“Oh. You were going make me up—”
Where is my mind this night? “Of course. I shall return in a trice.”
Caitrin greeted Gaelan as he entered his third-story laboratory. “Has he gone?” Caitrin daren’t show her visage while Simon Bell was about. Even with cropped hair and breeches, Simon knew her well enough to recognize her.
“No. He is yet about.” They had been careful, with Caitrin secreted away in the laboratory or her rooms behind the shop whenever anyone came in the shop, lest Tremayne or one of her father’s lackeys were yet on the prowl for her. But Simon spent more time in the shop than any other of Gaelan’s patrons. Long evenings in conversation laced with tea drunk down until the kettle was empty, or decanters of brandy-wine and whisky. The present arrangement could not endure.
“You’re miles away, Mr. Erceldoune.”
“Aye. Sorry, I . . . Would you hand to me that tall bottle?”
“The mercury.”
“Yes. He took it from her, their fingers touching, but barely, igniting a frisson that fled through his fingers down through his torso. He placed ten drops in another bottle—a solution he’d prepared earlier. He laughed, shaking his head, his hair long, unbound hair flying into his eyes. “Dr. Bell shall think I’ve forgotten him entirely.”
Gaelan fled down the stairs and into the shop, swirling the vial, which contained an herbal solution bound up with ten drops of pure quicksilver, sending Bell on his way. He turned to find Caitrin standing close behind him.
She blushed, as if only just aware of how close she had approached to her friend and mentor. “I have been now a month in your service, Mr. Erceldoune. But it shall be only a matter of time before someone realizes that I am not a boy, but a woman in man’s attire, especially,” she said, her cheeks aflame, “at the time I bleed.” She turned from him. “I fear discovery—that most inevitable of days, more than I can say, for if it is Mr. Tremayne or even Simon, how long would it be before word reaches my father’s ears? How long before someone realizes that I am the daughter of Lord Kinston and reveals my whereabouts? It is not for myself that I fret, but what shall be done to you. You shall be ruined, if not worse, and I . . .”
“Hush now,” Gaelan began, recovered. He knew more than he could admit of her fear. Discovery was just as profoundly his own enemy, what forced him to uproot himself every few years. It was a shadow that followed close behind wherever he settled, whatever affections he might share or ties he might form.
“I shall be sent back to my father, only to be shunned and shut up in my room until a suitable husband might be found to take me in—and with a handsome dowry, no doubt. For my father will be quite certain it is the only way to keep the honor of his oh so noble house!” She was sobbing, near hysterical, and Gaelan ushered her back to the sofa, a gentle hand at her back.
“What has brought this about, Cate, after a month?” His voice was bare above a whisper, and without half realizing it, he was holding her to his chest, patting her cropped hair. One who would walk in on them now might think something entirely other than it was—that it was a man he was comforting and not a lady in distress.
She shook her head. “I do not know what has come over me, sir, that has me bawling like a babe on your shoulder.” She moved, regarding Gaelan with somber eyes.
But he did know. It was too much for any lady, especially one highborn and unaccustomed to life in Smithfield, much less life as an apprentice—a boy apprentice—to bear. And she had borne it upon her narrow shoulders so very, very well. And for all she had gone through besides.
Gaelan met her gaze with equal gravity. “Gretna Green,” he whispered, barely above a hush.
“Gretna Green? What of it? What is it—or who?”
“A solution to our dilemma, my lady. Please, before you answer, hear me out.” He paused, placing her against the cushions, and padded to the fireplace, staring into the glowing embers. Was that the heat that now set afire to his face? How to explain it?
“Wait. I do know this place . . . have heard of it. Do you mean for us to marry? For that is . . .”
“Aye. It is a marrying place, beyond the eyes of parental interference, and I countenance our . . . current . . . arrangement, perhaps even less than you—”
“But Mr. Erceldoune, I . . .”
He turned, realizing how he might be misconstrued. He sighed, combing his fingers through his hair. “I do not mean to say . . .” He paced to the window frame, glancing briefly at the darkening marketplace below, before returning to the mantel, resting his elbow upon it, unable to meet her gaze. “I understand, Lady Caitrin, that our marriage, such as it shall be, would be for convenience’s sake alone. I do not expect that . . . I mean to say . . . You shall maintain your rooms as you see fit and come and go as you desire and . . .”
Her breath prickled at the back of his neck, cool, and the lilac scent of the bath oil he had made for her intoxicated him. He dared not turn, for there she was just behind him. A delicate hand touched his arm, a gentle tugging at the soft linen of his sleeve.
“Mr. Erceldoune, I beg, please face me, that I might see your eyes and understand precisely what you are saying to me—with your heart. Not your head.”
Gaelan hoped Caitrin could not perceive the way she so disquieted him by her nearness—and the consequences that lay ahead should she accept him. But quite suddenly they were face to face. Whether he had turned of his own accord, or she, unwilling to wait another instant, forced him to face her, he was not certain, but there they were, embracing.
Sometime, he would need to tell her, to reveal the truth of his life. For the moment, Gaelan allowed himself to be lost in Caitrin’s eyes. What color were they? He could not pin it down, likening them to the refracted light of prisms, ever changing, bending in exquisite hues. Somewhere deep within, a voice, insistent as it was hushed, warned that it could come to no good for either of them, and for the first time in many decades, Gaelan paid it no heed.
GATTONSIDE, UK, PRESENT DAY
CHAPTER 42
Gaelan stood at the gates of an ancient cemetery, Anne by his side. Two weeks of antibiotics and he was enough recovered to travel. Recovering from immortality would be a much longer enterprise. Ah, but the benefits of being a mere mortal . . .
“Do you know where to find the gravesite?”
Anne removed her smart phone, tapping in coordinates. “Simon’s solicitor told me these coordinates. We should find it in a . . .” She pointed slightly to the right. “About half a mile that way.”
They made their way through headstones, modern and ancient, well kept and abandoned. In a clearing, beneath a willow tree, they found it. The headstone of Sophie Bell, wife of Dr. Simon Bell, daughter of Lord and Lady Thomas Wallingford of Gattonside and London. Died, November 1837. Gaelan shivered, remembering. So long ago, yet so vivid still.
Gaelan handed Anne the urn. “He’s your ancestor, Anne. You should do it.”
“We should do it together. You were his friend. You loved his sister.”
They took hold of the urn and scattered Simon Bell’s ashes over Sophie’s grave. Gaelan closed his eyes. “Be at peace, my old friend,” he said aloud. “May you at last be reunited with your Sophie.”
“Are you at peace, Gaelan? Now? Finally?”
He sighed, unsure of what to say. That he was no longer immortal was both frightening and filled with remarkable possibilities, starting with Dr. Anne Shawe. He could at last have a life with a woman after so many years. A real life: grow old with her, perhaps children, grandchildren he would not be terrified to meet.
Yet, the demons still lurked in the shadows of memory. Those had not vanished. Could he burden Anne with living life with a man tormented by hallucinations? Given to periods of bleakness? Night terrors? How could he ask it of her? Yet, she knew him, had traveled with him through some black days after the accident, and still she was at his side. Perhaps there was a chance, not impossible. Improbable? Maybe, but who knew? For now, take it a day at a
time and see what happened.
Anne was watching him. He hadn’t answered her question. “I won’t lie to you. I’m not sure. Not at all, but I’m at more at peace than I have been in a very long time. Terrified by the horror of a future I witnessed, but hopeful we’ve done our bit to change it.” He took her hand in his. “At more peace than I’ve a right to be.”
Anne intertwined her fingers into his and a frisson of pleasure fled up his arm. It would be all right. Gaelan raised her hand to his lips and placed a gentle kiss on her fingers.
They’d done it: recreated the poison from the stones in the necklace and the treatment for Erin Alcott’s disease. Whether it took was anyone’s guess. Time would tell . . . on several counts.
Gaelan witnessed it with his own eyes, staring into the video screen of Dana Spangler’s ridiculously expensive microscope. The tiny machines enmeshed in his telomeres destroyed.
Alcott’s friends accepted Anne’s story, that whatever the plan for the experimental liver tissue would not work without the addition of an activating enzyme.
A simple poison. A simple lie. But had it worked? Had the world been put back to rights? There was but one way to really find out.
Gattonside was only a short drive from the ruins of Dernwode House. They exited the hired car in the middle of a barren field. “There!” Gaelan said finally, spotting the bench he’d cobbled together that morning when first he read Conan Doyle’s diary.
They sat. “This is where I heard you call out to me. I would have sworn it was you, so close to my ear I could feel your breath on my cheek.”
“I did call out to you. The glass panel of the Minotaur . . . I . . .”
“What?”
“I could sense you. Silly, eh?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps not.” The bond formed between them was more secure, more visceral than he might have ever imagined. Not silly at all. “Come. I need to show you.”
“No. You don’t. I believe everything. There’s no need.”
“I must see for myself. Please come with me.”
She nodded, as he led her down the broken stairs to the catacombs. “Here’s where I found the Conan Doyle—” The inscription . . . “There was an inscription . . . right . . .” The retaining wall itself was cleaned of grime and moss, just as he had done, but the engraving was gone. How was that possible?
“A bit spooky down here. Is it haunted?”
“Oh, yes. Very. But the place I need to show you is this way down the corridor.” Gaelan pushed a button on a large flashlight.
“It’s not necessary, and I’m not certain I want to know—”
They arrived at the prism room. Gaelan shined the torch into the room and daylight flooded the chamber, as the prisms painted the black walls in spiral arrays of every color.
“Fibonacci,” she said finally.
“Yes.”
“They’re beautiful, but how—?”
“A long time ago, a sect of monks, friends and allies to my family, created this. Somehow, after Glomach, I was drawn here. I’ve no memory of coming here. No idea how I got here. Maybe the poison messed with my mind. Left me with amnesia. Something. But it doesn’t matter how I got here, but that I did. This place—the last place I’d felt safe. Protected. Destiny, I suppose. Muscle memory, if that makes more sense—”
“So, what now?”
“So, I took hold of the teardrop and I found myself in the future, like magic—but not, of course. In Chicago. At Navy Pier—but a century or so into the future. If what we did with the poison worked, the future beyond that portal will be different, not the horror movie of the future I experienced first-hand. But something, hopefully, better.”
Anne stayed his hand as he reached into his jacket. “Don’t.”
“You don’t want to know?”
“No. You are here. You are no longer immortal. What if what’s on the other side is much worse than what you saw? You have no way of knowing. And I’m not sure I want to. No, strike that. I am very sure I don’t want to know. Besides, you might not come back. You might—”
“Be killed?”
“Yes. And I’m going to let that happen. Not after all . . . not with the future . . . our future . . . ahead of us. As you said, the fact you’re only an ordinary—very mortal—bookseller opens up many possibilities.”
He smiled. She might be right. Yes, he did want to know, but the portal pulled him, drew him like a powerful electromagnet. But so did she. In the end, perhaps best to let it be. The prisms were quiet. No cacophony, no sweet melody either. Perhaps the world beyond the portal was different. Better. They were, perhaps, better off not knowing.
“That glass bauble belongs back in that extraordinary piece you created. It belongs in Caitrin’s hand. Do you still know how to make them?”
“Which? Stained glass?”
“No. A Rupert’s drop?”
“Of course!”
“Then let’s go back to Chicago and you can show me that, instead.”
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In many ways, writing a sequel is more difficult than writing the original. Which threads to pluck? Which unanswered questions to answer? Without the encouragement and support of friends, colleagues, family, and fans, this second Gaelan Erceldoune novel may never have seen the light of day.
I would first like to thank my literary agent, Katharine Sands of Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency in New York. Katharine has been my biggest booster and most excellent critic, never “telling” me what’s needed to make the story “sing,” but guiding me to my own “eureka!” moments and to puzzle it out for myself. So incredibly helpful with a novel as complex as this one.
Thank you to Rene Sears, editorial director at Pyr Books, for shepherding The Alchemy of Glass through the publication process, for her thoughtful suggestions and her very kind words about the book. Thank you to my copy editor Marianna Vertullo and the entire team at Pyr Books and Start Media.
Thank you as well to Kaye Publicity for getting the word(s) out there to the critics and readers new and old. I have wanted to work with Dana and her team for a while, and I’m thrilled to have had that opportunity with this novel.
Thank you to my son, Adam, daughter, Shoshanna, and son-in-law, Mike, for their encouragement as I wrote Alchemy of Glass. And, of course, to my beloved (and patient) husband, Phillip, who read draft after draft, ever encouraging me to dig deeper and take greater risks with my writing. Whenever I got stuck, whether it was trying to come up with a nineteenth-century medical puzzler adding new dimensions to the plot and characters, Phil was there to brainstorm ideas, offer constructive criticism . . . or simply listen.
The Alchemy of Glass was much inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fascination with the fairy folk and all things supernatural. I have long wondered about how the man who created the most rational, logical character in all of fiction (and who was both a physician and a journalist!) could also believe in fairies, and his presence in the novel is (in part) my attempt to explore this apparent paradox.
Last (but not least), I thank you, dear reader, for your continued interest in Gaelan Erceldoune and his universe. Your kind words about The Apothecary’s Curse encouraged and inspired me to continue the story of my tortured, tormented immortal apothecary.
I hope you enjoyed it!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Author photo © Cilento Photography
Barbara Barnett is the author of three books, including The Apothecary’s Curse, finalist for the prestigious Bram Stoker Award for debut novel. She is publisher and executive editor of Blog-critics (blogcritics.org), an Internet magazine of pop culture, politics, and more, for which she has also contributed nearly 1,000 essays, reviews, and interviews over the past decade. Always a pop-culture and sci-fi geek, Barbara was raised on a steady diet of TV (and TV dinners), but she always found her way to fiction’s tragic anti-heroes and misunderstood champions, whether on TV, in the movies, or in literature. (In other words, Spock, not Kirk;
Han Solo, not Luke Skywalker!) Her first book, Chasing Zebras: The Unofficial Guide to House, M.D. (ECW Press), reflects her passion for these Byronic heroes, and it was inevitable that she would have to someday create one of her own in Gaelan Erceldoune, hero of both The Apothecary’s Curse and The Alchemy of Glass.
She is an accomplished speaker, an annual favorite at MENSA’s HalloweeM convention, where she has spoken to standing-room crowds on subjects as diverse as “The Byronic Hero in Pop Culture,” “The Many Faces of Sherlock Holmes,” “The Hidden History of Science Fiction,” “Our Passion for Disaster (Movies),” and “The Conan Doyle Conundrum.”
A lifelong resident of the Chicago area, she lives in a Victorian coach house with her husband, Phil, and their border collie–Aussie, Semra, on a bluff along the Lake Michigan shore, an area that serves as the modern-day setting for both Apothecary novels. She is the proud mother of Shoshanna (Mike) and Adam, and the loving savta of Ari and Meital.
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