The Alchemist's Illusion

by Gigi Pandian

  She ate the poisons until she vomited, then fell to the floor, unconscious. At least that’s what she hoped he’d believe.

  Once Edward left, Perenelle pushed herself up and forced herself to vomit once more. Nicolas was already safely inside the painting. She didn’t know what it had done to his spirit, but she couldn’t leave him alone in there. She knew what she must do.

  Before taking the most frightening but certain action of her life, she took the note Nicolas had written to Zoe. A farmer was due to bring them food that week. She would leave him a stack of gold with a request asking him to take the note and her painting to an alchemist friend in Paris, who could help find Zoe. She wasn’t sure if she could trust the man, but she had to try. The pile of gold was generous enough that she hoped he would feel no need to betray her.

  All she had within her control now was one single thing. She painted her own reflection into Nicolas’s sparkling and mischievous blue eyes. The paintbrush clattered to the stone floor as she disappeared.

  forty-eight

  The four of us sprawled across the attic floor, limbs entwined. It took a minute to realize that the dark red blood was coming from Nicolas.

  My relief that he and Perenelle were alive after being extracted from the painting was tempered by the gravity of the scene before me. What had I done?

  There was no escaping the reality that they were gravely wounded. Nicolas was bleeding profusely from both his head and stomach. Perenelle clutched her stomach in agony, but I saw no blood. Had I misunderstood the alchemy it would take to safely pull them from the painting?

  Tobias and I helped them up. It became immediately clear that Nicolas was incapable of standing on his own, but Perenelle rushed to his side and helped me support him.

  Nicolas draped one arm over my shoulder and the other around Perenelle. He breathed a shallow breath and whispered, “Zoe, I knew it was you. I knew you’d done it.” A weak smile formed on his lips and his light blue eyes sparkled in the midst of the wrinkles surrounding them. “Before I entered the world of the painting, I’d heard rumors of a woman I thought might be you. I knew … I knew you would be the one to save us.”

  I looked from his cracked lips to the blood on my hands. “But I haven’t … Look what I’ve done to you.”

  “Don’t try to speak, my love,” Perenelle said to Nicolas, then turned to me. “This wasn’t your doing, Zoe. Our injuries are from long ago.”

  Looking at their clothing, I could tell just how long ago. I hadn’t seen them since 1704, and their clothes looked much the same as I remembered, from Nicolas’s layers of starchy shirts to the yards of fabric in Perenelle’s dull-colored house dress.

  Aside from their wounds, the two of them looked so much like I remembered them. Nicolas’s untamable gray-streaked hair, the deep lines on his face that were most prominent around his kind eyes, and his dexterous hands, like those of a magician. Perenelle’s auburn hair, firmly set jaw, and tiny frame that belied her strength.

  That strength made it difficult for Tobias to push her aside to see Nicolas’s wounds.

  “Please,” Tobias said, “let me help him.”

  “You’re a doctor?” she asked.

  “Close.”

  “It feels like only yesterday,” Nicolas murmured, his thoughts reflecting my own, before his energy gave out. His grasp caught Perenelle’s voluminous skirts, and we were dragged down with him. I winced in pain as my ankle twisted.

  “The backward alchemists … ” Nicolas mumbled, struggling to sit up but finding himself more and more tangled in the soft fabric.

  “Calm yourself,” Perenelle whispered. “There will be time to deal with them once you’re well.”

  Nicolas had always warned me away from backward alchemy. Pieces clicked into place—they must be speaking of the backward alchemists that Dorian and I had dealt with in Paris and Portland that summer.

  “We must stop them.” Nicolas’s voice rattled. His bright blue eyes flickered and closed. I felt stillness overtake his body.

  “I can’t lose you again,” I whispered as Tobias helped untangle Perenelle’s brown skirts so we could get up. “Not like this.”

  “He’s still with us,” Tobias said, feeling his pulse.

  “He’s been stabbed and hit,” Perenelle whispered, folding him into her arms, “and I’ve been poisoned.”

  “Do you know what the poison was?” Tobias asked. He spoke in the peaceful, steady voice of someone who wished to impart a sense of calm to those around him, even though I knew it was far from what he was feeling inside.

  “Pigments,” she rasped.

  My throat clenched. She’d been poisoned by paint?

  “Let’s get you some activated charcoal,” Tobias said.

  “No.” Perenelle’s voice was resolute. It was the same tone I remembered her using when advising Nicolas not to try a risky experiment. “I pray you, attend to Nicolas first.”

  “I’ll go,” I said. “Tobias is the one who can best help Nicolas right now.”

  Tobias gently lifted Nicolas’s slashed shirts as I left for my alchemy lab to gather supplies.

  Returning to the attic, I gave Tobias an anxious look as Perenelle swallowed the temporary antidote.

  “The abdominal stab wound isn’t deep,” he reported, “but this wound on the back of his head … ” He examined Nicolas for a few minutes in silence as I sat with Perenelle. I couldn’t tell if she was feeling better or if her interest in watching Tobias’s care of Nicolas superseded her own pain.

  “I really can’t tell what’s going on with this head wound,” Tobias said finally. He forced a laugh. “Even my cayenne can’t cut it.” He pulled me aside. “They need a hospital. Only … ”

  “I know. They’re not supposed to exist. They have no ID—”

  “That’s not what I meant. Though you’re right, that’s a problem too. It’s the nature of his wounds. Their bodies aren’t behaving as I’d expect. I don’t think standard medical care will be able to help them.”

  But I knew someone who’d been brought up with an inquisitive, open mind, and who practiced integrative medicine—the type of medicine that combined standard Western medical care with a more holistic approach. I took a deep breath and made a phone call.

  “Max, I know I’m the last person you want to hear from right now, but it’s an emergency.”

  “What’s wrong?” The immediate concern in his voice gave me the courage to carry on.

  “For what I’m going to say, I need you to trust me.”

  “I do trust you, Zoe. Sometimes I don’t know why, and I don’t know where you’re leading me, but God help me, I love you and trust you.”

  The words meant so much to me, but this wasn’t the time to touch on our relationship.

  “I need your sister’s help.” I looked at my injured friends. I had to take the risk. “Old friends of mine … They’re in desperate need of medical attention. Mina can help them. But neither of you can tell anyone.”

  The silence couldn’t have lasted more than a second or two, but it felt like an eternity. “Are you at your house?” Max asked. “I’ll call 9-1-1 and tell them—”

  “No!” I shrieked.

  “Where are you, then?”

  “No. No ambulance. That’s why I’m calling you—I can’t call 9-1-1. And I can’t go to the ER. You said you trusted me.”

  “I do. But if your friends need medical attention, that’s something completely different.”

  “A hospital can’t help them. I need Mina. Please.”

  Max swore. “You’re asking her to risk her license? She’d still need to report—hell, I should report—”

  “That’s not why I need her. It’s nothing illegal, I promise. I need her mind. Will you help us?”

  forty-nine

  Max swore creatively again, but didn’t hang up on me
to call 9-1-1.

  “It’s Mina’s decision,” he said, and gave me her number. “If you can’t reach her, please, Zoe. Go to the ER.”

  It was already evening, so Mina’s medical clinic was closed for the day. That was the only reason she even entertained the idea of seeing us.

  “No promises,” Mina said. “But if it’s a choice between your EMT friend treating them in an unsanitary attic or me at my clinic, here’s the address.”

  A shriek rang out as I jotted down the location. I nearly dropped my cell phone at the sound of Perenelle’s cry. She jumped protectively in front of Nicolas, who remained unconscious.

  “What’s going on?” Mina asked. “I heard that scream. You need an ambulance—”

  “That wasn’t the patient,” I said, following Perenelle’s wide-eyed stare.

  “Zoe,” Mina snapped, “what on God’s green earth is—”

  “We’ll see you soon.” I clicked off.

  “Je suis désolé,” the newcomer said from the doorway. “I am so sorry to have disturbed you. Zoe has spoken so much of you both. I wished to meet you.”

  Dorian bowed awkwardly. His left wing was bound so thoroughly that he nearly toppled over. I rushed to his side and steadied him. His arm was warm. Could a gargoyle run a fever?

  “Perenelle Flamel,” I said, “may I present fellow alchemist Dorian Robert-Houdin.”

  Perenelle nodded and pursed her lips. “Something went wrong with the transformation?” She stepped forward cautiously but remained in front of her husband.

  Dorian sniffed indignantly and Tobias stifled a laugh.

  “You can explain everything after we get Nick stabilized at Mina’s,” Tobias said. “We’ve gotta go.”

  Though Tobias had rigged a sling for Dorian, the gargoyle wasn’t especially mobile. He wished to accompany us but understood it would be unwise. Tobias carried Nicolas to the built-in couch of the Airstream, and Perenelle leaned into my shoulder as I helped her into the trailer.

  “A gargoyle … ” she murmured. Repeatedly. “He turned into a gargoyle? I must speak with him to discover how this was possible … ”

  “Try to keep Nick still,” Tobias said, “and if he wakes up, make sure he doesn’t move the bandages.”

  “My foot is well enough for me to drive,” I said. “You should stay in the back to take care of him.”

  Tobias shook his head. “He’s as stable as I can get him. If he wakes up, it’s your face he’s going to want to see. At this point, the faces of loved ones will do more than any medical care I can give him.”

  “You’re a good man,” Perenelle said, clasping his hands in hers. “Thank you. Yet,” she continued, “do people here think nothing of blood?” She tipped her head toward Tobias’s white T-shirt, which was now dotted with the dark reddish brown of blood and its accompanying sulfurous smell.

  “Let me get something to fix that,” I said, and hurried to the house. My ankle protested as I rushed up the squeaking porch steps, but I didn’t slow down until I reached the second floor. Tobias had taken his bag of clothes when he moved out, and he was twice my size, so I proceeded to the attic and my Elixir inventory. A man’s starchy dress shirt that had been tailored over a century ago would do. Clothing back then was made to last.

  I was back in the trailer in less than two minutes. I found Tobias and Perenelle huddled together in conversation and handed him the clean shirt. He pulled his bloodied T-shirt over his head, revealing long, deep scars that covered his entire back. The cruel markings crisscrossed his back and shoulders. I’d seen those patterns before, when the wounds were fresh.

  “Let’s get the trailer hooked up to the truck,” I said. We worked quickly in silence, and pulled out of the driveway within a few minutes.

  The Airstream shook as Tobias navigated down the slope and onto the street. Perenelle stood and took my hands in hers, gasping as the trailer shook. “What’s happening?”

  “We’re driving. This is a conveyance.”

  “Ah.” She smiled with embarrassment. “I expect we have much to learn.”

  I blinked back tears. “I never thought I’d see you both again. I’m so sorry it took me so long to find you.”

  “We didn’t feel pain as strongly within the painting,” she said. “I’m thankful for that. This is hella painful.”

  Hella? “Your English,” I said, realizing they’d been speaking English instead of French this whole time. “It’s, um, interesting.”

  She smiled the mischievous smile of hers I remembered. “As is your choice of clothing. Trousers?”

  “How do you speak modern English but not know that women wear trousers?”

  Perenelle squeezed Nicolas’s hand and wiped his brow. “I’m attempting to think how best to explain it. We were semi-awake inside the painting. It was like a vivid dream, both real and imagined, and with no sense of time. I don’t know how many years went by—many, by the looks of this rounded silver box.” She looked around the Airstream and clenched her stomach again.

  “You don’t have to talk. The poison—”

  “Your doctor’s ministrations helped.” She waved away the concern but clenched her jaw as another wave of pain overwhelmed her. “And I want to tell you. There’s so much I want to tell you, dear Zoe … Since it was like a dream, I don’t know how long I have until the memories fade. We heard the words spoken around us, and learned to speak as they did. Naturally, like a child learns a language. It was easier to hear than see, because even when it was night, or when we were enclosed in a crate, we could hear people, and we came to learn their ways of speaking. But usually we had a prominent placement high on a wall. We lived with a family in England for generations. Then there were the sounds of war, followed by darkness. When the light returned, we found ourselves in a strange land called California, where people brought invisible musicians into their homes, enjoyed standing on planks on the ocean, and drank wine while discussing books … ”

  I couldn’t help laughing at that. It explained “hella” as well.

  “How many years has it been?” she asked.

  “It’s the twenty-first century.”

  She stared at me with wonder. “But that is far too long for us to have been away from our quest! The backward alchemists—have they escaped France? Stopping them is more important than our own problems.” Her face paled. “Your face betrays you. They have, haven’t they? What havoc have they wrought?” She gripped Nicolas’s unmoving hand more tightly. “I should have listened to him about what they were capable of.” She swept Nicolas’s hair off his forehead again. It refused to stay put. “I always believed them to be stupid, lazy men. I didn’t believe they were a threat.”

  “You and Nicolas were both right,” I said. “They were lazy”—which was why they’d found an alchemical loophole to allow themselves to feed on the life forces of others instead of putting in the work themselves—“so they did nothing threatening until their life forces began to fade. That didn’t happen until recently. But Dorian and I stopped them. You don’t have to worry about them.”

  “The two of you defeated them? You and the Frenchman in your attic whose alchemy experiment went terribly wrong?”

  “Dorian … Yes, and he can tell you about his alchemical history himself.”

  She nodded. “You did what Nicolas couldn’t. I always knew you’d go on to do great things. Though I regret that you’ve led a difficult life. I can see it in your eyes and the scars on your skin.”

  I looked into her eyes. They couldn’t be described as kind eyes, yet there was compassion and love behind the strength and wariness. “You didn’t want me to discover the Elixir of Life.”

  “I didn’t want this life for you. I wanted you to be happy. Not to do merely what you were capable of, but what you truly wanted. That’s why I was so hard on you.”

  “You could have told me.”
r />   “Would you have listened?”

  She was right, of course. I wouldn’t have. As a young woman in my twenties, I’d misunderstood so much.

  “And what about you?” I asked. “Not only a female alchemist, but having to paint under an assumed name as Philippe Hayden in order to be considered a real artist.”

  A gleefully proud smile flashed across her face as she clasped her hands together. “You figured that out. Is that how you found us?”

  “Partly.”

  Perenelle held Nicolas’s hand as she told me about the sacrifices she’d made to bring true alchemy out of the realm of secrecy through her art, and then her discovery of alchemical painting, a technique that combined alchemy and art by using alchemical processes to turn natural substances into pigments and then paint, which allowed an artist to transfer living objects into the world of a canvas.

  “I wish I’d known how ill Thomas was,” Perenelle said. “I could have done this for him.” She reached for my hand and squeezed it. Her palm was clammy but the heartfelt gesture comforting.

  “The portrait of me and Thomas,” I said. “I never knew you’d done such a thing.”

  She blinked at me in surprise. “You’ve seen it?”

  “Only in a book.”

  “A book?”

  “An art history book. It’s not attributed to Hayden—er, to you—but your work is so magnificent that it’s taken its place in history.”

  I expected her to tell me how honored she felt that her work had survived, but instead Perenelle asked shyly, “Did you like the painting? I painted it from memory right after Thomas died. I always wanted you to have it … ”

  “But I left before you could stop me. I was young and foolish.”

  “We were all young and foolish once. But you grew up. You grew up and rescued us.” She clutched her stomach and closed her eyes.

  “We’ll be there soon. Mina will be able to properly pump your stomach and take care of Nicolas.”