Fifteen

I gave Ivan an excuse and made a hasty departure. I needed to think, and I knew the perfect place to do so. I went on a long slow ramble to Lone Fir Cemetery, named for the single tree growing in the cemetery when it was founded in the 1840s. Since then, nature has become as much a part of the graveyard as anything else, with hundreds of trees creating a serene atmosphere for contemplation.

The Victorians held many beliefs I disagreed with—such as the prevalence of dresses that made it nearly impossible to walk through a room without knocking things over let alone breathe—but their view on cemeteries mirrored my own. A calming atmosphere with well-tended landscapes and remembrances of loved ones provided a perfect setting for a thoughtful walk or picnic. In a cemetery, there was no rush. You could think about people past and present without the burdens of the outside world.

Ivan had clearly crossed the line from passion into obsession. I’d done that myself once, so I couldn’t blame him. It was how I’d found the Elixir of Life without realizing I’d done so. I was obsessed with finding a cure for the plague that had afflicted my younger brother, and I’d foolishly wasted his last days. I hadn’t listened to Nicolas or Pernelle about what was possible, nor did I heed their warning that I would regret it if I didn’t spend time with Thomas making him more comfortable before he died.

I remembered that raw emotion well, so I knew there was nothing I could say to Ivan to make him believe he was approaching alchemy incorrectly and that his time would be better spent with his friends or writing his book.

Jasper Dubois had never listened to me either, but for different reasons. What had happened to him all those years ago?

I’d walked for only ten minutes, but the serene cemetery no longer felt peaceful. Death is one thing, but not knowing what happened to someone was another. Without consciously realizing where I was going, I walked out of the cemetery and found myself heading to Hawthorne Boulevard.

Blue Sky Teas was half full—much less crowded than it had been two months ago. Still the same was the weeping fig tree that stretched to the high ceiling in the center of the teashop, and the thick tree-ring tables that filled the cozy space.

It was partly my fault the teashop wasn’t doing the brisk business it had been. I was Dorian’s front, so while I was sick and then gone in Paris, he wasn’t able to supply home-cooked treats for the teashop. Dorian baked vegan pastries in the teashop kitchen before dawn, but everyone thought it was me who was the chef who got up early to bake while they slept. I can transform herbs into healing remedies, but it’s Dorian who’s the culinary alchemist, transforming basic ingredients into decadent feasts. When “I” was unable to bake because of illness or travel, there was no way to explain fresh-baked treats showing up when the teashop opened.

The other reason for the drop in business was the fact that the owner, Blue Sky, was in jail for a past crime that we all wished hadn’t resulted in prison time. Blue created teas and decoctions that rivaled anything I’d tasted in Munar, delighting the senses and healing the body and soul. She was due out soon, but in the meantime our friend Heather Taylor was running the teashop.

Heather stood behind the counter this morning. Her teenage son Brixton sat at a corner table next to a man with dark brown skin, long black hair, and a tattoo of interwoven metal bars winding up his neck. At first I wondered why Brixton wasn’t at school, but then I remembered summer vacation had begun. His wealthy friend Ethan was organizing a fifteenth-birthday trip to London that summer, paying for his friends to attend.

“Zoe!” Heather called out. “Welcome home.” The words warmed my soul. It wasn’t a one-sided feeling that this was my home. “One second, then I’ll introduce you to Abel.” She turned back to the customer at the counter, but at the sound of his name, the dark-haired man sitting with Brixton looked up, as did Brixton. So this was Brixton’s stepfather. He worked out of town a lot of the time, so I hadn’t met him yet.

Abel stood and extended his hand. It was calloused and his handshake firm. “The famous Zoe Faust. Thanks for looking after Brix. He’s been telling me all about your garden. I know he started helping you in the garden so you wouldn’t press charges after he broke in, but it’s been really good for him. Thank you.”

Brixton rolled his eyes.

“How could anyone resist the lure of the neighborhood haunted house that someone was finally moving into?” I said. “I don’t blame Brixton. If the tables had been turned, I might have broken into your house to see what was going on.”

“So can we change the subject or something?” Brixton said. “I didn’t think you were coming back so soon from your trip to visit your grandmother’s friend in Paris.”

I hoped Brixton wasn’t paying enough attention to notice the flush I felt on my cheeks. I’d forgotten how close the lie I’d invented for my last-minute trip to Paris was to the truth I’d discovered, though Madame Leblanc couldn’t rightly be called a “friend.”

“The visit wasn’t what I imagined it would be,” I said truthfully.

“Well, I’m glad you’re back,” Abel said. “This way I get to meet you.” He moved a banjo from a chair to make room for me.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Brixton said. “Abel brought it back for me. Did you bring me back something cool from Paris?”

Abel elbowed Brixton. “Manners.”

“What?” Brixton said. “Isn’t that what people do?”

I smiled. I could already tell that Abel was a good influence on Brixton. He wasn’t Brixton’s biological father, but they held themselves in a similar way. Abel actually looked like he could have been Brixton’s half brother. He was in his twenties, a few years younger than Heather, who wasn’t quite thirty. Without her then-boyfriend’s support or her family’s blessing, Heather had dropped out of high school when she became pregnant with Brixton at fifteen. Whenever Heather’s flaky behavior frustrated me, I reminded myself that her father had left the family when she got pregnant, never to be seen again. I hadn’t seen my own family since I was sixteen, so I knew how difficult that could be.

“Not hungry?” I asked, looking at the half-eaten sandwiches on the table.

“Mom thought of getting fresh herbs for tea,” Brixton said, “but she forgot about making sandwiches at lunchtime. So she’s making mint and basil baguette sandwiches.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s your fault, Zoe. Not only were you gone so we didn’t get fresh food, but now that I’ve eaten Dor—I mean, your cooking, I can’t stand these premade sandwiches she picked up for behind the counter.”

Able shifted his position so the weeping fig tree would block him from Heather’s view. “We’re going to get out of here in a little while to get some real lunch,” he said quietly, a conspiratorial grin on his face.

Something was different about the setting. It wasn’t just the people and food. Had the tree been trimmed? No. It was the paintings that now hung on the walls. I recognized the style.

“Heather’s new art is remarkable,” I said.

Brixton shrugged, and a look of pride spread across Abel’s smiling face. “She sold two of them the day she hung the series on the wall,” he said.

“I can see why,” I murmured.

In contrast to Brixton’s mom’s bubbly personality, she used unusual colors of paint to create dark and deep images. In her latest series, she’d added metallic accents to black, brown, and green forest landscapes. The gold and silver peeked out of the trees like eyes watching the viewer.

These new paintings were close-up studies of women’s faces, but there was more to them than portraiture. The reflections in the eyes and the wrinkles on the skin each told their own stories, as if transforming from one meaning to another as the viewer looked more closely. In the painting closest to me, the reflection showed a raven in flight, and a crease on the woman’s cheek was two simple line figures dancing.

“I think Mom needs help with the lunch rush,” Brixton said to Abel. “Would it be cool if you helped her so I can catch up with Zoe?”

It didn’t look very crowded to me, but Heather was taking orders and grabbing premade sandwiches from the display cabinet. Abel tousled Brixton’s hair and stood up. “Glad you’re not too cool to think of your mom.”

Once Abel made it to the counter, Brixton hunched his shoulders over the table and spoke softly. “I didn’t really expect you to have brought me a gift from Paris, you know. That was just part of my cover, pretending like you were on vacation with your grandma’s friend like you told everyone.”

“That’s what you wanted to tell me privately?” I whispered back.

“Nah. Did Dorian tell you what’s up with Ivan?”

“Yes. About that, it’s a terrible idea.”

“Why? You don’t care about what we learned?”

“I already know that Ivan is obsessed with alchemy. You need to distance yourself from him. Desperate people can change.”

“Yeah. Whatever. Fine. But that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“It’s not?”

“No. It’s not just me and D keeping an eye on him. There’s a creepy guy spying on Ivan.”