The Accidental Alchemist (9 page)

But here in
Not Untrue Alchemy
, I couldn’t easily identify the significance of any of the illustrations. I made out an ouroboros—a dragon eating its own tail—on one page, but the dragon’s body wasn’t curled in a circle to symbolize eternal re-creation as one would expect. Instead, the creature was contorted and looked as if it was writhing in pain.

Distressed shouts interrupted my thoughts.

I ran into the kitchen. Brixton clutched his hand and Dorian held a cell phone.

“He was recording me!” Dorian screamed.

I took a deep breath. And another. I now understood Brixton’s apparent change of heart.

Dorian held the phone in his clawed hand. The image displayed on the screen showed a g
argoyle cooking in my kitchen.

ten

“Make the video play,
Zoe.” Dorian was close to shouting as he held the phone in an unsteady hand. “The touch screen of the phone does not respond to my fingers.”

“It would help if you handed me the phone.”

“
Non
.” The grip of his clawed hand tightened around the phone. “You can make it play with the phone safely in my hand.”

I glanced at Bri
xton, sulking in the corner of the kitchen with his arms folded, then tapped the screen of his phone in Dorian’s hand. The video on the cell phone screen clearly showed the gargoyle chopping vegetables as he expl
ained to Brixton how to use aciduated water to stop chopped vegetables from turning brown.

“Brixton,” I snapped. “What did you do?”

“He scratched my hand!”

“You would not give me your phone!” Dorian said. “What could I do?”

“I’ll tend to your hand, Brixton,” I said, grabbing the salve I’d applied just two days before on the cut he received while breaking into the house. “But
what did you do
?”

“Nobody believed me! What was I supposed to do?”

“You don’t realize what you’ve done.” I was past anger. I was disappointed.
And scared.

Brixton heard the change in my voice. “It’s not even posted yet,” he said quietly, looking down at the 1950s linoleum floor.

“You’re telling the truth?”

He nodded, still not looking up at me.

My shoulders relaxed and Dorian recited a prayer of thanks in French. I had forgotten I was holding the aloe salve to treat Brixton’s scratch.

Brixton watched me as I treated the wound made by Dorian’s claw. “Why doesn’t it sting?”

“Not everything good for you hurts.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled so quietly it was barely audible.

“You don’t even need a bandage this time,” I added.

“He would have killed me if you hadn’t come in.”

“He knows not what he says,” Dorian said, flapping his wings in what could only be described as a huff. “I would never hurt a child.”

“Only an adult who was here to fix the house,” Brixton said, his voice defiant.

Dorian gasped. “You cannot think—” His head whipped between the two of us. “Zoe, you do not think I was responsible for that poor man’s murder, do you? You cannot think I would do such a thing.”

Before I could decide what to do about either of them, a burst of knocking sounded at the front door.
Wonderful
.

“Stay here,” I said. “Both of you.”

Looking out the peephole in the front door, I saw a young woman with long blond hair, several strands in messy braids woven with flowers at the ends. She held a plate of cookies in her hands. Friendly new neighbor?

“I bet it’s my mom,” Brixton said from behind me. “She said she wanted to thank you for no
t pressing charges against me. I never know if she’s going to follow through on anything, so I didn’t know if she’d really show up.”

She knocked again. Brixton stepped past me and looked through the peephole.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s her.”

A quick survey of the room assured me Dorian was gone, so I opened the door. Brixton’s mom’s smile was powerful enough that under normal circumstances it would have brightened up a room, but at that moment it was only strong enough to make the tension bearable.

“Zoe!” Instead of handing me the platter of cookies in her hand, she set it on the floor and enveloped me in a warm hug. “Thank you for looking out for my pumpkin.”

“Mom,” Brixton said.

Brixton’s mom let go of me and gave her son an even bigger hug. Even on the chilly overcast day, she was barefoot. She stood on her tiptoes as she hugged her son. Before letting go, she kissed his forehead, causing him to turn bright red. Even if what Blue had said was true about Brixton’s mom not always being there for her son, Brixton certainly wasn’t lacking in physical affection.

“I’m Heather,” she said. “And these—“ she paused and picked up the tray of cookies, “are my famous vegan oatmeal cookies.”

“You told your mom about my being
vegan?” I asked Brixton. I hadn’t realized he’d paid attention to that fact. And, mo
re importantly, I wondered what else he’d told his mom and others about me. Had he told the truth that he hadn’t uploaded the video of Dorian on his phone?

Heather gave me an even bigger grin. “Brix, you didn’t tell me that!”

“Um, yeah,” Brixton said. “Now you two can be BFFs or something. So, can we go now?”

“I’m not a strict vegan,” Heather said. “That would be tough, seeing as I don’t cook much. These cookies are the one thing I do well. The dinner you’re cooking smells delicious.”

The scent of the food Dorian had been cooking did smell mouth-watering. He was using a common herb combination of marjoram, rosemary, and thyme to bring out the flavors of the winter vegetables. I al
so recognized the scent of other herbs that were transforming the dish into something greater than the sum of its parts. If I hadn’t been worried about that video, I would have been a lot more curious about the meal.

When I hesitated, Brixton gave me a strange look. “Yeah, Mom,” he said. “Zoe is a great cook. Isn’t that right, Zoe? Because
who else
could be cooking in your kitchen?”

“That’s sweet of you to say,” I said through clenched teeth.

“I hope my baby isn’t causing you too much trouble,” Heather said.

“He’s really taken to gardening, even though some stinging nettles scratched his hand. Isn’t that right, Brixton?”

“Can we go, Mom? I just need to get my phone. I left it in the kitchen.”

“I’ll come with you,” I said. “I need to check the stove. Heather, please make yourself at home in the living room. I’m still unpacking, so don’t mind the mess.”

Dorian wasn’t hiding. Not exactly. He stood in the corner of the kitchen, unmoving. He looked exactly as he had when I first opened the crate: a sleeping stone statue. The only difference was that instead of an alchemy book in his hands, he held Brixton’s cell phone.

“What the—” Brixton said with a start.

“We’re alone, Dorian,” I said quietly. “Brixton’s mom is in the other room.”

Gray stone shifted. The movement was subtle and fascinating. I hadn’t been this close when his transformation from stone to life had taken place before. It was like watching an avalanche at a quarry. Granite-colored sand granules shifted in a cascading effect until stone had morphed into thick gray skin.

“No way,” Brixton whispered.

Dorian rolled his head from side to side and stretched his wings. “You must delete it,” he said, handing me Brixton’s phone. “I cannot use the screen of the phone with my fingers. Mobile phones were much better when they had real buttons.”

I found the video file and deleted it before handing the phone back to Brixton. He was still staring at Dorian. I had to push him out the kitchen door.

Once Brixton and his mom were gone, I made sure all the curtains were drawn and the doors and windows locked. I tried one of Heather’s cookies. She wasn’t exaggerating about how good they were. She’d used a sweet and savory combination of dried cherries and salted walnuts. I followed my nose back to the kitchen, where Dorian had resumed cooking. He stood on the stepping stool, stirring the contents of a Dutch Oven pot with a wooden spoon.

How could he be so calm after the close call?

“Dorian, what—”

“
Un moment, s’il vous plaît
,
”
he said, holding up his clawed index finger. He lifted a spoonful to his snout, nodded to himself, then added a shake of sea salt. He placed the lid on the pot, rested the spoon on the counter, and hopped down from the stool to face me.

“I will require,” he said, “an apron and a spoon rest.”

“An apron?”

“Yes, you did not appear to have one. Quite uncivilized.”

“About Brixton—” I began, caught between being somber about the near-disaster of a video of Dorian going viral and the absurdity of imagining a gargoyle in my kitchen wearing a frilly apron.

“Zoe, it is done. Crisis averted. There is no sense dwelling on the unfortunate occurrence. That would only distract you from discovering the secrets of my book. I will be your personal gargoyle chef while you translate the pages from my book. That way you will have sufficient time to devote to it.”

I burst out laughing. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. My very own personal chef. I was laughing so hard a tear trickled down my cheek.

“
Mon amie,
you are hysterical.”

“Dorian, what’s going on?” I leaned back against the counter, my shoulders still shaking but getting hold of myself. “Nothing makes sense.”

Dorian jumped up to sit on a free section of the counter next to me. “I do not think things make much sense once one has left France.”

“Maybe that’s it. The last few decades traveling across America have been a blur.”

“This meal will make you feel better. It is an old recipe from the French countryside. Adapted, of course, for your veganism. But I am nothing if not a gentleman. I had no idea a cassoulet could be so decadent without pig fat.”

“How did you learn how to cook?”

“From a chef.”

“Who was open to teaching a gargoyle?”

“It is complicated to explain …”

“If you hadn’t noticed, I have a complicated life.”

“I think the cassoulet needs more seasoning.” He left his spot next to me and resumed his position on the stepping stool in front of the stove.

“You’re avoiding my question.”

“Give the alchemist a prize.”

“I can better help you with the alchemy book if I understand your history.”

He sighed. “He was blind.”

“A blind chef?”

“He was not always blind.”

I waited a few moments, but he didn’t continue.

“The blind chef,” I prompted.

“Fine, yes, all right,” he said impatiently, still fussing with spices instead of looking at me. “There was a kitchen fire. This is what blinded him. He saved his staff, but was badly burned and lost his vision. He had been a successful chef who once had much power. He lived alone in a large house, where he was both lonely and angry for losing the adoration he once had. He was a friend of my father’s. My father knew of fame, and he felt sorry for his friend’s predicament. Since the man could not see, I was able to visit him with my father. In spite of the chef’s reputation for being difficult, we got along well. Father was nearing the end of his life and did not know what would become of me. He told his friend I was ‘unemployed’ and that I was wary of people seeing me because I was disfigured. The lonely former chef hired me to be his live-in assistant. He previously had people delivering prepared meals to him. Upon hiring me, he ordered uncooked food to be delivered, and taught me how to cook. I took to it quite well. Before he passed away, he wrote me a reference. I became a chef for other blind people who wanted good food and companionship at home. That is what I have been doing.”

“That’s lovely,” I said, imagining the gargoyle happily at work in the kitchens of people who had no idea of his visage. “Why didn’t you want to tell me?”

He turned to face me with a wooden spoon in his hand. “You of all people, Zoe Faust, know that speaking of the past brings up unintentional memories we do not wish to remember.”

eleven

I woke up to
the scent of coffee.
Coffee
? Why was there coffee in my house? I shot out of bed and promptly shivered. I’d sealed off the broken window as best I could, but painter’s tape wasn’t as robust as the fitted piece of wood. I found my thickest pair of woolen socks and crept downstairs.

“Where did you get that?” I asked, indicating the large contraption on the kitchen counter.

“I took the liberty of ordering an espresso maker. It is uncivilized that you do not have one.”

“How did it get here?”

“One of the benefits of American impatience is the rapidity of express delivery.
C’est très vite.
”

“You have a credit card?”

“I am cooking for you,” he said, blinking at me, “should I not receive payment of some kind?”

I sighed and rubbed my temples. “No more taking my credit card without asking, okay?”

“I did not wish to interrupt you while you studied the pages of my book. I understand alchemists do not like to be interrupted.”

“Well, yes, that’s true—” I broke off when I saw a French-language newspaper spread out on the table. “You also ordered
Le Monde
?”

“Yes, is it not agreeable that they offer this service outside of France?”

“Was it really urgent enough that you couldn’t ask? Is this how you treated the previous people you cooked for?”

Dorian sniffed and sipped his mug of espresso. “I was homesick.”

My mood softened. “Have you ever been outside France before?”

He shook his head.

“Well,” I said, feeling my anger dissipating, “just be sure to ask me in the future if you want to charge anything.”

“I have
l’espresso
et
le journal
, what else could I possibly want?”

———

After making myself my usual morning smoothie and watering the portable herb garden I’d moved into the kitchen window box, I set out for a brisk walk to clear my head before working on the pages of Dorian’s book. I walked in the direction of Blue Sky Teas, thinking I’d get a cup of tea to go.

Bells chimed when I walked through the door, and Blue’s voice called from the back: “Be out in a minute!”

I walked around the weeping fig t
ree
and looked up at the painted sky. I didn’t feel as comfortable in the teashop as I had
before. It wasn’t because of the gossip I knew would be taking place there shortly. It was something else. Something was … off.

The comforting teashop from the day before had changed. I whipped my head around, searching for the difference. I sniffed the air, wondering if Blue had accidentally burned something she was cooking. That wasn’t it either. I couldn’t place the source of my discomfort. All I knew was that I had to get out of there. I turned and ran out the door. I didn’t stop running until I’d reached my street.

The exertion made my chest hurt. I stopped to catch my breath. What had happened back there? There was too much going on for me to think. I desperately needed to unravel the secrets of
Not Untrue Alchemy
to keep Dorian from the awful fate of being trapped in a dead stone body while his mind lived on, yet I hesitated before walking up to the house. My mind was troubled with too many thoughts that would get in the way.
What was going on at Blue’s teashop? Had her words about Portland meant she was running from something? What had happened to Charles Macraith? What was Max Liu hiding? Why had someone stolen Dorian’s book? Was the gargoyle capable of more than I thought?

I turned on my heel and headed the other direction. What I needed was a long walk, far away from the distractions of my house and the teashop. Only then would I be in the right mindset to decipher the riddles of Dorian’s book. I had so few of the pages that I needed all the help I could get.

In all the places I’ve
lived, I’ve found the nearby places where I could walk in nature. Forests, deserts, swamps. It didn’t matter where it was. What mattered was that the natural plant life surrounding me made me feel at ease. I was in my element smelling the scents of fragrant trees of the forest like pine, maple, a
nd hickory. I could watch the plants of swamps interact with the water for hours, from wispy cattails rising from the dark waters to the duckweed floating on the surface. Even the desert begat life. Creation could come from anywhere.

I hadn’t had much time to explore Portland’s greenery yet. Even when I’d purchased the house, I hadn’t done much exploring. That was the whole point of buying the house! To have time to settle in and explore the area’s many parks, forests, arboretums, gardens, and other hidden places I didn’t yet know about. I didn’t know where I was going, but I was hoping that in this city of trees I’d hit a park or something similar before too long.

Sure enough, after walking a few blocks, I came to a beautiful park blanketed in trees. It turned out to be the Lone Fir Cemetery, which a plaque informed me was the oldest cemetery in Portland, dating back to 1846. What a young city this was. I walked through the serene grounds, letting my mind wander to the trees and the Gothic mausoleum I passed. The gardens and trees didn’t appear to be part of a central plan, which made it all the more charming.

With my mind clear, I allowed myself to turn back to the events of the present. Only now was I able to identify what I had sensed at Blue’s teashop. It was such an unexpected thing that my conscious mind hadn’t put it together: the odd scent I had detected over Charles Macraith’s dead body was similar to what I’d smelled at Blue Sky Teas.

I wasn’t being dense or forgetful. The odor had mingled with the scents of the numerous teas in a way that made it difficult to distinguish. But here in a cemetery park full of an assortment of plants, I’d been unconsciously picking apart the mingled fragrances of the trees and winter flowers.

I had to get back to the teashop.

The sun was high overhead. I must have been walking for hours, which explained why I’d passed the same trees again and again.

When I reached Blue Sky Teas, it wasn’t Blue who was behind the counter. Instead, a stunning red-headed woman greeted me with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. The deep lines and puffiness around her light green eyes didn’t match the rest of her polished appearance.

“Blue had to leave early today to prepare for a houseguest,” she explained. “Can I help you?”

Could she? The poisonous scent that I thought I had detected earlier was no longer there. Had Blue taken it with her? For her houseguest?

I bit back my shock and confusion, instead gi
ving the woman behind the counter a wide smile. “I was supposed to be here earlier to bring her something for her guest,” I said. “I lost track of the day. Do you have her address so I can bring it to her?”

“Oh, of course. That’s very sweet of you to go out of your way.”

———

I went home to get my truck, not venturing inside the house. I’d deal with Dorian’s wrath later. This was more important.

Twenty minutes later, I stood outside Blue’s house. The cottage was on the outskirts of Portland, in a less crowded part of the city where houses had acres of land. Blue’s yard, if you could call it that, was an overgrown plot of land that might look like weeds to most people. Technically these
were indeed weeds, but these were
useful
weeds. Even with a brief glance, I identified field mustard, sorrel, and wild onions. I understood why she lived here. It was a wildcrafter’s dream here in her own y
ard.

Standing in the wild yard, I hesitated. If I gave myself time to think, I’d convince myself this was a stupid idea. If I thought Blue was going to poison someone, I should call the police. But what could I tell them?
I think I maybe smelled something strange, which I can’t identify, and you’ll never be able to detect it yourself, and now it’s gone?
No, I had to see if I could find it on my own.

I took a deep breath and knocked on the door. The knock was met with silence. I tried the doorbell, followed by another knock. Still, nothing.

An old VW Bug was parked outside, but for all I knew she might have multiple cars. I walked to the closest window and looked inside.

The first thing I spotted beyond the half-drawn curtains made my body jolt with a mix of relief and anger. On a side table next to the window, nestled in an ornamental woven bowl, sat two of my antique alembics that had been stolen. That had to mean Dorian’s book was nearby too. I was giddy with relief before the anger hit me. I was vexed not only with Blue for taking a life and my possessions, but also with myself for letting my emotions get in the way of thinking she was capable of such things.

The second thing I saw drained the anger from me, a wave of numbing cold washing over me in its place. Beyond the side table, Blue’s body lay on the floor.