Chapter 13 - Flowers of Antimony
But it wasn’t enough.
Need to catch up? Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12
Please note that there are subjects and themes in this book that some readers might prefer to approach with forewarning, or not at all. These include relationship trauma, self-harm, suicide, death/dying, swearing, and sexual content.
They left the seraphinite on the lab table and went upstairs, chattering to themselves with barely-contained excitement.
“The GMA is done for. Nothing else out there can effectively, one hundred percent guaranteed, heal and restore wounds like we just did. This discovery is literally priceless,” Leon rambled.
“We should go to Denver and stay the night at a hotel. One with a spa!” Rosalie added.
“Of course, there’s the barrier of our limited catalog of emotions. Not everyone would be willing to give up even one emotion, and there are only so many emotions that any one person would probably be willing to sacrifice,” Leon continued.
“Actually, we should take a week off. Fly out to California, or New York. Somewhere with real people, and really good food. We can hire a babysitter for the homunculus,” Rosalie teased, managing to pull Leon’s attention away from his own thoughts.
“What was that about the homunculus?” he asked.
At the top of the stairs, Rosalie turned and led the way to the kitchen.
“It was a joke. Mostly. I would like to take a trip, but hiring someone to watch that Cthulhu-worthy horror downstairs is not really an option,” Rosalie replied.
Leon lagged behind, looking back down the stairs to the basement. He shook his head as if to dismiss an upsetting thought.
“No, but you’re right. We can’t leave while that thing is still cooking.”
Leon continued to the kitchen to find Rosalie pushing two wine glasses toward the center of the island. She then ducked down to rummage through their humble liquor supply.
“Do you think you can wait a week or two until we’re sure of the experiment’s results?” Leon asked. He stood next to where Rosie was hunkered down and clinking a full bottle of tequila against a nearly empty bottle of vodka in her quest for champagne. When he offered her a hand, she took it and straightened with a small grimace as her knees popped.
“I suppose I could survive,” Rosalie confirmed. He stood close, hand still holding hers.
“There’s no champagne in this house,” she complained.
“What did I have to celebrate before now? Before you agreed-”
Rosalie silenced his romantic platitudes with a kiss. She preferred to feel his sincerity in the way he pulled her body close to his. They might not’ve had champagne, and they couldn’t run off to a big city to exalt in their victory over the mysteries of alchemy, but Leon seemed to think that they could find other ways to celebrate that evening.
Their kiss reached its conclusion in a wordless, but gentle refusal. Leon had made a move to relieve her of the tyranny of her button-down shirt, and Rosalie had broken the kiss to rest her forehead on his chest, and gently shake her head from side to side.
Soon, Rosalie thought. It’d only been a few days since their reconciliation, and it was enough for the moment to be close to him without fearing a flashback, or an inexplicable repulsion. She held onto the pleasant feeling of his embrace and suggested that they sit down. Rosalie abandoned her original pursuit for champagne and moved to the living room with Leon. She picked the boring couch, which was, of course, the most comfortable one. Plain and beige as it was, it would’ve stuck out amongst the more colorful decor, but Rosalie had dressed it up and made it work for them with several silky embroidered pillows, and a geometric throw. The pillows they moved to one end of the couch to be nested against, and they covered themselves with the throw. Rosalie leaned against Leon, head on his shoulder, and exhaled slowly. By her count, they hadn’t talked about their work in over five minutes.
A damn record, she thought with wry humor. For a time, Leon appeared to be content with stroking her hair - after gently pulling out the hair tie that’d kept it in a messy bun all day. The affection nearly lulled Rosalie to sleep. But something kept her awake. After a few thoughtful seconds, Rosalie realized it was the way Leon touched her hair. It was a tender gesture, but hurried. She could tell that he was getting little enjoyment from the act. Rosalie felt less like his wife, and more like a dog being groomed.
“What are you thinking about?” she finally asked.
“Whether we covered all of our bases,” Leon said softly. He paused in his distracted petting to kiss the top of her head, and then resumed, but more slowly. Rosalie felt herself relaxing again.
“Well, since I sacrificed boredom, I could stare at a wall for an hour and see what happens. We can devise something similar for each emotion we sacrificed. That way we’d be sure they’re all really gone. Tomorrow, though? I really want to be done with this for today.”
“I know,” Leon said.
“We’ve been going nonstop,” Rosalie added.
“I know,” Leon repeated.
The quiet house, the afterglow that suffused her limbs now that the adrenaline of the final experiments had drained away, the gentle caress of Leon’s fingertips through her hair, the exhaustion postponed - Rosalie gave in to her heavy eyelids and the gentle thud of Leon’s pulse beneath her ear.
She dreamed of falling. It wasn’t scary, and it didn’t last long. When she finally dropped out of the darkness, she found herself laying on soft ground. Pressing her face to it, Rosalie could see down into the earth where everything tossed and turned like foam on the sea. There were things down there. Bits of glass. Dried flowers. And a golden, shimmering smoke, which drifted up to the ground, through it, and seeped into her lungs. In the dream, Rosalie thought it funny that the smoke didn’t smell like anything at all.
Ultimately, it was the sound that woke her and not the smoke. A shrill whine, like a teapot on the stove past boiling. Rosalie, confused and slowly coming to full consciousness, blinked and saw that she was enveloped in smoke. The shock of this discovery erased all lingering traces of fatigue and she pushed herself up with a start. She was alone in the living room and she found the source of the smoke: the medallion was rapidly losing its golden sheen, devolving to its original state; the medallion created by Leon’s promise never to lie to her again.
“Leon?” Rosalie called out. The house was dark and she couldn’t hear him, but standing up from the couch gave her the perspective she needed to see that light seeped under the door that led to the basement. Rosalie ran to the door and pulled it open so quickly that she almost clipped her toes.
“Leon?” she called again, and half-ran, half-fell down the stairs. If not for a strong grip on the railing, she would’ve completed the lower half of the journey on her ass. Instead, she bumped up against the wall at the bottom of the stairs in time to see Leon get to his feet from the couch at the far end of the basement. His expression was stiff with concern.
“Rosie, are you alright?”
He was doing something odd with his arms, holding them at a strange angle. As Rosalie crossed the distance, stumbling a little with shock - he lied to me, he lied to me - the toxic thought ran through her mind like a locomotive while the smoke that billowed from her necklace made it difficult to see what he was doing.
“Fuck ‘are you alright,’ what are you doing? What’s the lie, Leon?” Rosalie demanded.
“No no, hold on. It’s okay, Rosie. You weren’t supposed to know. You were supposed to find me, and…” Leon trailed off. The smoke was dissipating. The golden medallion around her neck was now scandium again, a pale moon threatening to eclipse the golden sun beneath it. She could see his eyes flicker to a piece of paper that lay on the floor at his feet, and she could also finally make out why his arms looked so strange. He was holding one arm out straight, and the other bent, hand and syringe poised just below the bend of his outstretched arm. The needle was already buried in his flesh.
“I’ve technically hurt myself,” Leon offered sheepishly. Even though he looked at her with concern, his words were calm. Rosalie remembered that he’d given up anxiety, and with it, probably worry.
“Then stop!” Rosalie pleaded.
“I won’t,” Leon said.
“Then please, tell me what you’re doing.”
“Rosie, this is potassium chloride. It will stop my heart. Once it does, you’ll use the stone to bring me back. We have to confirm this, and there’s no other way to test it. Please. I’ve thought this one through every angle.”
Rosalie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She gaped at him.
“You thought it through? Is that a fucking joke? It’s been what, four- five- maybe six hours since we discovered that this works? And you’ve ruled out every single possibility for confirming that the stone works on human mortality? ‘This is the only way’ is bullshit and I know that you’re smart enough to know that. You will not do this to me again, Leon!” Rosalie hissed.
“Rosie, all you have to do is use the stone.”
“You will not do this to me again!” Rosalie tried to scream, but the fear and growing certainty that there was nothing she could do to stop him was winning and swallowing her voice whole.
“Listen. This isn’t the same thing. We can’t ask anyone else to do this for us, and under no circumstances do I want you to take the risk. In the extremely unlikely chance that this goes all wrong, and you can’t bring me back, then you’ll know for sure. You can go forward with what we’ve discovered and do something useful with it. Use the stone. Please, Rosie. Give up apathy,” Leon suggested. “Or worry!”
When the inspiration struck, Rosalie desperately threw her arms around it.
“I’ll give up love,” she shot back.
Her threat had weight. It seemed to hit Leon in the center of his chest. He swayed, but his hand was steady, and the needle was still biting into his blood despite her dare.
“Would you really?” he asked. Leon’s voice had softened, but the determination was still there in his eyes, hard as stone.
“Watch me,” Rosalie said.
But it wasn’t enough.
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