The Alchemist's Door

by Lisa Goldstein

  “Is that all? It was a servant, probably. One of the girls sneaking out to visit one of the stableboys.”

  “No. Loud footsteps. And a—a laugh. An evil laugh. I went out to the corridor but there was nothing there.”

  Vilém frowned. “I don’t know what it could have been.”

  “No, but I do. I am—I have been haunted by a demon.”

  “A demon?”

  “Yes. I have been running from it since I left England, but I can’t escape it. I’m afraid it has followed me here, to your house.”

  “Well,” Vilém said. “We’ll post a guard outside your room. And I’ll look in my library for something to banish it, some ritual or incantation.”

  Dee’s heart sank. Vilém meant well, but he had no idea how to deal with the thing that haunted him. He was a hearty, pragmatic man, a man who thought that a practical solution could be found for everything. Dee had once believed that himself, before this thing had started to dog him. But even Loew, with all his learning, had not been able to help him. He was completely alone.

  “Post the guard outside my children’s room instead,” he said.

  Katherine came down the stairs. “Hello, child,” he said. “Have some breakfast with us.”

  As she came closer he saw that she looked troubled. It was not a child’s expression but an adult’s, the face of someone with a problem too great to bear. The sight twisted his heart.

  “What is it, sweetling?” he asked.

  She put her arms up and he lifted her to his lap. She would soon grow too heavy for this, he thought, realizing to his surprise that she was already five years old. “I had a bad dream,” she said.

  He drew her close to him. His heart was pounding so loud he thought she might be able to feel it against her skin. “What did you dream?”

  “A—a thing. There was a bad thing. It came into my room. Then there was a light, and it ran away.”

  A light? Could that have been his candle? “What kind of bad thing?”

  “I—I don’t—”

  To his horror she burst into tears. He cursed himself for asking her, for forcing her to think about the thing she most wanted to forget. Had her dream brought back memories of that night in his study? Even worse, what if it had not been a dream at all? What if the demon was stalking her again?

  He had to do something, he thought. Surely there was a spell, a ritual … . He shuddered. Katherine must have felt something because she squirmed in his lap to face him. Her worried expression had returned.

  “Everything will be fine,” he said. “The bad thing will not bother you again.”

  A plate slipped across the table and smashed into a wall. Katherine cried louder. “What was that?” Vilém asked. His commanding expression had gone; he looked uncertain, almost afraid.

  “It’s the demon,” Dee said, quietly, so Katherine wouldn’t hear.

  That night when he went to look in on the children he saw that Vilém had been as good as his word: a man in the count’s livery stood in front of the door, his eyes alert. The guard nodded as Dee stepped inside.

  The children slept peacefully. Rowland had thrown off his blanket; Dee covered him again and tucked him in.

  The presence of the guard did not reassure Dee; he felt uneasy as he made his way back to the room he shared with Jane. His apprehension grew when he blew out his candle, plunging the room into darkness. He tossed on the bed, certain he would never get to sleep. Several times he thought he saw fantastic shapes in the dark, his mind creating phantoms where nothing existed, and he jerked awake, his heart pounding.

  He fell into a troubled sleep. A scream woke him. He sat, then quickly spoke the spell for his glow-light. “What is it?” Jane asked, coming awake beside him.

  “I don’t know.”

  Together they ran into the corridor. A bright glare came from the children’s room. At first Dee thought it was another glow-light, something the demon had summoned up. He woke fully, all his senses alert, prepared to do battle with whatever the demon had in store for him.

  As he hurried closer he saw orange light flaming from the open door. Vilém came running down the corridor. The guard he had posted followed him, and other servants scurried around; the entire house seemed to have come awake.

  Dee ran for the children’s door. “No!” Vilém said.

  Dee barely heard him. The fire was concentrated around the four children, playing around their bodies and caressing their faces. He rushed to the closest, Rowland, and saw to his relief that he was not burning; the fire illuminated and held him, nothing more. The children looked enchanted, as if they had lain under a spell for a hundred years, their faces glowing in the light.

  He reached through the fire for Rowland. His hands and arms burned and sparks caught on his nightshirt, but he ignored everything and pulled his son out and laid him on the floor. Beside him he saw Jane doing the same to Katherine, and Vilém lifting out Arthur. He hurried to Michael and pulled him free.

  As soon as the children were safe the mattresses and bed linen ignited. Dee heard an enormous whoosh and for the first time smelled fire and burning straw. Arthur came awake and started to scream; Katherine and Rowland heard him and woke as well, their cries joining his. Michael, remarkably, still slept.

  Dee lifted Michael and shepherded the rest of the children outside. The ceiling gave way behind them, falling heavily on the beds and catching fire as well. Vilém called for water. A stream of servants ran downstairs to the well.

  Dee did not join them. He hurried his family to his bedroom and crowded the children in the small bed, where he examined them carefully. They had fallen asleep again, understanding somehow that they were safe. None of them, miraculously, had been hurt.

  “Husband,” Jane said softly. He looked up at her. Amazingly, she was smiling. “Your beard is almost gone. And your eyebrows … .”

  “Your eyebrows too,” he said. He reached over and gently traced the nearly bare arcs over her eyes.

  “Thank God the children are all right.”

  Dee frowned. “Not God,” he said. “God was not responsible for any of this.”

  “No. It’s that demon, isn’t it? That thing Kelley called up in your study in England.”

  He looked at her, surprised. He had told her everything else, but he had been careful to keep this one thing from her, knowing how she would worry. “How do you know about that?”

  “I see things, don’t I? And hear things. I’m not stupid.”

  “No,” he said. “Not stupid at all.” He hesitated. Men ran up and down the stairs, shouting out orders. “I thought I had finally outrun it, but it’s found us again. And it’s toying with me. It could have killed the children, but instead it wanted to show me its power. It will kill me with worry one day.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I think—I have an idea, but we’ll talk about it tomorrow. I’m far too tired to decide now.”

  He made room for himself on the bed and fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.

  He met Vilém in the corridor the next morning. The count was still dressed in his nightclothes. “Is the fire out?” Dee asked.

  “Yes. The room’s destroyed, though. Was that—was that your demon?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Vilém said nothing. They walked to the children’s room together. The count had not exaggerated; the room lay in ruins, the ceiling fallen, the floor awash with water. Servants came and went around them, sweeping and pulling debris from the room.

  One of the servants hurried up to Vilém. “We received some letters this morning,” he said.

  Vilém glanced through the packet absently. He stopped at an envelope, his eyebrows raised, and then handed the letter to Dee. “You have some interesting friends,” he said.

  The letter was from Loew. As Dee reached for it he felt a sharp pain, and he noticed for the first time that his hands were red and raw, burned from last night’s fire.

  “Here, are you all right?�
� Vilém asked.

  “Yes.” He broke the seal and opened the letter quickly, wincing.

  “I have some bad news about your associate Edward Kelley,” Loew had written. “He has kidnapped the boy Izak and says he will exchange him for the name of the thirty-sixth man. I am at a loss to know what to do. I thought that since you were acquainted with the man you might have an idea or two. At least, I hope you will write telling me Kelley’s address.”

  Dee looked up to see Vilém watching him closely. “What is it?” Vilém asked. “You look as if you’ve gotten bad news.”

  “Bad news, yes,” Dee said. “Not for me, but for a friend of mine.”

  “What is it?”

  “A young man I know has been kidnapped.”

  “Kidnapped? By who?”

  By a man I once called my friend, Dee thought. If not for me this never would have happened. I bring evil to everything I touch.

  He thought quickly. The demon had proved that it could find him no matter where he went, no matter how safe he thought himself. He had to stop running, had to turn and face it at last. “I’ll have to leave here for a while,” he said.

  “What about your work on the Stone?”

  “The Stone?” Dee asked absently, his thoughts still on his demon. “I wonder if perhaps the Stone is to be found somewhere besides workshops and studies, if the path to it lies outside, in the world.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Would you look after my family for me?” he asked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  Dee went upstairs to pack. One last time, he thought. It was nearly a prayer. One last journey before we all return to England.

  PEARL USHERED ONE OF LOEW’S STUDENTS INTO THE STUDY. “He says he has a letter,” Pearl said.

  Loew took the letter eagerly, hoping that it was from Dee. But one glance showed him that it couldn’t be; there was no envelope, just a piece of paper folded in half. He opened it.

  “I have not yet heard from you,” the letter said. “My patience in this matter is not unlimited. The boy will die if I do not receive the information I want within seven days. Cattle Market, at the base of the statue. Yours sincerely, Edward Kelley.”

  “Who gave this to you?” Loew asked the boy. “Where did you get it?”

  “A man came into the Quarter with it,” the boy said.

  “What did he look like? Did he say where he came from?” Loew remembered that Kelley had had his ears cut off for some offense. “Were his ears clipped?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember. He looked like a man, that’s all.”

  Loew tried not to become angry with the boy. Why should he have paid attention, after all? “Very well,” he said. “You can go.”

  A knock came at the front door. Not now, Loew thought. I don’t have time for this—I have to think. He heard Pearl speak to someone and then lead him down the hallway, heard them pass the student on his way out. The door to the study opened.

  “Your friend is—” Pearl began.

  “Doctor Dee!” Loew said, astonished. “I hadn’t—this is—that is, you are very welcome. Now more than ever. My God, what happened to your beard?”

  “The demon tried to burn my children,” Dee said.

  “My God,” Loew said again. “Are they safe?”

  “Now they are, yes. I’m the one it wants.”

  “But aren’t you taking a risk by coming here?”

  “It’s worse than that. Somehow Rudolf got Pope Sixtus to banish me from Prague.”

  “Well, then, you mustn’t stay—”

  “I have to. It’s my fault Kelley’s after you. I was the one who led him to you, who told him about the thirty-sixth man. I have to make amends somehow. And Izak—is he in danger?”

  Loew handed him the letter wordlessly. Dee read it quickly, then looked up. “I know where Kelley lives,” he said. “I’ll show you. Come—we’ll have the golem pay him a visit.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Loew said. “I took the shem from Yossel’s mouth. He’s disobeyed me a number of times. I told him to search for Izak but he went his own way—he’s been talking to a woman in the Quarter—”

  “Well, we can’t confront Kelley ourselves. He’ll run to Rudolf as soon as he sees I’m in town, or he’ll grab us both and torture us for information. God knows what he has in that house of his.”

  “The demon, you think?”

  An expression passed fitfully across Dee’s face; he looked like a haunted man, a man ridden by demons. He seemed to make an effort to cast away his evil thoughts. “Demons, yes,” he said. “And other things, probably, by this time.”

  “That’s another reason you shouldn’t go. You can’t face the demon—it’s already done you enough harm.”

  “I’m done with running,” Dee said. “And those seem to be my only choices—running or staying and facing this, whatever it is.” He tried to smile, but it made little headway against the haunted look in his eyes. “But I would feel safer if the golem were the one to beard Kelley in his own den.”

  “Very well,” Loew said. “If you think that’s the right course … .”

  “I do.”

  Dee followed Loew to Yossel’s room. The rabbi reached into one of his pockets, pulled out a crumpled piece of paper, and placed it in the golem’s mouth.

  The strange clay-colored eyes opened and saw them. “Rabbi Loew,” the golem said. “And Doctor Dee. It’s good to see you both. And very good to be alive again.”

  He looked from one of them to the other. For a moment the clay features moved and Loew thought he saw an expression of resentment, almost of anger, pass over the golem’s face. Then he smiled, and Loew shook his head. He had imagined it, that was all.

  THEY MADE THEIR WAY THROUGH THE TINY STREETS AND alleyways of the Jewish Quarter. It was mid-afternoon; the summer sun burned hot, tarnishing the sky. Despite the heat, Loew had muffled the golem in huge shapeless clothing. The clothes were no disguise, though; Yossel’s great height and shambling walk drew curious or terrified glances from nearly everyone they passed.

  Once the golem stopped and gazed up at the window of one of the houses. “No,” Loew said harshly. “Come along.”

  “What is it?” Dee asked. “Who lives there?”

  “No one. A woman. I was going to tell her to stop talking to Yossel, but there’s been no time … .”

  What’s happened in this town since I left? Dee thought. The tale sounded interesting, but he couldn’t think about it; he had to concentrate all his attention on Kelley.

  They received even more stares after they passed through the gate of the Quarter. The Jews had probably all seen Yossel before, Dee thought, but these people had never encountered anything like him. He looked at the golem’s mismatched arms and wished for the hundredth time that he had had time to fix them.

  They headed south through the Old Town and the New Town, the golem tirelessly, the two old men stopping to rest every so often. Living on Vilém’s estate Dee had forgotten the bustling crowds of Prague, the priests and conjurers, gypsies and soldiers and madmen, traveling musicians and quacksalvers and mountebanks.

  Finally they reached the Cattle Market. It was market day today; cows and other livestock brayed and bellowed, and men selling their wares tried to make themselves heard over the clamor. Dee caught the mingled smells of hay and horseflesh and dung.

  Loew pointed to a statue on the southeast side. “That’s where I was supposed to leave a message,” he said.

  “You were, were you?” Dee said. His anger with his old colleague had grown on the long walk; he was furious with Kelley for playing with innocent lives to further his own ambition.

  Then he remembered Kelley’s familiar at the alchemists’ tavern, the thing that had perfectly imitated a human except for its strange backwards hands, and he shivered in the summer heat. How could they confront something like that?

  The sun seemed not to have moved at all in the sky, though they had walked a long way.
Dee led Loew to Kelley’s huge house. The rabbi motioned the golem forward. The two men hid themselves in the shadows of a coach entrance next door, close enough to overhear anything that might happen. Dee tried to catch his breath; the heat was suffocating.

  They heard the golem knock, and then the door opened. “Yes?” someone said. It was Kelley’s voice; to Dee’s surprise he had answered the door himself.

  “I’ve come for Izak,” the golem said.

  There was a long pause. Kelley was probably studying the golem, realizing that this was no ordinary visitor. “Ah,” he said finally. “You’re Loew’s creation, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m surprised he’s let you out. From what I’ve heard he uses you as a slave, locking you away except when he needs you to do his bidding.”

  “God’s devils!” Loew said. “He’s trying to corrupt him.” He moved forward.

  “Stay here,” Dee said. He put his hand on Loew’s arm. He could feel the muscles pull and strain, like taut rope. “We can’t let him see us.”

  “I—I am not a slave,” Yossel said finally.

  “No? So Rabbi Loew allows you perfect freedom, the right to do whatever you want?”

  There was another long pause. Loew took another step toward the street. Dee’s grip tightened on his arm. “No,” Yossel said.

  “No? Tell me, what do you desire? What would you do if you were allowed anything at all, if you were free of him?”

  “There’s—there’s a woman—”

  “A woman, good. I can help you there, I think. I have potions, amulets, trinkets … . I can make her want you as much as you want her. Why don’t you leave Rabbi Loew and come live here with me? I won’t treat you as badly as he does, I promise.”

  “No. No, he is my creator. As God is your creator.”

  “Ah, but I have left God long ago. And you can leave Loew as well.”

  “No.” Yossel’s voice was louder, stronger. “I’ve come for Izak.”

  “What makes you think you’ll find him here?”

  “Rabbi Loew told me.”

  “And Rabbi Loew is always right, I suppose.”

  “Yes.”