Read The Alchemist's Door Online
Authors: Lisa Goldstein
The Alchemist's Door (3 page)
As time passed the feeling of safety grew, and over the next few days he began to allow himself to remember that terrible evening, the memories he had forced away for so long. The afternoon session had gone well that day, and Dee, excited by the progress he and Kelley had made, had urged Kelley back upstairs to his study after supper.
He had built up the fire against the chill September air. The cloth, the wax tablet, the showstone, all had been set out that afternoon, and they needed only to pray before beginning. Kelley bent his head over the glass.
“The angel Madimi comes to me,” Kelley said. “She is dancing in her frock of changeable colors.”
“Why has she come?” Dee asked.
“She wants to see you.”
“And I want to see her.” Suddenly Dee felt all his loneliness and frustration and desire, and he asked, “Why can't I? Will I ever be able to?”
“She says, âYour sight is more perfect than his,'” Kelley said.
“More perfect than whose?”
“Mine. She is pointing toward me.”
Dee's heart leapt. “But when will I be able to see her?” he asked again.
Kelley ignored him. “Will you, Madimi, lend me a hundred pounds for a fortnight?” he asked.
“Master Kelley!” Dee said, horrified. “You cannot ask the spirits for money. God will give us what is necessary.”
Kelley fell silent. “Go on, man,” Dee said. “What does she say? What do you see?”
“Nothing. I see nothing.”
Dee sighed. Kelley frequently stopped in the middle of his visions, out of weariness or frustration or just sheer stubbornness. “Ask her when I can see her,” Dee urged. “Please.”
Kelley hesitated a moment and then said, “I know a spell ⦠.”
“What?”
“Remember I told you I found an old alchemical manuscript buried in Glastonbury? It contains a spell for summoning angels.”
“And this spellâwill it allow me to see them?”
In response Kelley began to recite: a gibberish of English and Latin and nonsense syllables. Suddenly the table shook violently. The showstone jerked and rolled toward the edge; Dee made a grab for it and by a miracle managed to catch it before it smashed to the ground.
A smell filled the room, something unpleasant, like a noxious chemical. A loud babel of voices spoke, then stopped, then spoke again.
Then suddenly the room was silent, the table steady. Was it over? “Can I see angels now?” Dee whispered.
“Hush!” Kelley said. “What is the price for knowledge?”
“What do you mean?”
“What is the price for knowledge?” Kelley said again, much louder this time. “How much will you pay? Anything?”
Was this part of Kelley's ritual? Would he pay anything? To know, to finally see the angels ⦠.
Another part of his mind told him to stop, to say nothing. There was something wrong with Kelley's question, something he would understand if only he had time to think ⦠. But Kelley importuned him again. “What price?”
“Anything,” Dee said quickly, before he could change his mind.
“Good,” Kelley said. “The angel comes to me. You will see him soon.”
Kelley's voice changed, grew deeper. That had never happened before. “It is all useless,” he said. “Hopeless. Nothing you do can make any difference. You cannot protect them.”
“Protect whom?”
“Anyone. Anyone you love.”
“Master Kelley!”
The door to the study opened, and his two-year-old daughter Katherine came in. She took small uncertain steps to the middle of the room. “Katherine, please,” Dee said. “You mustâ”
He never finished. The voice, whatever it was, left Kelley and entered Katherine. She began to laugh, in the same deep tones Kelley had used. It sounded terrible, coming from a child. “You cannot protect, for example, your daughter,” she said.
As Dee watched, terrified, she tottered toward the window.
She slammed her tiny hands against the glass, over and over, until the window shattered outward. She grasped the windowsill and pulled herself upward, ignoring the shards of glass lacerating her palms.
She slammed her tiny hands against the glass, over and over, until the window shattered outward. She grasped the windowsill and pulled herself upward, ignoring the shards of glass lacerating her palms.
She was going to jump. They were three floors from the ground. Dee cried out and leapt toward her. “You cannot stop me,” Katherine said in the horrible voice. “I will kill your daughter. I cannot be stopped. You can only run away.”
He grabbed her by her middle and pulled her back. She laughed again, but now Dee noticed that there was a look of torment on her face, as though she were trying to escape whatever had hold of her. He held her tightly. She slumped in his arms and her eyes closed.
“Katherine,” he said. “Katherine, are you all right?”
She opened her eyes and began to cry. Was she still possessed? Her cries, at least, sounded normal. What had thatâthat thingâbeen? Not an angel, that much was certain. A demon.
He tried not to shudder, tried not to tear himself away from her. She cried out something in the baby-talk that he could not understand, though Jane could, and he relaxed a little.
In the days that followed, though, he began to think that the demon was still with them. Sometimes he smelled its foul odor, or saw something move out of the corner of his eye. Objects fell to the floor with no one near them, and once, terrifyingly, a pewter mug flew across the room and hit the opposite wall.
After a while he realized that these things only happened when Katherine was present. Sometimes she would jump at the loud noises, or burst into tears, but at other times she did not seem to notice the confusion around her. Dee did not know which would be worse, to know that a demon stalked you or to be taken over by it unaware.
He reread his diary and discovered to his horror a passage he had forgotten, from his very first session with Kelley on March 10, 1582. The angel Uriel had warned him of an evil spirit who, he said, “haunts your house, and seeks the destruction of your daughter.” They must exorcize him with brimstone, Uriel said; Dee could not remember if he had done so or not.
Now he filled the house with the dreadful smell. He read books, consulted friends, recited incantations. He brought all his knowledge, all his reading, to bear. Nothing he did helped. He asked Kelley, many times, what he thought had happened in the study, but the other man claimed to know no more than he did.
Then one morning he saw Katherine wander through the house, muttering in an impossibly deep voice. He took her by the arm and shook her. She turned to him, empty-eyed; he had the idea he could see her soul guttering out. “It is over,” she said in that eerie voice. “All gone. All gone wrong.”
Almost without thinking he had left the house, saddled his horse and ridden as fast as he could toward Prince Laski's lodgings. He would not stand by, powerless, and watch his daughter tormented. The demon had said that they could run away, and finally he realized that that was the only choice left to him.
Prince Adalbert Laski, a Polish nobleman visiting London, had invited Dee to go to Poland with him. Dee had never even considered the offer; he was happy in England, reading his books and doing his experiments. But when he reached the prince's lodgings he blurted out his acceptance, seizing on it as a sinner takes a holy relic.
Now, in Poland, he and Kelley rode out to Laski's estate a good deal, their horses moving stolidly through the flurries of snow. Dee's first, hurried glimpse had not told the whole story; several of the outbuildings stood abandoned and one entire wing of the castle had been closed off and allowed to fall
into ruin. There were few servants, and several times Laski had to wander through his hallways, calling out, before he found someone to serve them supper or build up the fire.
into ruin. There were few servants, and several times Laski had to wander through his hallways, calling out, before he found someone to serve them supper or build up the fire.
But the prince had enough money to agree to become Dee's patron. “Thank God,” Jane said when Dee told her the news. She had not complained, but Dee knew that she had been worried at how quickly their money disappeared on the journey.
A month later the angels were still telling Laski that he would be king, but there was no further news for him. The prince grew impatient, even angry, and once or twice he shouted at Kelley when the angels refused to tell them anything more. By this time Dee had discovered he needed certain books for his research, and he decided to move on to Cracow with his family and consult the university there. At the back of his mind was the slightly unworthy thought that in Cracow he and Kelley would not have to see Laski as often.
Cracow was a jumble of buildings old and new: Gothic churches, sculptured Italian facades, the university, a fortress. Dee barely saw the city, barely ventured outside the house they had rented, not even to go to the university as he had planned. For once Kelley was in a good humor, and Dee hastened to take advantage of it, spending hours closeted with the other man, both of them bent over the showstone.
They received only good advice; Dee became certain that they had left the demon behind. The angels assured them once again that Laski would become king, and gave Kelley cryptic instructions for making the Philosopher's Stone, and told Dee what herbs he should take for the winter illnesses that had not yet left him.
In fact there was good news wherever he looked. Jane took him aside and whispered that she was with child again. If the
child was a boy he vowed to name him Michael, after one of the angels who appeared to Kelley in the glass.
child was a boy he vowed to name him Michael, after one of the angels who appeared to Kelley in the glass.
Spring came, and then summer. Dee hardly noticed. He felt renewed, felt the same excitement as when Kelley had first come to his door. They spoke with the little girl Madimi; Michael, the spirit of wisdom; Nalvage with his curling yellow hair. Then, on a night in late summer, Kelley looked into the glass and told Dee that he saw Jane lying dead, with her face battered in.
“What?” Dee said. “No.”
“Yes. Your wife is dead.”
“Noâdon't be foolish. I can hear her downstairs.”
“She
will
die, then. And so will your servant Mary, drowned in a pool of water.”
will
die, then. And so will your servant Mary, drowned in a pool of water.”
“No,” Dee said, unable to raise his voice above a whisper.
“Yes.” Kelley's voice grew harsher, deeper. He laughed. “And your friend in England, Henry Sidney. Dead, all dead.”
“No!” Dee said. “Stop it!”
“And your library burnedâ”
Dee slapped his hand over the crystal. Kelley wrenched his gaze away. He stared at Dee, his eyes unfocused. After a long time he said, “What? Whereâ”
“You are with me in Poland,” Dee told him.
Kelley nodded slowly. “And I saidâoh, my God. I said your wife would die.” He looked genuinely shocked.
“We must leave now. Quickly.”
“Why?”
“The demon. It's followed us.”
“How do you know?”
“Your voice changed. It was horrible. The demon's found us again.”
“God. What do we do now?”
“I don't know. Try once more to outrun it.”
“Can we? It found us hereâ”
“That's the only thing I can think of. We mustâwe must hurry, thoughâ”
“But where can we go?”
Dee hadn't thought. “Prague,” he said suddenly. “Emperor Rudolf invited me there once. He invited many peopleâscientists, astrologers, alchemists, mathematicians. The Alchemical King, they call him.”
“Alchemy,” Kelley said thoughtfully. “Then he, too, searches for the Philosopher's Stone.”
“So they say.”
“Good,” Kelley said. “Let's go.”
Dee went into the bedroom. It was not late, but Jane was sleeping; her pregnancy had begun to tire her. How could she possibly travel now? But there was no help for it.
Jane stirred and looked at him sleepily.
“I must leave again,” he said.
She woke fully and sat up, gazing at him with her level gray eyes. “Leave? But I cannot travel quickly in my conditionâ”
“It has found us again,” Dee said.
“What
has found you? You never told me what happened that night.”
has found you? You never told me what happened that night.”
“I called something upâ”
“You said we were safeâ”
“Hush. I said you and the children are safe. I'm the one it wants.”
“This is because of Kelley, isn't it? He's the one who summons those things, isn't he? I warned you about him from the startâ”
“Listen,” Dee said urgently. “You'll be safe here. It wants meâit comes only when I am present. Stay and continue on when you're ready. I will write you from Prague”
“Prague!” Jane said. “Are we going to Prague now?”
Dee looked at his wife. What had Kelley seen? He studied
her features as if memorizing them: the reddish blond hair, the gray eyes. Kelley had said that her face â¦
her features as if memorizing them: the reddish blond hair, the gray eyes. Kelley had said that her face â¦
Other books
Revenge in a Cold River by Anne Perry
Four of Hearts by Roz Lee
Elisha Magus by E.C. Ambrose
When You Walked Back Into My Life by Hilary Boyd
Shadow Games by Ed Gorman
Daughter of Darkness by V.C. Andrews
The Boy Next Door by Katy Baker
Hookup List by J. S. Abilene
A Love Affair with Southern Cooking by Jean Anderson, Jean Anderson