by Gigi Pandian
“Pump my stomach?”
I supposed she hadn’t seen modern medical treatments from the walls of wealthy households. “I wish I could have stopped the backward alchemists before they did this to you.”
“Our injuries?” She shook her head so emphatically that locks of her auburn hair fell loose. “No. None of those imbeciles did this to us.”
I stared at her. “It wasn’t a backward alchemist who attacked you?”
“Edward Kelley,” Perenelle said. “He’s the one who did this to us.”
“The Edward Kelley? I didn’t think he was a true alchemist.” I thought about what I knew of the historical figure. It wasn’t much. Given that I didn’t think he was a real alchemist, Edward Kelley hadn’t especially interested me. History books recorded him as a charming charlatan who’d died at age forty-two in the late 1500s. He was smart and had used multiple surnames to cover up his various crimes. “I thought he was a fraud.”
“He was—at first. He—” Perenelle broke off as the trailer lurched, and gripped the Masonite wall with her free hand.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Tobias knows what he’s doing.” Tobias was driving the trailer like it was an ambulance. I hoped he didn’t draw so much attention to us that we got pulled over. But as the one to examine Nicolas, he knew how quickly we had to get to Mina.
But I wondered … was there a bigger danger lurking? A suspicion was forming in my mind. “Edward Kelley… Didn’t he die long before I was born?”
“We don’t need to worry about Edward now. He discovered the Elixir of Life, but he believes us to be dead.”
“I don’t believe he does.”
fifty
Heavy rain crashed onto the sides of the Airstream. The familiar clatter of rain outside while I was warm and safe in my trailer was normally a comforting sound, but now it did nothing to alleviate my worry. A dark suspicion was swirling in my mind.
I didn’t have time to think about what it all meant. We pulled into the parking lot of Mina’s medical practice, and a few seconds later Tobias opened the door of the trailer. The rain was now torrential, but when I stepped onto the asphalt, I saw Mina waiting outside under a forest-green awning. With Max. There was a veiled darkness in his eyes. He didn’t let his feelings affect his actions. Ignoring me, he and Mina rushed into the trailer. Max lifted Nicolas from the narrow bed into his arms and carried him inside. Mina helped Perenelle across the lot, following behind them.
“These don’t look like gunshot wounds,” Mina said as Max eased Nicolas onto a gurney. “So I don’t have to report these injuries. Why can’t you take them to a proper ER?”
“It’s a long story,” Tobias said. “But they need your help.”
“Who are these people?” Max asked. He blinked at Nicolas in his torn and bloodied clothes not of this century or even the last one, as if not quite sure whether or not he should believe his eyes.
“I hope,” Perenelle said, “that Zoe thinks of us as her surrogate mother and father.”
“I do,” I said, feeling tears again welling in my eyes.
“I’m not treating them here so you can have a family reunion,” Mina snapped.
“I’ll explain everything,” I said. “After.”
Mina looked as though she was going to protest, but Tobias stepped in.
“I’ve dealt with a lot of injured folks over the years. These two … their injuries aren’t responding to standard care. I know this is the best place for them.”
After a brief hesitation, Mina nodded. “You’re the EMT? Get washed up. I need to know what happened, to best treat them.”
“The back of his head is the most serious injury. Abdomen is superficial. The knife didn’t clip any organs.”
“My husband was both stabbed and bludgeoned,” Perenelle added. “I didn’t see with what. And I was forced to swallow poisonous paints.”
Max gave me a strange look. “Luciana was right … Miss, what exactly happened? Who did this—”
“Not now, Max,” I said. I couldn’t very well have them tell him Edward Kelley was the culprit.
“This is important, Zoe.”
“It can wait,” Mina and I said at the same time.
“Actually,” Max snapped, “it can’t. Detective Vega is missing.”
I stared at Max as Mina shouted, “Leave. Both of you. Now. You can talk elsewhere. I need to focus on my patients.”
“Don’t argue,” Max said, steering me out of the room. “There’s no point when she sounds like that.”
“What do you mean Detective Vega is missing?” I said once we reached the waiting room. I’d been worried when she hadn’t returned Tobias’s call, but hadn’t wanted to read more into it.
A lock of Max’s hair had fallen onto his forehead but he didn’t seem to notice. “The pendant you found is made of multiple pieces of metal. Luciana found a fingerprint on the inside. But … the print was from a guy who died several decades ago, by the name of Eddie O’Kells.”
I gasped. I knew that name.
“Which makes no sense,” Max said, beginning to pace, “because Isabella crafted that damn charm. Theoretically she could have done it when she was a kid, and fingerprint analysis isn’t perfect—”
“Oh no … ” My mind screamed at me. Could the connection really be this simple? A few letters …
“What is it?” Max stopped pacing and cocked his head anxiously.
“Eddie.” My hand shook as I picked up my cell phone and typed a name into a search.
“You know him?”
“What did Detective Vega do with the information?” I asked.
“That’s the thing—what could she do with the fingerprints of a dead man? Nothing that I know of. But she’s MIA. No signs of foul play, so we’re not calling in the cavalry yet. But it’s not like her.”
“They should call in the cavalry,” I said. “I know who killed Logan Magnus. It’s Eddie O’Kells.”
“The guy is long dead, Zoe.”
“No, he’s not. He faked a death certificate.”
“He’d be well over a hundred now.”
“And his real name is Edward Kelley.”
A man as intelligent at Edward Kelley would have known that the best way to keep up an illusion is to make it close to the truth. He’d want to continue to use the same first name: Edward. One of the few facts I knew about the famous Edward Kelley was the alias he most commonly used: Talbot.
“Here in Portland,” I continued, “he goes by a different name. But a related one. Ward. The art dealer married to Logan Magnus’s daughter.”
fifty-one
“Ward Talbot,” I continued, “is the person who did this to Nicolas and Perenelle.”
“They told you that?” Max’s expression and voice were skeptical.
“They knew him by another name, but yes, Perenelle told me it was him.”
The name Ward wasn’t the most common diminutive of Edward, but I should have seen the similarity sooner and become suspicious when a person named Eddie O’Kells had purchased a large rush order of real antiques from me earlier in the week. After I’d shown up asking questions about the painting, Ward must have been trying to figure out if I was a true alchemist. I’d dismissed him as a possible alchemist because Dorian’s research had uncovered Ward’s family lineage. He’d cleverly covered his tracks by inventing a respectable and plausible identity, just as Tobias and I had done for ourselves. It was fake.
“You’re sure about this?” Max asked. “This isn’t like that … other stuff you were telling me?”
“I’m right about this.”
Max called in the information about Ward Talbot. When he did so, he learned that Detective Vega still hadn’t been heard from.
“I’ve gotta go,” Max said.
“Max, I—”
“I can’t, Zoe. I really have to go.
” He pushed past me and out the doors.
“Be careful,” I called after him, but he was already gone.
Tobias was right. I shouldn’t have confided in Max about myself. I thought after the time we’d spent in Astoria that he’d be ready, but I was wrong.
I sank into one of the cushioned orange seats in the waiting room, underneath a weeping fig tree that reminded me of the one in Blue Sky Teas except that it was contained in a cherry red planter. A row of lilies lined the empty reception desk, and a mural showing people picnicking in a tulip field lined one wall. It was meant to be a comforting space, and succeeded. At least as much as it could.
I listened for sounds coming from the other room, but heard none. I closed my eyes.
I was so close to piecing it all together, but there were still too many unanswered questions. Edward, AKA Ward, could be the killer, or the person who’d given Isabella the method to kill her husband. Since he’d convinced Perenelle to swallow toxic paint, it stood to reason that he’d been able to convince Logan to do the same. But how? And why? Perenelle had chosen to try her luck at being poisoned instead of the more certain death from being stabbed, hoping that she would survive long enough to make it back to Nicolas. Had Logan Magnus made a similar choice? Why hadn’t he tried to fight Ward? Was Ward also involved in the Portland art forgery ring? And what of Isabella, a forger who also possessed ergot, a deadly poison. Why would she keep something like that in her studio if she didn’t intend to use it?
I opened my eyes and looked around the cozy waiting room again. Lilies didn’t bloom at this time of year. I walked to the reception desk and squeezed one of the pristine blossoms. Fake. I walked back to the weeping fig tree and felt a leaf. Also fake. Normally I wouldn’t have been fooled by fake plants, but I’d wanted to be comforted by nature. We see what we want to see …
I silently cursed myself. This wasn’t the only instance this week where I’d seen what I wanted to see. I had assumed that Isabella used ergot to subdue her husband so he’d swallow the toxic paint. Ergot could also explain why Isabella was acting so erratically. She could have been poisoned herself. Like the people I’d known in Salem Village, she could have been an innocent victim. Could it have affected her mind enough to make her turn to forgery?
I had seen that she had a stack of antique books. A danger of working with antique books is that funguses and molds can take hold in the old leather and paper, poisoning not only the book itself but the people in its presence.
Tobias burst through the door. He was now wearing light blue scrubs that Mina must have given him.
“Man, those two are fighters.” He wrapped his arms around me. “They’re stable.”
“But they’re still in danger,” Mina said from the doorway. “There are some unexplained behaviors. That’s why you brought them to me, isn’t it?”
I lifted my head and looked up at Tobias. He gave a subtle shake of his head.
“Their bodies are behaving like they’ve come out of a coma,” Mina said. “But not like any coma I’ve ever seen. And their clothing … it’s old. Seriously old. Those aren’t costume pieces.”
“No,” I said.
“Zoe,” Tobias snapped.
“Which of you wants to explain?” Mina asked.
“You deserve an explanation after saving their lives,” I said, “but I have to ask … Do you really want to know?”
Mina considered the question seriously. “It’s not only those two, is it? Both you and Tobias. The scars on your bodies... They don’t look like any scars I’d expect to see on a woman in her twenties and a guy in his forties.”
“Surely you jest!” a deep voice shouted from the other room.
Tobias gave me a smile. “Sounds like Nick is awake.”
“The twenty-first century?” Nicolas’s French-accented voice carried through the doorway. “The new millennium? Help me up, my love. This is something I must see.”
fifty-two
Mina scowled, but she followed us into the room where Perenelle was watching over Nicolas. The top of his head was swathed in gauze, but even the bandages couldn’t get his wayward hair under control. The gray and brown strands stood on end in every direction. His eyes were as intelligent and alive as ever. I think that was what pushed me over the edge. The tears I’d been holding back flowed down my cheeks.
“Don’t cry, my dear,” Nicolas said, beckoning me to his bedside. “I will stay in bed. For now.”
I laughed through the tears. Nicolas was his old self. “I’m sorry I never knew you were trapped in the painting.”
“The wonders I have seen from walls, my dear Zoe,” Nicolas said.
“Walls?” Mina said, checking Nicolas’s temperature.
“Perhaps you should have your family reunion later,” Tobias suggested with a sharp glance.
“You wish us not to speak freely in front of the doctor?” Perenelle asked.
“Let’s focus on getting you well,” I said.
“I assumed alchemical paint was now used widely in the world,” Perenelle said, “and in ways that far exceeded my own methods.”
“Why would you think that?” I asked, “since you didn’t have a chance to pass along your knowledge.”
“From our confines inside the painting, I saw very clearly that people spent many hours looking at paintings that moved.”
Tobias laughed. “Television. They were watching TV, not alchemical paintings.”
“I don’t believe you’re all suffering from a mass delusion,” Mina said. “You told me you’d explain everything once they were stable. They’re stable. Start explaining.”
Tobias caught my eye and shrugged. “Your call.”
“You saved their lives,” I said to Mina. “I still need to ask for your discretion.”
Mina nodded. “You’re all patients, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll treat you with the same confidentiality I give all my patients.”
“What do you know of alchemy?”
Mina stared at me in silence for a few moments. At first I thought she was going to laugh or accuse me of putting her on to avoid telling her the truth.
“Your hair and scars,” she murmured. “Their clothing. When were you all born?”
“Speaking for myself,” Nicolas said, “1340.”
“Do you need to sit down?” Perenelle asked.
“Grandmother spoke of people like you,” Mina whispered. “When I grew older, I thought it was a fairy tale.”
Tobias handed Mina a flask. “I thought it might come in handy.”
Mina took a hearty swig.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Perenelle said, “and I can’t speak for Nicolas, but now that I’m feeling more myself … I’m famished. I feel as though I haven’t eaten in weeks.”
“Centuries, my dear,” Nicolas said. “You didn’t paint any bread or wine into the painting.”
Mina took another long swig from Tobias’s flask. “You can’t take them to a restaurant,” she said. “I’ll go get food. Um … What do you like to eat?”
“No, I’ll go,” Tobias said, snatching the flask back.
“How will you know where to go around here? It’s the middle of the night.”
“You can come too, but I’m driving,” Tobias said.
While we waited for Tobias and Mina, Perenelle explained to me what Edward had done to her in Prague, and how the painting known as The Alchemist that had unknowingly hidden Nicolas and Perenelle for centuries had a circuitous route to Portland.
“But what of my letter?” Nicolas asked. “How did it find its way to you after so long?”
“He left it at your old house in Paris,” I said, “hidden behind a brick with an alchemical carving that wasn’t part of the original design. I hadn’t visited Paris in decades, and that house in centuries.”
“He meant well after all,” Per
enelle whispered.
Perenelle also told us of her memories of a charming Edward Kelley, a brilliant man who could have been a great scholar if he hadn’t cared more about pride and money. He wished to impress great leaders, and went to great lengths to do it, even though as a genius he could have used much easier schemes to gain wealth for himself and his family.
“It’s terrible,” Perenelle said, “that as he grew older with the years alchemy allowed him, instead of growing wiser, he became filled with hatred and vengeance.”
“Do you wish you hadn’t saved Edward all those years ago?” I asked.
She shook her head and gave me a motherly look—a combination of admonishment and love. “Everyone deserves that chance. You were rather reckless in your youth as well. Though I’m sorry for what he became, I would be no better than Edward if I’d left him to die when I could have prevented it. My own humanity would have left me. Speaking of humanity … I smell food.”
Tobias and Mina strode through the door with an armful of takeout containers.
“Slim pickings at this time of night,” Mina said, “but there’s a twenty-four-hour supermarket nearby.”
“And fresh bread for the new day had just been dropped off.” Tobias opened a paper bag and I caught the scents of sour yeast and earthy walnuts. I hadn’t realized how hungry and tired I was until that moment.
We ate in silence for a few minutes. I thought of Ward, driven by greed, pride, and also a quest for vengeance because he’d been forced to watch his own child die. But since Ward wasn’t an artist, he couldn’t be our forger. Even if he had taught himself to paint while Perenelle and Nicolas were trapped in the painting, his hands remained too crippled for him to pull off even a forgery. And why would he have killed Logan Magnus?
I checked my phone. There was no word from Max. Where was he? What was happening with Ward and Detective Vega? I shoved the phone back into my bag.
“I’ve never seen you look at your phone so much,” Tobias said. “The police have got it covered now. Max has got better things to do than give you updates.”