TFRoot - The Elixer

by The Elixir (v1. 0) [lit]

  "And I'm to be the sole beneficiary of the remainder of your estate? You want me to have everything you own after you're gone?"

  "Well, you and Carole, actually, but I've named only you for the sake of convenience.” She smiled. “I have no doubt that you'll include her equally as the object of my bounty,” she added, delightedly exhibiting her newly-acquired acquaintance with legal terminology.

  Tom shook his head, genuinely perplexed. “None of this makes any sense, Lucy."

  "But it makesperfect sense, Tom, can't you see that? I want you and Carole to enjoy the benefits of the elixir not just one time, but forever, and this is the only way that I can assure that you can do that. I imagine that Ed will move into my place, perhaps even get Allison to come and move in with him. I know them both very well, and I trust them to maintain my garden. Of course, the next critical harvest won't come until well after they're both gone, a hundred years or so from now. I will provide you with very specific instructions, and I am sure you'll have no problem following them. By the way, the herb has been transplanted once, so I know that it is possible, but I can't say that I truly would recommend this unless it is absolutely necessary for some reason."

  Tom sat silent, collecting his thoughts, making sure that he had made no mistake in logical reasoning. “But Lucy,” he finally asked, “why are you bothering with any of this? If your elixir truly works, why shouldyou ever die?"

  Lucinda chuckled. “Now, Tom, I'm a little disappointed that you'd ask me that. Just think about it for a moment. The answer is obvious, isn't it?"

  It was not, at least not to Tom. “Are you trying to tell me that it really doesn't work?"

  Lucinda shook her head. “Think back, to the night of the summer solstice, when I had you and Carole for dinner at my home, when I first told you about the elixir. Do you remember exactly what I said, how the elixir preserves life?"

  "You said that all illness was really the result of the aging process, and that the elixir could arrest and sometimes reverse that, resulting in perfect health and continued life."

  "Exactly! But how long does the effect last?"

  "You said about one hundred years, which was convenient, because that's about how often the flowers used to create it bloomed."

  "They just bloomed, did they not?"

  "Well, yes..."

  "And you never sawme drink the tea, did you?"

  Tom thought hard for a moment. That night at Lucinda's had been so strange, so surreal; so much that he had seen and heard seemed to contravene all that he had come to expect and accept from this world. He tried to remember how Lucinda has poured the tea for him and Carole ... She had even poured some for Sammy ... but did she...? Then it came to him. “You never did drink any yourself, did you Lucy? And your reflection in the mirror, your aura, it looked so weak, compared to ours."

  Lucinda nodded. “My elixir works, all right, but only if you drink it. Once you stop..."

  "...You'll die,” Tom said quietly. He gazed intently at Lucinda. Suddenly, he was struck by an undeniable realization. In the few weeks since he had last seen her, she had indeed aged, perhaps not dramatically, but definitely. Her pale complexion was no longer quite as even as it had been, and had taken on a grayish cast. The fine lines in her face, once nearly imperceptible, were now clearly defined creases. Her long, jet black hair now contained some strands of silver, and had thinned out ever-so-slightly on the top of her head, making its length a bit incongruous for a lady of her years. Even her voice and demeanor had changed; no longer that of a vivacious younger woman but rather of an aging, tiring matron.

  Lucinda shrugged. “Now that wasn't so hard, was it?"

  "But why? Why now?"

  "Because I've finally found my successors—you and Carole, two wonderful, intelligent, loving people who can truly and fully appreciate the gift of life, a life that need never end, or be diminished in any way by the physical deterioration that is so much a part of this world."

  "But what does that have to do with you? If the elixir has worked so well for you for so many years, why would you ever decide to let yourself die?"

  "The real question is how I've managed to last this long,” she said quietly, a sad little smile on her face. “My mother couldn't. Of course, she warned me, but I didn't listen.” She shook her head sadly. “Sometimes it seems that irony is the very essence of human nature. I did that same exact thing as she did, and was just as miserable.” She stroked Sammy, who was sleeping in her lap. “Perhaps even more miserable, because I couldn't even save my child."

  "Whatare you talking about?” Tom muttered, half to himself

  "My mother was an extremely capable and intelligent human being, a woman infinitely ahead of her time, with a deep passion for knowledge that she passed onto me. She could never be content to go through her life without trying to understand the world she occupied. Through observation, inductive reasoning, and trial and error, she began to unlock its secrets. Her inquiry was equally sensitive to the physical and the spiritual; she was astute enough to realize that both science and magic have its place. She was most interested in the human body, in its functions, and how to cure illnesses. It was she who first discovered the elixir, while she was pregnant with me, in fact. Today such a woman would be respected, even celebrated, perhaps.” Lucinda paused. “In medieval England, however,” she added dramatically, her voice hoarse and hissing, “she was ostracized as a witch."

  She continued: “In time she was forced to live as an outcast. Surely she would have been put to death had it not been for the intercession of one good and noble man, who protected her. That man was my father. I never knew him. He left on a crusade to the Holy Land just before I was born, and he never returned. My mother was never the same. She was in her twenties then, I suppose, just a young girl. She partook of the elixir twice more, living to be over three hundred, but finally, the time came when she'd had enough.” Lucinda smiled sadly. “I could never understand it, at the time ... mourning someone that keenly, how a loss can at once leave an infinite void and create an overwhelming burden. To carry such a burden for a lifetime, as so many in this world must do, no less for five, six, seven times that, every single day, a weight, apain so terrible, from which there can be no escape but the final one ... and even then, what?..."

  Her unblinking blue eyes bore into Tom. “Can you possibly comprehend what that's like?” She looked away. “My mother surely understood, and she tried to spare me from that fate. She always counseled me to guard my heart zealously. I did, for many, many years, more than a few normal lifetimes, anyway, but when I met him, there was literally nothing I could do about it.

  As she said this, her face started to brighten, and in an instant she was fairly glowing, as the memory seemed to wash over her like the warming sun finally breaking through the clouds after a winter's storm. “Richard Hobson was the most extraordinary man I'd ever known—such a quick, keen mind, an absolutely brilliant writer and scholar. He was devout and loyal, yet remarkably open-minded for his day ... a kind, compassionate man, yet still so very strong, so capable and brave, and of course he was utterly gorgeous, the most beautiful man I had ever seen. He was from a noble family, but he had an older brother, so he was a second son, as they called it, and could not inherit from his father. He became a naval officer, one of the valid options for a man of his standing in those times, and by all accounts had acquitted himself honorably. But his soul was too sensitive, scarred by all he had seen, and he decided to devote himself to God—rather ironic, really considering the cause of the wars of his day.” Lucinda shook her head. “He may have been a second son,” she continued softly, “but Richard Hobson was never second to anyone, not in my eyes, at least. We were drawn to each other so strongly, and on so many different levels ... it was sheer perfection.” She added wistfully: “at least, for the few short years we were together."

  "If everything was so perfect, what happened?"

  "What do you think happened?” Lucinda snapped.

&
nbsp; "Why didn't you give him the elixir?"

  "Can you possibly think that I didn't?” Lucinda responded with an exasperated shriek. “We were simply doomed by some cruel, freakish providence."

  "Meaning..."

  Lucinda took a deep breath. “He was challenged to a duel, by a stupid, small-minded man called Cunningham who had actually insultedhim . Truth be told, he only accepted because he had insultedme .” She shook her head ruefully. “He should have killed the rat when he had the chance, but he let him live. Richard was an expert swordsman, and only wanted to teach him a lesson. He humiliated him, in front of a mutual friend, and his own brother, and me. So, the next day, he came upon Richard like a thief in the night and shot him in the back. The bullet penetrated all the way through to his stomach, and he became infected. In those time, of course..."

  "But what about ... why didn't you give it to him?"

  "Can you possibly think I didn't,” Lucinda shot back angrily. “Of course I gave it to him!"

  "It didn't work, then?"

  "I didn't understand it. At the time I speculated that it was because his stomach was damaged, and he couldn't digest it properly. Now, I have another theory ... but what does it matter? He died in December of 1693, just a few weeks before I gave birth. Another rather cruel irony, wouldn't you say?"

  Tom wasn't sure what to say. “What happened to the child?” he finally asked quietly.

  Lucinda smiled. “What happened to the child?” she repeated aloud as she stroked Sammy. “What did happen to you, my darling boy?"

  "You're not suggesting that..."

  "No, Tom, I'm not ‘suggesting’ anything, I'm telling you.” She put her arm under the cat and gently lifted him up. Sammy mewed softly as he twisted his body and lifted his head toward her face. Lucinda looked down at him, gazing into a pair of clear blue eyes the exact shade and as unnervingly intense as her own, and tenderly kissed him on the lips. “Sammy is my son."

  "You gave birth to a cat,” asked Tom, deadpan.

  "I told you once before, Sammy wasn't always a cat.” Lucinda put the cat down onto her lap, continuing to stroke him. “He became ill when he was just a child of seven. A particularly virulent form of cancer, originating in the stomach, I believe."

  "Cancer,” Tom repeated. “Like with Ed Wilson's wife ... the elixir doesn't work with cancer, then?"

  "No,” Lucinda demurred, “I just don't think it works as well when it's old as when it's new, earlier in the century. Again, that's something I have never figured out for sure—how it can work so well for me, even in a diminished state, but hardly at all for others.” She shrugged. “The elixir has certainly protected me from every disease, and it even worked for me once mid-century, back in the 1400s when I had contracted the fever then called the Black Death.” She sighed. “But it just wasn't doing anything for Sammy."

  "So you turned your son into a cat?"

  "I altered his physical form, yes, in order to preserve his life."

  "But why? I don't understand."

  "Don't you remember when I told you that smaller bodies needed less of the elixir? Well, an eight pound cat is considerably smaller than a sturdy seven-year-old boy. The elixir worked for Sammy then, at least it kept his disease in check until the new supply came in that summer. I gave it to him every day for over a month, and what symptoms he had disappeared almost immediately. Since then, he's thrived."

  "You turned your son into a cat,” Tom repeated, shaking his head in disbelief.

  "I always wondered if I did the right thing, actually. But I just couldn't stand to lose him, not after losing his father before him."

  "Why didn't you turn him into a cat?"

  "Maybe I should have,” Lucinda snapped, her blue eyes flashing angrily. “Haven't you ever made a mistake, Tom? An error, either of omission or commission?"

  She glared at him, oozing a malevolence that took him aback.

  "I realize that you're still quite young,” she added, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Then, her demeanor abruptly softened. “I'm sorry,” she said with genuine contrition. “This is not directed at you. No, actually I am very grateful to you, and to Carole, for coming into my life when you did. For now, I can finally do what I have wanted to for the longest time, since the day Richard died. I can join him."

  "You mean that you can die?” Tom offered softly, stating the obvious.

  Lucinda closed her eyes and nodded gravely. “Only then will my sorrow cease."

  "But what do Carole and I have to do with that?” asked Tom, puzzled. “I mean, after all these years, why should meeting us make any difference to you?"

  "Don't you see?” said Lucinda, obviously annoyed at his inability to quickly follow her logic. She shook her head. “No, it's not your fault. I don't suppose that anyone can fully appreciate the power of the elixir, at least not until they have experienced it themselves, have themselves lived on, well beyond a normal lifetime, while the entire world around them grew old and died.” She turned her face away from Tom. She continued speaking, not so much addressing him as giving voice to her own private thoughts. “To possess such an awesome power, and to just ... give it up ... no, I could never have allowed that. I had to know that the elixir had not been lost, that someone deserving would enjoy its benefits, before I left this world. I had to know that I had won ... that I had finally destroyed death."

  These last words resonated deeply for Tom. They sounded so much like something with which he was very familiar, that he had heard many times before ... but where? Suddenly, the connection crystallized; the words he said and heard every week at Mass, so often he rarely thought about what they meant, the Mystery of Faith: “Dying, you destroyed our death...” He was now seized with a terrible sense of doubt about the course he and Carole had embarked upon in all innocence. “Maybe that was the problem,” he murmured, thinking aloud. “Maybe this was never supposed to be."

  Lucinda instantly seized upon this. “What did you say?” she asked sharply, turning and looking directly at him.

  "I ... I don't know,” Tom stammered, intimidated by both his own insecurity and by Lucinda's steady gaze that threatened to pierce his very soul. “I ... I was just thinking that maybe...” he remembered Lucinda's professed animosity toward Christianity. “Well, perhaps the elixir, as wonderful as it is, is somehow...” he tried to state this in theologically-neutral terms, “unnatural.” This was met with a silence that emboldened him to continue. “Perhaps it was in the violation of nature, of the natural law, that you have experienced unhappiness in this life."

  "Oh, you Catholics,” Lucinda said with a scornful wave of her hand, “with all of your guilt. Well, explain to me what precisely about my elixir is unnatural. It is made from a plant which simply sprung up naturally, with no human intervention. Yes, of course I have transplanted it when I came here, and I have cultivated it over the years. Surely you're not suggesting that there's culpability in that?"

  "I never said anything about culpability, said Tom, somewhat apologetically, not wishing to offend her. “It's just that..."

  "It's just what?” Lucinda challenged.

  "I think you know what I mean,” said Tom, trying to adopt a tone of neutral logic. “For us to live so much longer than our usual lifespan, that's what I'm talking about."

  "I see,” said Lucinda evenly. “But what would you say about a person's living so much shorter than a normal lifespan, like my father, or Richard Hobson, or like my Sammy would have, had I not intervened? Tell me, Tom, are you content to live in a world where a beautiful young woman can suffer a freak accident and be doomed to a life of constant pain, the loss of her youth and vitality while still in her thirties? Is it our duty to simply accept this? Doing whatever we can to overcome physical pain, and suffering, and death, is all this unnatural to you? Surely you wouldn't suggest that we abandon all modern science and technology in the name of adherence to the natural law?"

  "Well no, of course not. It's just that the elixir..."

  "...Is j
ust like any other drug, or treatment conceived or discovered by man. No, Tom, I'm wrong; it is the single greatest of its kind, ever. Just look at me. I'm over seven hundred years old. How about yourself? Don't you look and feel younger, and better, than you've felt in years? And, of course, there's Carole. Surely she ranks as the elixir's greatest triumph. I can just see her now, hundreds of years from now, in perfect health, as vibrant and beautiful as ever ... no one would ever dream that she was once a cripple, either hobbling around with a cane, like a decrepit old woman, or filled with more drugs than an addict, her body breaking down little by little, day by day. Tell me, Tom; are you sorry that she took the elixir?” Lucinda stared directly into his eyes. “Would you rather she go back to her previous, natural state?"

  "No, of course not,” Tom confessed honestly, realizing that that was indeed how he felt. “I'm more thankful for her health than for anything else in my life right now.” He paused. “I imagine you're right, Lucy;” he continued, speaking aloud his current train of thought, “even if the pain and suffering of this world are indeed natural, whatever we do to alleviate or overcome them are just as natural. Perhaps that's just all part of God's plan after all."