Alchemist Academy: Book 1 Read online

  “No, it misted and turned into a white stone.”

  Mark winced and rubbed his eyes. “There’s something you need to know, Allie.” He sounded as if he was about to dish out a lecture.

  I set down the book Wool on the shelf and waited to hear what I needed to know.

  He opened his mouth and raised a pointed finger….

  “Mark,” a woman’s voice called from below.

  He closed his eyes for a second and moved close to me, then put a hand on my shoulder and his perfect face moved near mine. My thoughts went wild in preparation for a kiss, but his lips landed close to my ear.

  “Don’t trust my mom,” he whispered. “And don’t make another thing for her.”

  “Mark, get down here now. I know you’re up there.”

  He turned from me. “Coming, Mother.” He stood and watched my face.

  My mouth hung open. Flirting was one thing, but this was just weird. Don’t trust his mom?

  Mark opened the hatch and climbed down the ladder. Through the opening, I peered past him to Ms. Duval standing below. She had her arms crossed, but when she saw me looking she smiled and waved.

  “Hello, Allie. I hope Mark was being appropriate.”

  “He was a perfect gentleman,” I called back to her.

  Mark shook his head as he took the last steps off the ladder. When he reached her, Ms. Duval whispered into his ear. Then she said, “Allie, I like to get to know all of Mark’s friends. Could you please join us for some tea?”

  Mark took a step behind his mother and shook his head, mouthing the word no.

  His words hung around in my head. Don’t trust my mom. “I think I’d better be getting back to my house.”

  “Very well, but I won’t take no for an answer next time. After all, we’re neighbors and I think we’re going to be seeing a lot of each other.”

  Mark waved to me. “To be continued. Remember what I said.”

  Ms. Duval put a hand on his shoulder and nudged him away.

  Janet was pissed.

  School had been canceled today because of some electrical fire. I knew she relished the time she had by herself, and with my dad gone for most of the year, she had plenty of it. I wasn’t even sure where he was, maybe the Middle East?

  “You’re going to have to watch Spencer,” Janet said.

  “Mom, I’m ten now. I can watch myself.”

  She patted his head. “The big one-oh.”

  “I can watch him,” I said.

  “I wasn’t asking,” she spewed. “I’ll be gone for a few hours and when I get back, I expect your chores to be done.”

  I stopped my eyes from rolling. Janet hated that. “Yup.”

  “Only Spencer is allowed into the fridge or the pantry.”

  He smiled. It gave him some power over me, being the one who knew the combinations on the locks.

  She knelt close to his face. “If anything happens, sweetie, call me on my cellphone.” She frowned at me before she left.

  With Janet gone, Spencer went into the kitchen and worked the combination lock on the refrigerator. He hovered over the lock so I couldn’t see it. I left the kitchen and went to the backyard, anything to get away from his snotty face. I stared at my first chore of the day: cleaning the mess left over from the party.

  I clutched a vinyl Star Wars tablecloth and pulled it free from the tape holding it down. At least they didn’t want to save it all; I could destroy it as I tore it all down. Spencer would never have the same themed party two years in a row.

  The pile of trash grew as I grabbed, yanked and tore down their celebration remnants. Even his wrapping paper lay on the grass, next to the careless people’s red cups.

  “That’s a serious mess.”

  I jumped back from the voice and clutched my chest. “Jeesh, you scared me.”

  “Did I?” Ms. Duval said over the fence. “How about that tea?”

  Mark’s voice pounded in my head. Don’t trust her. “I’ve really got to clean this stuff up.”

  “I told you I wouldn’t take no for an answer the second time.” Her stern face left no room for arguments.

  I put my hands on my hips and glared at the paper wrappings and plates scattered around the yard. How much trouble could there be in tea? Maybe Mark would be there. “Let me get Spencer set up.”

  How to keep a ten-year-old busy? First I set up his video games on the big family room TV, then I gave him an invitation to come to the backyard and help clean up if he wanted. With Spencer definitely not coming to the backyard, I left the house.

  Ms. Duval was still standing behind the fence, her head peeking over. I walked toward her, and when the fence opened, she was standing on the other side.

  I stopped. “I didn’t know we had a gate back here.”

  “I can’t have you climbing over fences, now, can I?”

  I tentatively stepped through the opening and entered her backyard. It was about the same size as mine, but the grass was overgrown except for the strip leading to the broken-down mower. Ms. Duval shut the gate and I jumped at the noise.

  “Please, let’s go to the dining room.”

  I followed her into the house and took a seat at the table. The house looked mostly empty, save for a few open boxes scattered around. She brought out a pitcher of iced tea and poured me a glass.

  “Thank you.” I took the glass. “Is Mark here?”

  “He’ll be home soon.”

  I sipped the tea. Cool and refreshing. I drank more and looked around the room. A few boxes were unpacked, and a full hutch stood next to door way to the dining room. Beakers and vials lined its shelves. I took another sip and studied the different objects, many I remembered from the cart she had brought to school.

  “You like it.” Ms. Duval stood and walked over to it.

  “Another one of your chemistry sets?”

  “I’m not a chemist.”

  “Oh, I thought Mr. Briggs said you were.”

  “He did. I just didn’t correct him. It’s impolite to correct people in their houses.”

  I nodded and kept studying the displayed items. “What are you, then?”

  “I’m an alchemist.”

  “Like, you’re trying to create gold?”

  She laughed—a pleasant laugh that I was shocked to hear.

  “Some do, but not me. I’m more interested in the achievable goals. Like what you did in school yesterday.”

  “What do you mean? I just mixed two ingredients together. I didn’t even choose what they were.”

  “Then why didn’t the experiment work for any of the other students?”

  “They must have done different things than I did.”

  “Why don’t you tell me about the iPad you broke yesterday?”

  I stood up from my chair. “How do you know about that?”

  “I spent a bit of time at the party yesterday with your stepmom. She blamed it on your inability to wrap a gift properly. She’s a wretched woman, isn’t she?”

  Maybe Ms. Duval wasn’t so bad. I sat back down. I was sure Janet had gone on and on about what a fool of a stepchild she had, who couldn’t even wrap a gift without creating a disaster.

  She continued, “But that’s not how it broke, is it?”

  “I don’t know. I just held it and it broke.”

  “Were you feeling anything the moment it broke?”

  I looked at my hands and then back at the door. I couldn’t look her in the eyes, but I felt her stare. “I was mad,” I blurted out.

  “This isn’t the first time your anger has caused things to happen, is it?”

  I thought about the sidecar falling off. “No.”

  “What if I told you only one in a hundred million people can do what you did yesterday?”

  “I’d say you’re crazy.” There goes my mouth again. I hoped I hadn’t offended her.

  She smiled coolly. “You have a gift, and I suspect, a very strong one. If you like, I can show you something.” She opened the door to the hutc
h and pulled out a couple of vials and a mixing bowl with a spoon. She placed them on the table in front of me. The bowl looked like a large metal salad bowl with a long wooden spoon sticking out of it.

  “Certain people, special people, can infuse their emotions into matter. It appears you have that gift.”

  I raised an eyebrow and checked the tea in my glass. Maybe she’d laced it with something. I couldn’t have heard her right.

  “Okay, I can see you’re skeptical.” Ms. Duval raised an eyebrow and I squirmed in my seat. She pushed the bowl closer to me. “Just mix these two ingredients while you think of something that makes you angry, and I think you’ll see exactly what you’re capable of when you put your mind to it.”

  “Just pour them in this bowl and mix?”

  “Yes, but you must focus your anger into them for it to work properly. Is there a strong memory you can summon to make yourself angry?”

  “I think I can find one.” Or a hundred.

  Curiosity moved my hands to the vials. Blue liquid in one and clear in the other. I shifted in my seat and lifted the vials above the glass bowl. I took a deep breath and thought of Janet and Spencer last month on my birthday. They’d thought it funny that no one knew it was my birthday until a letter came from my dad. Keeping the letter from me, they’d laughed while I chased Spencer around the kitchen, trying to get it from his hands. I screamed when he tore it into pieces.

  I poured the liquids into the bowl and stirred the spoon around, creating a maelstrom. It bubbled and swirled. White mist filled the bowl. Ms. Duval leaned over and blew. I coughed at the fumes and waved them away from my face.

  She raised the bowl in her hands. Her eyes went wide as a round blue stone about the size of an egg rolled around, then she adjusted her expression back to a sweet smile and placed the bowl on the table.

  I looked at the blue stone, settling at the bottom of the bowl, and reached my hand in.

  “Don’t touch it!”

  I nearly fell off my chair. Ms. Duval grabbed the bowl.

  “You have to be more careful. These things are … delicate.” She pulled a cloth from the hutch and used it to pick up the blue stone. She dropped it into a penny purse, then snapped it shut.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I noticed you’ve taken a liking to my son.”

  I choked on some of the tea I’d just sipped. “Yes, well, we only just met.”

  “I can tell he likes you.” She smiled and sat down across the table.

  He liked me? I’d picked up on his little flirtations, but hearing another person say the words made me feel all warm inside. I smiled and took another sip of tea.

  “Why, I haven’t seen him look this healthy in weeks. I should thank you.”

  “What do you mean? Is there something wrong with him?”

  “Oh, I thought he might have told you. Please don’t let him know I said anything. He’d be mortified, I’m sure.”

  I frowned at Ms. Duval and looked to the door, hoping Mark would arrive and I could look at him, inspect him. “I didn’t notice anything wrong. He looks ridiculously fit, actually.”

  “He feels if he keeps himself strong and fit, his body will be better at fighting the disease. We’ve kept it bay for so many years, but it’s a losing battle.” Ms. Duval wiped her eyes.

  “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. What do the doctors say?”

  “They said to make him as comfortable as I can and give him as normal of a life as possible. I just thought you should know before you get too involved.”

  She made it sound like he was dying. I leaned forward and set my glass down. My hand started shaking. “There has to be something we can do. What’s it called? I can Google it. I bet there are alternatives.”

  Ms. Duval leaned forward and set her glass on a coaster. She whispered, “There are things that can be done, but—”

  “What’s going on?” Mark interrupted.

  I jolted upright in my chair and wondered how much he’d heard. He breezed into the room wearing a thin black shirt and jeans. I scanned his body, searching for something to show me what the problem was. His eyes narrowed and he looked from me to his mom.

  “Honey, you’re home early,” Ms. Duval said. She shot me a look with a slight nod of her head.

  “Hey, Mark. Your mom invited me over for tea.” I grabbed my glass and took a sip, but I kept my eyes on him. He looked as healthy as anyone I’d ever seen. Could this be what Mark had been talking about with his mom? Was she lying as a tactic to keep me away from Mark?

  He looked at me for a second with hints of anger dancing at the corners of his eyes and mouth. Guilt swept over me. He had told me not to trust her and here we were, having tea.

  He glared at his mom. “I told you to leave her alone.”

  “We were just having a friendly chat.”

  “I think I’d better get going,” I said.

  Mark took the glass bowl off the table. He gazed at me and sighed. “What did you do?”

  “I just mixed a couple of vials together.”

  He took a deep breath and scowled at his mom. She held his gaze with contempt and I felt years of tension built up between them. They locked eyes and I held my breath, waiting to see who’d look away first. Mark gave in and gripped the edges of the bowl with his white-knuckled hands.

  “I’m going to go,” I said.

  “Come on, Allie. I’ll walk you home.” He set the bowl on the table and gave it a spin before giving his mom one more sharp look.

  Before the bowl stopped spinning, I was out of there. In the backyard, Mark stopped next to the fence and put a hand on top of it.

  “I thought I told you not to trust my mom,” he whispered.

  “She wouldn’t take no for an answer. It was just tea until she busted out a chemistry set.”

  “Alchemy.”

  “Whatever.” I fumbled around with my hands. I wanted to ask him about his illness and why he hadn’t told me. Was it even real?

  “I’m sorry.” He touched my arm. “But there’s something you need to know about my mom, and I think about yourself. She can change things … create stuff from other stuff.” He took a deep breath. “What did she have you do in there?”

  “I created a blue stone.”

  “Did it have white swirls around it?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  He ran his hand through his hair, messing it up, but he still looked hot. “You made something she couldn’t, something most people can’t.”

  I shook my head and frowned. “What are you trying to say? Is your mom some kind of witch?”

  “No,” he whispered. “She’s got the touch, just like you, but she barely has it. She wasn’t good enough at the academy and they booted her.” He glanced back at his house. “She’s more than pissed about it.”

  “Okay.” I dragged out the O. “Well, I’ve got to get going. Hope you and your mom have had fun messing with me.”

  Mark stepped closer. “I’m not messing with you, but I don’t want you to come over here anymore. It isn’t safe. She’ll use you again.”

  What I heard was, “I don’t want to be with you.”

  “Fine.” I stood in front of the fence and searched for the gate opening.

  He grabbed the top of the fence and pulled it open. Bowing, he swayed his arm toward the door, granting me entrance to my own yard. I started to walk through the gate.

  “This doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you again,” he said.

  I stopped and turned back to him, smiling. “I’d like to see you as well.”

  “Listen, I’m sorry for losing it back there, but if you knew what my mom does to people like you….”

  “Use my magical powers to make stuff. I get it.”

  He laughed. “It wouldn’t be so funny if you knew how close you are to the truth. I tell you what, I’ll see if I can prove it to you tomorrow at school,” he said.

  “You’re going to Summerford High?”

  “Yeah. Did yo
u think I was some kind of dropout?”

  “No, I just … I don’t know what I thought.” The words clogged in my throat and terrible thoughts raced through my mind. With his looks, he’d be swallowed up in a second by the Dolls, but if he was with me… Excitement spread through me. With Mark at my school, things were going to be interesting.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” was all I got out.

  Janet drove us to school the next day, while the bike and sidecar were being repaired. She said she’d expect me to do extra chores until every cent was paid back. I didn’t argue the demand. What would be the point? Besides, I was searching for a particular face among the throng of students moving around in front of the school.

  I didn’t see him out front as I left the car.

  When I entered the school, hubbub filled the main hall: the clatter of lockers and shifting feet. I tried to walk tall, looking over the heads of the underclassmen walking around. Mark was tall enough to stand out in the crowd, but I didn’t see him anywhere. After a while, I felt foolish for looking and walked to class.

  “Hello, Allie,” Mr. Briggs greeted me from behind his desk.

  “Hey,” I said.

  It was a few minutes before class was supposed to start and only a few kids were in the room. As I scanned their faces, some glanced up at me, but not one made an attempt at a human greeting. Tommy leaned back in his chair and gave me a nod with a look that belonged in a selfie. His tight sports shirt clung to him as he flicked back his blond highlighted hair.

  Mr. Briggs asked, “Allie, what did you do on fire day?”

  “Oh, nothing much.” I just made some blue stone in a glass bowl for some weird alchemist witch.

  I darted to my desk at the back of the room.

  As each person walked into the room, I perked up with anticipation, only to be let down when they weren’t Mark. Then the Dolls strolled in, led by Bridget. She was wearing short shorts and a tight T-shirt with the words Grand Tetons stretched across her chest. I pulled my eyes away from the glaring attention grab and watched her shoes step toward me: white slingbacks with a pink bow near the toes. Who wears heels with short shorts? But dammit if she didn’t pull them off.

  She raised an eyebrow and glanced at me before she swung around into the seat two in front of me.