Chapter 3 - Flowers of Antimony
Inertia got Rosalie out of her store, fifteen minutes down several blocks of tidy sidewalks, and in front of Leon’s house. But that’s where her momentum ran out.
(Not caught up? Find Chapter 1 here! And Chapter 2 here!)
Inertia got Rosalie out of her store, fifteen minutes down several blocks of tidy sidewalks, and in front of Leon’s house. But that’s where her momentum ran out.
Rosalie couldn’t bring herself to press the doorbell, suddenly struck by how alien that motion was. Ring the bell? Why? She should be using her key.
That was, had she kept a key to this house. It’d been almost a year since Rosalie had last been inside, and when she’d left, it never crossed her mind that she might return for anything other than a forgotten box in the attic.
Rosalie took a brief survey of the last eleven months of memories. Had they been better than the previous four years? Really?
Like Newton’s cradle, one verdict transferred energy to the next, then back again.
Yes and no, yes and no.
It was complicated, unlike her reasons for leaving. Rosalie struggled to keep her justifications in order, though they’d been so clear a year ago. She grasped for those memories which enshrined the evidence - the vindication that allowed her to sleep soundly. Most nights.
Enough. That way lies madness, Rosalie thought.
Getting stuck in her head, here of all places, was a good way to screw up her opportunity to get the Das family recipes. She’d been sorely disappointed to learn that they were off-limits to her, even after marriage, and that the only way her flesh and blood would be getting access was if she and Leon ever had a son. The misogyny of it all was stunning. But back then, when they’d been in the honeymoon-phase, when the formal-West-meets-eclectic-East wedding had seemed to suspend all sense of time in its enchanting and perfectly imperfect apex of celebration, she could’ve cared less about the damn formulae.
Rosalie skipped the bell, grabbed the doorknob, and put all of her chips on it’s probably open. To her great relief, the handle turned all the way. Somehow, if she’d had to ring the bell, Rosalie knew she’d have to confront some of the heavier wreckage their separation had left in its wake, like shrapnel needing to be dug out from under the skin.
She could feel the gentle clicking of hardware in the door as it swung open.
“Rosie?” Leon’s voice floated to her from somewhere deeper in the house, most likely the kitchen. It smelled different than Rosalie remembered. Cleaner, somehow, but also a little sterile, almost like a hospital, or a laboratory. It didn’t smell like home anymore.
“It’s me,” she called back, closing the door behind her and looking over the furniture they’d collected together from family, friends, and thrift shops. The brand of Leon’s family, in particular, was strong in the living room. She’d always enjoyed the bright colors, the dark wood, and the excessive use of oriental rugs. None of it had been moved. A small bouquet of flowers in a glass vase sat at the center of a coffee table. Rosalie had to admit that its orange and yellow arrangement went well with the decor. Leon wasn’t half-bad at keeping house without her.
“Drop your stuff anywhere, make-” Leon said, and then went quiet for a few seconds before offering a revision. “Come on back to the kitchen and we’ll get started.”
The awkward implication to make herself at home almost made Rosalie laugh - this is a splendid start, she thought.
She held out her empty hands to the room in mockery of the request, there was nothing to drop, and wound her way back through a short hallway to the kitchen just as Leon was uncorking a bottle of wine.
“You did not,” Rosalie mumbled, settling down on a stool at the island, opposite Leon who occupied behind-the-counter host territory, surrounded on three sides by the trappings of the modern kitchen.
“Yes, I did. I know you, Rosie. Good food or good drink and you’ll put up with just about anyone. Even me,” Leon cajoled as he poured her a glass of a first-class Gewürztraminer. Rosalie noted that he didn’t pour any for himself.
“Can’t you drink yet?”
Leon took a deep breath before responding, pushing the wine bottle and its sticky cork off to the side and closer to Rosalie’s end of the island.
“I can. But if I have to pick a poison, it isn’t going to be this hummingbird food.”
“Mmmm,” Rosalie confirmed, taking a long sip from the sweet wine while trying not to look directly at Leon’s face. There was the problem of muscle-memory. The scene they were a part of in that moment was part of a familiar and comforting pattern. Being in her old home, with him, drinking wine, it was blazingly apparent to Rosalie that some dusty and dehydrated corner of her heart still had feelings for him. She rallied her defenses in the form of irreverence.
“So. Site details and password please, and then you’re free to go on with…whatever it is you hope to accomplish tonight.”
She cradled the glass of wine in both hands while Leon dug a slip of paper out from a pocket and slid it across the table to her.
“Site, password, encryption specs, it’s all there. Just call me if you have any trouble with it on your end. And hey, I know I don’t really have tell you this, but just in case…please don’t tell my parents.”
Rosalie chuckled. “And open Pandora’s Box? No, thank you. Your indiscretion is safe with me.”
“Good. Well. Look, Rosie, I need your help.”
Had Leon said anything to that effect only several months ago, Rosalie would’ve lashed out. Sarcasm, gunny sacking, flat-out refusal: there were many wicked tools in her back pocket that she would’ve been all too happy to employ if it meant paying him back for some of the salt in her own wounds. But in that moment, nearly crossing the milestone of an entire year since they’d separated, Rosalie only felt the slightest urge to be cruel. It was quickly overcome by genuine concern.
“If it’s your health, I swear to God, I told you so and you will never hear the end of -”
“No no no,” Leon interrupted. “My health is fine, thank you very much. It’s not that. Though, related I suppose.”
Leon became introspective, looking down at his clasped hands resting on the marble counter-top. Rosalie let him think. She got two sips of her drink down before he worked up the nerve to speak again. She could see the effort it took, as if it was a physical thing that had to be brought from his toes, all the way up his body, before it could be delivered to her.
“I think I know how to bring back alchemy.”
Do you now? Rosalie thought, keeping her skepticism silent for the time being. Leon had handed over to her an incredible wealth of knowledge in exchange for this meeting. The least she could do was hear him out. So she kept her brow free of furrows, and her mouth shut. A gentle nod gave him the permission that he was looking for to continue.
“I’ve been thinking. A lot. And I’ve been digging up some old literature. But that’s getting a bit ahead, let me start here - ah, let me ask you a question. Is there any way that alchemy could possibly be seen in a light that’s as valuable, or more valuable, than modern medicine?”
Rosalie took another sip to stall, but didn’t need the extra time to think of an answer. It’d come to her mind immediately.
“If we could cure cancer, I think that would do it.”
“Yes, that’s a start. But keep going.”
“If…” Rosalie trailed off, failing to pick up any other ideas. Was there anything really more impressive than defeating that infamous scourge? She could see in Leon’s expression that he did have an answer. He was holding onto it like a surprise, lips barely drawn into a smile, eyes shining.
“You got me. I don’t know anything more impressive than that. It would have to be a miracle.”
Leon’s eyes widened briefly. She had said the magic word.
“Yes! What if alchemy could work miracles? Real ones. Stuff that medicine isn’t capable of?”
Rosalie drummed her fingertips against the countertop. Ba-da-rum, ba-da-rum, ba-da-rum. The soft but rapid sound of flesh on stone was all that filled the air for several moments as Leon watched her expectantly, and she weighed her response. She knew what he was talking about. Alchemy wasn’t always about curing disease. Its infancy had been punctuated by a lot of hogwash. Lead into gold. Immortality. Everyone knew that song and dance, and especially how it ended: anticlimactically.
Rosalie punctuated the end of her silence with a quick ti-ti-tink of her fingernails on the bowl of the wine glass. A small part of her was more than happy to snuff out this sputtering candle.
“Leon.”
The excitement drained from his face almost immediately. He’d always been good at reading between the lines.
“Wait, Rosie. Wait,” he protested, but Rosalie was already making quick work of the small pool of wine at the bottom of her glass, and slipping off the stool.
“No, thank you. I revoke my terms, you can keep your formulae, and you can walk down this crazy path all by your crazy self, and burn out like the alchemists of the past. Wouldn’t it be in use now, if, in the hundreds of years since alchemy’s birth, any of that old arcana were valid?”
“Rosie-”
But Rosalie was already halfway out of the kitchen. Leon moved fast, grabbing her arm and halting her retreat before she could cross the threshold into the hallway, despite a very earnest attempt to break free.
“Think for a minute. That’s all I’m asking. Do you believe I’d really invite you here and propose this if I didn’t believe it could work?” Leon had lowered his voice, underlining his plea with calm rationality.
Leon’s suggestion was wild, but Rosalie knew that wild wasn’t really in his makeup. And that struck her. Leon could be a romantic, and yes he was prone to taking big risks. But never for nothing.
Which meant that this was something.
Leon must’ve registered the change in her expression. He released her arm. She wasn’t a flight risk anymore, but Rosalie was still making up her mind as he turned and went to the cupboard next to the sink, where they had once kept drinking glasses. He opened it to reveal that it was stuffed from base to ceiling with books. All of the dividers had been removed. Rosalie barely had time to wonder where the glasses had gone when he was beckoning her back to the counter, a book out and open to a marked page in the first quarter.
As she approached, Rosalie could smell the dust. She’d always loved the soft, musty, indescribable possibility of old books.
“Here,” Leon said, pointing to one cluttered section of symbols and measurements. “This is where I started. And I did it. I can prove it to you.”
“Prove what? What are we even looking at?”
“Chrysopoeia.”
Rosalie stared at him blankly.
“Transmutation,” Leon clarified.
He reached into the right pocket of his jeans and dropped several small spheres onto the marble counter where they rolled smoothly in different directions. They made a jarring noise, metallic and somehow mechanical, when they fell from his hand, glinting in the light. One crept close to the edge of the island, but Rosalie snatched it up before it could take a plunge.
“I swear to you on every formula that you now have access to, these were silver only two hours ago.”
The small orb was cool in her hand, polished, and deceptively heavy for its size. It was also, undeniably, solid gold.
Stop by next week for Chapter 4! And if you’re feeling impatient (or wildly supportive) you can get the whole e-book novella right away from Barnes & Noble.
