The Accidental Alchemist

by Gigi Pandian

  Neither scenario made sense. Both Dorian and I lived off the grid, and we hadn’t been in Portland long enough for anyone to know what we were. The murder had to be about Charles Macraith himself. It had to be. Didn’t it?

  With shaking hands, I looked at the photos of Dorian’s book that were saved on my phone. On the screen, the images were too small to see the details, but zooming obscured the bigger picture. I preferred tangible photographs to computer screens. The only two modern inventions I adopted early were automobiles and blenders, both of which were perfected in the 1940s, as far as I was concerned. My vintage blender now sat behind the crime scene tape. Crime scene tape! I’d been so careful over the years. In two days I’d drawn more attention to myself than I had in the last two decades.

  Having a nervous breakdown wasn’t going to help anyone. I had to relax if I was going to make sense of any of this. Placing the phone facedown on the table, I took a beaten-up paperback from my coat pocket. One of the things I had learned the hard way was that when faced with a stressful task, it’s important to take a few deep breaths before beginning. Books served as a psychological deep breath. Before I tackled the task of deciphering the pages of Dorian’s book, I could give myself these few minutes to enjoy a cup of tea and a few of my favorite passages.

  Living out of my trailer, I didn’t have space for many books, so I owned only a few dozen favorite paperbacks. If I wanted to keep a new book, something old had to go. It was a small cost for living on the road, but a difficult one.

  One of the very few purely positive things about living so long was getting to read so many books. While styles of prose changed over time and varied across different cultures, storytelling remained fundamentally the same. People have changed how they express themselves, but the human condition doesn’t change, and neither does how we relate to it. Instead of making new stories unnecessary, each successful storyteller puts their own twist on a familiar tale and finds a way to connect with the readers of their time. Especially successful writers reach across time, ending up as classics.

  It was fascinating to see how history created false images of famous authors after their deaths. Even the author whose book I now held in my hand, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, was far different than popular culture would have people believe. Casual fans of Sherlock Holmes assume his creator was a scientific-minded man like his famous detective. People who study his life in more depth believe he gave up rationalism for spiritualism. Neither was the whole story. He was grieving for deceased loved ones—his wife and son, among others. It was a feeling I knew all too well. One part of his life was blown out of proportion as he sought to reconnect with those he missed dearly.

  Regardless of how history documented the man, there’s no arguing that his stories stood the test of time. I opened my battered copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles.

  The teashop didn’t sell coffee, but that didn’t prevent it from doing a bustling business. From the moment Blue went back to the counter, people funneled into the teashop, keeping her busy. Though an assortment of pastries was available, most customers only ordered tea.

  “Did you hear about the murder?” a woman whispered loudly to her friend as they stood in line.

  My shoulders tensed and I felt an instinctive desire to flee. I shoved the book back into my pocket and stood up to leave.

  “Oh, don’t go.” The voice came from the table next to mine. The older woman sat alone. She sat with her back to the wall, giving her a full view of her surroundings. “You’re the one who bought the house on the hill, aren’t you?”

  So much for settling in quietly.

  “I need to get going,” I said, forcing a smile.

  “Nonsense. What an awful introduction to our neighborhood you’ve had. Let me buy you another cup of tea.”

  “Thank you, but—”

  “I won’t take no for an answer.”

  She stood and swooped in on the counter. That was really the only way to describe it. She wore a blood-red shawl and timed her approach to the counter perfectly to correspond to a lull in customers. I had a moment to study her unobserved as she ordered two teas. She knew who I was, knew about Charles and his murder the previous day, and nodded at several of the people in the teashop. I guessed she spent a fair amount of her time here. Though it was difficult to discern because of her perfect makeup and rich brown hair that was pulled back into a bun, I guessed she was old enough to be retired, giving her plenty of time to spend at the teashop. She couldn’t have been much taller than five feet, and I doubted she weighed a hundred pounds.

  She returned a minute later with a pot of tea and two small mugs. The aroma told me it was a simple black tea, but smelled high quality and delicious.

  “Olivia Strum,” she said.

  “Zoe Faust. And thank you for the tea.” I wondered how quickly I could drink it and extricate myself. I should have known people would know who I was. With the murder fresh in everyone’s minds, this wasn’t how I wanted to meet people. Especially before the police had solved the crime.

  Olivia leaned in. “You mustn’t order the food here. Blue knows how to make the most superb tea that tastes sublime and makes you feel alive, but she couldn’t cook a decent pastry if her life depended on it. She insists on making everything herself, so she can make them healthy.” She shuddered. “Can you believe that her desserts are mostly vegan? Life is too short to eat inedible food because it’s healthy. My nephew Sam is the one who convinced me to try the teas here. One of the few sensible suggestions he has ever made. I should also warn you Blue only accepts cash. She doesn’t trust credit cards. Ah, Ivan! Come sit with us.”

  An unshaven middle-aged man with a newspaper tucked under his arm approached our table. I wondered how long Olivia would have gone on talking if it hadn’t been for the interruption.

  “This is Zoe, the woman who bought the house on the hill,” Olivia said to him. “Zoe Faust, this is Ivan Danko.”

  He nodded politely but without smiling, then headed for the counter, pausing first at the sole photograph on the wall. Other people had done so as well, but Ivan’s gaze lingered.

  “Don’t mind him,” Olivia said. “He hates retirement. He’s still getting used to it.”

  “What’s the interest in the photograph of the young woman on the wall?” I asked. “Is she Blue’s daughter?”

  “Anna passed away several months ago,” Olivia said. “She wasn’t Blue’s daughter, but she was a regular here.”

  “She’s so young.” No wonder the photograph interested customers who must have known her. I could see, now, that it was a shrine that had been set up for the poor girl. Though the death of Charles Macraith was tragic, the death of someone so young was especially devastating.

  In the midst of unfamiliar faces, a familiar one came through the door. Max Liu breezed by us and headed straight for the counter. For a detective, he wasn’t very observant that morning. Though he passed by quickly, I noticed the dark circles under his eyes. Only when he turned around with a cup of tea to go did he notice me.

  His body gave a jerk as he stopped abruptly.

  “Will you excuse us a moment?” he said to Olivia.

  Being pulled aside by the police in gossip-central? Not good.

  I stood and followed him outside, feeling Olivia watching me.

  Max’s hand brushed against my elbow as he opened the door for me. I felt a little jolt of electricity. It was a feeling I hadn’t felt in years. Get a grip, Zoe. This guy is investigating a murder—a murder he thinks I might be involved in. What was the matter with me?

  “Were you looking for me?” I asked. We stood just outside the teashop, under the blue awning that matched the painted blue sky inside.

  “Stopping in on my way back to the station, but I’m glad I found you.”

  “You are?”

  “How did you know?” he asked. Up close, I saw further evidence
of sleep deprivation beyond the dark circles under his eyes. He hadn’t shaved, his eyes were bloodshot, and his collar wasn’t folded properly, as if he’d dressed in a hurry, or perhaps slept in his clothes.

  “Know what?”

  “About the poison.”

  “So Charles Macraith was poisoned in addition to being stabbed?”

  He held my gaze, ignoring his tea. I could smell the faint scent of jasmine from the hole in the lid of his traveling mug.

  “Do you believe what I told you or not?” I asked.

  “I want to know why you thought it was poison.”

  “I already told you,” I said. “I smelled it.”

  “But how did you know what you smelled was poison if you couldn’t identify it?”

  I took a moment before responding. How could I answer that question? The real answer was complicated—more complicated than could be explained to a detective on a Portland street corner. More complicated than could be explained in any way Max would understand, for that matter.

  Ever since I was a small child, I’ve had more of an affinity to plants than most people. People with my gift were called “simplers.” I’ve always been sensitive to the elements that make up plants. Their smell, texture, taste, healing properties—and their poisonous properties, too. It never seemed magical to me as a child. I still don’t think of it as magic. Natural magic, perhaps, but not a sorcery type of magic. I wasn’t born with unexplained knowledge. I merely let myself be open to my natural sensitivities, then studied to learn what the sensations I was experiencing meant.

  When I was forced to flee my home with my little brother because my talents were equated with witchcraft, it was the alchemists who took me in. They were the ones who shaped my knowledge of plants, turning my natural aptitude into a skill to practice alchemy. I hadn’t even heard of alchemy before an alchemist found me—or, I should say, before the alchemist found my brother Thomas. We were selling the healing tinctures I made, and the strange man assumed it was Thomas who had the aptitude for transforming plants. Thomas was more amused than I was.

  “The foul smell,” I said, choosing my words carefully. I was tempted to say more, but I knew it wasn’t a good idea. Saying less was almost always better. I’d learned that the hard way.

  “Why did your mind jump to poison, though? Did you recognize it as something specific?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Then why didn’t you think it was garbage nearby? Why did your mind jump to poison if it wasn’t something you could identify.”

  It was a good question. But it wasn’t odd that I hadn’t identified the exact poison. There are many different ways plant essences can be manipulated, causing toxicity in different ways.

  I glanced into the teashop. Olivia wasn’t attempting to hide her interest in watching us. When she saw me look at her, she gave a little wave. The sleeve of her blouse fell to her elbow, revealing scars on her forearm. Ivan’s face was hidden behind a newspaper.

  “As I told you before,” I said, “I work with plants. Scents fall into different general categories. I didn’t know with absolute certainty it was a poisoning, but I thought I smelled a foul herbal odor. The type of thing that’s suggestive of poison. Since there was a man lying at an unnatural angle who wasn’t breathing, I jumped to that conclusion. Since you’re asking me about it, I’m guessing I was right that he was poisoned in addition to being stabbed.”

  “I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”

  “Then what exactly are you asking me?”

  “If you happened to have ideas about the type of poison we might be dealing with …”

  “Is the lab having trouble identifying the specific poison?” Though modern toxicology had come a long way, I knew it was far easier to detect damage to internal organs than it was to determine the cause.

  He took a sip of his tea but didn’t speak. Instead his face contorted into a pained expression.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “It’s nothing.” He rubbed his lower back with his free hand, again wincing in pain. “I got hurt chasing a suspect last month. It’s the stupidest thing, really. I fell through a trap door. They say you never see it coming, but that I truly couldn’t have seen coming.”

  Max’s cell phone beeped. He read something on the screen and put it back in his pocket. “We’re done with your house. You’re free to go back inside.”

  “Before you go, there’s something I forgot.” I held up my cell phone showing a picture of the cover of Dorian’s book. “I have a photograph of one of the books missing from my house.”

  Was it just my imagination, or did Max Liu’s breath catch when I showed him the photograph of Not Untrue Alchemy?

  nine

  Even if my imagination was overactive, there was something going on with Dorian’s book. I found the local library, but I needn’t have bothered with the library card. None of the alchemy books at the library could tell me more than my own collection. These were books about alchemy, not original alchemy manuscripts. The earliest published alchemy book at the library was far too modern, from 1888. I gave up and went to the market.

  When I returned home with a bag of groceries and printed photos from Not Untrue Alchemy, a gargoyle poked his head around the kitchen door.

  “Those men,” Dorian said, “I thought they would never leave.”

  “You hid, right?”

  “Mon dieu. You would do me the courtesy of giving me some credit. I have been surrounded by humans for over a century. I know how to hide.”

  “I’m sorry. Of course you know how to take care of yourself.” I set the groceries down and turned back to Dorian. “Something strange is going on here. My contractor was both poisoned and stabbed. And now the detective seemed to recognize your book. It’s so obscure there’s nothing about it on the Internet. How could he recognize it?”

  “The book was never in danger until I came here! France is a much more civilized country.”

  “It has its charms,” I agreed. “But Portland does too. As soon as I came here, I—” I stopped myself, unsure of what I wanted to say next. It would have been so easy to open up to Dorian, with his concerned eyes looking up at me. I knew he wouldn’t run screaming from whatever I told him, because he was a fellow freak of nature. But I wasn’t ready to tell anyone about my hopes for this place. Hope was a dangerous thing. If I shared it with anyone, I feared I might make it too real to take back.

  Dorian didn’t seem to notice that I’d stopped speaking mid-sentence. He stood on his toes on the stepping stool and tipped the bag of vegetables onto the counter. He looked up at me, holding an acorn squash in his hand. “You said you have spoken to les flics. What have you learned about the retrieval of my book?”

  “They’re looking into it.”

  “And before they get it back, you will translate the pages you photographed?”

  “I’m working on it.” I removed the short stack of 8x10 photos from my bag and set them on the counter next to the food.

  Abandoning the squash, Dorian rooted through the photographs.

  “I don’t want you to get your hopes up,” I said.

  “American idioms are odd,” Dorian mumbled as he looked through the photos. He stopped and looked up at me. “I have faith in you, Zoe Faust.”

  I smiled. Nobody had said that to me in a long time.

  “I have faith you are a good alchemist,” he continued. “As for a cook … What are you making for lunch?”

  “I thought I’d make roasted winter vegetables with steamed greens and pecans. I have enough ingredients for both of us.”

  Dorian returned his attention to the bag of food, nodding to himself. “I will cook, giving you time to begin translating. This will work for now, but I will give you a shopping list of a few more ingredients for dinner—all vegan. I respect your wishes. I am a good h
ouseguest.”

  I crossed my arms. This was getting ridiculous. “I’ve got plenty of herbs and spices in the trailer—”

  “Yes, yes,” he said, scribbling on a notepad I’d left on the counter. He tore off the paper and handed it to me.

  “You certainly are a little gourmet,” I said.

  “You will buy these, yes?”

  “I wish your tastes were a little less expensive.”

  He stared at me with a confused expression. “You are an alchemist,” he said. “Can you not simply make more gold?”

  “The thing is…” I looked away for a moment, embarrassed. “I never really got the hang of that part of alchemy.” I watched as his eyes widened in horror.

  “But then we could buy good wine and truffles!”

  ———

  While Dorian cooked, I took a quick look at my email. Someone had ordered one of the rare antiques I listed for sale on Elixir’s website. I knew the embossed brass medicinal container had to be somewhere in the crates. Until my assistant and I had packed up my inventory, the antiques had sat on shelves in a small Paris storage unit, which my assistant Agnès had visited once a week to mail items that had been purchased. One of the reasons I liked this house was that it had a large attic that would be perfect for storing my small inventory—at least it would be once I got the roof fixed. In the meantime, I would have to keep the items in crates stacked at the side of the living room. I sighed as I thought about the volume of wares I would have to root through.

  I briefly contemplated ignoring the order in favor of the more pressing matter of deciphering the pages of Dorian’s book, but knew I should first attend to practical tasks. Every alchemist knows that a distracted mind leads to disaster. In the back of my mind I knew that if my business failed, I’d have zero income. It wouldn’t matter that I saved Dorian’s life if we starved to death or were crushed beneath a crumbling house.

  While I searched for the brass container, an antique from China, I kept my phone to my ear, calling locksmiths. I was hoping to find someone who could come that day. The first two I called were disorganized, realizing they couldn’t make it only after I’d taken time to give them details about what I needed and told them my address. That was odd. On my third try, I found one who said he could be there later that day to change the locks and secure the broken ones.