Alchemy of Glass

by Barbara Barnett

  What if the superhero cell line originated with Gaelan—and represented a genuine breakthrough? Could it lead to a treatment, if not a cure, for all those telomere-deficient diseases? So many questions. But they would wait until she knew what—and who—she was dealing with.

  The wind picked up, and it had suddenly become freezing cold at the end of the mile-long pier, especially in a sleeveless top. Perhaps she would duck into the glass museum after all, at least to warm up for a bit, have a think about how to proceed with Alcott’s cell line, with Erin, with what she knew in her heart was the answer to the question she’d only just begun to ask herself.

  The museum was deserted but for the guard. The track lighting painted the walls in refracted color, projections of the stained-glass artwork, fuzzy images, indistinct of their fine workmanship and the intricate stories each piece told.

  But she was only interested in two pieces. Planting herself in front of the panels, she stared into them until the colors blurred, as if by so doing she might better understand Gaelan Erceldoune. She glanced around, assuring herself she was still alone, and the guard at the door was still occupied with her smart phone. Drawing near the Minotaur panel, she placed her palms in the center of the panel, peering through its translucence to the refracted image it projected on the wall. Nothing. What the fuck had she been thinking? You want to believe, Dr. Anne Shawe—and that’s bloody dangerous!

  SCOTLAND, PRESENT DAY

  CHAPTER 31

  Events had transpired too quickly for Gaelan to absorb even a fraction of the impact. He could do little more than react. He’d taken no time to consider the magnitude of what had just happened, much less come to terms with the faint but growing possibility it was all, in fact, real.

  How could he accept, much less comprehend, what he now knew might well be true? The injury to his arm and the jagged shard of glass—if nothing else, they were empirical evidence, a piece of the “other” world transported through time and space. A starting point.

  Evidence, but not proof, that beneath what had once been Dernwode House, there existed a portal between present and future, Scotland and Chicago, linked by a single moment. A chance meeting with Nicola Tesla. The off-handed answer to a question he’d never really thought about since that day. A glass teardrop gone missing shortly after their conversation, fusing past to present to future. He’d never made the connection; there had been none to make. Gaelan allowed the improbability of it to settle to mere unlikelihood.

  Theories about such gateways between alternative universes had floated about for centuries, had they not? Never proved, but never entirely dismissed.

  Gaelan leafed through Conan Doyle’s journal again, finding a particular passage.

  If only we understand the means, expand our horizons, and believe it is possible, not with wishes and old wives’ tales, nor the conjuring of magic, but with good science. It is there for us to reach out and take hold of the merely imagined. It has been my enduring frustration that as yet I’ve not the ability to interact with them, the fairy folk, but only to see them. To hear, but not touch. Perhaps I’ve not the ability at all, but to perceive without grasping entirely. Perhaps you who find this by happenstance, or design, if you will, may possess what I lack.

  The separation between our worlds is thin as an invisible membrane, the vibration in the spectra of color as from a prism, a whisper barely audible, but ever-present, if only one might learn to see with particular eyes, enlightened to the vastness of the universe, its many realms. I have been to their world. So shall you. My good friend Wells postulated such a . . . shall we say . . . portal. I implore you to read his “Crystal Egg.” Fiction though it may be, the story rings true to my own experience in its way, I quite believe.

  Our ideas must be as broad as nature to truly comprehend it, Conan Doyle had said. He’d observed what Gaelan had, understood it, if only through his Victorian prism. And perhaps that was the problem.

  Conan Doyle witnessed illusion through a broken mirror and beheld a wondrous, amazing universe. He wanted so much to believe in an alternate world where fairies dwelled in castles and filigreed forests, that he could not see it clearly for what it was: an island sitting in the middle of a destroyed world that spread far beyond the oasis to a nearly deserted wasteland. Had he never seen what Gaelan had—the total annihilation of a city? Or in the century since Conan Doyle had ventured through the portal, had so much changed in that world? Would he even recognize it now?

  Gaelan owed it to Conan Doyle’s memory, to Tesla, to himself, to return, discover what it really was lay beyond the portal. How the world, at least Chicago, had come to be destroyed.

  Club Guillotine. A frightening image flashed through Gaelan’s mind. Why had the guillotine made a comeback, and in Chicago? He pushed aside a fleeting thought as he traversed the corridor toward the prism chamber.

  Should he pass it by and return through the amorphous wall to the dock? His arm still throbbed; he could barely move it. He didn’t much want to run into that gang again. And he dreaded facing the inestimable horror of what lay beyond the Chicago skyline. Better to face the interrogator LaSalle. Two bad options, yet . . .

  Clutching the teardrop in his fist, Gaelan stepped through to the prism room and waited, closing his eyes, listening for the cacophony of glass to settle into a sublime harmony, and be transported.

  Gaelan stood once again just outside the structure; the air was calm. No sign of that LaSalle fellow. The sand at his feet, recognizable now as the detritus of a long-ago massive destruction of a postmodern White City, pulverized into a powder, soft as it was abrasive.

  The deep blue sky contrasted with the few luminous clouds that dotted it. No dust, no mist. A perfect Chicago day.

  The skyline from this angle seemed more distant than it had from the Ferris wheel park—the hills that first day obscured then in the whirlwind of a dust storm.

  More birdcage high-rises, missing windows, the shine of their polished granite facades, pitted and dull. In the other direction, the water’s edge, which had crept above the bike path he’d walked so many times in summer. Joe’s Fish Shack still stood just above on a small knoll, boarded up, its signage weathered and decayed. What the hell had happened? And how far into the future was this? How many centuries had it taken to reach this point of deterioration?

  Gaelan shoved against the wall and it opened into the tiny alcove where he’d first been. An eternity ago, it seemed. Another push and he was again surrounded by forest. He tried to see it as Conan Doyle had, through his nineteenth-century prism. How easy to misinterpret twenty-first-century invention as otherworldly and magical.

  LaSalle had snuck up as quiet as a spider, whispering close to his ear, and Gaelan jumped, his heart caught in his throat.

  “So, Mr. Erceldoune, you grace us with your presence once again. Your journey was easier this time round? No windstorms? No gangs? Just straight on into our little paradise. Fantastic.”

  Gaelan followed LaSalle through the now familiar maze of trees and bridges, which twisted and wound beneath and over the river, finally arriving at LaSalle’s tentacled interrogation chair. Not this time; Gaelan chose a straight-backed wooden card chair. No arms to conceal restraints. He brushed his hand across and beneath the seat, searching for any other appendage that might be used to shackle him.

  LaSalle shrugged. “One seat’s as good as another, and I don’t think I have to tie you to your chair—not this time. We’ve piqued your curiosity, haven’t we? Please, sit. By the way, how is that arm?” LaSalle’s solicitousness was in deep contrast to his earlier demeanor, chilling in its niceness.

  “You knew?”

  “We saw. Bravo for dropping the glass piece. Handy escape, dude!”

  Gaelan drew back tense and coiled, hands balled into fists, ready to flee to the catacombs. But not before he learned what had happened and how long ago. “That gang. Who are they anyway?”

  “Right.” LaSalle indicated Gaelan’s arm. “They want us. Need us.
Can’t get to us in here, so they wait. We have pretty good defenses. There aren’t a lot of us in here, but we know what we’re doing. The last of a dying breed, so to speak. But we must go outside sometime. Gather what supplies we can’t produce in-house.”

  “The last time I was here, you fed my belief that this was hell. And that I was dead. I’m not, am I?”

  “Did I? I confirmed nothing at all. I listened . . . You thought you were in hell, and perhaps you are. Perhaps we all are. Something’s changed . . . You’ve begun to accept . . .” LaSalle gestured broadly left and right. “. . . all this, haven’t you?” He looked too pleased with himself.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Before. You were still uncertain—”

  “I took a poison. I meant to commit suicide, but—”

  “Ah, and so we come to the point. You should be dead but are not. The question is, ‘why?’”

  “Well, yes. That is the question. The only question that matters—to me. That, and how to put it to rights. I’m not supposed to be alive, you see.”

  “You must have more questions than that one, pretty damn narcissistic question, I might add, and I will give all the answers you want. But I sense you’re not one hundred percent ready to abandon your disbelief.”

  “How would you know that? And why do you care? Who am I to you? How do you know me at all?”

  “Legends are like that. Known, but somehow elusive.”

  “Legends?”

  “Yup. You will be happy to know you are quite the mythic character in our world. Not quite so famous as your ancestor Thomas, but still . . . No one really cares anymore, except us. In here.”

  As if Gaelan could not be more confused. Frustrated. “Is that how I came to be here?”

  “No. That was all you. We’d hoped that someday . . . No one really believed it, except for one incredibly determined person. First things first. How you got here, on this . . . side—”

  Finally. This, Gaelan was curious to hear. He sat up straighter. “I’m listening.”

  “There are . . . doors . . . some call them portals, others, wormholes, gates, whatever you want to call them—they’re all synonymous with each other in our well-developed scientific understanding. We know they exist. Have proven it. You’re proof of it. But we don’t know how they work, not exactly. There’s no . . . consistent pattern. One day a portal opens, the next it’s closed. Some can enter, some can only look, like a department store window display.

  “They exist all over the world; for example, the Borders of Scotland. Quite a few, actually, all through the UK. Ireland as well, where the divide is as thin as a sheet of graphene. Chicago, too—full of ‘em. Peepholes into other worlds. This is ours. All myths have a grain of truth or they wouldn’t survive.”

  “This is some sort of alternate universe, then? A different time, clearly, but a place familiar to me. How?”

  “Some portals are natural, but this one was human-generated, created near the turn of the twentieth century, far as we can tell. And we know how this one operates.”

  “How would that be even possible? Back then, I mean.” Gaelan already knew the answer. LaSalle could confirm it.

  “You, Mr. E. It was you who presented the coordinates, give or take a meter or two, to the creator of the portal in the first place. And, double bonus, the divide here happens to be quite thin between worlds, so . . . part luck, part not. Or maybe the portal’s creator knew more than we give him credit for.”

  So, it had been Tesla. He’d actually done it. But Gaelan wasn’t ready to admit it—not to LaSalle, at any rate. “How could you possibly know it was me? What sort of instrumentation would specify that one Gaelan Erceldoune at an inexactly measured time did present some proto–time traveler exact coordinates for some unknowable portal in—”

  “Scotland. Not far from Earlston, I think. Anyway, we guessed. An educated guess, but still a lucky guess. That piece of glass you’re holding onto as if it’s the only thing anchoring you in time and space? It’s yours, isn’t it? Missing from an art piece you made. A long, long time ago.”

  “Yes. In 1893—” An admission Gaelan hadn’t wanted to make.

  “Well, there you have it.”

  “Yes.” It was all Gaelan could think to say.

  “Would you care for tea? You liked the spice tea, but we’ve also got fresh mint. With honey. Bees are quite a rarity, as you can imagine, and we’ve got an apiary, though it’s small. We’re trying to bring the species back, and it’s a tough road.”

  “Where are all the people?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t get—”

  “The people. Chicago is . . . was—”

  “Most have left the city; those that choose to remain—or have no choice—live in little enclaves like this one. There are more renewables outside the city, but it’s far from abandoned—”

  “But earlier, when I was out . . .” Gaelan realized it had been just after sunrise. Few would be about, even on a normal day. “Tell me what happened?” He whispered the question, almost involuntarily.

  A woman’s laugh, bitter and abrasive, came out of the trees behind LaSalle. She appeared as if by magic, floating to his side from between two willows. Small blades at her feet retracted as she settled next to him, taking a seat in the tentacle chair. Gaelan stared at her feet. She noticed.

  LaSalle rose from his seat, extending his hand toward Gaelan. Gaelan declined it.

  “Well, in any event,” he said affably, retracting the proffered hand, “my job here is done.” He nodded to the woman. She returned it. A silent conversation through furtive glances Gaelan did not understand.

  “Mini drones,” she said once LaSalle was gone. “We developed them to ease transport outside as well as in here. It’s quick and the Burkies don’t have the tech. So. You want to know what happened.”

  Burkies. Again. He’d find out sooner or later, he guessed. Gaelan nodded. The woman was beautiful, at once angelic and hard, her long, flowing hair hanging loose about a white iridescent cloak. Metallic thread twined through the strands of her hair and her cloak, lending her an ethereal quality. Otherworldly. Fairy-like.

  “Tea?”

  Gaelan shook her off. Did he really want to know? Did he care?

  So what? He’d traversed a portal to the future that was something out of a postapocalyptic nightmare. Why should he give a fuck? This wasn’t his world. What the bloody hell had it to do with him? Nothing. Not a fucking thing. He’d thought maybe he’d find a clue about his state of . . . being. Some clarity, and a way to end it, get out of this fucking labyrinth of confusion.

  And if it turned out he was alive, all he’d really have to do is drop the glass, return to the catacombs and set the whole bloody thing ablaze. Destroy it, the prisms, the portal, himself. Self-immolation would do just fine. A gallon of kerosene and a match. Done. He was fairly sure by the time it was over, he would be but ash, a small unidentifiable mound among the destruction. Nothing left of him to study or exploit. It was the perfect solution. Why had he not thought of it before?

  Yes, the monks would frown, be upset he’d destroyed what they’d worked so hard to preserve, and Gaelan felt truly bad about that. But they were dead and gone. And so would he be, by morning’s first light.

  An image of his father skittered through his mind. He could feel the heat of the flames as they licked up Papa’s legs, melting away his flesh. The sweet stench of fat and blood as it incinerated. He gagged on the memory, still too vivid, half a millennium later. He did not possess the stomach for it—to light the match, dishonor his father, his mother, his family.

  Perhaps something rather more explosive would do it. Make it quick. Painless, if possible. He was a skilled chemist, after all, was he not? He could do it, and easily enough. He’d need money; perhaps there was a bit of cash to be had by selling off a few of those prisms. He wouldn’t need much. Just enough to blow the whole bloody catacombs to smithereens, and one Gaelan Erceldoune along with it.


  He tucked the teardrop in his pocket, and once again, he was in the prism chamber. Exhausted and in agony, the biting, slicing pain in his arm unabated, he slid down the wall until he was sitting, knees drawn up until he could rest his head on them. What a fucking coward he’d become. When did that happen? But was the act of courage going through with it, or seeing this scenario to the end, whatever it brought?

  LaSalle had said he was infamous. Not infamous. Legendary. Why? What had he done? He wasn’t so sure he really wanted to know. Was that the issue, then? Afraid to face up to whatever “it” was?

  What would his father think of him setting himself afire? Blowing himself up? Not very much. What would Gaelan say to him if ever they were to meet in some version of an afterlife—if such a thing existed at all? Fuck.

  And what of the—shrinking—possibility he was already dead, or dying. Was he so certain this all was not some grand illusion? Elaborate delusion? A poison-induced, psychedelic dream? Even the pain in his arm. Could that, too, be part of the delusion? A test of some sort . . . ?

  The phantom pain above the stump of his left hand had never subsided, not nearly two centuries later—not until . . . not until his fingers had been inexplicably restored in his sleep. He’d little difficulty believing that trick, had he not?

  Why not play along, then, for just a bit longer? See it through to the final act. He’d figure something out; he always had. Just awhile longer.

  Once again, he made his way into the seòmar-criostalan to the music of the prisms.

  LONDON, 1826

  CHAPTER 32

  “Mr. Erceldoune?”

  Gaelan turned toward the voice.

  “I cannot—” Caitrin entered the examining room through the stairway, reaching for balance; she caught Gaelan’s arm before tumbling to the floorboards.

  She was feverish again. Damnation! Had she, too, fallen victim to the sweating sickness . . . or whatever this was? She had not been in the examining room, not since that night. Aye, but she had been around him. Been living in his flat. Breathing in the air he breathed out. How could he know whether he carried the disease within himself and had passed it to her? Dear God.