The Apothecary's Curse (38 page)

Gaelan leaned into Simon. “It shall take me
weeks
until I finish with it, I think, unless I hit upon some sort of key encrypted in the text to guide me. It's a huge volume, and I am not sure for how long I'll have it.”

Simon raised an eyebrow. “Where is it? You said it was in your possession and—”

“Of course it is, and it's back in my shop. I'm not imagining it, Simon, if that's what you're thinking. Do you really think I'd bring it . . . here?” he whispered. “What I mean to say is that it's been lent to me . . . sort of. But it is, I suppose, not
technically
mine. I am certain
Gaelan Erceldoune's
legal claim to that book, if ever there was one, expired many decades ago. Of course, I shall continue trying to convince her to sell it, but so far . . .” He shrugged.

“But why do you need it all, when you've only to look up one bloody page?”

“Two—including the recipe I conjured for myself. But do you seriously have to ask that? It was by not fully appreciating both context and consequence that . . . Who knows what might happen should I try to . . . ? It is all I need . . . all
we
need is for something to go awry . . .” This was not a new debate for them. What if a mistake had more global implications, something neither of them would have considered in the nineteenth century? “Suffice to say it'll be a long process, and I cannot rush through it. I am only on the sixth page after hours at it. It should go faster as I begin to perceive patterns, if any are there to perceive, but as yet . . .” Gaelan swept his hair from his eyes, and poured another cup of coffee. He was still uneasy about being in so public a place—exposed—discussing the book.

“But how did this woman come by it? And how the bloody hell has she found you? And why? And why now? And at the same time I've also gotten a lead? It is all a bit convenient. Although I must admit, there seems to be some sort of hitch—”

“What are you saying? You don't believe me?” Simon had that patronizing look about him.
Bloody hell, here it comes.

“You must admit you've been under quite a bit of duress of late, yes? Are you entirely certain your mind hasn't conjured the entire thing? Somehow conflated—”

Gaelan sniffed, trying to ignore the accusation, as one piece of the puzzle began to make sense. “You get a bloody lead on the book approximately every six months. But if you
have
, in fact, come across the real thing, perhaps
Dr. Anne Shawe
is the hitch you mentioned. She said that she'd had some help trying to interpret the manuscript, and perhaps—”

Simon shrugged. “This Dr. Gilles mentioned—”

“Dr. Gilles. Paul Gilles. She had a phone call from someone called Paul whilst she was at the shop. I heard her say the name. So if that does, in fact, explain at least one mystery, it leaves, what, four hundred others? And I've answers to none of them.”

Gaelan sat back in the booth cushions, watching Simon devour the last of his pancakes. “How can you eat like that in the middle of the night?”

“Like you said, it's nearly morning!”

“Look, Simon, I shall endeavor to undo . . . your condition . . . best I can, as soon as I can, but I cannot drive this woman away, risk her just picking up and leaving—with the book.” Gaelan reflected a moment, the confluence of unlikely events striking him again, and after so many years of nothing. “I cannot begin to tell you, Simon, how it makes me feel a sense of wholeness and peace for the first time in—”

“I can see that already, and it worries me.”

“You can? And why would it worry—”

“This Dr. Shawe. All of a sudden, she shows up, just after you've been nearly exposed? A geneticist, of all things? And in possession of your book? Do you really believe her story? You don't think . . . ?”

Gaelan did his best to reject Simon's concern. Yes, Anne had come to him because of the accident. Yes, she was connected with those hospital ghouls who coveted his DNA, but the book was unrelated—a happenstance occurrence, the sort of which happened all the time. A fortuitous coincidence, that was all.

“I don't know, but don't let your guard down with her, Erceldoune, for both our sakes. You're more than a bit fragile now—more vulnerable than usual. The diaries, the accident, now this? I know you. How you get when—”

Gaelan shook off the remark. He was
not
fragile, and certainly no more than Simon, who, after all had his very own ghost. He tapped a teaspoon testily on the tabletop. “You know, there is a saying, ‘Whose house is of glass, must not throw stones at another.' Do you wish to hear my theory or not . . . about the book, I mean?”

Simon nodded. “Go on.”

“It's quite brilliant actually, and I've wondered about it for years, but of course I couldn't test it. When I created the elixir for you, I matched the symbols in the book to powders and desiccated herbs in my father's old apothecary box. But it wasn't necessary. In fact, I think contents of those bottles may have been the fixings for concentrates, sort of replacement cartridges, if you will, like on a printer. The proper formulations emulsified into inks are embedded within each page diluted to perfect concentrations. And perhaps by using the original material, I rendered the elixir too rich, hence—”

“Was this not something you might have known?”

Gaelan shrugged, noting the indictment in Simon's tone. “My father was arrested and executed by King James before he'd finished tutoring me on the book. There were notes at one time—a scroll my father's father had hastily affixed into the spine of the book—before he, too, was arrested. It had been lost . . . somewhere, sometime. I have no idea when, but long before I'd ever contemplated putting any of it into practical application. I'd never considered . . . But you see, the inks themselves are crafted of metals and their compounds. Each rendering
illuminates
the recipe on the page.
Illuminates
,” Gaelan repeated, emphasizing the brilliance of wordplay. “You only need to interpret it properly. Match symbols to colors to shapes to substance: from text to image to text to crucible. I believe that everything we need is embedded in the very illustrations that illuminate the book itself.”

“You're sure?” Simon grumbled, clearly unconvinced.

“No, I confess I am not. Not yet. As I said, I've only managed to plow through six pages, so I confess, this is all a bit of a leap.”

“A
bit
?”

Gaelan continued, undeterred. “Unlike the matching substances in the apothecary box, the illustrations are not coded, or at least not obviously. This book was never meant to be understood by just anybody; its very structure is an elaborate lock with an exotic combination. Look, even if I am wrong, perhaps with our current understanding of chemistry, medicine, and pharmacology—even computer algorithms—the manuscript might well lead us to the correct formulations nonetheless.”

“Incredible,” Simon said flatly, drumming his fingers on the table.

“Indeed. But you seem rather underwhelmed. You might finally have your death wish fulfilled; it's all you ever talk about, so I would think you would look happier than you do now.”

“Sorry. There are an awful lot of ifs in your theory.” He paused. “No. That's not it. It is Sophie. She tells me now that we shall never be together, even after I . . . if I . . . How can I let her go? What if she is not waiting for me? What if—”

Gaelan rolled his eyes. “Having second thoughts, are we? You mean, then, to live on, keeping her trapped in eternity? That's a bit selfish, don't you think?” He was really too exhausted—and too delighted with himself—to snipe. “Look. Right now, it is
all
a big ‘if.' And even if all the variables are resolved, and
if
I can create an antidote, it might kill you immediately or simply reverse the original effect. Or do nothing at all. We shall have to wait and see.”

CHAPTER 46

Gaelan spotted Anne as he pulled up in front of the shop. She was pacing, her face pinched in anger—or agony. He wasn't certain which. What the devil was she doing here? She'd said nine, not seven. He parked, catching her attention as he shut the car door.

“Dr. Shawe? What—”

“Mr. Erceldoune, I've been ringing you for hours—”

He could hear panic in her voice. “My battery . . .” He pulled his dead iPhone from his pocket. “What is it?”

“We must talk. I've not slept . . . I—”

“Is it about the book?”

“No, not the book. Something . . . Might we go in?”

Gaelan nodded, unlocking the shop door. She was trembling. They sat, and Gaelan waited for her to speak. He was not up to any new twists.

“Mr. Erceldoune, I've not been completely open with you about my work.” She paused, taking a long breath and a sip from her Starbucks cup. “I work for a pharmaceutical concern in the UK called Transdiff Genomics, Ltd. Perhaps you've heard of it?”

He tensed, feeling the prickle of dread in his neck and down his back. The company rang a distant bell, but he'd read a lot about genetics these past years. “Perhaps, but—”

“They are working on a project. And I say ‘they' rather than ‘we' because I have gotten myself posted to the Salk Institute in order to avoid them—entirely. It is my intention to resign my position at Transdiff as soon as I'm able. You see, I am opposed to what . . . I mean to say that I recently discovered . . . and then . . . you understand, on ethical grounds. You must believe I wanted nothing to do with it from the start—”

She was very agitated and was making no sense. Gaelan tried to understand what she was trying to explain despite the rise of his own anxiety. “Please, Dr. Shawe. Do slow down. I've no idea what you're talking about. What project? I don't—”

“Last month, workers in London unearthed something beneath the Imperial War Museum during a renovation.”

The Bedlam diaries.
Gaelan froze. He struggled to maintain his composure, but already he felt the blood drain from his face.
No
, he nearly screamed. He struggled to listen through the clammy fog of fear.

“Transdiff won the contract to study the find. They were diaries, very old diaries, from nineteenth-century Bedlam. You see, the site had at one time—”

“Yes,” he managed noncommittally, “I have . . . read about that.” But why was
she
so upset? Why come to
him
? And why now? Had they made a connection of some sort? Speculation that somehow led back to him—to the Miracle Man? Gaelan held his breath, hoping that the terror surely in his eyes would not give him away.

“I need you to know that what they are doing is more than disturbing to me—has been since they first made the discovery. There's no consideration of the ethics involved, not in anything they do, and . . .”

Gaelan thrust his hands in his pockets to hide their shaking. He knew where this was leading, and it was increasingly difficult not to react. “I am sorry, I still don't—”

“There are . . . descriptions.” She hesitated briefly. “They seem to fit you: your coloring, your height, features . . .” She gestured with her head toward his left side, her cheeks red, as if embarrassed to call attention to his ruined hand. “The deformity. Of course all of that could be . . . likely is . . . coincidental, but then there was your accident and the incredible miracle of your recovery, and my colleagues now believe you might be—”

She was clever, and there was little chance she had not begun to put the pieces into place one by one. Her denial of it represented the last vestiges of her scientific skepticism. And soon, those too would disintegrate, and his world would collapse beneath the weight of the facts and evidence. He summoned the remains of his composure in an effort to disparage what she and her colleagues were suggesting. “You cannot seriously believe that I . . . that I am that man.” Gaelan desperately hoped his body language did not telegraph exactly that.

“No. No, of course not! But that you are perhaps connected—genetically. Somehow. A distant relative. A descendent of the man in the diaries.”

The tension gripping Gaelan's every muscle loosened ever so slightly. Perhaps this was going in a different direction altogether.

“Transdiff are quite obsessed with this project, throwing loads of money everywhere to make sure they are in complete control of it. They've only just committed to fund a new wing of Royal London Hospital, just for the exclusive right to pick apart this poor wretch's past. The things that had been done to him in the name of science! By any definition—torture. And how much better are Transdiff . . . my own colleagues—what they do with . . . ?” She paused, her mouth drawn into a tight line. “I mean to say . . . how could anyone salivate over the torture of that poor soul like that? As if they'd found the bloody holy grail!”

“But it is only a diary, is it not? Words written long ago, perhaps by an inmate himself. Or herself. Not real evidence of anything, is it?”

“The diary seems to be authentic. The doctor in whose hand it is written was the director of the place. And it bears his official seal. And, no, there is no hard evidence. As you say, only written records. But does it really matter? It's ghoulish, what they're doing. They're mining the place for tissue samples as we speak. Let it be, I say. Let that be the man's burial vault. Lord knows he must've died there. This was a human
being
, and they are pecking over his remains like . . .” She was now shaking with rage. “They'd offered me the project, but what little I was willing to hear made me ashamed to . . . I withdrew my name from consideration. They agreed and assigned a ‘more appropriate' researcher.”

“I see.” Gaelan was stunned by the revelation. How much had she revealed about him, now that he'd let her in? His heart thrashed in his chest, and he was certain she could see it even through his shirt. Gaelan tasted blood, realizing he had bitten through his lower lip. How much longer he could maintain this charade of disinterested calm, he did not know. Turmoil ravaged his esophagus, making him regret, only an hour before, consuming an entire pot of strong IHOP coffee.