The Accidental Alchemist (27 page)

“I told you I needed money,” Sam was saying. “I drove a few towns over and sold them to a pawnshop. The guy gave me a decent price for some of the items. I planted the rest at Blue’s house. Like I said, I wished I didn’t have to do it. I’m glad she’s okay.”

Detective Dylan grunted.

“Is that all?” Sam asked. The same strange expression I’d noticed earlier was back on his face.

“That’ll do for now.”

“Good,” Sam said. He swallowed the last of his tea. “Very good.”

“You can get up now.”

“No,” Sam said, “I don’t think I can.”

“Oh no,” I whispered.

Next to me, Max tensed. “What is it?”

“The tea,” I said. “The special tea he asked for. It’s—”

On the screen in front of us, Sam Strum vomited across the table and fell forward, his head hitting the table with an excruciatingly loud smack.

“Poison,” I finished.

thirty-nine

I stayed up with
Dorian, waiting for news about whether Sam would regain consciousness and be able to tell us more about where he’d sold the books he’d stolen. The police said they would investigate out-of-town pawnshops, but I didn’t know if that would be soon enough. Dorian was running out of time.

While we waited, we learned that Sam had kept a container of poison disguised as tea, which he’d hidden in his fridge, explaining why I hadn’t detected it when I was at his house. It was what he’d used on Blue and had tried to use on me.

Sam didn’t make it through the night.

It was after midnight when I received a call from Max that Sam had passed away. Dorian limped to the kitchen to make hot chocolate. He was using blended cashews to create a creamy, comforting texture without dairy. While the mixture heated on the stove, he rooted through the fridge, settlin
g on a plate of vegan éclairs he’d cooked earlier that week using whipped coconut milk to create the custard filling. French comfort food.

Sitting in front of the fireplace with Dorian, a cup of steaming ho
t chocolate in my hand, I watched the light of the fire flicker over the gargoyle’s gray profile. The hardened stone progression was accelerating. Most of his left leg had now turned to stone. The same progression was beginning in his left arm. The fingers of his left hand hung stiffly, as if attached to invisible splints. The plate of éclairs sat untouched in front of him, slowly melting from the warmth of the fire.

“It is over for me,” Dorian said, holding up his stiff hand in front of the fire. “I thank you, Zoe Faust, for trying to save me.”

“It’s not over,” I said. “I don’t accept that. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I found my laptop and brought it back to the living room.

“What are you looking for?” Dorian asked.

“Pawnshops.”

“They will not be open in the middle of the night.”

“No,” I said, “but we can create a list of them. Since we can’t tell the police about the urgency of finding out what happened to
Not Untrue Alchemy
, I don’t know how soon they’ll look into it. But there’s nothing to stop us from calling shops ourselves in the morning. How many pawnshops could there possibly be?”

As it turned out, there were a lot of pawnshops. I’d done the impossible before, so I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I moved to the couch to get comfortable for a long night.

The next thing I knew, I was lying down, listening to a tapping sound. Not rain. The noise was different. It was the sound of fingers tapping on a keyboard. I opened my eyes, sat up, and stretched. I’d fallen asleep on the couch.

The fire had gone out, but Dorian had pulled a blanket over me. Though the room was dark, I felt that the sun was rising. It was nearly dawn.

“
Bonjour
,” Dorian said, looking up from his perch at the dining table. “I have created a spreadsheet. There are some
magnifique
computer programs these days. They have helped me narrow the search to eighty-four pawnshops you should try.”

———

By the time I’d had a tepid bath, drank a fruit smoothie, and taken a walk to clear my head, some of the pawnshops were open.

Since the title of the book was written in Latin on the cover as
N
on Degenera Alchemia
in a script nearly unreadable to most people today, I wasn’t optimistic about finding a storeowner who remembere
d the book by its title. But I had to try. I figured if anyone remembered buying a set of rare, old books the previous week, I could follow up and show them a photograph of Dorian’s book.

While I sat at the dining table and made phone calls, Dorian plied me with food and drink to keep me going. Plenty of tea to wet my parched throat, dried blueberries plumped in creamy millet cooked in almond milk as a mid-morning snack, homemade chocolate truffles as a pre-lunch pick-me-up.

It was mid-afternoon before my ears perked up at what I’d heard on the other end of the line.

“You remember the book?” I repeated, standing and motioning Dorian over to me. I put the phone on the speaker setting.

“I know books,” the man said. “Used to be a rare book dealer, back in the day. Now
that
was a fulfilling job. Strange clients, sure, but in an eccentric way. Not like the creepy characters I see nowadays. One guy even tried to sell me a knife that had blood on it! Can you believe that?”

“Um—”

“I told him, you’ve gotta wash off that blood before I’ll take it. Can’t expect me to be cleaning up other people’s messes.”

“You
took it
?” I asked. I knew I should have been steering the conversation back to the book, but after a statement like that, the words were out of my mouth before I could think.

“Sure. It was a great knife. Strange that the guy never came back for it. I made me a couple hundred dollars off it.”

“About the books—”

“Oh, right, I got off on a tangent there. Yep, I used to be a rare book dealer, back when you could make a living doing such a thing. I know there are some folks who still do it, but the money isn’t there anymore.”

“Uh—”

“What book was it you were asking about?”

“
Non Degenera Alchemia.
It looks like a seventeenth-century book. It would have been sold to you with a few other historical alchemy books.”

“Right, that’s why I remembered it. Alchemy. Strange subject. Most books I see on occult subjects are modern books pretending to be old, but these ones were truly antique. Yep, I bought three alchemy books from a young fellow who’d recently inherited them. He didn’t want to get them back; wanted to sell them free and clear.”

“Can you save them for me behind the counter?” I asked, beaming at a wide-eyed Dorian. “I can be there in two hours.”

“Oh, I don’t have them.”

“Wait, you don’t?”

“Nah. Like I said, they were a good find. A couple d
ays ago, someone bought them all. If I’d known there would be other interested parties, I would have held out for more money.”

“I’ll give you a finder’s fee if you help me locate the buyer so I can buy the books.”

“Wish I could help you, but he paid cash and didn’t leave a name.”

Dorian’s wings flew out from the side of his body, knocking over a chair.

“Everything all right there?” the pawnshop owner asked.

“Fine,” I said, staring at Dorian’s shocked face. “Thanks for your help.” I clicked off the phone.

Dorian’s body shook. “
Mon livre
,” he whispered. “It is truly gone forever.”

“There has to be another way,” I said. “There has to be.”

“I—” Dorian began, but was interrupted by a knock on the door.

“You’d better hide,” I said. “I don’t want you turning to stone. It’s too risky. Go to the basement.”

Dorian’s face registered alarm. “I cannot seem to lower my wings.”

The knock sounded again.

“Zoe?” It was Brixton’s voice. “I’m here with Veronica and Ethan.”

“One second!” I called. “Dorian, I’ll help you down the basement stairs.”

He nodded. I could see the fear in his watery black eyes.

After getting him into the basement, I opened the door for the kids. “Sorry, I was in the middle of cooking. Come on in.”

Brixton raised an eyebrow as they walked inside.

“You went to school today?” I asked them, noticing their backpacks.

“Our parents said it was best if we went back to life as normal,” Veronica said. “Did you hear about what happened to Mr. Strum at the police station?”

I nodded.

“I can’t believe it,” Brixton said. “I mean, if you can’t trust someone like him, who can you trust?”

“It’s like all anyone’s talking about,” Veronica said.

The entitled Ethan hadn’t spoken, walking straight past his friends to the dining table, where he opened his laptop.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” I said, “but I’ve had a long day. Was there a particular reason you stopped by?”

“We thought you’d want to see this, Zoe,” Ethan said.

“We could have texted you earlier,” Brixton said, “but Veronica thought you’d give us some food.”

Veronica elbowed him.

“Coming right up,” I said, laughing at the resilience of youth. I returned from the kitchen with a platter of mini chocolate éclairs to find the three of them sitting around Ethan’s laptop.

Veronica took an éclair and beamed at me. “Show her, guys.”

Ethan turned the laptop around, showing me the screen. The browser was open to the website of an antiquarian bookshop based in Seattle. It showed a photograph of Dorian’s book.

“How did you—” I began.

“Ethan is good at finding stuff online,” Brixton said, not trying to hide a wide grin.

“I get bored during class,” Ethan said with a shrug. “Brixton said this book meant a lot to you, and we heard today that Mr. Strum had stolen your stuff and wouldn’t be able to tell anyone what he’d done with it. I thought I’d make it my project for the day. I found it during fifth period.”

“I don’t know what to say, Ethan,” I said. “
Thank you
.”

“I hope you’ve got a credit card with a high limit,” Brixton said. “You do, right? For your business?”

“Why?”

“Look at the asking price,” Brixton said, pointing at the screen. It was a figure far greater than I had access to. My elation from moments before disappeared.

“Won’t the police get it back for her?” Veronica asked. She took another éclair as Ethan turned the computer back around to face him.

“They probably can,” I said, looking at Brixton, “but it might take a long time to go through those channels.”

Going through the legal system to retrieve stolen property from an innocent business person was going to be a nightmare. And one that would take far longer than Dorian had. It was going to be hard enough to use what Ivan and I had realized about the book to stop Dorian’s deterioration. I had even less faith that I’d be able to reverse the effects once he’d turned completely to stone.

Brixton’s smile faded. “More bureaucracy? Blue is still in jail, and you don’t get your stuff back? This is totally screwed up. Maybe if we call Max—”

“I doubt there’s anything he can do.” I sat down at the end of the table and put my head in my hands. “But thank you, Ethan. Thank you all for trying.”

“It’s done,” Ethan said, leaning back and smiling. He popped an éclair into his mouth.

“What’s done?” Veronica asked.

“See for yourself, V,” Ethan said, pointing at the screen.

“No way,” she said. “You
bought it
?”

“Of course I bought it. What else is my dad’s money good for if not to thank the person who saved us from that cell?” Ethan shivered as he spoke of it. “Do you want to drive to Seattle by seven o’clock tonight to pick it up, or should I ask them to send it by express mail?”

forty

It was nearly ten
o’clock by the time I got home.

I made good time on the three-hour drive to Seattle, including having the good fortune to avoid the speeding ticket I deserved. Finding the book dealer’s shop was another story, but he generously agreed to stay open later so I could retrieve the book. Ethan paid enough for the book that he really had no choice.

I was thankful for Ethan’s generosity, but I knew I couldn’t accept it. As soon as I got my alchemy lab into proper shape, I’d transmute some lead into gold. Either that or become a much better businesswoman.

Brixton had wanted to accompany me on the drive, but I thought it best not to subject him to my anxious mood and the high speeds I planned on testing out in my old truck. The speedometer went to one hundred, and although I’d occasionally driven fast on the open road, most of the time I’d had the truck it had been attached to my trailer. It was time to test my truck, and it came through.

I slammed the door of the truck and rushed to the house, cradling the book in my arms. I left Dorian doing yoga stretches while reading the newspaper—two forms of distracting movement were better than one. As I came through the door, he was nowhere in sight.

“Dorian?”

“
Aidez moi!
” The panicked voice came from the kitchen.

I found him standing on his stool, facing the counter. His wings were askew, one of them partially unfurled as stone.

“Can you move?” I asked.

“I am so glad you have returned. My fingers are too stiff to properly stir the batter for these crepes! There are lumps. Lumps!”

I smiled to myself. I’d gotten home in time.

“We have more important things to do than make crepes,” I said. “Get down from there and come with me to the basement.”

With what Ivan and I had pieced together about backward alchemy, I had a much better idea about what I should look for in the book. I didn’t have as many ingredients in my laboratory as I would have liked, nor did I have a full understanding of backward alchemy, but tonight I was going to perform a quick fix. I never thought I’d hear myself say that again, but that was the very nature of backward alchemy’s death rotation: sacrificing one element for another to skip the laborious process of true alchemy.

My vibrant herbs were the sacrifice. They had been lovingly cared for, which gave them power. Turning the pages of
Not Untrue Alchemy
with shaking hands, I found a section that suggested, in coded illustrations, how to use mercury to dissolve plants without going through the usual steps that required weeks or months.

For the next two hours, I crushed and extracted the essences of the fresh herbs, working backward by beginning with fire. The resulting ashes weren’t the true salt that alchemists strive to achieve, but was none-the-less salt. Of the three essential ingredients of alchemy, mercury is the spirit, sulfur the soul, and salt the body. Salt was what I needed to save Dorian’s deteriorating body.

I didn’t know if this strangely transformed salt should be ingested or topically applied, so I tried both. While I dissolved the salt in a tea-like decoction, I also made a paste to cover Dorian’s skin. The gargoyle eyed the gooey paste skeptically, so we tried the tea first.

At nearly the stroke of midnight, the stone pieces of Dorian’s body began to shimmer. His stone leg returned to gray flesh, granule by granule. He was able to move, but the skin on his leg was a lighter shade of gray than it had been. He wasn’t the gargoyle he once was.

He smiled and hopped up into my arms to give me a hug. Terribly undignified for a Frenchmen, and my back nearly gave out under the heavy weight of his stone body, but I wasn’t complaining.

“I knew, Zoe Faust, that I could count on you.”

I hugged Dorian back, happy he couldn’t see the mixed emotions flashing across my face. Though relief was at the forefront, worry was close behind. The unnatural alchemy I’d performed to stop Dorian’s deterioration was a quick fix that hadn’t fully healed Dorian. It wasn’t a real cure. There was much more I would need to do to discover the book’s secrets and stop Dorian’s body from once again becoming a stone prison.

“This isn’t a cure, you know,” I said, setting Dorian down. “There’s more work to be done.”

“You said this book is backward, and takes from other life forces?”

“There’s still a lot I don’t understand, but that appears to be the case.”

His snout quivered. “Does this mean,” he said slowly, speaking barely above a whisper, “that I am evil?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head and feeling tears well up in my eyes. “It doesn’t mean that. I don’t yet understand what brought you to life, but the gargoyle you are—the gargoyle I know—isn’t evil.”

“Someone else did not have to die to bring me to life? Only the plants?”

I hesitated. “Nobody died for this temporary fix. That much I know. As for a permanent solution… I wish I knew, Dorian. I’ll figure it out, though. I promise.”

I knew I should be happy in the present moment. Dorian was safe. But for how long?

———

The following week was a blur.

Blue was out on bail. Charges had been filed against her for the illegal things she did to change her identity, but Max thought there was a good chance she’d only get probation.

When I stopped by Blue Sky Teas, Blue greeted me with a proposition. She’d heard about what a great cook I was, and also that I was underemployed. She made me an offer to bake vegan treats for the teashop. I happily accepted on the spot, without consulting Dorian. I knew he’d love the idea of yet another excuse to experiment with recipes, plus it could be his contribution to the huge food bills I was incurring.

Nobody could believe what Sam had done. Once people heard he’d done it for his aunt, they realized it made a certain kind of sense. But when they remembered his aunt was curmudgeonly Olivia, it again made less sense. Olivia hadn’t made an appearance at the teashop, so nobody was sure how she was doing.

Brixton was more dedicated to keeping Dorian’s secret than ever, and he was enjoying the cooking lessons the gargoyle was giving him. I think he even appreciated the weeding he was doing for me. As we prepared the yard for spring planting, he peppered me with questions about plants and alchemy.

He, Veronica, and Ethan said they had given up their tunnel explorations, as well as every other type of dare they used to come up with for each other. I wasn’t sure how long that would last, but I was pleased it sounded like the kids wouldn’t get into too much trouble for a while.

Dorian was in denial that his health would again begin to deteriorate, so I was left to my own devices to decipher the book. Well, I wasn’t completely on my own. Ivan was eager to help. Although he didn’t know I was a true alchemist or that Dorian existed, he was happy to have found a fellow enthusiast of the history of alchemy. He’d been depressed after being forced into his early retirement, so he was overjoyed to have an ongoing alchemy project that would drive his passion to finish his book.

I was getting ready to return a two-foot-high stack of library books when Max Liu appeared on my doorstep.

Looking at him through the peephole, I paused with my hand on the doorknob. I pressed my forehead to the door and closed my eyes.
Should I open the door?
My heart beat a little quicker as I remembered his kiss. The electrifying kiss that I’d pulled away from.

He and I could never work. Rationally, I knew that. But that was my problem. I wasn’t as rational as I wanted to believe. I tried to take a sensible course of action, living on the road, staying away from attachments, and giving up alchemy after it caused me so much pain. I’d once transformed myself accidentally, becoming an accidental alchemist. Maybe, just maybe, I was finally ready to transform myself on purpose. Here in Portland, I’d found a place that made me want to stop running from myself. I didn’t know what would become of me, but I was open to the possibilities.

I took a deep breath, opened my eyes, and turned the doorknob.

“Peace offering,” Max said, holding out a bundle of fragrant jasmine green tea. In his other hand he held a canvas bag with greens poking over the top.

“Peace offering for what?”

“I was way out of line the other day,” he said. “First at your dinner party, and then in the tunnels. I was just so happy to see that you were okay—”

“I accept your apology for how you acted about my herbal remedy at the dinner party.” I took the tea and ushered him inside, giving me a second to think. “As for what happened in the tunnels, there’s no need to apologize.”

“But your boyfriend …”

I let the question hang in the air for a moment. His assumption gave me the perfect excuse, but I no longer wanted it. “I was being serious when I said he’s just a friend. Veronica has an overactive imagination. I have a friend who’s French. That’s it.”

Max was smart. I thought it best to stick to the truth. By keeping things simple, I could do that.

“I was hoping that was true. In that case, could I cook you dinner?” He held up the bag with greens poking over the side and gave me an endearing smile that hovered between confident and shy. “I’m not nearly as good a chef as you are, but I feel bad about how your dinner party ended the other night. It’s the least I can do.”

I felt warmth rise in my cheeks. “I’d like that very much.”

Max paused on our way to the kitchen. Something in the living room had caught his eye.

“What is it?” I asked. “Don’t tell me there’s something else falling apart in this house.”

“You throw me off balance, Zoe,” he said, breaking off with an embarrassed look on his face. “I mean that in a good way. It’s your gargoyle statue. I could have sworn it scowled at me as soon as I made a move for the kitchen.”

THE END