The Accidental Alchemist (8 page)

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 houseguest.”

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.

“What are you doing?” Dorian’s voice startled me. “Why are you not looking at the pages from my book?” He stood behind me, clutching a baking dish.

“One of us has to make a living and keep a roof above us.”

“If you learned how to transmute gold like a proper alchemist …” Dorian mumbled under his breath as he scampered to the
dining table.

The sweet scent of sugar hit my nostrils as I sat down at the table. “Where did you find the sugar?” I asked. “It can’t be maple I smell.”

He smiled with satisfaction. “The acorn squash is baked in caramelized onions, with a pecan puree stuffing, and lightly braised kale with garlic.”

I don’t know how he did it with the simple ingredients I had on hand. After another of the best meals I’d eaten in years, Dorian was clearing the dishes when there was a knock at the door.

“I wish,” he said, “you were not so popular.”

“The locksmith must be early.”

Dorian left the remains of the stuffed acorn squash on the table and went to the fireplace, where he stood still and turned to stone. It was a disconcerting sight.

I showed the locksmith the doors where I wanted new locks along with added deadbolts. He regarded the baked squash dish with hung
ry eyes as we walked by the table on the way to the back door. It was easy to see what his eyes were doing—the thick black eyeliner circling his pale eyes made every expression dramatic. I’d hired a Goth locksmith. He also had a handlebar mustache with perfectly curled edges. The mustache didn’t seem very Goth to me, but hey, this was Portland. Maybe he was a Goth-Hipster, a new trend I hadn’t yet heard about. Or was the proper term Hipster-Goth?

Just as I was coming to understand one new trend, a new one would inevitably emerge. I had long since abandoned trying to keep up. I liked to think I wore classic clothes that never went out of style—tailored dress pants in neutral colors with simple cotton blouses in warm weather, and knitted sweaters with my beloved silver raincoat in cold climates—but I noticed that sometimes I was considered more trendy than at other times. It was language that I was better at keeping up with. Because I was forced to move around so much, I had become accustomed to picking up local languages, including a language’s changing vernacular and speech patterns.

“There’s plenty of food,” I said. “Shall I get you a plate?”

An hour later, I felt a lot safer and I had a Goth-hipster friend for life. The locksmith was just starting out, he told me, so he lived on canned food and the occasional food truck meal. He said he hadn’t eaten a meal that tasty and satisfying in ages, and was shocked to learn the meaty-textured nut stuffing didn’t contain meat. I sent him home with leftove
rs.

As soon as he left, another visitor arrived at the door, leaving me no time to work on the pages of Dorian’s book. I sighed and opened the door for Brixton.

“Where should I start?” he asked.

“I let you off the hook, remember?”

“I feel bad about breaking in. Veronica and Ethan wanted to hang out, but my mom said I should do like I promised.”

There was no defiance in his expression. Where had this polite version of Brixton come from? I hesitated for a moment while I contemplated what to do about him.

“Thanks,” I said. “You can get started weeding the backyard. Everything along the edges of the fence. I’ll grab gloves from the trailer and show you what to do.”

“The
whole fence
?”

“I thought you wanted to help.”

“Yeah, I do. It’s just … Nothing. It’s cool. I just thought maybe you’d want to tell me more about alchemy, so I don’t, like, go asking other people about it. You wouldn’t want that, right?”

I doubt I had been that intelligent—or manipulative—at fourteen.

“All right,” I said. “Here’s your first lesson. The heart of alchemy is transformation. Something new is created based on how you transform existing elements. A perfect example is this garden. Right now it’s full of weeds, but through your efforts you’re going to transform it into something new.”

“I’ve got a better example. Turning lead into gold. You said you don’t, but that’s what you guys do, right?”

“Some alchemists have tried to turn lead into gold, but I’m a plant alchemist.”

“How did you buy this house, then?”

“I have a job, like everyone else.”

“Why aren’t you at work?”

“What kind of question is that? I run an online business.”

“Can I see the website?”

“Maybe after you practice some alchemy in the yard.” I dreaded what a fourteen-year-old would think of my outdated website.

He mumbled something under his breath, but donned the gloves I handed him and watched as I showed him how to pull weeds from the root. He had a lot to do, which would give me time to research the pages of Dorian’s book.

I spread the photographs on the dining table, again struck by the fact that the images and text weren’t like anything in my own alchemy books. I wished I hadn’t lost touch with the alchemists I’d known. Without personal contacts, it would be close to impossible to find a real alchemist. Though there were many people who considered themselves alchemists, most were either scholars or spiritual alchemists. Neither category would understand what had happened to Dorian. And I didn’t know how much time I had.

Before I could decide if I should join an Internet discussion group of alchemists, a frantic pounding sounded at the front door.

“Zoe!” Brixton yelled. “Let me in!” My newly secured doorknob shook but didn’t open.

I jumped up and opened the door for him.

“I didn’t mean to pry,” he said, rushing past me into the house. “Really, I didn’t. I was just looking for a snack.”

“What’s going on, Brixton?” I felt his fear. He wasn’t joking around.

“Poison! I found poison in your trailer.” He thrust the bottle into my hand.

I gasped, then I saw what he’d handed me. “This,” I said, laughing as I let go of my tension, “isn’t poison. It’s asafoetida. A spice.”

“No way. It smells like—”

“I know. One of its nicknames is ‘Devil’s Dung.’”

“It’s
food
?”

“Sure is,” I said, getting my laughter under control.

“Why would anyone eat this?”

“As soon as it’s heated in a dish, it transforms itself and brings out the flavors of other spices. It also helps digestion.”

Brixton swore. “I, uh, kind of messed up your trailer. Some bottles fell and broke when I ran out of there. Sorry.”

———

While Brixton cleaned up the mess he’d made in the trailer and got back to weeding, I walked to the market to buy the items on Dorian’s list. I chuckled when I got to the bottom. He’d added bacon to the list, as if I wouldn’t notice. I didn’t object to other people—or gargoyles, for that matter—eating whatever they wanted to. But I was a single vegan woman living alone. I had enough secrets to cover up. I wasn’t going to buy animal products for my secret guest.

When I got back, a few weeds were gone, but there was no sign of Brixton in the yard or the trailer. I found him in the kitchen. Dorian was showing him how to safely light an old gas stove with a match, and Brixton was rolling his eyes as if the gargoyle was treating him like a child.

“Did you find everything on my list?” Dorian asked in an innocent voice.

“Nice try.”

The two of them seemed content, chopping food for dinner, so I left the kitchen, taking the photographs from
Not Untrue Alchemy
to the dining table. The disturbing bird images again made me want to look away, but I forced myself to examine the woodcuts. The twisted, broken necks stirred a feeling of apprehension deep within me. Along with my revulsion was a flicker of recognition, but the flame quickly faded and I was left with nothing.

Coded symbols such as these allowed for secret alchemical teachings to be passed down from one generation to the next. The pelican, for example, symbolizes self-sacrifice, which is a code for distillation. But the birds in this book weren’t familiar to me. Instead of elegant pelicans, crows, peacocks, and phoenixes, these birds had twisted shapes and looked more like dodos and pterodactyls.

In the past, coded messages were often publicly displayed, carved onto buildings during alchemy’s heyday in the Middle Ages. The markings could describe alchemical operations, such as a dove representing the purifying transformation turning from the Black Phase to the White Phase and the phoenix representing the final alchemical operation resulting in the philosopher’s stone.