Alchemystic

by Anton Strout

  I squirmed away from his touch, agitated. “Hands off, Marsh,” I said, and he pulled away like I was on fire, just the reaction I was hoping for. I let out a long sigh, letting go of the mounting tension I didn’t know I was even carrying until that moment.

  “You’re a good daughter,” Rory said, without a bit of snark to it whatsoever. “You turned out well, despite the fact that your parents always thought I got you into Goth in our teens because I wanted you to worship Satan.”

  “I wish!” I said, raising my hand like I was Dracula trying to mesmerize someone. “At least then I could hex some of the contractors I’m dealing with, get them to fall in line. Under budget and on time. Maybe give them boils, make their hair fall out…” I trailed off. Two of the Real Housewives were staring and rolling their eyes at me, one whispering to the other behind her hand.

  “That’s great, Lexi,” Marshall said, disappointment in his voice. “I’m pretty sure that’s how the Donald got ahead, too.”

  “One problem, though,” Rory added, holding up a finger.

  I kept my eyes on the women as they sat chatting at their respective easels off across the art space. “Which is…?”

  “We aren’t fifteen anymore, dressing Goth, or sneaking into the Harry Potter movies hoping that magic might actually be a real thing.”

  My face sank and I turned my powerless hand toward me, looking at it. There was no fantastical magic there, only chipped nails and torn cuticles. “Crap.” I grabbed up one of the thicker paintbrushes at my station and waved it like a wand. “Still, I bet it would be pretty ‘magical’ to see how far I could shove this up their—”

  “Lex!” Rory shouted, grabbing the paintbrush away from me.

  I spun back around to my easel, staring at the gargoyle on the page. “Sorry,” I said. “At least I was on my way toward getting a little sketch therapy out. It’s just so frustrating to work so hard and feel like I’m failing. I mean, the Belarus family tree has at least one great artist in it, so it’s got to be somewhere in my blood, right? I should be able to do this!”

  Rory gave me a condescending pat on the back. “I’m not sure art’s really a genetic thing, doll.”

  “I wish it was. My great-great-grandfather built huge swaths of this city when he came over from Lithuania. He laid stone back when it was still an art craft, not just bricklaying. The sketchbooks, the statues…All right, I’m letting it go,” I said, forcing myself to relax. “Besides, this really was a thoughtful gift, and I don’t want to waste it lamenting my life as artist—crowded out by my new life as a real estate tycoon—even if I do blow at the job. My bosses/parents have been stressing me out with all the running around to appointments. This time in this art class is supposed to help me get to my happy place, right?”

  Rory put her hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Well, we’re here now, your portable happy place. Feel the love?”

  I smiled at that. “Yeah, thanks,” I said. I leaned over and grabbed my thick plastic art tube—complete with straps—sitting on the floor next to me and popped off one end of it. “Let me just pack up my stuff so I can get the hell out of here.” I rolled up the sketch from my easel, first placing a thin sheet of vellum over it to keep it from smudging, then slid it into the tube, capping it. When I looked back up at my friends, Marshall looked a bit like he might pass out.

  “Marshall…?” I asked, worried.

  “Can I have a minute here before we leave?” he asked. I followed his eyes across the room to the two blond ladies-who-lunch who had been talking about me.

  “Oh, no, sweetie,” Rory said, like she was his mom and not his roommate. “You don’t want to crash and burn on something like that.”

  He nodded, not taking his eyes off of them. “Yeah, I do. Older women might just be my thing. I mean, women my age certainly don’t seem to be my thing.”

  “Maybe Marshall just likes fine leather,” I said, half-catty and half-joking.

  “Shush,” he said, his breathing rapid now as he worked up his courage.

  “Trust me. Nothing good will come of talking to them. Give up while you’re ahead, Marsh.”

  “They might be nice,” he countered, sounding like he was trying to convince himself more than either of us.

  “What are you talking about?” I said. “Bravo TV dedicates ninety percent of their whole network to programs about women who look like them. Nice doesn’t even enter their vocabulary.”

  “We shall see,” he said, and started off across the room before I could talk him out of it.

  “It’s so cute when he tries so hard,” Rory said. “Bless his little heart!”

  I hopped down off my stool, starting after him.

  “Don’t,” Rory said, grabbing me by the arm. “Let him go.”

  “Why?”

  “He can’t help himself,” she said. “That man needs to learn some of life’s harsh lessons. He’s too nice. He’s got the strictest moral compass of anyone I’ve ever known. You should have seen him handing out fliers for Roll for Initiative over near the Manhattan Conservatory—”

  I winced at the mention of the school, unable to stop my knee-jerk reaction. “Alexandra,” Rory said, scolding.

  “I can’t help it,” I said, hating how whiny I sounded to myself. “I’m jealous, okay? You get to hang out with the graduate school crowd. Look at me. I’m dressed up in a fancy pantsuit and talk square footage and utilities with people all day.”

  Rory rolled her eyes. “Poor you,” she said. “Heiress apparent to the Belarus family real estate holdings…”

  “All because of a building collapse that killed Devon,” I reminded her. “As wonderful as you think heiress sounds, the price paid for it was too high, if you ask me. God rest Devon’s soul. This is not the life I planned on. These classes are the first time in months that I’ve remotely felt alive. So screw your whole ‘Lexi’s princess of the real estate kingdom’ thing, okay? Everything has its own special way of sucking, believe me.”

  “Anyway,” Rory said, ignoring me and jerking a thumb across the room toward Marshall before turning back to me by my now-empty easel. “His funeral.”

  She looked at the plastic art tube in my hands. “About that picture,” she said. “Totally hideous. But in a good way.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I think. I remembered these sketches that my great-great-grandfather did. There’s a whole volume of them. They should be in an actual museum, but my parents—hoarders that they are—won’t let them leave their building. I think he called them his grotesques. They’re an architectural detail that he used—something to do with redirecting rainwater to keep his buildings from collapsing. They’re haunting but I love them.”

  “You’re creepy like that,” Rory said.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “As you should,” she said.

  “My sketch tonight,” I said with a little frustration in my tone. “It’s at least something more than what I’ve been doing lately, but there’s no life to them. They’re copies of his works from my memory, but that’s all they are—copies, not real art.”

  “Don’t say that, Lex.”

  “Did you ever hear about Van Gogh and his doctor?” I asked.

  Rory shook her head.

  “Van Gogh struck an agreement with his doctor that he would pay him with art, which the doctor accepted. For the rest of their lives after that, the doctor and his children labored at re-creating those works. They even showed them at the Met here in the city a few years back. I went to see them. Those Van Gogh reproductions were the same quality as what I’m doing here. Lousy. They vaguely looked like Van Gogh’s work, but they lacked…I don’t know…I guess soul. Maybe at heart I’m just a copycat, too.”

  “Alexandra…” Rory said, exasperation in her voice. She would have gone on, but Marshall had just about made his way back to us. “Well? How did it go?”

  His eyes held a little bit of sad puppy dog in them and he gave Rory and me a halfhearted smile.
“I thought it was going good,” he said.

  “Yeah?” I said, hopeful.

  “It was,” he insisted, “until they filled my hood with paint.” He turned around slowly. The hood hanging out over the back of his jacket was wet from the inside, a hint of red seeping through it, running down the back of his jacket.

  Rory clapped him on the shoulder. “Glad you got that out of your system?”

  Marshall nodded, then smiled, mustering as much pride as he could for a nerd who had just been shot down. “The end result didn’t matter, ladies. The important thing was the trying.”

  “Tell that to your dry cleaner,” I said, packing up my materials.

  “We’re headed to that new bar that opened up over on First Avenue, the one around Eighth,” Rory said. “You in?”

  I checked my watch. “I don’t think so,” I said. “I need to get home to deal with the bosses. Update them about the meeting I cut short to get here and the closings I didn’t get set up today, all before hurrying down here for the art sessions. I have to at least put in an appearance as the dutiful future of their empire. Hopefully, they don’t fire me.”

  Marshall laughed. “As their daughter? Can they do that?”

  “That’s not the point, Marsh,” I said, wanting to slug him.

  “Excuse me,” he said, still laughing, “but what is the point, then?”

  Rory slapped me on the back. “The girl doesn’t really have much choice, does she? It’s very adult of her. Missing hanging out with us is just a bonus.”

  “Fine, then,” he said, hurt, the laughter dying. “While we’re out making memories, she can go about making nice at home.”

  I sighed. “All right, all right,” I said. “Why don’t you guys swing by my building after you hit the bar? I’m sure I’ll be done dealing with the lord and lady of the manor by then.”

  Rory looked over at the other two women still standing across the far side of the room. Both of them were laughing. She looked up at Marshall. “You sure you don’t want me to beat them up for you?” she asked, then flexed her arms. “Dancer’s muscles. Hella strong.”

  Marshall shook his head.

  I slapped him on the back, my hand making a squelching sound. I pulled it away, my palm now red with paint, and I went for one of the rags hanging at my art station to wipe it off. “Better luck next time.”

  Marshall gave a weak smile and shoved his hands into his coat pocket.

  “You think things will be okay with the bosses?” Rory asked me.

  I shrugged. “Who knows?” I said. “At least at home I won’t have to deal with any artistic commentary.” I slapped the plastic casing of the art tube.

  Rory smiled. “That’s no reflection on what you produce,” she said. “Art is not their thing. Doug and Julie have just always been practical people.”

  “Practically perfect in every way,” I said in my best Julie Andrews voice.

  “Not bad,” Marshall said. “Have you been practicing?”

  “Not really,” I said, heading for the door out of the art studio. “Sometimes it’s just more pleasant living in my head with dancing cartoon penguins and singing chimney sweeps than it is dealing with life at the decrepit Belarus Manor.”

  “You could move out,” Marshall said.

  “Not until my mom is more stable. And plus I’d have to give up my three a.m. access to my great-great-grandfather’s library and art studio,” I said, with a small smile back over my shoulder. “I’ll manage. Besides, bitching is just my way of dealing with all the life changes. It’ll pass, I’m sure.”

  “Good luck!” Rory called after me, raising an invisible glass into the air. “Tell Doug and Julie I say hi! We’ll toast to them!”

  “I hate you, you know,” I reminded her, but Rory only shrugged.

  “It’s okay,” she said, chipper as always. “You hate everybody these days.”

  I didn’t even stop to argue. Sometimes it was better to keep your mouth shut, especially when what Rory was saying was oh, so close to the truth.

  Five

  Alexandra

  Deep in thought, I discovered far too late that I had walked way east before correcting myself and turning left onto Second Avenue, heading uptown through the East Village on my way toward Gramercy Park. The walk did much to clear my head of all the annoyance that had gone down during the art session. Now if I could avoid a wave of crap on the home front, I could sneak up to my namesake’s deserted art studio in our building along the west side of the park and hopefully get back to work on the sketch rolled up in my art tube. I was excited by the breakthrough I had felt earlier tonight, my eyes becoming attuned to following some of the rules that governed the art world, and while I hated conforming to much of anything, I had to admit it really did help with producing the work I wanted to achieve.

  My mind wandered off once again as I walked along East Sixteenth Street, crossing into Stuyvesant Plaza Park in front of Beth Israel, meandering along the oval stretch of walkway within. The trees there always made me feel like I was deep in the woods, despite the lights and sounds of the city all around. It reminded me of the times Rory and I would gather there as part of our own private would-be teenage coven, just to hang and talk about love-potioning various guys from high school. I was so lost in the pleasant memory that I barely heard the quickened footsteps of someone approaching from behind me until it was too late.

  Strong arms grabbed for me, one of them catching the family pendant around my neck, choking me as I dashed forward. The heavy chain snapped and I was free, but before I could take off, fingers wrapped themselves in my hair with a pained jerk while an arm wrapped hard around my waist. A man’s arm. The art tube lay pressed between us as he tugged me close, and judging from the breath on the back of my head, he had to be at least half a foot taller than me. I contorted my body to break free, but it was no use. The stranger’s grip was solid, and my body went cold in pure fear.

  “At last!” the man’s voice hissed, quiet yet intimidating. He held my necklace up in front of me. “You’re oh, so weak, aren’t you?”

  I pulled my pendant out of his hand, which I noticed was tattooed with an ornate symbol looking like some kind of stylized but blocky demon. I filed it away for a future police report—that was, if I ever got to make one. He pulled his hand away, tugging my hair as he settled the other around my waist.

  “Where is it?” the voice hissed hot in my ear. “We’ve been looking so very long.”

  The man was talking crazy. Looking so long? Was it someone I knew? Had someone followed me all the way from the Y in Tribeca? My mind barely had a moment to process it, adrenaline and fear taking over. My whole body shook, a combination of that fear mixed with anger and rage. “My wallet is in my purse,” I managed to stammer out. “Just take it and go. Please.”

  “I’m not interested in your money,” he said, pulling me closer.

  Panic rose in my chest, my blood pumping hard. There was only one thing someone like this guy wanted when money wasn’t the answer. I fought against his hold on my hair, even if it meant I had to lose a painful chunk of it to get free, but his grip was too strong to break. His other arm moved out of sight, and when it came back an ornate knife with a carved white hilt was in his hand. He pressed it to my throat.

  “I don’t want that, either,” he said, just as quiet as before. “Just tell me where it is.”

  I gave up struggling. “I—I don’t know what it is you’re talking about,” I said.

  “Wrong answer,” the man said. His body tensed, the knife pressing against my throat harder. How long before it would break the skin?

  A quick look around the park told me there was no hope of rescue in sight, but thankfully, I rarely counted on others when it came to taking care of myself. Whatever this crazed lunatic had in mind, I had to get out of there. His increasing menace caused something to snap deep inside me, and all I knew was that I was determined not to be the victim here.

  I brought the heel of my Doc Marten
s back up behind my body, finding its mark right between the man’s legs. A half cry, half whimper escaped his lips, his hand dropping the knife as he doubled over in pain, letting go of my hair. I ran forward, not even considering going for the knife. That was the kind of thing that got people killed in the movies. Instead, I tore across the small park toward the opening in the gate, and out onto Fifteenth Street.

  I sped off, thanking my lucky stars that I wasn’t wearing typical girly-girl impractical fashionista shoes, always opting for a combat boot, occasionally going for something a bit more dressy-sexy but always comfy and low-heeled. Tonight, my Docs were fine for putting some distance between my attacker and me. Fifteenth Street was deserted this time of night, but the grid of Manhattan was too much for me to traverse if I thought I’d make it to safety without taking a shortcut to get up Irving Plaza to Gramercy Park. I glanced back over my shoulder, surprised to see the lone figure closing in much faster than I expected. Turning right, I ran up an alley in the middle of the block, dodging past recycling bins and an oversized Dumpster.

  I turned left down an even tighter section of the alley. I heard my attacker close behind, causing my skin to go cold. Rounding the next corner, my heart sank. The wire mesh of an upcoming fence blocked my way, and panic took full hold of me. There was no way I could scale the fence before my attacker caught up. Still, there was no way in hell I was just going to wait there like a helpless victim, either. Without breaking stride, I pumped my legs harder and leapt at the fence in a full-on run.

  I grabbed on lower than I would have liked to, but started climbing as fast as my body could go, the wire of the fence digging cold into my palms and fingers. The sounds of my attacker farther back in the alley grew louder, although thankfully it sounded like he was still around the corner. Higher and higher I went, until I looked up at the top of the fence, stopping as my heart beat into a full panic.

  “Razor wire,” I said, my toes slipping out of the holes in the fence, letting my legs dangle, the strain in my arms burning. “Shit.”