sunny the way it was only two days ago? Why did he have to fight his way through a deluge of nearly freezing rain?

It could be worse, he figured. It could be snowing. Like any boy of 12, Clyde liked the snow. That is, he liked to look at it, to play in it, and to miss school because of it. He didn't like to shovel it, walk long distances in it, or slip and fall in it. Running errands in the snow was a special kind of hell and he was thankful that at least it was rain that he had to deal with.

Sighing, Clyde checked the time on his phone. It was 3:15, about an hour and a half until sundown, though with how dark and gray the sky already was, it was probably more like an hour. One hour until the light faded and darkness overtook the streets of Royal Woods. Though he would not admit this out loud, Clyde was afraid of the dark. Rather, he was afraid of being outside in the dark. He was always safely inside by the time the sunset, and could not remember ever being outside after dusk. At least not on his own. He had been outside after dark tons of times with his best friend Lincoln Loud. It was different being with someone versus being on your own. Clyde was less afraid of monsters and more afraid of muggers, crackheads, and homeless people; though it was a small town, Royal Woods, as of late, was filled with plenty of all three. These days you couldn't go downtown without being hassled by aggressive panhandlers and shabby hobos who demanded dollars and loose pocket change. Things were so bad that Clyde was afraid of being kidnapped, a concern that he had never previously had.

He silently wished that Lincoln was with him. He had not seen much of Lincoln recently. There was no reason for this, just normal life stuff getting in the way of their meeting and hanging out. The holiday season was always hectic for both Lincoln's family and for Clyde's. Currently, Lincoln had family in from out of town for Thanksgiving, several far flung aunts, uncles, and cousins whom Clyde had only briefly met and barely knew. They were taking up all of Lincoln's time lately and Clyde hadn't been able to see him. Deprived of his best friend, Clyde sank into loneliness and depression, both of which were natural states for him, he supposed, the way certain cities were built in deserts or on marsh land and would go back to such if they weren't constantly maintained. Before being adopted by Howard and Harold McBride, he was an orphan who lived in a residential care facility with dozens of other kids no one wanted. He had no family, very few friends, and was always sad.

Things were much better now, but still, sometimes that feeling of loneliness crept back in like a cold draft and he found himself feeling down and isolated. It usually happened at times like this, when he hadn't been with Lincoln for a while. Lincoln was his best friend and Clyde loved him like a brother. They did all sorts of stuff together and always managed to have fun, even when they did something as mundane as cleaning - something they did more than once, as Lincoln's parents routinely made the kids clean the house from top to bottom. Lincoln was like hot sauce. He made everything better, even stuff that objectively sucked.

When he was apart from Lincoln, life felt empty and just a little darker. Dr. Lopez, his psychiatrist, said that he had abandonment issues and was too dependent on those close to him. At first Clyde rejected those claims, But as time wore on and he did a little more soul-searching, he realized them to be true. He was too dependent on those around him, including Lincoln and indeed the entire Loud family.

He genuinely liked all of Lincoln's sisters and considered them friends. One of his favorites was Lynn Jr, who was the closest thing to an older brother that he had ever had. She liked sports and loved to playfully pick on both him and Lincoln. She was the kind of girl who would come up behind you without you knowing about it, and then give you a noogie from hell. She was also fiercely protective of her little brother and his best friend. One time, some 8th grade boys were picking on Clyde and Lincoln. Like really picking on them. They shoved Clyde into a locker and gave Lincoln a swirly in the Boys Room. They would push them, trip them in the cafeteria, and generally make their life a living hell. Clyde and Lincoln both did their best to hide the fact that they were being bullied, Lynn somehow found out, and she was furious. She tracked down the boys who were giving Clyde and Lincoln a hard time and beat the holy stuffing out of them. After, she told Clyde and Lincoln that nobody was allowed to pick on them but her.

Clyde could live with that he figured.

Luna was another one of his favorites. She was chill and down to earth, and a lot of fun to be around. If Clyde had a problem, he always knew that he could take it to Luna, and that she would dispense homespun wisdom without judgement or presupposition. Leni, of course, was great too. She was very sweet and kind, and would do anything she could to help you or make you feel better when you were down. She was not a perfect human being - who is? - but she was always sunshiny and upbeat, oozing charm and positivity. She almost never had anything but a smile on her face, and if you were to cut into her you would discover that she was not a human being at all, put a girl shaped cinnamon roll.

Though each of Lincoln's sisters had something to recommend them, his absolute favorite was Lori, the oldest at seventeen. Clyde had had a crush on her for years, basically since he first met her, and she had become to him what Arnold was to Helga. He worshiped the ground she walked on, and daydreamed about her constantly. He was madly in love with her and was determined that one day he was somehow going to win her over. He had been trying for what felt like an eternity and none of his plans had ever come to fruition. He was like Plankton trying to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula, failing time and again but never ever giving up. One day he would have her, no matter how hard he had to try or how long it took. They would be married and have a happy life together. Of that he was certain. There was literally no other way his future could shake out. It was just a matter of time.

Clyde was roused from thoughts of Lori by the approach of the bus, its engine puttering and its rear spewing thick black exhaust. It's bald tires splashed through puddles and kicked up sheets of dirty gray water. It rocked sickeningly on its frame, and when it slowed to a stop in front of the shelter, it let out a tired sigh like an old man at the end of a long and trying day. The door opened with a sickly wheeze, and the obnoxious odor of diesel fuel wrapped itself around Clyde like a cartoon stetnch cloud.

The Royal Woods Transportation Authority buses were all at least 30 years old and were held together by bubblegum and duct tape. They were always breaking down and there was never any guarantee that would even show up when it was supposed to. Clyde felt like every trip on one of those things would be his last, and always made it a point to send a prayer to the big guy upstairs before boarding, that way they'd be on good terms if Clyde was killed in a fiery bus crash. Getting up, Clyde ducked his head against the rain and climbed on, dropping his money into the farebox and taking a seat half way back. Across from him, an old lady read from a Nora Roberts paperback, and in the rear, a black guy jammed out to loud music on his phone.

It sounded like Taylor Swift.

Not many Swifties in the hood.

Or were there? Clyde didn't live in the hood so he guessed he really couldn't say. He didn't imagine there were scores of Taylor Swift fans there, but hey, who knew? There might very well be.

The doors closed with a thunk and the driver spun the wheel, navigating the big bus away from the curb. Clyde settled back in his seat and went back to wondering what he was going to get Harold. Books were always an option but, honestly, he didn't know if he wanted to go in that direction. A nice sweater, maybe? Harold was a huge fan of sweaters. Hmmm. That was a possibility, he guessed, but sweaters were so…pedestrian. He wanted something that would bowl Harold over, something that would properly express the love and gratitude that Clyde felt for him. If he could swing it, he'd get him a magic lamp with a genie inside so that he could make his own greatest wishes come true. That was really the only present that would totally convey Clyde's feelings.

Maybe he could get Harold a bunch of lottery tickets. That was the closest he could come to a magic Genie lamp. There was no guarantee of winning, but if you bought enough of them, Harold can have a shot at winning some big money. That seemed kind of like a trashy gift idea though.

The bus ambled along the street making stops here and there and taking on cold and tired refugees. The driver yelled at the black man to turned down his music, and the old lady eventually closed her book, either finished or finished for now. At one point a blind man with a service dog got on the bus. The dog was a golden retriever and wore a little red vest with service animal printed in white across the sides. Clyde had always wanted a dog, but his fathers were not big on dogs. They were cat guys and thought that dogs would be too much of a hassle. They were certainly right that dogs needed a higher level of care of the cats, but Clyde was more than willing to pick up the slack. He hadn't brought it up in a while, but maybe he would ask for a dog for Christmas. With a dog he would never feel alone, and he would always have a friend on hand.

Eventually, the bus reached downtown Royal Woods, a center of shopping and dining filled with stores, restaurants, and entertainment venues. Clyde yanked the pull cord, and the bus came to a stop in front of a strip mall. Clyde got up, thanked the driver, and got off the bus The rain had let up a little and now fell in a thin drizzle. The sky had grown darker and Clyde's heart skipped a beat at the thought of being out after dark. He shot a quick and nervous look around, and saw no visible threat. The homeless people didn't usually come to this part of town until after dark, when everyone else cleared out. Until then, he should be safe.

Taking a deep breath, Clyde went off in search of Harold's gift. To save time, he didn't go into many stores, he just looked through the front window to see if there was anything interesting. If he could not spot at least one cool item by looking through the window, chances were that he would not find anything by going in.

Clyde had been downtown a thousand times of his life, but he still managed to get lost in the whirl of light and activity. He wound up on a narriw side street paved with cobblestone and lined with ancient brick storefronts, many of them shuttered and closed. He was just about to turn around and head back to the main square when he came across a tiny shop with a wooden sign over the door. The white Legend was faded and illegible. In the window, Clyde spotted an array of old books and antiques, relics of a bygone era. The place was clearly some sort of consignment shop, selling this and that, its inventory culled from the attics and basements of Royal Woods.

Harold and Howard both loved antique shops and yard sales. Clyde too enjoyed the thrill of the hunt, finding things that were old, unique, or novel. For Harold or himself, he did not know, but he went into the store anyway, a tiny bell above the door announcing his entrance.

The inside of the store was small and cramped with bric-a-brac, big shelves lining the walls and low lamp light providing a warm and comfortable glow. Straight ahead was a desk boasting a clunky old register from the 1940s, behind that a set of stairs led to the second floor. The shop was empty and Clyde looked around for the proprietor, wondering if he should turn around and walk out. He hesitated, but pushed ahead anyway.

His first stop was at a bookshelf filled with dusty hardbacks, most of them without dust covers... hence their being dusty. Their spies were all different colors, red, blue, and green like a bevy of precious stones. Clyde slipped a few of them out and examined their titles. Some were in French, others in German, and one in Latin. They looked expensive and Clyde was suddenly all too aware of how little money he had. He returned the books to their place and moved on to a table filled with antique cookware. There were glasses, serving trays, and fine china. This stuff, too, was more than Clyde could afford.

He was beginning to think that this store was going to be a bust. Everything here was well outside of his price range. How such a store could stay in business, he had no idea. Royal Woods was not the most affluent town in the state of Michigan, with most of its population being working class or lower middle class. You would not expect a store with such high prices to survive in such an environment. A shop like this would thrive in a big city were people made more money and a higher percentage of the population were wealthier. Not so much in a place like Royal Woods. Then again, Clyde had never been here before, and had no idea it even existed until he walked through the door, which told him that the place had probably just opened. With prices like this, they would not stay open for very long.

Resigned, Clyde began to turn away back to the door, but a voice to stop him. A woman in a long flowing dress floated out from behind the counter as though her feet were not touching the ground. She wore a type of durag and big hoop earrings. Rings glinted on each of her fingers, and a tangle of long necklaces lay against her chest. She looked like every cartoon gypsy that Clyde had ever seen, and his heart did a frightened little jog in his chest. He had the irrational, though briefly lived, fear that she would place some kind of hex on him, or worse, drag him off to be boiled in a bubbling cauldron for use in some kind of dark, Satanic rite. The woman's face was pale and haggard, but her lips were full and bright red, so red that they almost dazzled Clyde's vision. Was she a vampire? God help him if she didn't look like a full blown vampire.

The woman, perhaps sensing his fear, flashed a big, toothy smile. "Hello," she said in a thick, Eastern European accent. "Welcome to my shop." She spread her hands with an exaggerated flourish, and Clyde couldn't help looking around, as though the mundane items he had just pursued would somehow be made magical now. He saw the same old books, knick nacks, and castoffs that he had seen a few minutes ago, however. He saw no skulls, black candles, or arcane tomes filled with dark secrets and terrible incantations; no vials of potions; nothing that he hadn't seen in a thousand other little shops just like this one. Really, the scariest thing here so far were the prices.

"Hi," Clyde said, his voice catching. He swallowed and took an unconscious step backward, toward the safe salvation of the door and the rainswept world beyond. Okay, the prices weren't the only scary thing around here: The gypsy was pretty dang creepy too. "I was just going to…" he hooked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate that he was going to leave, but the gypsy stopped him.

"Don't go yet," she said and took his hand, "we have much to discuss."

Clyde gulped. "But I.."

The gypsy shushed him and led him past the counter and through a veil of beads. Beyond was a tiny kitchen complete with grimy fifties style fixtures that likely hadn't been updated in seventy years or more. A table sat in the middle of he room, a circle of flickering candles atop it adding a low illumination and chasing shadows across the walls. Suddenly, Clyde had a very bad feeling about this. "Uh…I gotta go," he stammered.

"Nonsense," the gypsy said dismissively, "you need a present for your father, and you won't find it anywhere but here."

Clyde blinked in surprise as the woman sat him at the table. She sat across from him and faced him. "How did you know that?" Clyde asked.

"I know many things," the gypsy responded. "Give me your hand."

For a second, Clyde hesitated, feeling small and helpless. The gypsy repeated her request, and after a moment, Clyde reached his hand across the table, palm up.

The Gypsy took Clyde's hand without breaking eye contact and her fingertips over his palm. Her touch was cool and dry like old parchment, and a shiver ran down Clyde's spine.

At that moment, a strong gust of wind blew in the eaves, the sound of it like the moaning of Damned spirits. If that was not a bad omen, Clyde was a monkey's uncle. He swallowed hard around a lump in his throat, and squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. The Gypsy flicked her eyes to his hand it made a humming sound in the back of her throat. "Ah, yes," she said more to herself than to Clyde.

"What?" Clyde asked quickly.

Instead of responding, the Gypsy went on studying the lines in his hand as if attempting to divine the future. Clyde waited a minute, then repeated his question.

"You are a very lonely little boy," the Gypsy pointed out.

Clyde opened his mouth to argue but snapped it closed again. Hearing it spoken out loud in so many words struck him almost as a cruel insult, and his first reaction was to deny her assertation. He wasn't lonely, not really. He had his dads, and Lincoln, and Lincoln's sisters, and…you know what?...he had a group of friends at school. He wasn't all that close with Rusty, Rocky, Zach, and Liam, but they were friends nevertheless. Clyde had thought of himself as lonely just a half an hour ago, but he was wrong then and the Gypsy was wrong now. He had plenty of friends and a good life, a normal life. Everything before - the orphanage, being bullied by the other kids, wishing upon a star that someone would adopt and love him - was in the past, ancient history. He had a charmed life and he had no reason to complain about it. Lonely? Him? No way!

Only he was. He couldn't explain it, he couldn't account for it, but deep in his heart of hearts, he was a lonely boy. Maybe he was born with it, maybe it was bred into him during the years he spent in the orphanage. Either way, it was there, lurking just below the surface like a malignant tumor waiting to break through and infect all the healthy cells around it.

All of these thoughts occurred in half a second, and from the smug expression on the Gypsy's face, she saw them in his eyes. "There is one thing you desire above all others," she stated. "One thing that will fill the hole in your heart and sooth your wounded soul."

An image began to take shape in Clyde's mind, emerging from the mist like a Poloroid picture slowly fading into view. A thin and delicate face framed by short, golden blonde hair. It had crystalline blue eyes and pink, pouty lips that seemed to shimmer in the light. The Gypsy knew exactly what he was thinking about and who he was thinking about. "Lori," she said.

Clyde didn't know how the Gypsy knew all this and it terrified him, but he nodded anyway. He swallowed with a click and finally found his voice. "Yes," he said. "Lori."

"You have tried many times to win her heart, but your efforts have all been in vain."

It was not a question, it was a statement.

Again, Clyde said, "Yes."

"You need help in winning her over," the Gypsy said, "some magic bullet that will make her fall in love with you." The Gypsy reached under the table, rummaged around for a second, and came back with a tiny glass vial filled with purple liquid held in place by a cork. There was no label on the bottle, and Clyde got the strangest impression that she hadn't taken it from a box or secret compartment beneath the table, but had made it appear out of nowhere. She sat the vial on the table with a little clunk and pushed it across the surface to Clyde. "Take this," she said. "It will aid in your quest."

"What is it?" Clyde asked as he eyed the bottle suspiciously.

"A love potion," the Gypsy said in a rasping, serious tone. "Give it to your Lori and she will love you."

Clyde stared disbelievingly at the bottle, his heart and mind both a tempest of conflict. It was true that he wanted Lori to love him, but using a magic potion seemed somewhat like cheating. And that was, of course, if it really was a magic potion in the first place. That in of itself was a big stretch. Stuff like that doesn't really exist outside of bad YA fiction.

Then again, he could not explain how the Gypsy knew so much about him. He had never met nor even seen her in his entire life, there was no way she could have picked up so much information about him, especially since most of what she had told him was private, locked deep in his heart hidden from view. There was no logical way that she could know all of those things, so why should he have such a closed mind when it came to the existence of a "love potion"? Stranger things could certainly happen. In fact, they already had, and just within the last couple of minutes.

"Take it," the Gypsy said.

Clyde reached across the table to take the bottle, but the Gypsy stopped him by holding up one gnarled and crooked finger. "But first you must know the rules."

"The rules?" Clyde croaked.

The Gypsy nodded solemnly. "First, you must use only one drop. Using more will cause devastating consequences. The potion will make whoever you use it on fall madly in love with the first person they see. The effects are not permanent, however. They will only last six hours, whereupon the afflicted will return to normal with no memory of what happened. You, of course, will remember everything."

Clyde's spirits crashed. "Only six hours?" he asked.

"Six hours," the Gypsy said, "not a minute more."

That seemed…strange to Clyde. If someone fell in love with you for only six hours, it's, like, not real. It didn't last. It had an expiration date. It was more of an illusion than anything else.

He thought of using it on Lori and figured that it was better than nothing. He took the bottle and turned it over in his hand, it was cool and slick, seeming to thrum with energy. "Thank you," he said. "How much do I owe you?"

"Nothing," the Gypsy said, "it is free."

Clyde thanked her. Before he left, she also gave him a book for Harold. It was a first edition of something from the twenties called Jeeves and Wooster by a guy named P.G. Wodehouse. It was apparently a comedy. She said that Harold would like it, and he trusted her entirely. The light was fading fast when he left the shop. He hurried back to the bus stop and waited a few minutes. The bus came, he got on, and took it back to his street. There, he got off and walked home, getting there just as the street lights winked on. In his room, he hid the book in his sock drawer, sat on the bed, and stared at the potion, excitement building in his chest. Lori would only love him for six hours…that wasn't long, but it was enough, he reckoned. He thought of her face and his heart fluttered in his chest.

He couldn't wait to try it out.