Episode 2: The Panacea

THE SCIENTIST: Experiment 31E, supplemental notes.

Date: September 18, 1843.

As I mentioned previously, I am refraining from further experimentation until I find a suitable replacement for my current formula. In pursuit of this new goal, I visited Solomon and Rahul’s establishment in Manchester earlier today.

It was…an intriguing meeting to say the least. I don’t usually like to waste my notes on unnecessary details of my day-to-day life—this is no journal, after all, it is an aid in my scientific endeavors—but what occurred today merits recording. It was…eventful, even though the Boy does not seem to agree with me. But he didn’t see what I saw, didn’t hear what I heard…

Now, my skills in the area of social interaction are…lacking, quite frankly, and I frequently fail to understand the intricacies of people’s behaviors in conversation. I was mostly raised apart from the world, my mother always worried… But I know there was something odd about what happened today. Something that could force my hand regarding my experiment…

It all started when I responded to Solomon’s letter. He wrote to me weeks ago about a new panacea he wanted me to see. So I sent the Boy with a response last week, informing Solomon I would be in town soon and planned to drop by to see his latest acquisition.

The Boy came back with Solomon’s response, which was an eager affirmative, but…the Boy mentioned Solomon had appeared startled when he arrived with my letter. More than startled, the Boy said Solomon had looked nervous. Why would Solomon look nervous when speaking with the Boy? The Boy is hardly intimidating. He’s just a boy—or man, I suppose. He only just turned eighteen. Or is about to turn eighteen…or something. I don’t remember. H-how am I to keep track of ages and dates when there are far more important things to be focusing on? For all I know the Boy isn’t even aware of his real age—I know plenty of lower-class individuals who are unburdened by the knowledge of their own birthday. Many can’t even read or write…although, the Boy can read and write—he signed his name on the contract when I hired him. His education is limited, but he seems to catch on to things with a greater speed than I would expect…still, neither his intellect nor physical form would cause someone to be nervous. He’s the same height as I am, and I dare say his build is even slighter. How he can shovel coal into the boiler with arms like twigs I’ll never understand. He has a good-natured face, a mop of brown hair, and wide blue eyes that give him a look of naïve innocence. As my mother used to say, he’s the sort of person you could spill soup on, and he would apologize to you. The point is, no one, on the face of this Earth, would ever feel unease in this boy’s company. I often avoid interacting with my maid or groundskeeper unless absolutely necessary, yet the Boy—I don’t entirely mind his presence. And the first time Solomon met him, Solomon practically cooed over him, offering him tea and biscuits, forcing an old scarf on him to keep him warm. Solomon and Rahul adore the Boy, even though he’s wary of the business they preside over.

I couldn’t think of one reason why Solomon would be nervous. The Boy suggested that, since I had taken a long time to reply to the letter, Solomon had simply not been expecting a response, and it was merely shock coloring their interaction. I accepted this explanation at the time, willing to disregard my initial suspicion.

But that would change later.

We—the Boy and I—took my personal coach to Manchester this morning. Solomon’s official shop is a jewelry store—he offers an impressive collection for those who care about such things. A couple women stood outside, gazing at a diamond necklace through the window. Seeing their bonnets and bright dresses, I became briefly self-conscious about my own garb. The Boy never remarks on it, on how I prefer to wear suits in men’s styles—trousers, top hat, and all. The one time he mentioned anything was when he told me a story about seeing pit brow lasses working at a coal mine in trousers. I suppose that was his way of saying he didn’t mind, that he’d seen women out of proper dress before. But it’s one thing to wear such while performing manual labor or working at my own estate, where almost no one will see me. It’s quite another to strut around the streets of Manchester in them. But as I passed the women and made my way into the shop, the Boy at my side, the women bowed their heads slightly in respect.

I think they thought I was a gentleman. My hair was bound up and hidden beneath my hat, my figure draped beneath my coat. All they saw was a man with his servant, perhaps there to purchase jewelry for a wife or daughter.

Solomon looked up from the counter when we entered, an ornate brooch with copper inlay in his hands.

“Miss Trafford,” he said when he saw me. There was no one else in the shop, but I imagine he wanted to keep up formalities in case someone walked in. Solomon and I never concerned ourselves too greatly with proper forms of address or behavior—intricate social rituals fray our nerves. We prefer a more straightforward approach, a more personal one, referring to each other by our given names.

But still I extended him the respect of a formal greeting, nonetheless. “Mr. Abrams,” I said with a nod, doffing my top hat and tucking my cane under my arm. I wondered if the ladies outside the widow were still there, peering in, if they were reconsidering their initial assessment of me.

“And John!” Solomon said, turning to the Boy. “Wonderful to see you again. How’re your parents?”

“Well enough, Mr. Abrams,” the Boy said.

“And your sister?” Solomon went on. I tried to not act surprised that he knew the Boy had a sister. I had forgotten this fact—not that Solomon knew, but that the Boy had one. I thought he had brothers…

“About the same, sir,” the Boy said.

At this point I’d grown weary of this back and forth, but I couldn’t help but notice the way Solomon fiddled with the brooch in his hands.

Nervous.

“Lovely brooch,” I said. “Is it for sale?”

Solomon stopped fiddling. His face reddened slightly, as if realizing I’d noticed what he was doing.

“Custom piece,” he said. “It’s a mourning brooch. A woman lost her daughter to consumption.”

He tilted the brooch toward me for a better look. What I had mistaken for a copper inlay was actually red hair, artfully arranged into the shape of a flower.

“I didn’t realize you worked with hair, Sol,” I added pointedly.

The corner of Solomon’s lip quirked, but his jaw tensed as well. “I work with a lot of different materials, Vic.”

I leaned over the counter toward him. “Can we move this along?” I asked, my patience for formality long since stretched thin.

He placed the brooch back onto the counter and motioned with a jerk of his head to the door behind him. “C’mon, Rahul’s been waiting for ages.”

“Well, if you didn’t insist I play an ordinary customer every time I come here—”

Solomon cut me off with a laugh, opening the door to the back room for me and the Boy to follow him through. “I wouldn’t call you ordinary in any way, Vic.”

The back room had no windows, lit only by a few candles and oil lamps. The shift from the bright sun shining through the windows in the front of the shop to the dim shadows in the back marked more than a change in lighting. Display cases of gold and silver embedded with precious jewels were replaced with bookshelves of ancient tomes, strange herbs hanging from the ceiling, and wards and pentacles painted on the walls in rusty red. Other shelves held the tools of the trade—on one side there were cauldrons, mirrors, and crystals for the more witchy sorts, and on the other were alembics, retorts, and crucibles for alchemists like Solomon and Rahul. Some tools overlapped—and some beliefs too. A shared devotion to the occult frequently brought both types to Solomon and Rahul’s door.

I have no interest in magic. I place my faith in science, in tangible proof. But many of these instruments were useful despite their dubious nature.

The Boy did not like this part of the shop. His shoulders tensed as we entered, his hands balled into fists. He could abide the stranger aspects of my work because it had no basis in the supernatural. But all this…he could not ignore symbols meant to evoke spirits and foreign gods.

I always offered to let him remain with the coach when we came here, but he insisted on staying by my side. I never can persuade him otherwise.

Rahul was sitting at a desk, poring over a fragile scroll of parchment that appeared as if it would turn to dust at any moment. He wore a pair of thin white gloves, no doubt to protect the delicate artifact. He looked up when Solomon closed the door behind us.

“Corvino!” he shouted at me, always preferring my middle name. His accent—a Cockney as thick as the London fog—I will not attempt to mimic here, not even in the name of science.

Rahul jumped out of his chair and held out his hand for me to shake. Then he turned to the Boy. “Johnny!” Rahul said and proceeded to pick him up, embracing the Boy. Rahul, though, is about a head taller than him, which left the Boy’s legs dangling in the air like a ragdoll’s.

Once Rahul put the Boy back down, he clapped a hand on the Boy’s shoulder with a wide grin that I’ve seen before—it never leads to anything good.

“Johnny, we had a cat make a nest out back in some rags,” Rahul said. “Just gave birth to a whole litter last week. One of them’s got two faces. Wanna see?”

The Boy glanced over at me. “Two faces?” he asked. I think this question was meant for Rahul, but he was still looking at me when he asked.

“Yes, two faces,” Rahul said. “Like the god Janus.”

“Ianus,” I corrected, his Latin pronunciation vulgar.

“I’ve heard it both ways,” Solomon chimed in.

“The point is,” Rahul said, overly loud to drown us out, “there’s a cat with two faces out back. Probably won’t live much longer. I’m surprised it’s lived this long. Oddest thing I’ve ever seen, and you know I’ve seen some odd. Johnny?”

The Boy looked at me again, asking permission.

“You may go see it,” I told him. I’d seen a similar peculiarity occur with a calf once. It died within minutes. If this cat was able to survive a whole week, it was even more remarkable. But I had more important things to do than waste my time staring at freaks of nature. The Boy, however, was of no use here. It was for the best that he go elsewhere, to ease his anxiety over being among those practicing the dark arts.

Rahul led the Boy out the back door, leaving me alone with Solomon. I noticed Solomon’s hands twitch, tensing to form fists like the Boy’s had when he’d entered this room.

Nervous.

“Rahul will be right back,” Solomon assured without looking directly at me.

“I thought he was going to show John the cat,” I said.

“He will,” Solomon said, “but then he’ll be back. I think John will prefer to stay out there, though. He can visit the cats for as long as he’d like.”

This room I stood in had never bothered me in the past. It had never felt ominous, never too dark, not even when physically in shadow. But in that moment I shivered, perhaps seeing for the first time that sinister air the Boy had seen many times before.

Solomon had wanted the Boy out of the way. He wanted him gone for whatever was about to happen.

“Where’s this panacea you mentioned?” I asked.

“Rahul’s got it,” he said. “Let’s wait for him to come back in.”

Strength in numbers. Two against one. What was he playing at?

I thought Solomon preferred to be straightforward, like me. Why was he prevaricating like this?

“Did you hear about that uprising in Athens?” he asked me suddenly. “I was reading about it in the Observer. Of course, the Observer was against the rebels,” he continued. “Although…my father says the Observer used to be more radical…up until the Peterloo massacre.”

I eyed Solomon curiously—why was he attempting small talk? He was clearly stalling. But he had piqued my interest.

“Peterloo massacre?” I asked. “I don’t think I’ve heard of that before.”

“Happened here in Manchester, back in 1819,” he explained. “At St Peter’s Field. A peaceful gathering of reformers, asking for proper representation in parliament. The cavalry was sent in—people died. But then, some of the protestors fought back. Took down some of the soldiers, but that only made it worse. The government cracked down even more on political radicals and anyone opposing the status quo. They shuttered the Observer at first, then opened it back up with new government-approved members in charge. Some other paper tried to start up—the Guardian I think it was called—less radical than the Observer but still too much so for parliament’s liking. They were shut down pretty quick. Kinda like that uprising in Athens. Shame, really, that it didn’t work. That King Otto seems like a piece of work, but with allies like his…the soldiers who turned on him could never have stood up against the likes of La Grande Armée.”

I hummed in agreement with Solomon. I had been keeping up with the news, but my eye was usually drawn to notable discoveries in science and geography. I cared little for politics.

My mother, though, had always been obsessed with reading the latest news from around the world. She followed every development with rapt attention. I used to watch her read the newspaper, her brow knit in concentration. Sometimes she frowned, sometimes she cried. I never understood why she would cry over the news. Each event—from monumental to minor—seemed to affect her.

I remember one time, maybe ten years ago, she read a poem. And she sobbed so violently. It wasn’t a sad poem. It was by…who was it? Shelley, I think. His latest at the time. My mother wept, and when I asked her what had made her cry, she had merely said because it exists… I suppose the mere existence of beautiful art was enough to cause strong emotion, but I’ve never seen anyone else respond in such ways. Everything affected her so deeply. I can only imagine what she would have thought of Ross’s discovery of the Icy Barrier…or the evolution of my own work…

But it does nothing to dwell on that.

I have far greater concerns than what my mother would have thought of world events.

Solomon’s stalling stopped when Rahul returned. The Boy was still outside, with the kittens, Rahul explained. It was just the three of us, alone.

Rahul and Solomon exchanged a look then stared at me. Solomon’s hands clenched and unclenched at his side. Rahul’s shoulders were tensed, he bit at his lower lip.

Nervous.

“The panacea,” I said—demanded.

“Of course, yes!” Rahul rummaged in a cabinet and pulled out a small vial. Slowly, carefully, he held it out to me. “Here it is.”

I stared at the vial. It was filled with a dark liquid, black with a green tinge. Rahul held it out far from his body, gripping it with just the tips of his fingers. He was still wearing the thin white gloves from earlier.

“What’s in it?” I asked, not yet taking it from Rahul’s outstretched hand.

“We’re not sure,” Solomon said. “That’s why we were hoping you would take a look at it.”

“But our man Wardlow says it healed someone who was on the brink of death,” Rahul said.

I’d never met Wardlow, but I’d heard them speak his name before. A fellow alchemist, someone they trusted.

“Was it Wardlow who claimed this comes from Dippel’s stores?” I asked.

“Oh, that,” Solomon said with a laugh—a breathy, jittery one. “It was what Wardlow had heard, but none of us really believe it. Probably just someone trying to sound impressive…”

I hummed an acknowledgement. “This person Wardlow cured, what ailed them?” I asked. “Was the liquid applied topically, orally?”

Solomon and Rahul exchanged looks again. In the dim light I could barely see the color rise to Solomon’s cheeks.

“I don’t remember,” Solomon said. “I’ll have to ask him. But you could take a look at it in the meantime.”

Rahul extended the vial toward me even further, his long arms stretching to their fullest. His sleeve inched up, revealing a black symbol on his wrist, inked into his brown skin. A tattoo. A circle inside a square inside a triangle, all inside another circle.

I took a breath then grabbed the vial.

When my fingers touched the glass, I felt…the strangest sensation. I felt as if two people had grabbed me, one on each arm, and had tried to pull me in twain. My vision blurred, doubling. It was as if I could see two worlds. Solomon and Rahul both gained a twin, overlapping each other. One was what I had seen a moment ago, the other…quite different… But it was only for a second. Less than a second. As the weight of the vial shifted from Rahul’s hand to mine, my double vision righted itself. I no longer felt pulled in two directions.

I was there in the shop, same as before, holding the vial firmly in my fist.

Solomon and Rahul both stared at me, and I stared back at them. Their expressions were blank, but their bodies were taut, like a violin string wound too tightly.

“Is everything…all right?” Solomon asked, hesitant.

“Of course,” I said, forcing my voice to remain calm. “But I have a very busy day. Rahul, please call John back inside, it’s time for us to depart.”

Rahul brought the Boy back into the room, the Boy adjusting his coat around his chest, pulling it tighter as if he were freezing. Could he feel the cold tension in the room? Had it manifested itself tangibly? I felt chilled to my core, and I knew it had nothing to do with the temperature.

I bid Solomon and Rahul farewell, keeping my words civil but terse, leaving as soon as possible. The Boy and I returned to our coach, and I instructed the coachman to bring us home.

The Boy sat across from me, holding his coat shut tight, staring out the coach’s window.

“Are you well?” I asked him.

He glanced at me, startled. “Of course, ma’am. It was a bit chilly out where the cats were, is all.” He studied my face a moment. “Are you well, ma’am?”

“Of course,” I lied. He didn’t need to know the details of what had transpired. He didn’t need to know what I saw when I grasped that vial. I touched where it sat now, tucked inside my vest.

The Boy’s open, honest face continued to stare at me. He didn’t believe me, but he nodded anyway. “Of course, ma’am. Glad to hear it.”

“Right,” I said. I looked out the window, watching the town go by. “I thought you had brothers,” I pondered aloud.

I could feel the Boy’s curious gaze on me, but I kept my sights on the buildings and people passing by.

“Two step-brothers,” he said. “And a sister—by blood.”

“Oh yes, that’s right,” I said. “Are they in Manchester?”

The Boy kept watching me. I did not look at him.

“My sister, yes. My brothers are in Ashton under Lyne,” he said.

“Working in the mills?” I asked.

“Started off as carders, same as me,” he said. “Haven’t seen them in a while. Not since…it’s been about two years,” he concluded.

The same amount of time he’d been working for me.

“Do you miss working with cotton?” I asked.

The Boy snorted. “I don’t miss the mills, ma’am. I’d been thinking about getting out already when you made your offer. Considered going to sea, maybe signing on with a whaling ship. Or becoming a stoker for the Royal Navy.”

“Have you ever been to sea before?” I asked.

“No, ma’am,” he said. “But it seems like it might be nice. Fresh air—no more choking on smoke—”

“If you’re a stoker, I think you’ll still be choking on smoke,” I said.

“True, true,” he said. I could see him nodding out of the corner of my eye. “But at least I’d get away from it sometimes,” he said. “See places I’d never go otherwise. I thought about signing up for the Discovery Service, you know, explore the poles. They give you double pay.”

“They pay double because you’re more likely to die,” I said.

“You can die just as easily in Manchester,” he said.

I tore my gaze away from the window, looking at him. He stared back with that annoyingly good-natured face, a stoic calm to his expression.

“I suppose,” I said.

“I think it would be better to die in the Arctic than in the city,” the Boy said. “At least I’d get to go out seeing towers of ice and big white bears rather than chimneys and the sludge of the Irwell.”

“I suppose,” I said again. I hadn’t really thought about how I might like to die. I had spent far more of my mental efforts on imaging how to undo death rather than how to embrace it.

The Boy shifted his shoulders uncomfortably under my unwavering gaze. “Just my thoughts on it, ma’am,” he muttered, pulling his coat ever closer.

“Did Solomon and Rahul seem odd to you today?” I asked him.

The Boy cocked an eyebrow. “No more than usual, ma’am.”

The Boy knew Solomon and Rahul well. Apparently quite well. He visited them more frequently than I did, going to them to replenish my stores of different tools and ingredients. I have sent him numerous times with a list of specific needs when it wasn’t necessary for me to go in person. He would know if they had been acting strangely. Although, he had not been there when I took the vial.

“They seemed…nervous,” I said, using the same word he’d used before.

The Boy shrugged. “Maybe they were worried you would laugh at them about the panacea.”

“Maybe,” I said. But I knew it had been more than that. I looked back out the window again.

The Boy and I didn’t talk for the rest of the ride home. He hadn’t seen what I’d seen, he hadn’t felt what I’d felt when touching the vial. It’s sitting before me on my desk as I speak. I have tried not to touch it again with my bare hands. I have had no other bizarre effects from its presence, but there is something unusual about this vial, this supposed panacea. Solomon and Rahul know it too.

Why did they give it to me? Why do they think it will help with my experiment?

I will investigate its properties tomorrow. And I will see if it is the missing ingredient I have been looking for, or if there is something else at play here…