The Apothecary's Curse (2 page)

Gaelan and Conan Doyle found themselves in a secluded corner of the large drawing room as the other guests mingled. Simon stood nearby, gesturing with growing disquietude that they should leave, and quite soon.

Gaelan turned his back on him as Conan Doyle leaned in again. “By the by, sir, I do recognize your unusual name—Erceldoune—I have come across it on occasion in my research into the Otherworld—”

“The Otherworld.”

“Indeed. Where the fae folk rule. I've heard of an Erceldoune associated with legends of old, a certain Thomas Learmont de Erceldoune, a relationship with Tuatha de Danann, the—”

“Fairy folk, Sir Arthur?” Gaelan managed a laugh. “You, sir, hold me in exalted company, and I am sorry to disappoint you, however—”

“It is said that this man Erceldoune had a book possessing great power, given him by Airmid herself, Celtic goddess of healing, a gift for his act of kindness. Have you not heard the tale?”

“My family, old though it may be, Sir Arthur, boasts neither connection with the goddess Airmid nor any of her folk—the Tuatha de Danann, if indeed they ever existed. Besides, was not Airmid an Irish fairy? And I am, as are you, sir, of Scottish blood.”

Gaelan glanced around the room again, finding Simon's anxious eyes beseeching him to end the exchange. “We'd best join the rest of the company. I see my dear friend Simon is quite unsettled, and we ought soon set off for—”

“It is a book of great healing,” Conan Doyle continued. “All the diseases of the world—and their cures—held in a singular volume, said to be written by her very hand.”

Gaelan paused, a petulant sigh escaping his lips. “I cannot say I can recall its mention, even amongst family lore.” His lips tightened into a tense line as he stood. “Now if you will excuse me, sir, I grow tired and fear it is time Dr.
Simon
Bell and I return to his flat.”

“Have you not done enough damage for one visit?” Simon's ice-gray glare drilled into Gaelan as they warmed themselves before Simon's fireplace.

“What do you mean?” Gaelan held his hands up to the blaze, suppressing a wince as a sharp pain threaded through his left hand. Unrepentant, he sighed; yet he understood Simon's displeasure. “I was bored; the chatter of the rich and idle was more than I could handle. I'd forgotten how lifeless it could be.”

“It is not what I meant.”

“I could not abide that insipid Miss Leckie and her tirade—all their tirades—against those of my trade.”

“Do you disagree about Lentine?”

“You know I do not. But to classify the whole of the apothecary trade as a society of rogues and street mountebanks—”

Simon rose from his chair and paced in a small line, hands behind his back, tone clipped. “So for that you had to provoke Sir Arthur at his celebration?” Grabbing a poker, he stabbed at the hearth as if it were a dragon and he St. George.

“Had I not gotten them off that subject, I do not know what I might have done.” The warmth of the fireplace, the aromatic burning of tinder and cigars did nothing to defuse the piercing pain that throbbed along the edge of his knuckles and beyond them, into the empty space where long ago existed three fingers. Eyes clamped shut, Gaelan sucked in a breath, trying to ride out the relentless assault he knew was but a phantom. “You might think after all this time it would not bother me still, but it does, oddly, as if the fingers were yet attached.”

Simon's annoyance dissipated as he came near to examine Gaelan's hand. “And suggesting that Sherlock Holmes is somehow immortal was an improvement?” He prodded the smooth stump with his thumbs, and Gaelan grimaced with each touch. “I've some fresh ground ganja powder. A cup of tea from it might make it more bearable, unless you'd prefer something stronger. The kettle should be ready by now.”

“Thank you; tea would be fine.” The mere anticipation of relief began to soften the knife-sharp pain.

“Given that Sir Arthur is a journalist
and
has a particular interest in anything that seems to defy the laws of nature,” Simon continued, returning from the other room with the tea service, handing Gaelan a delicate China cup, “I must say his line of questioning triggered by
your
own provocation was disquieting, to say the least.”

The warmth of the cup permeated Gaelan's hand as he savored the tea, more soothing than the finest whisky. “Thank you, Simon. Already, the pain dissipates. It seemed quite fitting to offer the idea—about Holmes. I am, in fact, quite curious about how Sir Arthur intends to wrest his hero from that watery grave. And just because I made some oblique suggestion, must you forthwith believe I've painted a scarlet letter upon my forehead?”

“I speak not just of the Holmes. He came a hairbreadth from—”

Gaelan cut off Simon's next parry with a wave of his arm. “Indeed,” he said, anticipating. “I must confess that his interrogation about my legendary ancestors unsettled me, as did his reference to that book.”

“What if he has some knowledge of it?
Useful
knowledge. God knows the trail has long since dried up, and he is, after all, a journalist—a rather clever one. You might wish to inquire further for what he knows—”

Gaelan slammed his fist into the arm of the chair. “No. He knows no more than you or I. He was fishing, and that is all.” There was no more to be said on the matter. Full stop.

Simon grabbed the poker again, and sparks flared as he drove it deep into the hearth, his patience clearly at an end. “Perhaps it is time for you to go. More than a week has passed since my sister's funeral, yet you are still here. Had you been so steadfast whilst Eleanor was yet living and breathing, she might have been happier, but because of your fear—”

Gaelan flinched, stung by the truth of Simon's words. But Simon, too, was grieving. Yes, he'd had no choice but to leave. But what of the intervening years? Might there have been an opportunity for a reunion with her? He sipped the last of the ganja tea and set down the cup.

The clattering of iron startled Gaelan from his seat as Simon hurled the poker into its holder.

“You're a bit skittish tonight, I daresay,” declared Simon. His voice was now devoid of all anger.

Gaelan retreated to a far corner of the room, his back to Simon, mustering the scattered remnants of his composure. “Perhaps I was more unnerved by Sir Arthur than I considered. As for your sister, I
could
not stay in England at the time, and this you well know.” He turned, now facing Simon: his enemy, his lone friend in the world.

His combativeness dissipated as excuses failed him. Simon was right; he had to get away—from Simon and from England, where too many memories haunted too near. “Yes, you have a point. And perhaps it is time for me to reinvent myself, as it were. I think I'll repair to Scotland for a bit. Perhaps Aberdeen.” He could predict Simon's reaction before a word more was spoken.

“Do not dare!” Simon roared. “Do not dare set foot anywhere near Aberdeen. You shall bring my niece nothing but misery.”

Gaelan considered his limited options. “I cannot go back to America. Not now, and perhaps not for a long time to come.”

“Why in the devil not?”

Gaelan dropped his voice to a bare whisper, sitting again. “I was nearly discovered, and I fear . . . There was an incident, and I—”

“I have never quite understood, Erceldoune,” Simon replied, pouring himself a cup of the tea, “why you yet live in the shadows, even now, well-nigh a generation past the time anyone would care you'd eluded the noose. You were certainly enough in plain sight tonight!”

“It is not that sort of discovery I fear. But I yet live in abject terror each time I spy an advertising poster for one of those wretched freak shows come to town.”

“I hear they have all but vanished in America. Too distasteful.”

“Indeed, that may be the case, yet not so much as you think.” Gaelan had hoped to keep his temper in check; Simon was grieving for the last of his close relations. Yet, how could the man be so obtuse? Gaelan sprang from his seat again, striding across the room, his hands clenched into tight fists before wheeling on his companion. “Tell me, Bell,” he said finally, his tone sharper than intended, “what do you think would transpire should my condition . . . our condition . . . come to light? How can you not comprehend? The fortunes of wars, the balance of power world-over shall forever alter if one side or the other possesses such a secret. One to which we both hold the key?”

Gaelan seethed, but stopped before the discussion devolved into vicious argument. Simon well knew that men with naught but greed in their hearts yet coveted the elusive Elixir of Life. Why, then, this shallow disregard for . . . ? Gaelan fought against further provocation on the matter. He pinched the bridge of his nose, applying pressure to forestall the gnawing in his forehead.

“Do not worry, Simon. I shall not play the interloper—in Aberdeen. This I promise you.” Restless energy propelled Gaelan from one window to the next, despite the headache, as he paused at each but a moment to look up into the starlit sky, hoping it might settle him. “But I can and shall also know that my daughter and her family are happy, and at least observe, if only from afar, their accomplishments. How can you reckon what my heart yearns for, and how it tears me to shreds knowing I must live ever in exile from my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, shall never feel their tiny hands ruffling my hair—” He turned away.

“It is far too late for that, for all your words of regret. There would have been ways to manage it—as I have!”

Simon's harsh words hurt far worse than the cruelest physical torture. “I had
no
choice,” Gaelan insisted. “And is it not also true that I saved her life? Perhaps I was a coward to stay away for so many years, but the very thought of discovery . . . It is only now, sixty years hence, that I feel safe to return here.”

The weight of solitary exile bore down on Gaelan's shoulders and crushed his throat until he was unable to breathe. Yes, Aberdeen would be a risk, all the more now, since he had come face-to-face with his daughter, his dear Ariadne, a woman who knew him solely as an acquaintance to her “cousin” Simon.

“Yes. You speak the truth, and I have always been grateful for what you did for us both.” Regret suffused Simon's countenance. “Nevertheless . . . the sight of you is more than I can stand, the representation of all I have lost, and now with Eleanor's death . . . She is the last, you know. I am as alone as you on this earth, despite what you might believe.”

“Aye, I do know that. So let us drink to Eleanor a last time.”

Simon poured two tumblers. They drank down the fine Scotch without another word.

Gaelan peered into his empty glass. The emptiness and loneliness, the unrelenting pain that ever emanated from his disfigured left hand: a precipitous burden that threatened to crash down upon him. He strode to the mantelpiece and stopped, scrutinizing the facets in his crystal tumbler before slamming it into the wood. It shattered, slicing into his hand; he watched the blood flow down his arm, darkening the ruffled shirtsleeve. “I shall bid you a good night then.”

By morning, Gaelan was gone.

CHICAGO'S NORTH SHORE, PRESENT DAY

CHAPTER 1

Three hours and 125 autographs later, Simon Bell emerged into the unexpected heat of the late-March afternoon, flexing his cramped right hand. His pseudonym, Anthony C. Danforth, swam across his vision, a ghostlike image in red Sharpie; blinking did not vanquish it. His latest novel, another Holmes pastiche, had risen to number fifteen on the
New York Times
best-seller list. “Holmes resurrected in the style of his times! Danforth channels Conan Doyle with a rare authenticity—again,” read the review. Simon might add,
Victorian mysteries written by a Victorian mystery
.

The Gingko trees along the Evanston shoreline were already green; their cloven, odd leaves provided a momentary distraction as he wove his way through the baby carriages, skateboards, and bicycles. But there it was again: indelible.

The warm breeze washed over him as he dusted off a sandy white boulder above the beach. Simon draped his trench coat over the rock, and he sat, attention riveted on a pair of noisy gulls rowing over a discarded ant-infested hamburger.

Simon reveled in his well-deserved “reclusive writer” moniker, and it was a rare occasion for him to venture into so public a space. The brave new virtual world made for a handy castle keep, with moats constructed of Twitter feeds and Facebook postings manned by battalions of publicists and their minions. None of his affair.

A familiar figure meandered the beach below, silhouetted in the glare, and Simon did a double take. As if reading his thoughts, the man turned, shielding his eyes against the sun as he peered up from the sand. What the devil was Gaelan Erceldoune doing down there at the water's edge?