The Accidental Alchemist (23 page)

Second, this dream was fundamentally different from the “dream” I’d had after being poisoned. It was a hallucinogenic effect I’d experienced that day.

I had it wrong. We weren’t looking for an alchemist who had stolen Dorian’s book. We were looking for a poisoner who had killed Charles Macraith.

thirty-two

In the morning, I
found five text messages from Brixton on my
phone. I felt bad that I hadn’t thought to check the previous night. I texted him back that everything was fine, but we didn’t know who had framed Blue. I asked him for Ivan’s email address. It was a school day, so hopefully he’d be awake and heading to school. His last text message had come in at two o’clock in the morning, so I wasn’t sure.

Two minutes later, Brixton texted me Ivan’s email address—along with a passive-aggressive text thanking me for keeping him in the loop the previous night.

———

After a quick oatmeal breakfast to warm up, I met Ivan in Washington Park. He received my email on his phone and told me where he was, inviting me to join him. He said I could find him at the park’s International Rose Test Garden. I wasn’t sure w
hy he would be at a rose garden in the dead of winter. Unlike the lush cemetery grounds I’d walked through earlier that week, the barren landscape of a winter rose garden gave me a cold, foreboding feeling. Dark clouds hung low in the sky, but the rain held off for the moment.

Ivan stood next to the brittle branches of a row of roses, their thorns more prominent for the absence of leaves and flowers. Though he wore a fedora, thick scarf, and a coat with the collar turned up, he was easy to spot. He was the only person there.

“You wonder why I come here in winter?” he asked.

“You appreciate the solitude?”

“It reminds me,” he said, “that death is natural. My body is failing me, but I do not wish to feel sorry for myself. Sometimes,” he paused and ran his fingers over the gnarled remnants of a rose bush, “I need a reminder.”

“Would you like to talk somewhere inside, where it’s warmer?” The chill in the air penetrated my coat. I could take it, but it didn’t seem to be a good place for someone with failing health.

“The air is good for me.” Ivan rubbed his hands together and shook out his shoulders. “Shall we walk?”

We walked side by side through the desolate rows of branches that had once been beautiful roses. I hadn’t yet figured out what I should say to Ivan. I had to strike the right balance between getting the help I needed from Ivan and not revealing why I needed it, or why there was such urgency.

“I’ve been thinking about the woodcut illustrations you showed me,” Ivan said as we entered the Shakespeare Garden. “They are unlike anything I have come across in my research.”

“It’s an interesting puzzle, isn’t it? I was hoping you could help me figure out what the book is about.”

“I miss an academic challenge, but would it not make the most sense to wait until the police have recovered the book itself?”

“I’m anxious to get started,” I said. “It’s the one mystery around me that I feel like I have some control over.”

“This,” Ivan said, “I can understand. Helplessness can lead to despair. Did you bring the images?”

I removed the printouts from my inner jacket pocket. Ivan took them from me. He stopped walking and examined them in silence. I couldn’t tell if the frustration evident on his face was because of the tremor in his hands or what he saw in the images.

“What do you know of the history of the book?” he asked.

“I only found it recently, so when it was stolen I hadn’t yet discovered its origins.”

“And you found it—”

“In Saint-Gervais,” I said, sticking to the truth as much as possible. That was the French town where Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin had been living when he brought Dorian to life. “I wouldn’t be able to find the seller again. I didn’t realize at the time what a find it was.”

“That is unfortunate. Also unfortunate that someone stole it by accident, not realizing what they had.”

I nodded but didn’t speak for a few moments. Had it really been an accident? A crime of opportunity, that happened to result in the most precious item in my new house being stolen? That was too big a coincidence, wasn’t it? Whoever took it had to know of its worth. The question was whether the thief took it for its monetary value—or if they wanted it to bring creatures like Dorian to life.

“
Non Degenera Alchemia
.” I pointed at the photograph of the title page. “Strangely convoluted, don’t you think? Even for an alchemist.”

Ivan laughed. “
Not Ignoble Alchemy
. Yes, very unnecessary. But alchemists have never been known for their simplicity. There are
hundreds
of words used to describe prima materia. Hundreds! The sun, the moon, water of gold, shadow of the sun, the garden, lord of the stones—the list goes on and on. No, it’s not the obfuscation that I find fascinating about this book. What’s most interesting here is that the book does not list an author.”

The absence of an author wasn’t common, but wasn’t itself enough to signal that something was especially strange about the book. But along with the bizarre illustrations, I wondered why the author hadn’t at least used a pseudony
m.

However, that wasn’t the most interesting thing Ivan had said. He translated the book’s title as
Not Ignoble Alchemy
, whereas I’d translated
degenera
into
untrue.
That was an approximation, as any translation is. And my ecclesiastical Latin wasn’t the best.
Degenera
could also mean something closer to degenerate or ignoble. But even if I’d done a sloppy translation of the title, that didn’t help.

“I wish it was real,” Ivan said. He spoke so softly that the wind nearly carried away his words before I heard them.

“I examined the book. I’ve been working with antiques for long enough that I know it’s real. Hundreds of years old.” Based on the style of Latin, and my observations of the book itself, it wasn’t created before the Middle Ages, but dating the book could help me uncover its secrets—if I got it back.

“You misunderstand me.” He pulled his scarf more tightly around him as the wind picked up, careful not to lose hold of the photographs in his hand. “I meant that I wished the theories expressed by the alchemists of history were true accounts of what could be accomplished with alchemy. That they could stop death.”

Unlike the rose bushes that surrounded us, Ivan wouldn’t return to life with the spring. “Even if it were true,” I said, feeling my locket through the fabric of my sweater, “would you really want to live forever? It sounds lonely. So very lonely.”

“That’s not a sentiment I’d expect from someone your age. But you’re right. Forever? No, I don’t wish that. Right now, I would settle for living to my sixtieth birthday. Blue’s teas have been part of the changes I’ve made to spend my last years as happily as possible. A few more years of good health is all I ask. That would be enough time for me to complete the book I’ve been working on.”

“Related to alchemy?”

“About the intersecting history of alchemy and chemistry that scholars have missed. Isaac Newton is the focus of many books on the subject, and so are other famous alchemists, but many others have been forgotten. I suppose you could say I’m writing about the unsung heroes of science. Max and I have talked about it at length at Blue Sky Teas.”

“That’s why he was worried you might have done something drastic to get your hands on my alchemy books.”

“He’s seen me on some of my bad days, desperate to complete the book but thinking I would not have time … Come, let’s continue our walk and mull over the meaning of these strange illustrations. You didn’t come here to hear the problems of an old man.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but I don’t see any old men around here.”

“Ha! I knew I liked you from the moment I saw how you held your own with Olivia. She’s not as bad as she seems at first—” He broke off. “Aha! I know what it is that was bothering me about these illustrations. I wonder if the person who carved these woodcuts did not realize the final image would be flipped once printed.”

“You think they’re accidentally backwards?” What had that made me think of? I took the stack of photographs from his hand and flipped through them. “That’s not the only reason these illustrations are creepy.”

“No,” Ivan agreed, “but that is the thing that stands out. One cannot ta
ckle all research problems simultaneously. You start with the ones that are easiest to identify, and then peel back the layers—”

“Ivan! I don’t think this was an accident.”

“They are clearly backward—”

“Because it’s
backward
alchemy.” The fear I had been keeping at bay returned head-on. I looked up at the dark sky that was threatening to burst. “The title, as you translated it, is
Not Ignoble Alchemy.
I had translated it as
Not Untrue Alchemy
. Those two things aren’t different on their face, but there’s a subtle difference. Something ignoble exists, but dishonorably. I think we’re looking at alchemy’s ‘death rotation’—that’s why it’s not only the counterclockwise motions that make the images look off. The distorted animals in these illustrations are
d
ead
.”

“To symbolize the death rotation of backward alchemy. Very clever.”

“But working backwards isn’t possible,” I said.

“I’ve read about some alchemists who tried it because it was quicker, but none of them claimed to have been successful, unlike the many alchemists who claimed to have succeeded at proper alchemy. Perhaps that explains the absence of an author identifying himself.”

I couldn’t tell Ivan what I had meant by my words. It was, of course, physically possible to follow the steps of alchemy backwards. But it wasn’t right. It wouldn’t lead to transformation and creation. Only death.

Earth, air, fire, and water. Calcination, dissolution, separation, conjunction, fermentation, distillation, coagulation. They all have a phase in alchemy, but the death rotation turns the process on its head. No good could come of it. Everything it created would eventually be undon
e.

“Sacrificing one element for another to complete a transformation,” I said, feeling numb from the realization more than the cold. “Rather than striving for perfection, those alchemists were circumventing it. That would explain why any such transformations would deteriorate over time …” The full impact of what this would mean for Dorian was sinking in. If I was right, I could work with the book—but to do so, I needed th
at book.

“This
is
an interesting puzzle you’ve brought me,” Ivan said. “It is delightful to speak with someone who feels so passionately about a theoretical exercise. I hope the book is returned to you soon so we can uncover more of its secrets. Do you realize the implications this book could have, if we’re right?”

I realized, then, that this was much bigger than Dorian and myself. Not in the way Ivan thought. This wasn’t about a theoretical history. There were real alchemists out there who had performed alchemy’s death rotation. I had proof. It wasn’t only Dorian this was affecting. Gold itself was crumbling.

I hadn’t connected Dorian’s deterioration with the thefts of gold statues from European museums, but now that I knew what I was dealing with, it was obvious. The journalists were wrong. There were no brazen thieves who broke into high security museums and left gold dust in their wake to taunt the authorities.
There
weren’t any thieves at all.
The gold statues were crumbling on their own. Turning to dust. The life force of the gold statues was fading—just as Dorian’s was.

thirty-three

After meeting with Ivan,
I was so distracted that I nearly forgot I was going to stop at the library. I was now making daily trips there to get enough books for Dorian to read to stay awake. He spent several hours each day cooking, but I couldn’t keep him cooking twenty-four hours a day. As it was, the fridge didn’t have any more room for anything else.

Picking up the heavy bag of books from the truck, I lugged the mystery novels Dorian had finished reading into the library. Before picking out a new batch of books, there was something else I needed to do. I knew very little about backward alchemy. Nicolas Flamel had mentioned it to me only once, to say it was a force not to be used. The reason I remembered it was because of the ferocious look on his face when he’d spoken the words. He had spoken not with the calm voice I had come to know from my teacher. It had been a warning he didn’t want me to forget. Because of that, I hadn’t ever pursued the subject, not even when I was trying to save Thomas’s life.

At a computer terminal, I looked up the library’s alchemy books yet again. They were scattered across different sections of the library. It took me some time to track down the relevant tomes and surround myself with them on a long table. I was parched and hungry, but I had to figure out what was going on.

I searched through the books for hours, but only found the vaguest of references to backward alchemy and the death rotation. Whatever I was going to find out about Dorian’s book, it wasn’t going to be through library books.

———

I hadn’t realized how much time had passed. By the time I reached home, it was after dark. Dorian was busy cooking dinner. I wasn’t sure why; the fridge was already overflowing.

I wasn’t yet ready to talk to Dorian about what I’d learned. Without the book, what I’d learned wasn’t going to do us any good.

Brixton was having a hard time dealing with Blue’s arrest, so I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone, getting rid of some of the food while checking on him. Max had said Brixton didn’t want me to see where he lived, but I thought it was worth the risk to see him. Brixton hadn’t been returning my text messages, but I found his address easily enough online. I was glad for that immediate result, but scared for what this level of online information meant for my future.

Heather opened the door of the apartment. Wet green, brown, and white paint covered large swaths of her arms.

“I thought you two might like some pie,” I said, holding up two sweet potato pies of the six Dorian had baked.

“That’s so sweet of you! Abel is out of town, though. I couldn’t possibly eat so much pie. Do you mind if I give one to the neighbors?” She welcomed me inside and took the pies from me, setting them on a rickety card table that served as the kitchen table and grabbing a paint-stained towel to wipe paint from her hands and arms.

The apartment wasn’t what you’d call spacious, but they had made good use of the space. In a corner of the living room next to a large window, an easel held the canvas Heather had been working on. I was surprised by how masterful it was. A sea of trees filled the canvas, th
e perspective so close that neither the sky nor the ground was shown. As I looked more closely at the trees, I saw eyes looking out.

“Feel free to share the pie with anyone you’d like,” I said, “but I meant you and Brixton.”

Her eyes narrowed in confusion.

“He’s not home?” I asked.

“He told me he was staying over at your house tonight.”

I froze. It was one thing for Brixton to be late coming home from school. That was bad enough with a murderer on the loose. But lying to his mom about where he’d be
all night
was something different altogether. Brixton was desperate to save Blue from a murder conviction. We hadn’t been right about Ivan being guilty. What would Brixton do to save Blue? Where was he and what was he up to?

“Heather,” I said slowly, feeling the full extent of my worry creep through me, “Brixton isn’t at my house.”

Heather frowned. “He told me he was working on a gardening project for school, with Veronica and Ethan. He said you were helping them so they’d all be staying over at your place.”

“You didn’t think to call me to confirm?” I asked.

“I trust Brix.” But as she said the words, her body tensed.

“Maybe you misheard him,” I said, “and he’s at Veronica’s or Ethan’s house?”

Heather’s shoulders relaxed. “That must be it. He knows I don’t approve of Ethan.” She rooted through an oversize handbag, not bothering to wipe the remaining paint from her hands. She pulled out an old-model cell phone and scrolled through the contacts. Putting the phone to her ear, she tapped her foot while she waited. The seconds dragged out.

“Voicemail!” she said. “Ethan’s phone went to voicemail. I guess I’ll have to call his parents. I’ve got their number here somewhere …”

While Heather rooted through a stack of papers in a secretary desk next to the door, I stayed out of the way on the other side of the room, again looking at her painting. It was as if the eerie eyes in the middle of the impressionistic trees were watching me.

I pulled my eyes away from Heather’s alluring painting and watched her speak on the phone to Ethan’s father. She flipped the phone shut and stared at me.

“He said the boys were at your house.”

“Same lie,” I murmured. “They coordinated. Why didn’t you tell Ethan’s father they weren’t at my house?”

She bit her lip and shrugged. “Let me try Veronica. There has to be a logical explanation for this. Maybe they’re over there.”

Veronica’s
cell phone went straight to voicemail. Heather called her parents, who were under the impression that Veronica was staying at Brixton’s apartment, as she frequently did when she was younger. They hadn’t thought anything of it when she said she was going to do so to work on
a school project.

I could hear the voices of both of her parents on the line, their voices growing louder as they realized their daughter wasn’t where she said she’d be. I couldn’t make out their words, but Heather cringed. “Yes, but—no, I don’t think—I really don’t think—” She was barely getting a word in between the two irate parents. Her eyes grew wide in horror before she snapped shut the phone.

“They said they’re calling the police,” Heather said, biting her lip.

“Because some teenagers aren’t where their parents think they are?”

“They’re like that.”

“I doubt the police will take them seriously,” I said, pulling out my phone.

“Then who are you calling?”

“Max,” I said into the phone. “It’s Zoe Faust. Yeah, I’m sorry to bother you, but is Brixton hiding out at your place? He told his mom he’d be at my house, but he’s not. He’s been avoiding me. I know he’s upset about Blue.” I listened to Max for a moment. “I’m sure he’ll turn up. I’ll keep you posted.”

I hung up and looked to Heather.

“It’s only eight o’clock,” Heather said. “Maybe they’ll be home soon?”

“What worries me,” I said, “is why would they make up the story about staying over at someone else’s house, if they were planning on coming back at all tonight?”

Normally I wouldn’t have been too worried about three teenage friends lying to their parents. There were any number of things they could have been doing that they didn’t want their parents to know about. But with how worried Brixton was about Blue, I had a bad feeling about what they might have been up to. Dorian had been giving Brixton ideas about investigating. What if he had enlisted the help of Veronica and Ethan to help him clear Blue?

I suggested to Heather that she check Brixton’s usual haunts and headed out to do my own investigating. It was after nightfall, so it couldn’t hurt to pick up a creature who could see in the dark to help me search.

———

Dorian agreed with my assessment. So much so that he wanted to search without me, thinking I would slow him down.

“I’m going with you,” I said. “I think I know where they might be. Remember that spelunking hat Brixton had?”

“You think they are in the tunnels.”

“I do.”

“I know a back way to get there, going underground close to here. Why are you looking at me like that? I have been exploring this new city. The tunnels here do not have the same morbidity as the catacombs under Paris, but there is a certain
je ne sais quoi
.”

Since I wasn’t capable of sleeping in, these late nights were getting to me. I made myself a simple yet energizing smoothie elixir in the blender with lettuce, ginger, chia seeds, and chocolate.

Knowing I’d be climbing up and down ladders and through who-knows-what, I left my long coat at home. To combat the effects of the chilly night, I opted instead for bundling in a wool turtleneck sweater, thick wool socks, and matching green hand-knitted gloves and hat a woman in Houston had made me after I helped her start a vegetable garden.

I knew that small sections of the tunnels were accessible to the general public on guided group tours. Tourists and history buffs met at a Chinatown restaurant, outside which an innocuous metal door in the sidewalk opened up to reveal a ladder leading to the tunnels below. But that was far from the only entrance to the tunnels. We entered through a metal grate I would never have noticed if Dorian hadn’t pointed it out. It turned out the bundling wasn’t necessary. As soon as we were underground, the temperature was in the sixties.

The tunnel we entered reminded me of caves I had once hidden in: nearly complete darkness with only a tease of light, a low ceiling to bump your head on if you weren’t careful, and the smell of dust and desperation.

I was about to flip on my flashlight when the tunnel was illuminated from above, casting eerie shadows across the jagged stone walls, thick wooden beams, and dusty floor.

“I found the light switch,” Dorian said. “This section of the tunnel is used by some tour companies.”

We followed the lights a few dozen yards until the tunnel ended in two rooms.

“I think this is a dead end,” I said.

“
Mais non
. I have been this way before.”

He pushed gently on what looked like a section of rock just like the rest of the wall. It was, in fact, a wooden door covered in a false coating of rock.

There were no lights strung up in this section of the tunnels. We clicked on our flashlights. In the harsh glare of the flashlight beams in the darkness, every rock transformed into a malevolent creature.

A light up ahead flickered. It wasn’t from our flashlight beams.

“Dorian,” I whispered, grabbing his arm and shutting off my light. “Do you see that?”

“
Oui.
” He switched off his flashlight.

In the darkness that surrounded us, the light up ahead shone brighter than ever. The light came from around a corner, and it wasn’t a solid light. It flickered, as if from a fire. Had homeless people snuck in here for a warm place to stay and lit a fire? I didn’t smell smoke, though.

We crept closer, staying out of sight. People were speaking, but I didn’t recognize the muffled voices.

I let go of Dorian’s arm so I could feel my way along the wall without tripping. In the darkness, I couldn’t see him. I knew he was smart enough to stay out of sight, so I wasn’t worried about that. But it would have been nice to know he was close for whatever we might find.

The stone walls were strangely warm under my fingertips. I stepped closer.

Something was off about the voices.

Music began to play. It didn’t drown out the voices. This wasn’t the random sounds of people talking and playing music. I groaned to myself. It was a
movie.

I peeked around the corner.

An old-fashioned movie projector beamed a James Dean movie onto a relatively flat wall. Sitting on blankets on the ground were Brixton and Ethan, with Veronica in between the boys with an additional blanket resting on her shoulders. In front of them were three open bags of popcorn and several old-style glass bottles of soda I didn’t know still existed. Three spelunker hats lay askew next to the blankets.

“Good movie,” I said, stepping into the room. “But everyone is looking for you.”

Veronica screamed and jumped into Ethan’s arms. Popcorn scattered across the floor. Ethan scowled at me—and Brixton scowled at Veronica, who wasn’t moving from Ethan’s arms.

“OMG!” Veronica said. “You gave me a heart attack, Ms. Faust!”

———

Once the kids were safely at home, I had time to think about what I’d seen. The kids hadn’t merely found an old, boarded-up entrance to a section of tunnels once used for transporting goods. The door had been purposefully
disguised
. Whoever had done that wanted not only to keep people out, but to make it look like that section of tunnel didn’t exist. I began to wonder why someone would want the tunnel to remain hidden.