by Gigi Pandian
“There is one way,” Dorian said, “to find out.”
“We talked about this already. It’s too dangerous.” I didn’t want to mess with implementing the dark forces of backward alchemy, only combatting them. That’s why in all of my research into rejuvenating Dorian, I had never tried to bring an inanimate object to life. But desperate times call for desperate measures.
“Your face betrays you, Alchemist. You are as curious as I.”
“It’s not about curiosity,” I snapped. “I never wanted to be an alchemist in the first place. I was happy as an herbalist. Spagyric alchemy was a way to understand more about the properties of plants. But this?” I flipped my white hair, my daily reminder that alchemy had saved the rest of my body from the ravages of time, while my hair and the rest of the world aged around me. “Sometimes I wish Nicolas and Perenelle had never seen my potential and taken me in. Then I might have been able to cure my brother the way I’d always done before I met the alchemists, because I wouldn’t have wasted time chasing the false hope that I could find the Elixir of Life for him.”
Dorian blinked at me. “But then you would not be here with me. And where would I be without you?”
“You would have found a more competent alchemist to help you.” I picked up the object closest to me, a puzzle box missing the key that told how to open it. I threw it across the room as forcefully as I could. It bounced off the wall and landed on the Persian rug that covered the hole in the floor. It didn’t break. I was even a failure at expressing angst. The thick wood pieces were linked in such a manner that I doubted anything besides a sledgehammer, or fire, could break it open.
Dorian limped over to me and rested his head on my elbow, then wrapped a wing around my shoulder. “If smashing objects helps you feel better, I can scavenge many things that would make the world a better place if they were broken.”
I laughed, and a tear escaped to roll down my cheek. I extricated myself from Dorian’s wing to pick up the puzzle box on the other side of the room. I didn’t want him to see how upset I was. Was I so desperate for answers that I was seriously considering purposefully bringing a stone object to life? Would it tell me something that I couldn’t hope to otherwise understand?
True alchemy is a focused, heightened state of natural processes, but backward alchemy turns nature on its head. I didn’t understand nearly enough about the “death rotation” illustrated in Non Degenera Alchemia. In spite of my lack of understanding, I was certain with all my heart that although Dorian had been brought to life by the book, he wasn’t evil like the backward alchemists who had created Non Degenera Alchemia.
“Intent,” I said aloud, feeling hope rise within me.
“Pardon?”
“I was thinking through what we do know.” I placed the carved box back on the shelf and looked at the articulated pelican skeleton. Pelicans are an important symbol in alchemy because of the sacrifice they make for their young. “Intent is important for an alchemist’s work. Since alchemy is about transforming the impure into the pure, the alchemist’s intent is as important to a transformation as are the ingredients.”
“Intent,” Dorian murmured.
“You weren’t corrupted by this book, even though the backward alchemy inside shows so much death along with power and resurrection. I wonder if Ethan’s incantation didn’t work because of his intent. He knew he was playing a joke.”
“Non,” Dorian said, shaking his head. “My father was not an alchemist. He did not know the words he read would bring me to life.”
“But he read the words with purpose. He was planning on building a gargoyle automaton that would ‘come to life.’”
Dorian gasped. “C’est vrai! This was his intention. And this will be your intention when you read the words.”
“I still don’t know if we should mess with the dark forces of backward alchemy.”
“If you are not willing, I can enlist the boy’s help.”
“No. That’s not going to happen.” I’d taken Brixton home after our enlightening visit with Ethan, so it was just me and the gargoyle in the house. I’d already involved Brixton more than I should have.
“He would be happy to help.”
I rubbed my temples. Sometimes there was no arguing with a desperate gargoyle. If I didn’t help him, I had no doubt he would try it on his own or with Brixton. My unwillingness to take risks was causing us to spin our wheels. There were too many unanswered questions. Compared to approaching a murderous backward alchemist, bringing a baby Dorian to life seemed like the safer choice.
“If we do this,” I said, “you follow my lead. Whatever happens, you do as I say.”
Dorian mumbled something under his breath in French about narcissistic alchemists who think they know best. I ignored him and closed the attic door, locking us in, then set a foot-high stone carving of Buddha on the floor.
I opened Non Degenera Alchemia to the page Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin had read from all those years ago. The disturbing woodcut illustration showed a dead basilisk perched atop the ruins of a crumbling building, and bees circling overhead in a counterclockwise rotation. In stark contrast to the desolate image, the sweet scent of flowers wafted up from the faded page. Underneath the stronger aroma of cloves and honey I detected the scent of roses.
Dorian frowned. “Buddha is a bad choice.”
“He’s got a full body, just like you. He’s made of a similar stone. This statue is a perfect choice.”
“But it is Buddha.”
I considered. “You think it’s blasphemous?” I asked.
“Non,” Dorian said. “Boring. If I am to have a companion, he should be someone who enjoys great food. The Buddha would insist on eating simple meals. The words ‘simple’ and ‘meal’ should never be used in the same sentence. Non. That will not do.”
“I’m not bringing to life the spirit of the Buddha, you know. We don’t yet know where the power comes from, but surely you see you’re not the devil you look like.”
Dorian touched his horns with his stone hands, his eyes opening wide. “You think I am a devil?”
I sighed. “Of course not. I don’t know what Viollet-le-Duc had in mind when he carved you, but I’m certain it wasn’t the soul of a gourmet chef. You’ve become your own person, Dorian. Just as this little Buddha will be. If this works.”
“D’accord. You may try it.” He scowled at Buddha, then retreated into the corner.
I held the book in trembling hands and read the Latin. I’d studied this page to such an extent over the past months that I knew the words by heart. But I was careful to read the words from the page, with my energy and intent directed at the stone Buddha statue.
I finished the incantation and looked to the stone Buddha.
Twenty-One
“He does not move,” Dorian said, poking the Buddha statue with a clawed fingertip.
“No,” I agreed. “I read the words perfectly. You’re sure that’s all Robert-Houdin did?”
“That is what he said. And yes, he was a man of details. This is how he was such a successful stage magician. He would not have left out any details when he told me what happened. Perhaps it is my presence?”
Over the next hour, we tried everything I could think of. Different figurines of different materials and sizes, different locations in the house, and with Dorian both present and absent from the room.
Nothing worked.
“Perhaps it is your clothing,” Dorian suggested. “The forces of nature must not believe you are an alchemist. Before the flooding, your clothes were much nicer.”
I looked down at my frumpy jeans, remembering the torn dress that had been the only thing I owned for the first year after my brother and I fled Salem Village. “It’s not my clothes.”
“Alors, I am truly a freak of nature.”
“Dorian—”
“You are e
xhausted. It is nearly ten o’clock, and we have not yet eaten dinner. I will cook.”
“I’m going to bed.”
“Zoe, you have not eaten for half the day. Your skin is drawn. Your eyes are bloodshot. Your hair scatters the floor. You must eat.”
He was right. There was a time when I didn’t take care of myself at all, and it was surprisingly easily to let those bad habits take hold again while under pressure. We descended the steep stairs from the attic. Dorian moved slowly, no longer the agile creature I’d met three months ago.
“Ah!” he cried out.
I saw what was happening but couldn’t reach his flailing arms in time.
He tumbled down the steep attic stairs, living stone crashing into each thick wood step. I cringed as I watched his gray body contort and land with a crash on the hardwood floor in front of my bedroom.
“My left wing!”
I hurried down the steps and knelt next to his prostrate body. “It didn’t break off.”
“I cannot move it.” His lower lip trembled.
“You need to let me give you another infusion of alchemy.”
The gargoyle struggled to sit up, yet he brushed off my attempts to help him. His left leg was now fully stone, and he was unable to bend it to balance. After pushing himself up with his working wing, he grudgingly accepted my help to limp down the flight of stairs that led to the living room.
“If you let me cook you a hearty dinner tonight,” he said without meeting my gaze, “I will consent to your assistance with another batch of the Teas of Ashes.”
I awoke the next morning with the sun, unsure if I felt optimistic or defeated. I knew both more and less about Dorian’s book.
Ethan’s prank had forced my hand into making the discovery that invoking the power of the words in the book wasn’t enough to bring a piece of stone to life. I now had more information. Yet at the same time, I felt as though I was further from unlocking the secrets of the book. And even if I could, unlocking the coded messages of the book still might not be enough to save my friend.
I needed help. I again came back to the question of whether it was worth the risk to ask Peter Silverman, the murderous magician alchemist, for help. Should I make a deal with the Devil to save an innocent?
That was a question I first grappled with 300 years ago. That time, I waited too long to make my own decision. It wasn’t literally a deal with the Devil, but it felt like it all the same. My brother had suffered and died because of it. I’d gone on a fool’s errand that took me from my brother during his last days on earth and cursed me to live on.
My little brother, Thomas, died of the plague in 1704, when he was just twenty-six years old. At the time, I didn’t believe my shattered heart would ever heal. I already knew heartbreak, of course. Between disease, distrust, and death, life in the “Age of Enlightenment” was brutal. I watched three of my siblings die in infancy, watched my mother and father stand mutely by as I was accused of witchcraft for my connection to plants, and heard the whispers as my former friends abandoned me one by one.
It wasn’t Thomas’s death itself that broke my heart; it was the cause of it. It was Thomas who helped me escape being burned as a witch. At age sixteen, I fled from Salem Village, Massachusetts, to London, England, with the help of fourteen-year-old Thomas. He was the only person to stand with me through the next twelve years. And I let him down. I might have been able to save him if I’d been there for him instead of abandoning him to study alchemy.
I spent his last weeks on earth trying to find the Elixir of Life. I ignored the advice of Nicolas Flamel, refusing to believe I wouldn’t be able to transfer an alchemical protection to another person. Nicolas had advised me to enjoy Thomas’s company for his last days on earth, making him as comfortable as possible. Instead, I discovered the Elixir of Life for myself without realizing it, and Thomas died alone.
It was my deal with the Devil. Asking for immortality so I could save my brother, but being granted it only for myself, cursed to live out my endless days alone. I’ve never forgiven myself for that youthful mistake. I spent the next hundred years trying to atone for my sins, helping everyone except myself. I didn’t feel worthy of receiving my gift of immortality. An accidental alchemist, I atoned for my sins by healing others. Sometimes it was enough; and sometimes it wasn’t.
I didn’t want to repeat the same mistake again.
I pulled on the thick wool socks I kept at the side of my bed and put on a robe. Even though it was spring, the house was cold from the drafts that had crept in during the night, a result of not having properly fixed up the place. One day.
In the kitchen, I got myself a glass of water with fresh lemon slices. I was still full from the late dinner Dorian had cooked of roasted asparagus with a tarragon and avocado sauce, a French lentil salad, and cashew cheesecake, but I knew I needed to eat breakfast if I was going to have the energy to make Dorian’s backward alchemy tea.
I took a mug of steaming green tea to the back porch along with a pen and notebook, and one of Dorian’s oat cakes. I watched the sun begin to cast light over my incongruous garden: half of the backyard filled with thriving greenery, the other half barren dirt where I’d pulled plants from their roots to mix into the backward alchemy that began rather than ended with fire.
With the Venetian fountain pen, I started a list of what I knew: One, I needed help with Dorian’s book. Two, Peter Silverman was an alchemist who was most likely in town to retrieve his lost hoard before someone else took it.
As for what I didn’t know, that list was much longer:
Was it safe to approach Peter openly? Would Peter admit what he was, or get defensive and attempt to silence me, as he might have done to Wallace Mason? Was Wallace’s friend in danger, too? I paused in my scribbles. If that was the case, didn’t I have a moral obligation to warn him? If it was indeed the magician-alchemist who had killed Wallace, the police would never be able to unlock the motive. I could only hope they had enough physical evidence to lock him up. But, as evidenced by his presence here, the police hadn’t stopped him before.
Speaking of the police, why had Max expressed an interest in my gargoyle statue right before he left? I hadn’t had time to think about it while worrying about Ethan’s garden gnome, but anything that drew attention to Dorian filled me with unease.
I wished I had someone else I could confide in besides a teenager and a gargoyle. But alchemists were so few and far between. A bad feeling tickled my cold fingertips and spread through me. Since finding the Elixir of Life is personal, it was rare for both members of a couple to find it. True, both Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel had managed this, as had Ambrose and I. But we were the exceptions. Could Penelope be an alchemist as well? If so, knowing now what I knew about backward
alchemy and how I suspected Peter’s involvement with it to fake his death, he could have used it to help Penelope achieve the same degree of unnatural immortality. At the very least, she must know Peter’s secret.
I couldn’t trust the magician-alchemists. Nor could I get the help I needed from my teenage ally or the dying gargoyle. Ivan’s theoretical knowledge of alchemy was helping, and though I couldn’t trust him with my secret, I knew he was on my side. But his help was coming too slowly.
I finished my tea and oat cake, got dressed, then gathered enough plants from the garden to fill a copper bucket. The plants that looked most energetic this morning were stinging nettles and sunflowers. I avoided my thriving lemon balm. Paracelsus, the sixteenth-century doctor and alchemist, called lemon balm the Elixir of Life. Lemon balm tea worked wonders for me, but when I’d tried to work it into Dorian’s Tea of Ashes, it resisted the unnatural process. Now I stuck to weedier plants.
I descended the stairs to the basement. For half the morning, I transformed the healthy plants into ashes that I dissolved with sulfurous fire and mercury. Like Paracelsus and other alchemists before me, I focu
sed on the tria prima of mercury, sulfur, and salt.
I knew firsthand how dangerous mercury was. Many an alchemist had been poisoned by it. It was a dual-faced rebus, capable of both healing and hurting. I kept mercury on hand for true alchemy, but it was also an ingredient of backward alchemy.
As I stirred the mixture counterclockwise and performed the steps of alchemy in the hastened, backward way explained in the book, the energy from the plants and my own body transferred to the ashes. The plant leaves wilted. My lips and the tips of my fingertips shriveled in a way I now recognized—a cross between soaking in a bathtub for too long and being stuck under the desert sun. I blinked to combat my aching eyes that felt as dry as the ashes I’d created.
Success. I held up the unnatural ashes in my weakened hand.
A normal alchemical operation of this importance would have taken months, even years, to perfect. But because this was backward alchemy, the Tea of Ashes took only a small fraction of that time. The problem was its effects. They were severe and long-lasting. The first time I made the unnatural tea for Dorian, I hadn’t realized the sacrifice it involved—or how much it could hurt me.
My “success” was a disingenuous one. Each time I went through the process, I felt it pull more of my own life force out of me.
After steeping the ashes in hot water, I found Dorian in the attic. He sat on the floor reading another science fiction novel that he’d requested I pick up at the library for him. His left leg was askew.
He shifted under my gaze. “I was extra careful on my way to and from Blue Sky Teas during the night. The baking is done, and nobody saw me.” He set the book aside and looked up at me with concern.
“You’ve been reading a lot of science fiction lately.” I handed him the Tea of Ashes. Before I’d discovered this quick fix of the Tea of Ashes, Dorian had to keep moving to avoid turning to stone. The movements could be small, so he’d had me check out dozens of classic mystery novels from the library to stay awake through reading. Before he met me he’d been a literary snob, but I’d expanded his horizons. Most recently he’d been giving me lists of science fiction novels, like the one he had in his hand.