the Earth Science Building was limestone and granite, surrounded by a green lawn, spreading oaks, and tall pines. Bedivere University nestled just north of the center of town, an old, relatively small private school. A strong emphasis on arts and humanities doubtless accounted for the low enrollment. A shiny new science building was in the planning stages, but I would miss the cozy anachronism of the present one.
The chemistry lab lay on the second floor, up the stone steps and through a rabbit warren of plaster and paneled hallways. We found the room and peered in. It wasn’t much different from the high school–rows of slate-topped lab benches, each with a sink and a gas spigot. (I’ll bet the college kids were allowed to use theirs, though.) It was bigger, and had more equipment along one wall, as well as a computer workstation where a woman typed diligently.
“Dr. Smyth?”
She looked up. “Miss Quinn?”
“Maggie,” I confirmed. “This is my friend, Justin MacCallum.”
The professor was about my mom’s age, with some of the same no-nonsense demeanor. Dr. Smyth had flaming red hair and a wildly curving figure not really hidden by her lab coat. She picked up a piece of paper and gestured us over, her expression serious. “Before we begin, I have to ask. Did Professor Blackthorne put you up to this?”
I blinked in surprise. “No ma’am. I asked him for help.”
Dr. Smyth subjected me to an exaggerated scrutiny, then clicked her tongue and nodded. “All right then.” She laid the paper on a meticulously neat lab bench. “What you have here, Miss Quinn, is a rather fragrant potpourri of organic compounds, amino acids, and a few minerals.”
I scanned the list, as indecipherable as the foreign symbols in my dream. A couple of the suffixes rang a bell, though. “Ethanethiol and methanethiol? Those wouldn’t be, ah, putrescine and cadaverine, would they?”
“No. Those are from the sulfhydryl group.” Dr. Smyth sounded a little pissed, so I tried to prove I wasn’t an idiot wasting her time.
“Dr. Blackthorne mentioned the thiols. Rotten egg smell.”
“Yes. And swamp gas and cabbage. Skunk odor, too. Down here—” She pointed to two lines on the printout I wasn’t even going to try to read, let alone pronounce. “Those are the two smelly little buggers that cost me a steak dinner.”
“You bet a steak dinner on putrescine and cadaverine?”
“What would you have bet?” she asked curiously.
“That I might never eat meat again.”
Justin had been reading over my shoulder. “I’m guessing those names are fairly descriptive?”
“Oh yes.” Dr. Smyth explained with relish. “Both are released by the breakdown of amino acids during the putrefaction of animal tissue. In small amounts, they are present in living flesh as well, but we only notice them when things die and start to rot.”
“Nice,” I said, ready to move along. “Sulfur, sulfuric acid …”
Justin took the sheet from my hands. “That’s green vitriol. It was a standard ingredient in alchemy formulas.”
“Exactly,” said the professor. “You see why I thought Silas might be pulling my leg. Especially with this one.” She pointed to the list. “Artemisia arborescens L. Tree wormwood.”
“Wormwood?” I asked. “Where have I heard of that before?”
“You may have heard of absinthe.”
“There’s a biblical reference, too,” Justin added. “And C. S. Lewis used it as a name for a junior demon in The Screwtape Letters.”
That all sounded familiar. “Isn’t it a poison?”
Dr. Smyth shook her head. “Not this variety. It comes from the Middle East, and was brewed into a medicinal tea.”
Justin spoke thoughtfully. “In Russian folklore, the literal translation for the plant is ‘bitter truth’ and it’s associated with a spell to open the eyes of deluded people.”
Dr. Smyth gave him an odd look and I explained, “His thesis.” She nodded like this clarified everything. Maybe to another academic, it did.
I took the list back. “What’s Cinchona officinalis?”
“That’s where your fluorescence comes from. Quinine.”
“Quinine?” Boy, which one of these was not like the others. “Like, for preventing malaria?”
“Yes. It’s another organic compound. It binds to the blood cells so tightly that the malarial parasite cannot.”
My mind was spinning, drawing a strange sort of picture. I flipped over the printout and sketched a flat, vaguely bowl-like shape. “Let’s say I’m an alchemist.”
“Okay,” said Dr. Smyth, in a humoring-the-nutcase sort of voice. “Why are we saying that?”
What could I say that wouldn’t get us tossed out of her lab so fast we bounced? She already suspected that Professor Blackthorne had set her up. I glanced at Justin, but he was no help. My next accomplice was going to be a much better liar.
“I’m working on a project.” Dr. Smyth continued to gaze at me, bemused. “A creative writing project,” I said with sudden inspiration.
The corner of her mouth lifted. I still got the feeling she was humoring me, but she said, “Okay, I’ll bite.” She leaned her elbows on the lab bench and looked at my drawing. “Is that your cauldron, then?”
“It’s more of a brazier. For a fire, you know?”
“Does it matter?”
“Certain metals may be reactive with your potion.” She seemed intrigued now. My dad was the same way, a sucker for an intellectual discussion, no matter how off the wall. “I assume that’s where this exercise is headed.”
I took up the gauntlet. “Say I start a fire, then add sulfur, which burns blue, right?”
“Yes.” Dr. Smyth gave me a quizzical look. “But what purpose does it serve? It can’t be just for aesthetics.”
I considered the question. Professor Blackthorne is my favorite teacher, but chemistry is not my strongest subject. “Fire supplies the energy for the chemical reaction, right? What if the sulfur—or brimstone, since we’re thinking like alchemists—is meant to evoke the energy of the earth?”
“Or of Hell,” Justin added. I frowned at him, but he didn’t back down.
Dr. Smyth nodded. “Right.” She wrote “Fire and Brimstone” on the sketch and then, “Energy source.” “If we allow for supernatural in your plot, then we allow for Hell.”
“Can’t we leave that out of the equation for the moment?” I could rationalize alchemy. It was, in its way, a science. “ ‘Hell’ sounds so melodramatic.”
“Let’s say the power of the underworld for now,” said Dr. Smyth, writing it in parenthesis. “That covers the physical and spiritual possibilities. Now, what are we trying to accomplish with our spell?”
Their eyes went to me expectantly. I had been chewing on the idea for a while, but it was a struggle to voice. Talk about melodrama. “A curse. We’re trying to curse someone.”
Justin held my gaze for a silent moment. It was the first time I had acknowledged out loud that this wasn’t a random spirit or undirected supernatural event. The thought that someone could have meant to kill or injure Karen or Jeff was an uncomfortable one.
“Excellent!” The professor continued with a brisk enthusiasm that drew me back to humor. We bent over the table to watch her scribble notes. “Wormwood—the bitter truth. We want to teach the cursee a lesson. The quinine …”
“It binds to the blood,” I said. “Binds the curse to the victim.” A thought distracted me: Or binds the servant spirit to the summoner.
Dr. Smyth continued. “Right. Putrescine and cadaverine. Well, those are harder.”
“Not really,” said Justin. “Eye of newt, toe of frog. Or whatever else is handy.”
Dr. Smyth looked at him. “But why? Literary tradition? If the character goes to the trouble of putting this formula together, everything must have a purpose.”
“A burnt offering,” he suggested.
“Toe of frog?” she scoffed. “Not much of a sacrifice.”
I straightened. “Decay is a kind of breaking down. Maybe we’re trying to break down our victim, reduce him.”
Dr. Smyth tapped the pen. “Seems a bit of a stretch metaphorically.”
“So is ‘bitter truth,’ ” I protested.
“That has a folklore precedent. But then, so does eye of newt and toe of frog.” She jotted down “newt & frog.” “But of course, it’s your story, so you can write it any way you want.”
Didn’t I wish.
She and Justin squabbled amiably over what icky rotting things could be added, for what metaphorical or alchemical purpose. To Dr. Smyth it was an academic exercise, an amusement, and for a little while, listening to them, I let myself think of it that way, too.
But I realized what she didn’t. The organic compounds, the nasty ones, didn’t have to be part of the formula. They could be intrinsic to the thing that the spell had called.
I thanked Dr. Smyth again as we left. “I appreciate all your help.” We stood at the door of her office and I had the printout, with all our notes on it, folded in my hand.
“Not at all,” she said. “I enjoy an esoteric puzzle, now and again. Good luck with the project.” It took me a blank moment to realize she meant my very fictional fiction assignment. She pushed her hands into the pockets of her lab coat and continued. “The main thing to remember is that the supernatural has rules, just like the natural world. You simply have to figure out what they are.”
“Right. Well. Thanks again.”
We turned to go, but her voice called me back before we’d gone more than a few steps. “Maggie?”
“Yes, Professor?”
“I’m still curious. This substance that seems to have inspired your story. You never said where you came across it.”
“The school gym,” I said, because I was out of lies.
“Hmm.” Her expression was doubtful, but she let it go. “Well, that would definitely convince me to wear flip-flops in the shower.”