The Masquerading Magician (20 page)

Thirty-Nine

saint-gervais, france, 1871

As the end of his life grew near, Jean Eugène Robert-­Houdin feared for what would become of his not-quite-human son. Inspiration struck one day, out of a tragedy.

A famous personage in France, Robert-­Houdin knew others in high society as well as men at the tops of their professions. One such man was a well-regarded chef who cooked
choucroute garnie
with such exquisite results that people traveled for miles to partake of his delicacies. The chef developed an ego, as most men do when told repeatedly how great they are. One day, a grease fire began in the kitchen. It quickly engulfed his establishment. The chef made sure all of his workers made it to safety. He was the last one out. It never once occurred to him that the building would dare injure him. Yet a wooden beam struck him, trapping him inside the burning building. Before he was rescued, the fire scorched his head and hands. He escaped with his life, but without his sight and former dexterity.

As he'd never married, the former chef sat alone in his large house. There was no life in the house, save for the domestic servant who came twice a day to clean the house and bring him barely tolerable food. The chef might have withered and died from desolation had it not been for the occasional interesting visitor, such as his old friend Jean Eugène Robert-­Houdin and an odd fellow Robert-­Houdin brought with him.

Dorian was introduced as a distant relative of Robert-­Houdin's who had been disfigured in an accident and was therefore wary of being seen by people, who could be cuttingly cruel. Oh, how the chef understood the cruelty of men! The people who once adored him would no longer look upon his burned face and hands. The saving grace of his blindness was that he himself did not have to see what his once-handsome face had become.

The chef was the first person aside from Robert-­Houdin with whom Dorian had conversed. On one visit, the topic turned to food, as it often did. Robert-­Houdin went to the window to look upon the barren trees that swayed in the wind. Winter would be upon them soon. He sensed it would be his last winter in this world.

Robert-­Houdin's human son had recently died in the Franco-Prussian War, and the Hessians were threatening Paris. What more did an old man have to live for?

When he pulled himself out of his own thoughts and returned to the sofa, he realized that he had not been missed. Looking between the two outcasts, a flash of inspiration overwhelmed him.

“Martin,” Robert-­Houdin said. He rose out of habit, even though the chef could not see him. “I have had the most inspired idea. You and my relation Dorian are both men shunned by society through no fault of your own, and you both appreciate eating gourmet food.”

“Why must you bring up my failings?” Martin asked, holding up his burned hands. “I can neither see nor hold a knife. I must rely on the vile porridge and stews that wretched woman brings me.”

“Yet Dorian,” Robert-­Houdin said, “has the best eyesight of any man I have met, and is nearly as accomplished at sleight of hand as I. Would it not be possible for you to teach him to cook? He is looking for somewhere to live where he will not need to hide from people who look upon him unfavorably because of his disfigurement. In exchange for food and lodgings, he could cook and clean for you. I cannot imagine a more perfect plan.”

And so it was that one of the greatest cooks in France would teach Dorian Robert-­Houdin the skills that enabled him to become a gourmet chef.

The war brought challenges that year, but the Robert-­Houdin household survived by hiding from the Hessians in a cave. Having gotten his affairs in order, Robert-­Houdin passed away that summer, at peace.

Upon the old magician's death, the family unlocked his studio. Everyone was disappointed to find no great creation waiting for them. What had the man been working on all those years? His mind must have left him.

The family was less surprised by a trifling fact of far greater significance. Upon Robert-­Houdin's death, his friend Viollet-le-Duc came to pay his respects. He asked if he could see the magician's stage props. Since the architect was not a magician competitor, Robert-­Houdin's family saw no harm in allowing an old friend to visit his studio. They didn't expect the elderly architect to erupt in a rage when he could not find the gift he'd given his friend years before. No matter, they thought to themselves. They were sorry for his grief, but could he really have expected that his friend would keep his atrocious gift? When the architect began raving and asking questions, claiming that Robert-­Houdin had been an alchemist, they set him straight and politely asked the man to leave.

Forty

“I want to tell
you something, too,” I said. “So please, don't go.”

Max stepped back to give me space, but took my hand in his. I smelled jasmine as he ran his index finger along the life line of my palm, even though I knew his Poet's Jasmine wouldn't be blooming again until summer. “I'm glad you're feeling better after your melt-down the last time I saw you.”

Meltdown?
I steadied my breathing. As much as I wanted to tell Max the whole messy, unbelievable truth, I'd been overly optimistic that I could tell him everything. He wasn't ready to believe me. Not yet. “Hey,
meltdown
is a bit harsh, don't you think?” I forced a laugh. “There was a search warrant for my house, so I was entitled to a freak-out.”

“Fair enough.” Max laughed along with me. “What were you going to tell me? After I told you that embarrassing story of how I met Chadna, you know you can tell me anything.”

I couldn't, though. If he thought my talking about a living gargoyle was a meltdown, he'd certainly have his own meltdown if I convinced him it was true. But he was still straddling that line of what he'd let himself believe. One day soon, I hoped he'd be ready. And in the present, it was still true that I didn't want Max to leave. He understood what it was like to lose a loved one under tragic circumstances, and I needed to open up to someone about Ambrose. The memories that had bubbled to the surface were too distracting, and talking with Tobias was no longer an option, since Tobias mistakenly thought he knew Ambrose long after he'd died. Max was who I wanted to talk to, and there was a lot I could tell him that was true. All I had to do was leave out irrelevant details that wouldn't have fit with his understanding of the world.

The sound of melodious guitar chords and a booming baritone continued in the background, lulling me into a sense of safety I hadn't felt in years. Even though the people around me didn't understand all of me, I was surrounded by people who cared for me, and who I cared for.

“It's not only my brother I lost,” I said. “There was someone I once planned on spending my life with. I never talk about him either. Until this week, I kept his photograph hidden inside an old notebook. But you're right. When we try to forget them, we're not fully living in the present. I want to tell you about him.”

I pulled free from Max's hand. I didn't want him to be able to sense the difference in my pulse when I changed irrelevant facts that would make him question my recollection. As an excuse, I opened a glass mason jar filled with chocolate ginger cookies. I offered one to Max, but he declined. I ate the chewy cookie quickly, barely tasting it. Dorian would have been appalled. He also would have been appalled that I detected a hint of bitterness in the cookie.

“Ambrose was a fellow gardener and herbalist,” I said, choosing my words carefully. “Until I met him, I had never really gotten over my brother's death. Not the fact that Thomas died, but the fact that I couldn't save him from the virus that killed him.” It was the Plague that had killed my brother in 1704. Dumb luck that a small outbreak swept through France while we were there, and a dumber sister who thought seeking a cure in her alchemy lab could be more useful than simple loving care. “I got him the best care I could, but I should have been there with him.”

“You thought you could be a miracle worker with your herbal remedies. I understand the impulse to save everyone, especially those we care about. But I wonder if I could have done something differently that day with Chadna, so I understand how you can still blame yourself.”

“I traveled around for several years after that.” For over 150 years, if I wanted to be precise. Which I didn't. I ran from my apprenticeship with the Flamels, ran from my alchemy research, and ran from myself. I traveled through the Far East and the fledgling United States of America.

I carried only one satchel, though in my unhealthy state even the single bag was often burdensome. I'd abandoned alchemy when Thomas died, so I was no longer encumbered by the tools of an alchemy laboratory. My bag contained the bare essentials for creating tinctures, tonics, balms, and salves, along with a few items of dirty clothing, a dusty blanket, and stale bread. I walked in the one pair of shoes I owned, with my gold locket around my neck, and kept several gold coins tucked into a hidden pocket. Only in winter did I travel with dried herbs. Throughout the rest of the year, I found plants to work with wherever I went. They were there, if you knew where to look. After many years, I found myself back in France.

“After I got tired of traveling,” I continued, “I went to work at my grandmother's shop in Paris—the shop I now run as my online business Elixir. Ambrose was English, but I met him there in France. What are you chuckling about?”

“Ambrose, such an old-fashioned name. I was smiling because it suits you so well. You've always struck me as wiser than your years.
Immortal
.”

I froze.

“Doesn't the name Ambrose mean ‘immortal'?” Max continued.

“It does.” I relaxed, but I felt my hands shaking. To cover up my nervousness, I absentmindedly bit into another cookie. The meaning of his name was one of the reasons Ambrose had been intrigued by alchemy in the first place. “Ambrose was an aspiring gardener when I met him. You would have been horrified by his sad garden. But he wanted to learn.”

One day in the 1890s, when I was bringing an herbal remedy to an ailing household outside of Paris, I came across a striking figure. He wasn't the most handsome man I'd ever seen, but there was something that drew me to him. Something beyond his thick black hair, dark blue eyes, and gently crooked nose.

Next to a cottage along the dirt path, a man was kneeling in the dirt next to a row of unhealthy salsify. The spectacles that adorned his face shone in the sunlight. I watched as he ran a hand through his unruly black hair. Despite the failure of his
potager
, his face showed contentment instead of the frustration I expected. I couldn't resist setting him straight about caring for his struggling garden.

Just as I had never excelled at alchemy involving metals, Ambrose had never been good with plants. Yet he never gave up. In spite of years of failure, he continued to keep a range of plants in his garden and struggled to keep them alive. That was Ambrose. Never giving up. Until the end. We were at once opposites and the perfect complements to each other.
I can't believe I'd have forgotten you, but do we know each other?
Those were the first words Ambrose had spoken to me, on that first day of our acquaintance, when he caught me pausing to look at him.
No,
I replied,
but I know that poor salsify plant you're strangling the life out of. May I show you how to care for it?
After that, we had never left each other's sides.

“Even though I was always good with herbal remedies and healing others,” I continued, “I didn't start taking care of myself until I met Ambrose. That's when I began eating the healthy plant-based foods I eat today, to heal both my body and soul. It was a whole new way of life for me, and it was wonderful for a while. Until—” I needed a moment to compose myself. “Until Ambrose killed himself.”

“I'm so sorry, Zoe,” Max said gently. “The look on your face. It's guilt. You look like you blame yourself for his death too.”

“Part of me does.” I stopped myself from saying more. That Ambrose had gone insane after hearing that his son Percival had died of old age. He couldn't deal with the weight—the curse—of living indefinitely, so he ended his life.

“When someone takes their own life,” Max said softly, “it's about them. Not you.”

“That doesn't make it any easier.”

“No, it doesn't,” Max said, a look of understanding dawning on his face. “That's why you spent most of your twenties on the road.”

My twenties
. “That's part of it.”

“Are your parents still alive?”

I shook my head. “I lost them a long time ago.” I'd lost them long before they died. When I didn't adopt the norms of our time and was accused of witchcraft, they didn't support me. If it hadn't been for my brother, I would have been killed before my seventeenth birthday.

“I'm sorry, Zoe. You're so young to have lost so many people.”

“I'm not so young, you know.” Why had I said that out loud?

“I know. You've been through so much more than most people your age. But … ”

“But what, Max?” I tapped my foot nervously on the linoleum floor. Why was I so jumpy?

“We're at such different places in our lives. You're just starting out in life. Portland is a fresh start for you. I don't want to hold you back.”

“If you're trying to say you're too old for me, I don't care that the age listed on your driver's license is greater than mine.” Nor did I care that I'd been born before his great-great-great grandparents.

The older I get, the more I've seen how after adolescence, it's our physical bodies that age us and constrain us. Shared experiences give people within a generation an affinity for each other that makes it easier to connect. While that's a real connection, it's also a superficial one. Aside from my relationship with my brother, all of the other meaningful relationships I've had in my life have been with people—and a gargoyle—who've had vastly different life experiences from mine. Different ages, classes, languages, races, religions, nationalities, occupations, passions. The more I saw people's superficial differences, the more I learned those things weren't important.

In alchemical terms, our bodies are the salt that ages, our spirits are dual-faced mercury that changes with the times, and sulfurous fire is the key to our souls across the ages. Our soul is our true self, regardless of age or history.

One of the reasons I didn't mind falling out of touch with true alchemists was that they often lost sight of their souls. The older some alchemists got, the easier it was for them to abandon their humanity. I sometimes wondered whether I didn't look hard enough for Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel because I feared it had happened to them.

Thinking of them made me fidget even more. That was unlike me. Though I'd been more scattered than usual as I desperately sought out Dorian's cure, my alchemical training has taught me how to focus.

“I wonder if I've been selfish,” Max said. “You're only twenty-eight—”

“I'm
not
twenty-eight.” I clamped my hand over my mouth, horrified by what I'd admitted.

I looked at the cookie jar. The label on the jar had been typed up on the antique typewriter Dorian used to make the labels I insisted on. These weren't ginger chocolate cookies. They were
coffee
and ginger chocolate cookies. I'd just ingested several cups worth of caffeine.

Max frowned at me. “Are you okay, Zoe?”

“This has been great! Hasn't this been great? Opening up to each other.” The caffeine was making me manic. Would it act like a truth serum? I had to get Max to leave before it made me say something I couldn't undo. I took Max's hand and pulled him toward the back door.

“You're trying to get rid of me? What did you mean you're not twenty-eight?”

“Just like you were saying earlier, that I'm an old soul, from everything I've gone through.”

“Okay … ” His furrowed brow said otherwise.

“Old Soul! That's a great name for a band, don't you think? I should suggest that to Tobias and Brixton. They're so talented, don't you think?”

“Your hands are sweating. Are you sure you're okay?”

“It's later than I thought. I should get back to my guests.” I pulled open the back door. “You should go.”