by Bill Bunn
“Coward,” Aunt Shannon yelled towards the man as he stalked away. In seething anger, she slammed the door with such force that the house shook. A splintered piece of wood swung at the end of the door chain. Aunt Shannon swung around, intoxicated with anger.
Steve took a step backward from where he stood at the top of the stairs, and prepared to run away to be alone until he saw some of the fire fade from her eyes.
“Are you all right?” Steve wondered in a shaken voice from the top of the stairs.
Aunt Shannon rubbed her arm where Mr. Gold had grabbed her. She frowned, the frown slowly turning into a sob. She brought her boney hands to her face and began to blubber.
Steve looked around the room and fiddled with his hair for a moment.
Tissue! he thought triumphantly.
He darted into the kitchen and grabbed another three tissues from the box on the top of the refrigerator. Tissues extended, he slowly stepped down the front stairs to where she stood.
When he was within arm’s reach, she grabbed him and clung to him as if he were a life preserver in the middle of the Atlantic. Waving the tissues behind her back like a white flag, he surrendered and returned her hug.
After a few moments she released him.
“Help me up the stairs, please,” she requested. She teetered up the stairs on his arm to the kitchen, and sat down in front of her teacup.
Steve set the tissues on the table and plunked down beside her. “Whenever an old lady cries,” she sniffed, “she needs a tissue or two.”
Steve nodded.
“What a bunch of dunderheads,” she added, as she blew her nose.
“I made the mistake of telling a reporter that I thought your mother disappeared because of an alchemical experiment gone wrong. The reporter asked me to explain a bit about what might have happened. Of course it wasn’t just Edward who read the article.” She turned and gestured towards the door. “Those thugs have been bothering me ever since.”
“Why don’t you call the police and charge them or something?” Steve asked. “You don’t have to put up with that, you know.”
“Well, I’ve tried, but it’s kind of tricky. First, his name isn’t Mr. Gold, so I really can’t say who’s doing this to me. I’ve tried getting the license number of his car, but his plates are all unregistered, so that’s pretty much a donut. And the police don’t really believe my story, like the reporter who quoted me. They’re much more amused by my theory than anything else.” She blew her nose fiercely. “In other words, the police won’t do much about it unless something very bad happens first.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t do anything,” Steve said. “I wanted to help but I got stuck.”
“What could you do against those men?” she asked.
“I dunno.”
“I don’t think the two of us together could do too much. So don’t worry about it.” She sipped some cold tea from her cup, studying the saucer. “I’m afraid I’ve dragged you into this situation now, Steve. That man knew who you were, so I think you need to keep an eye out for him. Next time you see them, run. I certainly don’t expect you to defend me. I’ll take care of myself, but make sure you stay away from them at all costs. Don’t let them threaten you or sweet-talk you.” Aunt Shannon began to massage her arm again, then sipped her tea. “Ach,” she cursed. “It’s absolutely cold.”
The two of them sat silently for several moments. “I would like to ask you,” Aunt Shannon looked up towards Steve, “not to mention these hoodlums’ visit, especially to your Uncle Edward.”
Steve nodded. “I won’t say a thing. But won’t he wonder about the door?”
Shannon nodded glumly. “My glue gun will patch things.”
“Just blame it on me, if you need to,” Steve suggested. Shannon smiled.
“Thank you, Steve. You’re a good man.” She patted his hand. “Can we discuss the clock-lock thing again?” she asked suddenly.
Steve poured himself a glass of juice, while Aunt Shannon topped up her cup with now cold tea from the teapot. She took a stiff swig.
“Sure,” Steve agreed. “That sorta rocked.”
“I know you think it’s impressive, and I guess it is. Mr. Gold would certainly think so.” Aunt Shannon pointed her cup of tea towards Steve. “But, as I told you earlier, it’s not as great as it looks.”
“What do you mean?”
“I first transformed clocks and locks several years ago. I really haven’t been able to find a practical use for it yet.” Aunt Shannon waved her cup of tea as she talked. “I can turn a clock into a lock, but so what? I have a few ideas as to what might be happening, but otherwise I’m really not sure. I haven’t been able to do much else for several years. I’m stuck. I know it’s important, but I can’t figure out how. I need to do something with it. I think your mother may have gone beyond where I have. That may explain what happened to her. If that is the case, we need to work until we find out what she was doing and bring her back.”
Steve felt some of his heart thaw, and he cringed. Somehow, the ice felt safer. But, he couldn’t squelch Aunt Shannon’s words and the warmth they brought.
“Do you want to give this stuff a try, Steve?” Aunt Shannon asked, with a hopeful expression. “Honestly?”
He paused. “Yes,” he replied. “I think I have to.”
“Great.” She clapped her hands together. “Before you can begin, we need to discover your prima materia.” She glanced at Steve, who must have looked lost. “I mean, discover your Benu stone.”
“OK, Aunt Shannon,” he interrupted. “I need to ask a bunch of stupid questions before I understand what you’re talking about.” Aunt Shannon nodded with a smile, so he pursued, “Here’s stupid question number one: What is prima materia? Here’s a bigger stupid question: What is a Benu stone? What does it do? Do I have to find somebody’s ashes so I can do stuff? I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with experiments using human body parts.”
Aunt Shannon smiled. “I always knew you were a true adept.” She stopped herself. “Oh, excuse me, I’ve got to stop using the jargon or explain myself, at least.” She covered her mouth as if she’d burped. “I knew you’d step up to the alchemical challenge. Let me see.” Aunt Shannon set her tea down to think for a moment. “Prima materia universalis, mercurius universalis, materia remota, materia tertia—they’re all names for the same thing. They’re old names because so many before you and me have looked for it. Prima materia is Latin for ‘prime material.’ In olden days, alchemists believed that this was some kind of common material, like one of the elements—say iron—something easily accessible that could be purified or perfected and made into a Benu stone. Back then, most everyone thought that if you found this element, you could refine it into a Benu stone.”
She hoisted her teacup. Another sip; a slight shudder. “But I haven’t answered your biggest question yet. The Benu stone… a Benu stone is the one thing that can help you transform things into other things. That’s the only definition I know that matters.” Her teacup clinked into its saucer as she set it down to gesture with both hands. “But this is only a working definition. To be honest, I really don’t know what a Benu stone does except what you saw today. It could do other things—what those things are, I’m not sure.”
“You mean travel?”
“Perhaps,” she replied. “That’s my best guess, based on what happened to your mother.”
Steve was still baffled, so Aunt Shannon continued her explanation. “Our family alchemy, our journals and notes from seven or eight generations of alchemists, points to a different kind of prime matter. As humans, we all have many characteristics in common. There is only one prime matter, but it has many, many expressions.” She paused for a moment. “This is all so complicated. Am I making any sense?”
“Sort of,” Steve replied. “I’m getting some of it, I think.”
“Good. That’s good. Now where was I… oh yes… Um… the spiritus mundi. What will bring this prime material into existence
is something special—unique to you. It’s not an element. That much I’ve learned. Those old alchemists would have laughed if I had suggested to them that Richard is my Benu stone. But he is. And he won’t work for you. You need to find something yourself that points you to the prime material in just the right way.” She lifted her teacup to her mouth, closed her eyes, and tipped her head and the teacup back, draining it with an extended slurp.
“Once you have your Benu stone, you need the next big ingredient: words. Words are the second thing you need. Words are generally more flexible than most things,” Aunt Shannon said. “That’s why I think they hold promise.” She poured herself another cup of tea and drained it in a single gulp like an alcoholic on the start of a bender, then stared at the bottom of her empty teacup as if to check whether there was anything left. “Words were here long before most everything else. And they will be here long after we go. We all use words because we want something to happen. We want him or her to do this or that.” She leaned toward Steve. “If you use a word well—The Word—you can change everything for the better.” She raised her eyes to meet Steve’s. “I think if you use the word properly, you can change the world.”
“Like the way you found clock and lock and make them change.”
“Right. Absolutely right. Even without a Benu stone, the words that we believe change things. But with those words and my Benu stone, I can make the change.” A shadow darkened her face, and lingered.
“So have you tried other words?”
“Oh yes.” Aunt Shannon suddenly looked very tired. “Oh yes, Deary. A great many. So very many. These are the only two I’ve found. My entire life’s work results in two words.” She shook her head as if to rid herself of the depressing thought. “Although this is how these things begin. Think of electricity. It had been known to exist for at least two thousand years. It was the late 16th century before someone noticed and named it. It was another 100 years before it became useful.” She smiled and closed her eyes. “Good ideas take their time.”
“Does this work in other languages? I mean, have you only tried English words?”
“Oh,” Aunt Shannon, said with a start. “I’ve never tried another language. That’s good.” Her eyes shone brightly. “Yes, I like that idea. Hmmm.” She nodded.
“How did you ever discover it”
She smiled widely. “Happy accident. I think they call that serendipity.” Her smile faded. “I started thinking this way when Richard passed away,” Aunt Shannon continued. “The minister said some words as Richard’s body slid into the fire—he said ‘dust to dust, ashes to ashes.’ And as I heard those words I wondered how they might have helped Richard’s body to burn in the fire. What would have happened if the pastor said ‘get up Richard… be alive!’’’ Tears circled Aunt Shannon’s eyes, and she dabbed them with the sleeves of her blouse.
“So I started experimenting with words to revive Richard. One afternoon I was experimenting in the kitchen holding a watch and Richard and… well, you know the rest.” She smiled. “It seems I can’t change Richard, but he can change things.” She paused to swallow. “I need you, Steve. I need you to help me. I’m stuck. I know there’s something more to all of this, but I haven’t been able to discover what it is.”
“What can I do? Where should I start? Should I read that book in my room?”
Aunt Shannon sighed. “The book in your room won’t help much with your experiments. Our kind of alchemy doesn’t rely on experiments with human body parts or purifying some prime material so we can make our Benu stone. Those books talk about the wrong methods and try to do things backwards, most often.
“The only point they agree on is that change—radical change—is possible. All of them suggest you can change things. But you don’t need to read those books to find that idea. Every ordinary story says the same thing—things can change. Sometimes the change is bad, sometimes good, but each story shouts that change is possible.” Aunt Shannon ran her finger around the inside of her teacup and licked it. “I think we should begin somewhere else.” Aunt Shannon’s eyes focused on Steve, her eyes filled with a friendly fire.
“Start experimenting. Begin your great work—find your Benu stone. Learn about what you can do and what you can’t. We’ll work together to move on. I think the key is here in her liber mutus.” She jabbed her index finger at Steve’s mother’s research notebook.
“Excuse me,” Steve said. “You’re losing me again here. What is a ‘liber mutus’?”
“A ‘liber mutus’ is a wordless book. Latin again.”
“But her book is full of words.”
“But she hasn’t clearly said what she was doing. She just jots down the odd thought and random insight. It doesn’t spell out what we need to do to find what she was working on. So, on the big picture, it’s silent—wordless, in effect. Still, I think her notebook has the clues we need to find her, even though it doesn’t say how she did what she did. I think your mother was touching her Benu stone, and then she said something or did something and was transported somewhere. Somewhere nice, hopefully.” But her smile seemed a little thin, her voice hollow as she spoke the last sentence.
The sharp-edged replay of his last words to his mom cut through his thoughts. “I wish you would go away and ever come back. EVER.”
“I hope it’s nice, too,” Steve replied.
“In the old days, alchemists believed that to make a Benu stone you had to start with the prime material and burn it, refine it, burn it and refine it some more, and purify it a few other ways.” Now that Aunt Shannon had Steve’s attention, she seemed prepared to talk for days. Sitting at the kitchen table with her empty cup and cold teapot, she showed no sign of slowing down. “Mr. Gold thinks that he must build a Benu stone the old-fashioned way—he’s read too many books. He hasn’t lived enough. It’s not about making; it’s about finding. That’s why books of alchemy won’t help you much.”
“What would my Benu stone be?”
“I don’t know, really.” Aunt Shannon put her finger to her lips. “It’s something as dark as fear and hate that can be purified into something as light and white as truth and love.”
“Sorry. Huh?”
“As near as I can figure it, your stone will be something that represents your greatest fear and your greatest hope at the same time. Like my Benu stone—my worst fear was Richard dying.”
“He did die.”
“Yes, he did. His death, for me, was the darkest thing I could imagine. But over time, as I worked through my pain, my darkness became light—a triumph of sorts. That’s when I noticed that Richard gave me the power to work my experiments.”
“Hmm.” Steve thought for a moment. His forehead wrinkled as he puzzled over Aunt Shannon’s words. “I’m feeling foggy. I think I need to talk about something else for a while, until my head clears a bit.”
“Good idea,” she replied. “Why don’t we get out of the house for a while?”
“Sure.” Steve added a nod to his reply.
“I’ve got something I’ve been absolutely dying to do. And I need you with me to do it.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I think we should drop by the police station and read the police report. That report might remind you of what happened that night, and we’d get some clues to go along with your mother’s research notes.”
“Maybe we should drop by the house, too,” Steve suggested. “I left my backpack at home. It’s got some clean clothes I’ll need. I can pick it up.”
“That’s a great idea, Steve,” Aunt Shannon exclaimed, obviously pleased. “We can reenact what happened the night your mother disappeared while we’re there.”
Aunt Shannon picked up the phone and called the police station. “Do you know who the detective was?” Aunt Shannon asked as she waited for someone to answer the phone at the station.
“Yeah, ask for a guy named Larry Garner. He was the main investigator for our case.”
Aunt Shannon bowed her head to
concentrate as she made the arrangements to visit the detective. She was able to make an appointment for that afternoon at one forty-five.
After a light lunch, the two of them grabbed their coats. As they walked out the front door, Aunt Shannon pointed across the street to an unkempt, split-level house. “That’s where Lindsay lives—you know, that girl I introduced to you this morning. I hope you two can get to know each other better.”
Steve didn’t reply. It was cold, and a new blanket of snow groaned under their feet as they walked to the garage.
The two of them climbed into the old beast and started it. It coughed a little before it galumphed into a steady, lumpy rumble. Aunt Shannon eased it into reverse and pulled the car out of the shadows into the feeble afternoon sun.
Steve and Aunt Shannon walked into the police station five minutes before the appointment was scheduled to begin. They announced their arrival to the constable at the desk. The constable made a short phone call and informed Detective Larry Garner of their arrival, then led them through a large room cluttered with cubicles, desks, and busy people to a man seated at a desk in the far corner, next to a window. Larry Garner, an overweight, middle-aged man, stood to greet them as they approached.
“Hello there. You must be Shannon Pankratz-Bacon.”
“And you must be Detective Garner,” Aunt Shannon replied.
“Most people call me Larry.” He shook her hand and then noticed Steve. “Hello, Steve.”
“Hello, Mr. Garner,” Steve replied.
“You said you wanted to discuss the disappearance of Mrs. Best. You are family, right?”
“I’m family. I’m Susan’s aunt.” Aunt Shannon smiled sweetly. “Actually, I want to see the file on your investigation.”
“If that’s what you came to see me about, I’m afraid you’re wasting your time. That information is confidential,” Larry replied. “It’s not for public viewing. It’s for police purposes only.”