The Elusive Elixir

by Gigi Pandian

“What happened?” Dorian asked.

  “It wasn’t a big deal,” Brixton insisted. “He didn’t think I was spying on him on purpose or anything. He just thought I was being nosy. I followed him around the side of the house, and he grabbed my arm and told me to get lost.”

  “It doesn’t matter that the event itself wasn’t a big deal,” I said. “Nobody was there to see it, so nobody can back you up.”

  Brixton bit his lip and looked at me with fear in his eyes. I knew he was thinking the same thing: he already had a record. Even if a jury wouldn’t be told, the police knew.

  “They won’t believe me, will they?” he said. “Even if I leave out the part that I was spying on Ivan because Dorian wanted to know if he was a trustworthy new alchemist.”

  “If they’re looking at you as a suspect,” I said, thinking it through as tendrils of worry spread over my body, “they’ll be sure to notice you’re lying about something. And even if you tell them the complete truth—especially if you tell them the complete truth—they’ll think you’re lying.” I didn’t add that they might even suspect he was crazy and lock him up somewhere worse than a juvenile detention facility.

  “Why are you scaring the boy?”

  “He’s not a boy,” I said.

  Brixton was now nearly fifteen, older than my brother had been when he helped me escape from Salem Village. In the modern world, it was easy to dismiss a fourteen-year-old as a kid, and Brixton was indeed immature in many ways, but in important matters like this, I needed to treat him as an adult. He had to understand the full consequences of what was happening.

  “What do I do?” Brixton whispered.

  “You forget we had this conversation. Concentrate on supporting your mom, and leave it to me and Dorian to figure out what really happened to Lucien in that shed in the woods. Don’t say a word about this to anyone, Brixton. Not to anyone.”

  Thirty-Six

  Dorian paced the length of the attic, past the shelves filled with antique books on herbal remedies, around the articulated skeleton of a pelican, steering clear of my set of Victorian swords once owned by a famous English physician. With his chin jutting out, left arm hanging limply at his side, and right arm tucked behind his back, he looked like a Victorian caricature. I sat on the old wooden trunk, my knees tucked up under my chin.

  “We must assume that the police have not yet figured out Lucien’s identity,” Dorian said. “He must have left his identification papers elsewhere, since he was working undercover while he was sneaking around Ivan’s home. Yet he was not staying in the shed as his lodgings, so his hotel will soon notice his absence. They will report this to the authorities.”

  “That’s a good point,” I said.

  “I have many good points.” He tapped his gray forehead beneath his horns. His little grey cells.

  “We might not have much time until his identity is discovered,” I said, “but we already knew that. Who knows how quickly the police labs will finish the DNA testing—that’s the more important problem. Even if they learn who Lucien is, it doesn’t necessarily connect him to Brixton. Lucien was a bookseller from Paris. If anything, that will connect him to me.”

  Dorian stopped pacing. He nodded his head only once, and the solemnity of his expression made me shiver.

  “If it would help,” I said, “I would take the blame.” If it came down to it, I had no doubt in my mind that I would sacrifice my freedom for Brixton’s. But the connection between me and Lucien was based on alchemy. Would anyone believe I was telling the truth, not simply trying to help a young man I cared about?

  “I know you would,” Dorian said. “Yet you could not do so even if you wished to.”

  “I might be able to convince them about alchemy. My old photographs. If I could prove my true identity, I’d do it to save Brixton, regardless of what it meant for us.”

  “I do not speak only of alchemy.”

  “Then what?”

  “You do not know what it was that killed him. A ‘head injury’ is meaningless. And they are unlikely to tell you the specific method of death. Thus, the police would never believe your confession. No, we must figure out who killed Lucien.”

  “Maybe I was wrong about Percy. Could he be that good an actor? Maybe he doesn’t actually believe the superstition that one alchemist can’t kill another.”

  “Perhaps, though I doubt it. He does not appear to be a very intelligent man.”

  I steadied myself, pushing away the raw memory. “Who besides me would have a reason to harm Lucien?”

  “You could return to Paris and examine his life. While you are there, you could also visit my brother again.”

  “I can’t go back to France. The French authorities must have flagged my passport by now.”

  Dorian frowned. “Ask Brixton’s young friend Veronique to hack into his personal life.”

  “Her name is Veronica. But she’s fourteen. And she’s a coder, not a hacker.”

  “It is the same, no?”

  “No. Plus, hacking into someone’s life isn’t nearly as easy as it looks on television.”

  “Unless one can guess their passwords.” Dorian drummed his claws against the side of a shelf containing Chinese puzzle boxes and apothecary jars. “A French alchemist would most likely select passwords in French or Latin, but this does not help us narrow things down.”

  “Ivan,” I said.

  “Ivan does not know how to hack into personal records.”

  “No. Lucien was spying on Ivan. I dismissed him as a suspect because he’s too ill to hurt anyone. But unlike Percy, he doesn’t believe the alchemy superstition that you can’t kill another without killing yourself. Therefore Ivan could have hired someone.”

  “We suffer the same problem as we did with Brixton’s mother. Why kill Lucien? Even supposing you are wrong about Ivan’s quest for true alchemy, and he indeed turned to the dark side of backward alchemy, it makes no sense that he would kill the man who could teach it to him.”

  “We’re missing something,” I said. “I should talk with Ivan.”

  Dorian picked up a hefty glass paper weight from the shelf and handed it to me.

  “What’s this for?” I asked, turning over the heavy piece of practical art. The glass-blown piece was filled with flower petals, giving it the illusion of being lighter than it was.

  “Protection. In case Ivan is a killer.”

  Thirty-Seven

  I brought Ivan a picnic basket filled with lunch sandwiches, potato salad, and multiple desserts; a thermos full of homemade ginger-

  turmeric tea; and a garlic tincture.

  Yeah, I may have been overcompensating because I felt guilty for suspecting my friend. And also, assuming he was innocent, for ignoring his quest to discover the Philosopher’s Stone and the Elixir of Life. But I’d taken the paper weight. It weighed down my purse.

  “Dobrý den,” Ivan said in greeting as he let me in and ushered me through to the kitchen.

  “Sorry I haven’t been around much,” I said, setting the food on the counter.

  “Young love.” He winked at me. “I completely understand.” He shuffled around his library, tidying up.

  I would have told him not to bother with tidying, but at the moment I didn’t mind that he was turned away from me. His comment had made my cheeks flush. Was I blushing? Not very dignified for a 340-year-old.

  “I’m glad you didn’t forget about me for too long,” Ivan said. “I have a question for you about how I’ve set up my laboratory.”

  We stepped into his garage.

  Ivan had done his homework. He’d followed the descriptions in historical accounts of alchemists exquisitely. My little basement lab looked pathetic by comparison.

  I hadn’t had a true laboratory in more than a century. My goal for buying the dilapidated Craftsman house was to ease myself back into alchemy, one st
ep at a time. Since life never seems to turn out quite as we expect it to, I hadn’t had time to build my Portland laboratory, at least not properly. I’d been thrust into solving a much more urgent problem than purifying my own alchemical practice.

  As I walked through Ivan’s lab, I dismissed my concerns that he might be taking backward alchemy seriously. Since the last time I’d been at his house, Ivan had done a lot more to build his laboratory. He wasn’t cutting corners.

  I felt like I had stepped into a workshop on Golden Lane from Rudolph II’s court in Prague. I wouldn’t have been surprised if John Dee or Edward Kelley stopped by for tea. In addition to having alembics, matrix vases, and a pelican vessel, Ivan had a spirit holder. Glass jars were filled with ingredients. As much as I wanted to touch them, I knew I couldn’t invade his space with my own touch.

  One wall bore instructional posters—the torn pages from the books he’d destroyed. Only here, the destruction made sense. From their placement on the wall, the torn pages were close at hand, looking over him as he worked. A page on the steps of the Emerald Tablet, a map of the solar system with planetary metals, and an enlarged woodcut illustration of the tria prima: mercury, sulfur, and salt. The only thing missing was an athanor furnace, needed for cooking the philosophical egg.

  “It’s perfect, Ivan,” I said.

  The main thing that had led me to be suspicious of Ivan was that he was becoming obsessed, but was that so bad? Many a true alchemist had focused their obsession into a discovery.

  “Not quite complete, I’m afraid. My furnace is being installed in the backyard next week.”

  “The athanor,” I said.

  “I won’t tell you how difficult it was finding a vendor that had something similar to what’s described in these alchemy books.”

  “A brick pizza kiln wouldn’t do it?”

  Ivan groaned. “You could have saved me time if you’d simply told me that. That’s exactly what I settled on.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t think you were at that stage. But truly, it looks like you don’t need my help at all. I told you I never finished my training. At this point, I’d probably only hold you back or lead you astray.”

  “If I didn’t know you to be a terrible liar, Zoe, I would think you were simply being polite.”

  “Shall we go back into the house?” I asked. “That way we can keep your laboratory strictly for you.”

  “In one moment,” he said. He tapped on his cell phone before returning it to his pocket. “I’ve hung this Emerald Tablet poster on the wall here. It is my favorite so far, so I’m using it as my guiding model as I create my own.”

  Every alchemist must create their own fourteen steps of a personal Emerald Tablet to guide their work.

  “Isaac Newton’s?” I asked, looking over the yellowed page Ivan had taken from an antique book.

  “I knew you were good, Zoe.”

  Working on Ivan’s ideas in his library, I lost track of time. I pointed out that Ivan was trying to be too literal, as opposed to letting his intent guide him.

  “I used to think these coded woodcuts were charming,” Ivan said. “But now I wish to strangle the king and the queen here in these illustrations, and even their child. Look at the smug expressions on their faces. They hold more secrets than Mona Lisa.”

  I couldn’t blame him for the sentiment. The king and queen, representing sulfur and mercury, come together in a marriage that results many months or years later in a philosophical child: salt. The two were sometimes shown as royalty, sometimes lovers, and sometimes as the sun and moon. Regardless of how they were represented in ink, they always hid their secrets.

  Frustrated, Ivan declared he needed a break. Wincing as he rose from his seat, he led us to the kitchen. He’d cleaned up much of the mess of books I’d seen the last time I was there. The house was much more orderly, but the hard work had taken a toll on Ivan. He was thinner than he had been just days before.

  “I could bring you some groceries,” I offered.

  “Brixton brought me a big bag of groceries yesterday.”

  “That was good of him.”

  “So many people grumble about ‘kids these days,’ but Brixton and my neighbor Sara are two of the most considerate people I know. Brixton’s shopping choices contain more desserts than I’d have chosen for myself, but with all this work I have to do, a little sugar will do me good. Energy to complete the process.” The flicker of obsession in his eyes had returned.

  Only that’s not what it was, I realized as Ivan collapsed into a chair. I rushed to his side, wondering if I had an appropriate tincture I could fix for him. I hadn’t been making many lately, in proportion to how many I’d given out, so my supplies were low.

  “It’s nothing.” He waved me off and glanced at the antique clock on the wall. “It’s later than I thought. We’ve been working and talking for longer than my body can handle these days.”

  “Do you need any—”

  “No.” His hands shook as he spoke. “Leave me.”

  “Are you sure you—”

  “Go.”

  Thirty-Eight

  Human dignity is a complex thing. Ivan didn’t want me to see his body’s failings any more than Dorian wanted me to see his. I wished I could do more for Ivan, but my primary goal was helping Dorian—and now, Brixton.

  After visiting Ivan, I was no closer to figuring out who killed Lucien. If I didn’t make progress soon, the police would connect him with Brixton. And if I didn’t get back to focusing on Dorian’s life force reversal soon, his whole body would return to stone.

  I could think of only one person who might have been able to help me. Why had I acted so impulsively and sent Percy away? I didn’t even know his cell phone number! I’d reacted emotionally, but it was a stupid decision.

  Berating myself, I shuffled up my stairs to the attic. The private and cozy space with a rooftop escape hatch was where Dorian and I had set up our research center. Dorian was using my laptop, since his clawed fingers didn’t work well on the touch screen of a phone, leaving me to use my phone to go online.

  Was Dorian right that I’d made unfounded assumptions? I wasn’t so sure. All of the mysteries surrounding me were related to alchemy, so I couldn’t help thinking they were connected. Occam’s Razor: the simplest explanation was most likely the right one.

  While I tried to put together the pieces of the puzzle, was Madame Leblanc working on a plan to get her nephew or a private investigator to find me and expose the fact that I was an alchemist? What would they find when they looked into the murder of my old acquaintance Jasper Dubois?

  Because of more pressing matters, I hadn’t spent enough time either worrying about Madame Leblanc’s vendetta or researching Jasper’s death. Dorian hadn’t found anything, but I needed to try anyway. I again searched online library archives. As I narrowed my search, so many newspaper articles involved the police that I found myself distracted by thoughts of Max. If only I hadn’t been encumbered by the secrets of alchemy, he and I could have had a normal life together.

  Normal life …

  Damn. There was something else I’d been ignoring. I hadn’t checked my business orders in days.

  I only listed high-end alchemical artifacts on my website, so I didn’t do a brisk pace of business. But when a customer bought an expensive matrix vase crafted in Prague or a set of apothecary jars once owned by a famous Bohemian painter in Paris, they expected good service.

  I checked my orders through Elixir and found I’d made a sale two days before. I took a break to pack the item—a handwritten speech by Sylvester Graham. I added a small puzzle box as a gift to thank the customer for the delay in my acknowledging the purchase. Since the activities that had transpired earlier this spring, I hadn’t been too keen on having puzzle boxes around me anyway.

  There was one more parcel I wanted to send. It was Rosa’s heart that
ailed her, so I packaged a healing Hawthorn tincture for Tobias. Before sealing the padded brown paper envelope, I stepped outside and clipped a sprig of ivy growing wild along the side fence. Tobias would understand I meant it as a symbol of friendship.

  After bringing the packages to the post office, I felt myself compelled to stay outdoors in nature. My sanctuary. I took a long walk. Too many ideas were flitting through my mind, and being outside with the early summer flowers of Portland would help me focus. Dozens of varieties of roses were beginning to bloom in the Rose City. Across time and cultures, roses have symbolized many things. Today, I let myself believe the fragrant new petals represented rebirth and life.

  When I came home, I was much calmer. And hungry. I called upstairs to Dorian, but he didn’t answer. Since he hated it when I interrupted his reading these days, I let him be.

  I ate leftovers for dinner. A small hearty scoop of Dorian’s secret garlic tomato sauce remained in the fridge in a glass mason jar, so I slathered it on crusty French bread and sprinkled arugula on top. A perfect combination of spicy and mellow flavors, and sharp and velvety textures, danced on my tongue. I had to remember to ask Dorian how he got the sauce so creamy.

  There was enough food in the fridge to feed us ten times over, so I thought it would be nice to bring Ivan something else. I took out a nut loaf and a wild rice salad from the fridge and headed off. If I was honest with myself, it also served as another excuse to go for a walk outside.

  Ivan wasn’t home. At least I hoped that was the case, and not that he was too sick to come to the door. Our alchemical discussion that afternoon had taken a lot out of him. Had it been too much for him?

  I peeked in the window of his library, much like Lucien must have done. I didn’t see Ivan, but I saw something else I recognized. Percy’s leather jacket. My throat clenched and I staggered away from the window. The bag of food in my hand dropped to the ground.

  Percy was staying with Ivan.

  That’s why Ivan had glanced at the clock. He wasn’t feeling as ill as he pretended; he was expecting Percy to return.