A Golden Fury

by Samantha Cohoe

  I dressed hastily, ignoring the elaborate green for a serviceable gray round dress, and went back down the stairs and out the back door of the house. I crossed the garden, and the new spring grass felt soft and wet under my slippers. I walked toward the cottage beside the woods. A bright half-moon hung over it.

  A small, steady plume of yellow smoke rose from the chimney. I stared at it for a moment. The laboratory’s fire had been burning yellow for over a week now. At first it had been only a slight tinge of gold, but now the smoke had a deep mustard color, and the new scent came with it. Undoubtedly, it meant progress after all. Progress my mother had made without me.

  A rush of anger prodded me forward. I peered into the soot-fogged window and saw the fire burning a sparkling silver, a crucible pushed into the ashes. On the broad table in the center of the cottage were the remains of several glass crucibles, with their ruined contents sorted into small piles. There was a hint of red behind a fat, open book. I changed angles and squinted as hard as I could, but made out nothing else.

  I rattled the handle of the door angrily, looking around for something to beat it down. Then, to my utter shock, the door opened.

  Impossible. She would never be so careless as to leave the laboratory unlocked. Every alchemist kept their work protected, and Marguerite Hope was the most accomplished alchemist in France. While we were still in Paris, we had suffered countless attacks by thieves, especially after her great success with the King’s armory contract. True, we were hidden in the country now, but she had told me often enough that we could be found by a determined seeker. It was unthinkable that she would leave the laboratory unlocked—especially if she was truly as close to making the White Elixir as I had begun to suspect.

  I caught sight of the exploded crucibles on the table again, and my heart stopped. There, behind the book, was a glass dish full of a distinctly red substance.

  I picked my way across the cottage, stepping carefully over broken glass and other discarded implements. Mother had left the place in shocking disarray. Broken glass was a common hazard of an alchemist’s work, since sealed crucibles had to be heated, and frequent explosions were the inevitable result. But my mother was orderly, and never left her work such a mess. Though she usually had me to do the tidying.

  I lifted the bowl into the firelight. It was just as Jābir had described the transmuting agent, a fine powder of a deep red, like ground rubies. Next to it, a page had been copied from the book in my mother’s hand. There was a picture of a winged man, the sun under one foot and the moon under another, holding scepters of snakes in each hand. I remembered this page. His eyes were disturbingly wide, and his tongue lolled out of his mouth. The back of the page was thick with Mother’s cramped writing, in code. At the top of both sides was an inscription in Latin. CAVE MALEDICTIONEM ALCHEMISTAE. Beware the Alchemist’s Curse.

  The Alchemist’s Curse. No one knew quite what it was, though Brother Basil, a fifteenth-century alchemist-friar, had written a sermon of that name warning that it would befall unworthy adepts. I touched the image again, and a shiver of apprehension went through me.

  Behind me, the fire began to crackle. On an instinct, I folded the paper and slipped it into the pocket of my dress. There were red sparks in the flames. I picked up the tongs and moved the egg-shaped vase buried in the ashes, so I could see the inside. The liquid inside was a pure, dense white. My breath caught. The White Elixir. The last step before the Philosopher’s Stone.

  All my life I had dreamed of it. Some children were raised on stories of saints and filled with the hope of heaven. I was raised on the stories of alchemists and filled with the hope of the Philosopher’s Stone. The Stone could turn any base metal into gold, cure any ill, and ward off old age, perhaps forever. My mother had made a name for herself with her skills, and that was no small thing, but no practitioner of alchemy could ever be satisfied with anything less than its ultimate prize.

  No illness, no want, no death. The Philosopher’s Stone gave everything humankind wanted but did not believe we could have in this life. With such a reward, it was not hard to see how so many great minds had wrecked themselves in its pursuit. But though these legendary outcomes transfixed me as much as any other adept, the lesser consequences were just as alluring. If we achieved this, we would become more than just women, even successful ones. There would be no more depending on patrons. No one would dare exclude us from any academy or salon. No one could deny our value. We would have respect. And not just from other alchemists—from the men who thought even male alchemists were fools and frauds. As much as I had longed for it, I had never really believed we would come this close.

  My reverie was interrupted by another crackle, and another shower of red sparks. Then, as I watched in amazement, the edges of the White Elixir began to glow gold, then turn red. My pulse raced as my mind struggled to accept that it was happening, it was truly happening. This was the final step Jābir had described in making the Philosopher’s Stone.

  “We did it,” I whispered.

  “I did it,” said my mother.

  I turned, my hands tightening on the tongs. Absorbed in the wonder in front of me, I hadn’t heard her come in. I straightened, anger stiffening my spine, and prepared myself for another battle.

  “You could never have done it without me, whatever you want to pretend now,” I said.

  “I could never have done it without you?” Her voice was already shrill. Her eyes were bloodshot and unfocused, and her beautiful face shone with sweat. “And what would you be without me, you ungrateful girl? You did not make yourself an alchemist!”

  “Ungrateful?” I wanted to stay calm, to be different than she was, but my voice was rising against my will. “And what should I be grateful for? Should I be grateful that I worked like a slave for this, only to be cast out just before the end result? Should I be grateful to you for shutting me off from everything and everyone, for making your work my whole life, and then taking even that from me?”

  “Yes!” Her hands were shaking. “You should kneel at my feet and thank me! I made you different, I made you strong! And now you want to be like every other girl? With no training, nothing to do but marry the first man who’ll have you?”

  I shook my head. That wasn’t what I wanted at all.

  “I have kept you safe and strong. And if I should—if I—”

  She broke off into a scream. She bent double, clutching her head.

  “Mother—” I started toward her, but she held out her hand to stop me and looked up with wild eyes.

  “Get out, Thea.” Her voice was strange, strangled and rough. I had never seen her like this before.

  “You need a doctor—”

  “Do as I say!” she screamed.

  I didn’t move. She was crumpling, arms wrapped around her legs now.

  “Get out, get out, get out,” she muttered, shaking her lowered head in a frenzy, her golden hair falling into her face.

  I looked toward the glass ovum in the fire, where the White Elixir was entirely red now. Mother needed a doctor, clearly, but there it was—the Philosopher’s Stone—impossibly, indescribably precious. I couldn’t leave now. I turned back to my mother, and she lifted her head. I backed up at the look in her eyes, and held the tongs in front of me in both hands.

  “Mother?” My voice shook.

  A sound came out of her mouth—a growl. It wasn’t a human sound, not even an animal one. I looked into her eyes, but I didn’t see her there. Then she sprang.

  I swiped at her with the tongs, knocking her aside. The tongs were hot from the fire, and her clothes sizzled where I had hit them. But she was up again in an instant, then on me, stronger than she ever had been. I grappled with her as she seized me by the throat, wrapping her fingers around it, closing off the air. I clawed at her wild face, drawing blood she didn’t seem to feel. I couldn’t move her. Her breath was hot on my face, smelling, inexplicably, of sulfur. She was strong, too strong. How was she so strong?

  And then she
was lifted off me. I rolled, gasping, toward the tongs. I heard her shrieking before I saw her, across the table from the Comte, hands bared like claws. She leapt across it, but the Comte dodged her and ran toward me.

  “Go, Thea!” he cried. “She has gone mad!”

  Comte Adrien du Porre had a habit of stating the obvious.

  “We have to restrain her!” The words were painful coming out, and I seized my throat.

  She attacked the Comte again, throwing him easily to the ground. He was a strong man, but she tossed him like a child and leapt atop him. He threw her off, toward the hearth. She sprang back into a crouch. Before she attacked again, she reached behind her into the fire. She seized the glass ovum containing the substance, her fingers sizzling from the heat, and hurled it across the room.

  I screamed then, though little sound came out of my swollen throat. I knew what would happen before it did. The Stone wasn’t hardened yet. It was vulnerable. The glass shattered, and the Stone became a red smear dripping down the brick wall. I wanted to run to it, though I knew there was no hope. But Mother was upon Adrien again, and I swung the tongs at her with all my strength. She dropped onto the Comte, insensible.

  Adrien pushed her off of him, but gently. He rolled her onto her back and felt her throat for a pulse. His fingers seemed to find what he hoped for, and he looked up at me with relief and reproach.

  “Mon dieu, Thea, you could have killed her.”

  “She could have killed you,” I retorted. But guilt gnawed at me, not so much for the blow itself—that had been necessary—but for how easy it had been to do. I had not even hesitated.

  “We shall have to restrain her,” murmured Adrien. “We cannot know if the fit will have passed when she awakes.”

  I stared down at her, my heart still thrashing in my chest like a caged thing. Whatever had just happened, the Comte was taking a more positive view of it than I. It had not occurred to me that this was a mere “fit” that might pass.

  “What—?” I didn’t know what to ask. “She tried to kill me. What madness is that? Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

  “Men and women suffering madness can become violent, certainly,” said Adrien.

  “But she was so strong,” I said. “Stronger than you. How could a disease of the mind have done that?”

  “The mind has power over the body that no one fully understands. Put those down, Thea.”

  I stared down at the heavy tongs in front of me, then lowered them.

  “She made the Stone,” I said, looking back at the wall where the ovum had smashed. “It was in the last stage.”

  The Comte looked at me sharply.

  “The last stage? The Philosopher’s Stone? Are you certain?” He frowned. “She did not say so. Surely she would have told me.”

  “She was keeping it secret from both of us. It is why she barred me from the laboratory.”

  “Perhaps—perhaps she was waiting until she was sure. Perhaps she did not want to disappoint us—”

  His eyes briefly met mine, then flicked away. We both knew that, whatever her reason, it wasn’t that.

  “It could have cured her! If only she hadn’t destroyed it!” I went to the wall and touched the remains of the Stone with one finger. It was still warm. Tears of frustration pricked at my eyes. The Philosopher’s Stone. The dream of every alchemist. Whole lifetimes of work, centuries of unfulfilled hopes, had nearly been realized in front of my eyes. But beneath the frustration, there was a spark of excitement. She had done it. At the very least, that meant that it could be done. My hand went to the pocket of my gown. She had done it, and I had her notes.

  “You don’t know that, Thea,” Adrien said. “Even if it was the Stone—which I rather doubt—no one really knows what it does. Who can say what is myth and what is fact?”

  I shook my head in irritation. The Comte was given to making pronouncements he had not earned the right to make. He had not labored over the texts, pieced together the fragments, or spent untold hours over the fires in the laboratory. The Comte was a patron, not an adept. All he truly knew about the practice of alchemy was how much it cost.

  “Call the doctor,” I said. “But if he can’t help her, then I can, once I’ve made the Stone.”

  I started to hunt around the laboratory. If she had left any of the White Elixir, I could do it in a matter of weeks. If not, it would be months—months of Mother’s madness. But there was none left that I could find. At least there was a good deal of the transmuting agent left. That itself took months to prepare, and it was essential to the last stages of the White Elixir. I tilted the red transmuting agent into a vial, corked it, and slipped it into my pocket with the notes. The Comte watched me, a mournful look on his handsome, beak-nosed face.

  “I can do it,” I said. “You needn’t look so worried.”

  “No, Thea,” said the Comte. “You cannot stay here. It is time for you to go.”

  I looked up at the Comte in alarm. “Not you, too!” I exclaimed. “I’m not going anywhere with the Marquis. I can’t leave at all, not so close to achieving this! And Mother can’t travel this way.”

  “Your mother will stay here. And you will not go with the Marquis. But you must go, your mother was right about that much. I wish she had broached the matter with you differently, but…” He sighed. “I have procured you a passport to leave France—”

  “I will not go! If I leave now I might not be able to come back! I have a British name—”

  “Precisely, Thea, you are a British subject. The National Convention grows more warlike by the day. You don’t know how dangerous the situation has become. Even I—” He paused, then shook his head. “You must go while you still can. If Britain declares war, you could be arrested.”

  I stared at my mother, limp on the ground with her mouth open. If the Comte was so certain I was in danger here, perhaps it really was why she had wanted to send me away, not simply to be rid of me. A welt blossomed on her forehead where I had hit her. My stomach cramped with guilt.

  “You’ll go to Oxford,” said the Comte. “To your father.”

  I knew very little about my father. Only that he and my mother had made their first forays into alchemy together when they were very young in England, and that now he was a respectable fellow at Oxford. This was quite a bit more than he knew about me. My mother had never even told him of my existence. She did not wish to share me with him.

  “Won’t that come as rather a shock to him?”

  “He will recover. He could hardly refuse to take you in under the circumstances.” This was very little reassurance, and my face must have shown it. The Comte’s voice changed. “Any man would be proud to have you as his daughter, Thea. If he has half your wit, he will see that.”

  The Comte looked at me with strangely bright eyes, and it occurred to me that he might cry. Mother often complained of Adrien’s excessive displays of feeling. Though, to be truthful, the occasion did seem to call for some emotion. Still, I looked away.

  “Thank you,” I said quietly.

  Even if my father turned out not to have half my wit, he was an alchemist. He would have a laboratory. I could work as well there as here, and with no danger of the National Convention interrupting, either to arrest me as a British spy or to make me work on their weapons. I would make the Stone. Then, I could bring it back to heal my mother. I looked down at her limp form. I would succeed in all we had ever dreamed of doing, and then save her from herself. She couldn’t deny that I was a worthy alchemist in my own right, then. Not when I had succeeded without her and given her sanity back to her in the process. Everything would change between us. It would have to.

  Just imagining it was as satisfying to me as anything I had ever done.

  In any case, I could do my mother no good here.

  England had always loomed in the background of my life. I’d been born there. My father was there. I would never have admitted it to my mother, but I did want to meet him.

  And he wasn’t the onl
y one I wished to see in England.

  I helped the Comte carry my mother back to her room, and then took to mine.

  I went to my morning table and took out yet another sheet of paper. Finally, I knew what to write to him.

  Dear Will,

  My mother has gone mad. I am coming to England now, because of the war. I will stay with my father. He does not know I was ever born. I miss you. Perhaps we will see each other soon.

  And perhaps we would.

  4

  I watched the Oxfordshire countryside roll by from the window of my coach. Thus far, I was not at all impressed with the English spring. I had left Normandy at its best, the air sweet with apple blossoms and bright with fresh grass and sunshine. Here, the sun hid resolutely behind low-lying clouds, and all you could smell of spring was the musk of recent rain. Everything from the gray sky to the damp taffeta strings of my bonnet promised disappointment.

  I had left France only two weeks ago. When my mother woke, and remained as mad and violent as the night of her attack, what was left of my hesitation vanished. Little as Adrien and the doctor could do for her, I could do even less. She was violent and malevolent as a demon, and the sight of her made me wild myself, as though I could not possibly get far enough away from her. Her animal screaming echoed in every corner of the chateau. I packed in haste and did as the Comte had arranged. And though the English would believe I ran from the dangers of the Revolution and war, in truth it was my mother and her madness I fled.

  My stomach twisted when I thought of it, and I could not stop myself from thinking of it, no matter how I tried. Fear had taken root inside me, and guilt with it. I knew that the fear was as much for myself as for my mother, perhaps more. The doctor had said these things ran in families, especially in females. She overexcited herself, he said, with her dreams and her experiments. And if one has a family tendency to such imbalances …