Alchemystic

by Anton Strout

  —Stanis said, “heal the stone, heal the house”…yeah, right, getting right on that great-great-gramps…Is there a power that’s weakening?

  Alexander mentions protection over and over in his notes:

  First, our sigils

  Second, as his knowledge grew, the house

  Third, setting Stanis to his “rules”…list somewhere?

  —worried about how powerful Stanis can truly be. In order to exact control over the creature, he “drew forth” parts of his energy, trapping them in “soul stones,” for what he says was both for his protection and ours.

  —“I pray there is never any need to restore him. The Revelation of the Soul is something I do not wish on the creature.”

  —“His is to serve and protect the name Belarus. The names of the dead haunt me already, but I pray his watchfulness will prove some penance for my failings in life.”

  Not the most cohesive note taking I’d ever done, but considering the web I had been sorting through all day until the sun had gone down, it was a start. As a bonus, I felt a little less like I was cracking up now that I had something tangible in hand, something concrete that told me I wasn’t crazy. Unless I was imagining all this as well.

  No. I pushed that thought aside. Red pilling, blue pilling it was a road to madness. Still, I had little belief in magic or matters arcane, save my experiences from last night, but seeing the words in my great-great-grandfather’s script made starting to accept its existence easier to swallow. Yet my mind held fast to its nervous reluctance. I needed to prove something to myself.

  Alexander’s notebook held a map, one I recognized, of this very studio, which I knew oh, so well, but not, apparently, as well as I thought. I scooped up the book and took it with me to the metal-barred supply cage near the back right corner of the studio, entering it. Tools, paint, clay, and a host of my modern art supplies filled the old area, but I was looking for something more. The map showed an area sequestered behind one section of ancient tooled shelves built into the wall, and after several minutes of examination, I came across two different pressure plates both the size of the tips of my fingers. They clicked in, locked; then the entire shelving unit slid in and rolled behind the one next to it.

  I stepped forward into the space, the light of the studio allowing me to see the racks and shelves full of metal flasks, glass tubes, and jars, all stoppered one way or another, some still filled with their contents.

  What a lovely little alchemist’s kitchen.

  I grabbed a small tin flask marked with the one familiar name mentioned in my great-great-grandfather’s book, Kimiya, and stepped out of the space, my heart starting to race in my chest. I ran to one of the clear art tables, laid out Alexander’s notebook, then pulled the chain from around my neck, placing the stone sigil of it flat on the surface. The “recipe” listed in his book didn’t include measurements. Hell, it barely contained a phrase to go with them, and that was in Slavonic. Erring on the side that my will wasn’t necessarily all that willing a guide, I unscrewed the top of the flask and coated my small stone with the slow-pouring crimson liquid that came out of it. I set it aside, then placed my hands to either side of the stone, reading the phrase in its native tongue, although the phrase filled my head in English.

  My words, my bond.

  Not sure what I was doing—trying to perform magic?—I stared at it hard, wanting it to do something, but as the moments passed, I was basically looking at a wet, reddish stone on a length of fine silver chain just sitting there. So much for my will being my guide…

  Although, if I was honest, had I really expected it to move? Who knew what the shelf life was on tin-flasked alchemical substances, anyway? No, I hadn’t given it my all, because if I was being honest with myself, I felt foolish.

  Which, maybe, was part of my problem, wasn’t it? If I felt a little ridiculous, I wasn’t really giving all my will over to the attempt, now, was I? I looked down at the stone, still sitting there, doing jack.

  Screw it, I thought, and settled my hands back down on the table, one to either side of the sigil. If Rory and I played at having magical powers like Hermione Granger ten years ago, I could certainly go all in and give this a bit more of my all.

  “My words, my bond,” I said, and I let my desire to control the stone of my necklace take over, imagining my will rolling off me like a wave toward the necklace.

  It twitched. It not only twitched; it began to rock, the motion in it increasing until the rocking became a gentle spin that coiled the chain around it as it went.

  I stepped back, my hands coming away from it, and the stone was already slowing, but for a brief second I had felt the connection. I was practically beside myself, giddy with a fresh rush of excitement. It felt like I had passed my O.W.L.S.! I thought of Rory, who would have pooped herself had she seen it, which caused me to laugh out loud. It was strange to hear the sound, but I welcomed it and the return of hope that came with it.

  Yes, there might be men trying to kill us, but with Stanis we had a powerful ally. Or at least I thought we did. What I really needed to do was try to communicate with the creature some more. Excited and—dare I think it—hopeful, I grabbed up my necklace, Alexander’s book, and my own Moleskine, heading for the stairs at the back of the house, hurrying my way up to the roof.

  The chill in the air was a bit more pronounced this early-October night as I stepped with care among the blocks of unfinished statues. I didn’t know what I was going to say to the creature, rolling a myriad of questions through my head as I went to the edge of our building that faced Gramercy Park, but I needn’t have worried. The winged creature was gone from where I had stood yesterday, back when I was wondering whether my mind was playing tricks on me. This was no trick. The statue had gone somewhere, presumably under its own power, confirming that everything I was reading had some merit to it.

  My excitement died down a little, but I had to admit it was probably all for the best that it wasn’t there tonight. Given my lack of sleep and hours of bleary-eyed research, the odds of me even being capable of asking anything coherent were slim. Besides, tomorrow was another night, and if I hoped to get anything accomplished, I should probably catch up on sleep before then.

  Wouldn’t do to try to make nice with a gargoyle with bags under my eyes.

  Fourteen

  Stanis

  The first thing I noticed upon waking perched on top of the Belarus building—other than the fading memories of my maker’s face—was a cool wetness against part of my stone skin. It was nothing like the falling rain, which had worn away some of the finer details on my body’s carvings over the centuries now, but rather something…bubbly.

  Without moving from the ledge of the building, I cast my eyes toward what was causing the unique prickling sensation along the curve of my right calf. The maker’s kin was there, her dark hair down to her shoulders, frantically scrubbing away at my stone muscle with a bristly brush that she kept dipping into a pail of soapy water every few seconds. She was dressed in a black T-shirt and what I would have normally thought of as a men’s work coveralls, but who knew whether that was the right term for it anymore. The world was constantly changing around me.

  Not sure of what to do, I returned my eyes to the sight that had greeted me tens of thousands of times—the fleeting, soft orange glow of a sun that was once again vanishing beyond the horizon. Much of my view had altered over the years as newer buildings rose with the world’s progress, but bits of the horizon were still available. As the dregs of daylight slowly gave way to the blue-black of the nighttime sky, the stiffness in my body left me, which made holding my position even more difficult while the maker’s kin continued to scrub away.

  “You can move if you like,” she said with a smile. “It’s all right. I know you’re awake now…or alive, or whatever it is.”

  “Forgive me,” I said. “Being talked to is still…an unfamiliar thing for me. Until the other night, no one has spoken directly to me for countless years.
” The maker’s kin went back to her work on my leg. I stretched myself up to my full height and stepped off of the ledge and onto the roof proper. The woman gasped and the smile faltered on her face.

  I cocked my head at her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t really prepared after the other night, in all the chaos…You must be at least seven feet tall…and those wings!”

  I expanded my stone wings to their full ten-foot span. “I understand,” I said. “Your kind looks incredibly frail to me in comparison.”

  The maker’s kin shuddered. “Like the attacker you left in the park for us.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Like him.”

  She looked off across the empty expanse of roof, dotted only by the occasional unfinished blocks of carving stone. “I guess you don’t get many of us up here…”

  “I have known one or two of you in my time,” I said, sadness in how long it had been since I had seen any of her kin.

  I paused, looking down at her tiny, fragile frame.

  “What were you doing to me?” I asked, flexing my neck as I bent to examine my wet leg. The stone there was covered in markings I could not identify. Had I always had them? I could not recall, but the large colorful letters were half–scrubbed off now.

  “Trying to clean you up,” she said, holding up the brush she had been using and waving it at me. “Looks like you’ve been the victim of vandalism at some time. Someone tagged you.”

  “Tagged?”

  “You know, spray-painted with graffiti…?” she said. I stared with blank eyes back at her. “On second thought, no, I guess it’s quite possible you don’t know what I’m talking about, huh? I don’t imagine you’re familiar with modern customs, then?”

  I shook my head slowly.

  “Graffiti,” I repeated after a moment. “That word I am familiar with. Tagged, however, I am not. But I shall add this colloquialism to my knowledge.”

  I bent my still-wet leg and placed it back up onto the ledge where the woman could reach it again.

  “You may continue,” I said. “And thank you.”

  “Not a problem,” she said. The woman stepped back to me, this time with more caution than before, and started scrubbing again. “It’s the least I could do after you saved me. I’ve been coming up here for years just to get away from the family and whatnot, and I always had an appreciation for your sculpted figure, but I guess I never noticed you had been vandalized at some point. I couldn’t stand to see you marked up like this. It offends my artistic sensibility.”

  I cocked my head at her again. She looked up.

  “I’m an artist,” she said by way of explanation. “At least, when I’m not playing dress-up as a tiny female Donald Trump.” She resumed scrubbing away at my leg, harder this time. “Does that hurt at all?”

  “Hurt?” I repeated, then laughed at the mere thought of it, the bass of my own voice surprising me as it boomed out. “No. It does not hurt. I am afraid it would take far more than that.”

  The woman stopped scrubbing, dipped the brush back into the bucket, and, when she started up again, scrubbed even harder. The tag was almost gone now, a mere ghost of the vandalism.

  “By the way,” she said after several more moments, “I’m Alexandra.”

  I watched her fragile arms working their way back and forth against my stone skin.

  “Of course you are,” I said. “After Alexander, yes?”

  She seemed surprised I should know that. “Yes. We’re related.”

  “I am…Stanis,” I said. It sounded strange, as it had the night I’d told her assailant.

  The woman looked up and smiled.

  “I know,” she said, dropping the brush. She reached down and picked something up off of the roof. It was a leather-covered notebook. She brandished it like a weapon, then placed it gently on the ledge before she retrieved her brush and fell back to scrubbing. “I looked you up, albeit in a very puzzling way, in the family library. So tell me about my great-great-grandfather.”

  I had not remembered much about the man in centuries, but at her command my mind opened up to me.

  “You may wish to write this down,” I said, but I need not have told the girl, who was already producing another notebook from the leather bag she had with her as she settled down on the rooftop. “I do not recall when or how I was made, but this is one of the earliest encounters that I can remember of my maker, Alexander Belarus. I remember his words with perfect recall.”

  The woman’s eyes flickered up at me. “Tell me what he told you.”

  I thought for a moment of one of the most important encounters with the man, one in the little changed art studio of the building. “I remember one evening in the studio with him. ‘There is much for you to learn,’ he said to me, his voice thick with an accent I did not and do not know, ‘but before there is learning, there are rules, no? And for such a learned occasion, I thought it best to dress properly, Stanis.’

  “Having only recently been taught that my name was Stanis, I gave a simple nod to the man. There had been times the dark-haired fellow with the kind eyes had shown up to meet with me in workman’s coveralls spattered with mortar and bits of stone, but that day the dim light cast from the lanterns within the studio showed a different Alexander, one dressed in a three-button frock coat and pin-striped dress pants. The highest fashion of his time, if I am remembering correctly. For once, his hair was combed and free of the rock dust that stonemasons of his time usually sported.

  “‘Now, then,’ he said, making an arcane gesture with his hand, ‘always protect the family. That is the first of all rules. Do you understand?’

  “A tingling sensation washed over me and I nodded. ‘I understand.’

  “‘I know the very concept of family is new to you,’ the man said, patting me on one of my solid stone shoulders, ‘but I’ve shown you the photographs of those closest to me—my kin. And there will also be the kin to come, yes?’

  “He turned from me and moved farther along the edge of the roof to my right until he stood in front of one of the massive blocks of solid stone sitting along the roof’s ledge.

  “‘Do not worry,’ he continued. ‘You will not be alone in this task, but before I fashion another, first we must continue your education.’

  “He had me repeat the first rule. ‘Always protect the family,’ I said.

  “He was pleased and he moved back to a chair he had set up across from me. A black journal—much like the one you’re using now—lay on the chair and he grabbed it, flipping it open.

  “‘Secondly,’ he said with another gesture, ‘always return here before sunrise. Trust your instincts. You will feel the pull of the building calling to you, and you must always return here before the light of day transforms you.’

  “I nodded again as the tingling sensation hit once more. I had already experienced the phenomenon the man was describing on one of the few flights I had taken while first testing the limits of my new body. There had of course been nights in my first few weeks of my creation when the man Alexander had not come to me, so as random thoughts began to form in my fledgling mind, I had begun to explore the world…as I suppose a child would have.

  “‘Always return before the light of day,’ I repeated.

  “Alexander smiled at me then and said, ‘Lastly, do your best to keep yourself hidden from humanity.’

  “I stood quietly for a moment, going over the rules in what little mind I had developed already.

  “‘What is it, Stanis? What’s wrong?’

  “When I could finally find the words to speak, I asked, ‘Why?’

  “‘Why?’ the man asked with a laugh. ‘Why what?’

  “Something unsettling stirred in the rock of my chest. ‘Why must I hide away from you, from those like you, and why does your family need protecting?’

  “His eyes lit up. ‘Excellent!’ he said, ‘Excellent questions, both of them! You’re learning, as I hoped you would. Your natural curiosity drives you!’

/>   “He walked toward the other side of the art studio and gestured for me to follow. He led me up the back stairs of the building and onto the roof proper. I strode after him, the roof shaking under my feet as I walked, still unaccustomed to any form of movement other than flight. The man waited for me at the far northern edge of the building. When I arrived, he reached up and put his hand on my shoulder.

  “‘Our ever-growing Manhattan!’ Alexander said to me. ‘Every day a new invention of some kind comes into being, like parts of this very building we’re standing on top of. Look out at the horizon…Nothing stands taller than we do! And why? Because of the creative minds of the Otis Elevator Company. After just a few short years, the landscape of this island has already started to take on a whole new look.’

  “Alexander laughed and said, ‘Everyone thought Brooklyn was going to be the big city around here, what with all its room to grow and expand outward. “Manhattan’s only an island,” they said! Well, now that Manhattan can build upward, I suspect all that’s changed…’”

  Alexandra was still watching me, rapt with attention.

  “We stood there in silence watching the city with all its tiny lights burning in the windows of other, lesser buildings until Alexander turned away and headed back inside and down to his art studio. He sat back down in his chair and resumed flipping through his notebook.

  “‘Everything in this city is happening so fast…’ Alexander said, weariness in his voice. ‘I can barely keep up with all the orders for more and more unique stonework coming in, let alone look after my family. God only knows what the future holds for them. The higher we build toward the heavens, the more I worry about the dangers that still roam the ground. Who knows what lies ahead? The past, no matter how far you run from it, has a funny way of catching up, and I do not wish my family to pay the price.’

  “‘Price for what?’ I asked, but my maker would not answer. He fell silent for a time as he read through his notebook.