Read Online Alchemy and Meggy Swann by Karen Cushman - Free Book Online
Authors: Karen Cushman
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, Girls & Women
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is and it cannot be another thing? Is it not as God made it and none other?"
He sighed and marked a place in his book with his finger. "All substances are composed of the same matter," he said. "Their differences are due to the presence of different qualities imposed upon them, such as redness or hardness or coldness. By taking away those qualities, I hope to isolate the prime material of a substance, and then, by adding other qualities, to transform its very essence."
Meggy's brain swirled. "Just what is that you say?"
He pulled at his earlobe once, twice, three times before continuing, "It is simple. Add cold, and water turns to ice. Heat it, and it becomes water again. In the kitchen raw dough turns to bread when heat is applied." He gestured to a bottle of red powder. "So too does cinnabar change. Heated, it turns to mercury, a silver liquid. If I could discover how to remove the liquidity from the mercury, it would harden and become silver."
"And how would that make a person immortal?"
"It would be a step, err, mistress. Silver could then be transformed to gold, and gold is the perfection of metal. So too is immortality the perfection of life. With every experiment, I make progress and am closer to what I seek."
Meggy remained unpersuaded, but over the days she saw small transformations. Dark, brittle flakes of metal were turned into vapor by heating and were made solid again by cooling. She boiled water until naught remained but a fine grit; the water had turned into earth, the master said. She watched as heat applied to the red powdered cinnabar produced silver mercury, just as he had told her, and yellow powdered sulfur turned black. Master Peevish looked less peevish when his mixing and measuring gave him the results he wanted. "Now, by my faith, this is a most welcome surprise," he said as a heated metal released white solids and red smoke. And "'Tis wondrous, is't not?" when a powdered gray substance began to glow.
Meggy saw naught she thought perfect or immortal or gold, but she continued to help in the laboratorium, where at least she was warm and occupied and not alone.
Each day the master sent Meggy for salt, for sulfur, for something. She was most slow at these errands and often had to stop and rest, but he did not remark, nor perhaps even notice, her lagging. If he remembered to give the girl coins to pay for provisions, she used a penny or two to buy bread or sausage or apples, for he gave little thought to food, so engaged was he in his Great Work. The food she took him often dried and spoiled in the heat of the laboratorium, and Meggy added it to the river of refuse in the street.
To her surprise, mighty London proved small and cramped. Hither to yon, wall to wall, was but a short distance, shorter than the distance from her mother's alehouse to the river. Even so, her hands grew rough and sore from holding the sticks. Her arms ached, and her legs, but the busy and colorful London streets often diverted her. The city was a minglement of great houses next to small, shops next to gardens, churches by stables and kennels by inns. Ballad sellers sang, hawkers hawked, horses and carts and coaches hurried by. A hodgepodge it was, a hurly-burly, but she began to grow accustomed to the crowds and the refuse and the reeky gutters.
Sitting by the warm furnace working the bellows, she often found herself singing the ballads she had learned from her gran. And that is what she was about one day when church bells began their clangor.
"Is't midday already?" Master Ambrose asked, wiping his hands on his gown. "Hie you to the apothecary for a measure of antimony."
"Anon, sir, I be—"
"Now," he said. "Quick away."
She stood. "Master Wormwood says you are a man of skill and vision, but he will extend no more credit, for we are exceedingly in his debt. 'Pence,' quoth he, 'not promises.'"
Master Ambrose huffed and gestured to a shelf by the door. "Take coins from yon copper pot and give them to the thieving
He sighed and marked a place in his book with his finger. "All substances are composed of the same matter," he said. "Their differences are due to the presence of different qualities imposed upon them, such as redness or hardness or coldness. By taking away those qualities, I hope to isolate the prime material of a substance, and then, by adding other qualities, to transform its very essence."
Meggy's brain swirled. "Just what is that you say?"
He pulled at his earlobe once, twice, three times before continuing, "It is simple. Add cold, and water turns to ice. Heat it, and it becomes water again. In the kitchen raw dough turns to bread when heat is applied." He gestured to a bottle of red powder. "So too does cinnabar change. Heated, it turns to mercury, a silver liquid. If I could discover how to remove the liquidity from the mercury, it would harden and become silver."
"And how would that make a person immortal?"
"It would be a step, err, mistress. Silver could then be transformed to gold, and gold is the perfection of metal. So too is immortality the perfection of life. With every experiment, I make progress and am closer to what I seek."
Meggy remained unpersuaded, but over the days she saw small transformations. Dark, brittle flakes of metal were turned into vapor by heating and were made solid again by cooling. She boiled water until naught remained but a fine grit; the water had turned into earth, the master said. She watched as heat applied to the red powdered cinnabar produced silver mercury, just as he had told her, and yellow powdered sulfur turned black. Master Peevish looked less peevish when his mixing and measuring gave him the results he wanted. "Now, by my faith, this is a most welcome surprise," he said as a heated metal released white solids and red smoke. And "'Tis wondrous, is't not?" when a powdered gray substance began to glow.
Meggy saw naught she thought perfect or immortal or gold, but she continued to help in the laboratorium, where at least she was warm and occupied and not alone.
Each day the master sent Meggy for salt, for sulfur, for something. She was most slow at these errands and often had to stop and rest, but he did not remark, nor perhaps even notice, her lagging. If he remembered to give the girl coins to pay for provisions, she used a penny or two to buy bread or sausage or apples, for he gave little thought to food, so engaged was he in his Great Work. The food she took him often dried and spoiled in the heat of the laboratorium, and Meggy added it to the river of refuse in the street.
To her surprise, mighty London proved small and cramped. Hither to yon, wall to wall, was but a short distance, shorter than the distance from her mother's alehouse to the river. Even so, her hands grew rough and sore from holding the sticks. Her arms ached, and her legs, but the busy and colorful London streets often diverted her. The city was a minglement of great houses next to small, shops next to gardens, churches by stables and kennels by inns. Ballad sellers sang, hawkers hawked, horses and carts and coaches hurried by. A hodgepodge it was, a hurly-burly, but she began to grow accustomed to the crowds and the refuse and the reeky gutters.
Sitting by the warm furnace working the bellows, she often found herself singing the ballads she had learned from her gran. And that is what she was about one day when church bells began their clangor.
"Is't midday already?" Master Ambrose asked, wiping his hands on his gown. "Hie you to the apothecary for a measure of antimony."
"Anon, sir, I be—"
"Now," he said. "Quick away."
She stood. "Master Wormwood says you are a man of skill and vision, but he will extend no more credit, for we are exceedingly in his debt. 'Pence,' quoth he, 'not promises.'"
Master Ambrose huffed and gestured to a shelf by the door. "Take coins from yon copper pot and give them to the thieving
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