The Apothecary's Curse Read online

  Contents

  Prologue London, 1902

  Chapter 1 Chicago’s North Shore, Present Day

  Chapter 2 London, 1837

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10 Chicago’s North Shore, Present Day

  Chapter 11 London, 1837

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13 Chicago’s North Shore, Present Day

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15 London, 1837

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19 Chicago’s North Shore, Present Day

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21 London, Present Day

  Chapter 22 Bethlem Royal Hospital, London, 1842

  Chapter 23 London, 1842

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27 Chicago’s North Shore, Present Day

  Chapter 28 London, 1842

  Chapter 29 Chicago’s North Shore, Present Day

  Chapter 30 London, 1842

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33 Chicago’s North Shore, Present Day

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35 London, 1842

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41 Chicago’s North Shore, Present Day

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43 London, 1842

  Chapter 44 Chicago’s North Shore, Present Day

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55 Northern Highlands, Scotland, Present Day

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Published 2016 by Pyr Books®, an imprint of Prometheus Books

  The Apothecary’s Curse. Copyright © 2016 by Barbara Barnett. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopy­ing, re­cord­ing, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, ex­cept in the case of brief quotations em­bodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, organizations, products, locales, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover illustration © Galen Dara

  Cover design by Jacqueline Nasso Cooke

  Cover design © Prometheus Books

  Inquiries should be addressed to

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Barnett, Barbara (Barbara Shyette) author.

  Title: The apothecary’s curse / by Barbara Barnett.

  Description: Amherst, NY : Pyr, 2016.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016013613 (print) | LCCN 2016029865 (ebook) |

  ISBN 9781633882331 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781633882348 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Physicians—England—Fiction. | Pharmacists—England—Fiction. | Immortality—Fiction. | Historical fiction gsafd | GSAFD: Regency fiction | Fantasy fiction

  Classification: LCC PS3602.A77568 A66 2016 (print) |

  LCC PS3602.A77568 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016013613

  Printed in the United States of America

  To my soul mate and best friend, my husband Phillip Barnett.

  LONDON, 1902

  PROLOGUE

  “My dear friend, hold fast the doctrine: when all impossibilities are eliminated, what remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Nothing could be so improbable that I must now and forever address you as Sir Arthur!”

  Dr. Joseph Bell stood at the head of the dining table before twenty assembled guests, offering a robust toast to the guest of honor, his student and friend, the newly knighted Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in London for the first time since the honor had been bestowed on him. His confidante Jean Elizabeth Leckie was at his side.

  “Do tell, Sir Arthur,” Mrs. Wilder said with a giggle, “is it not true that our dear Joseph is in actuality your Sherlock Holmes?”

  “Indeed not, Mrs. Wilder!” The author twisted his mustache a bit more at each mention of Holmes’s name.

  Miss Leckie patted Conan Doyle’s arm tenderly. “My dear, your mustache shall soon be as fine as a strand of silk. Besides, you well know he is! They even smoke the same sort of pipe!” The entire table joined her in laughter, despite Conan Doyle’s protestations.

  “Ah,” interrupted Joseph, coming to Conan Doyle’s rescue. “Alas, I do not share Holmes’s preference for cocaine, nor does my mind crave the constant stimulation of work. I am quite at peace come Sunday afternoons with nothing to do but read the Times.”

  “I wish my consulting detective could rest in peace.” Conan Doyle scowled at Mrs. Wilder, as she inquired when a new Holmes story would be published. “Did you not read ‘The Final Problem,’ my dear Mrs. Wilder? Holmes died at Reichenbach Falls! However, since no one will allow him to be at his rest”—he sighed dramatically—“I can tonight announce a new adventure for the Strand come next year. ‘The Empty House,’ it is called!” Conan Doyle laughed, yet it was darkened with an unmistakable note of vexation.

  “But how should you have him come back, Sir Arthur?” Mr. Cranford inquired. “If he is indeed, as you say, dead?”

  “Do let us change the subject, Mr. Cranford.” Conan Doyle lifted his glass, taking a long draught of his wine, his eyes closed.

  Miss Leckie smiled. “Oh! I’ve something! Have you heard of that apothecary? Lentine is his name. In Covent Garden. The line to enter his shop goes on and on. Can you imagine?”

  “And why might that be, Miss Leckie?” Conan Doyle asked.

  “Why, his amazing Reanimating Mercuric Tonic, of course! To hear his patter, the medicine ‘shall restore life, even in the event of sudden death!’ Can you imagine? An apothecary, of all ludicrous things!”

  Mr. Cranford laughed. “They should hang them all, the thieving rogues. I’ve never met one I can trust, always trying to hawk the latest patent medicines.”

  Gaelan Erceldoune glared at Miss Leckie, his dark, mirthless eyes hard as basalt. Beside him, his companion, Joseph’s cousin Dr. Simon Bell, laid a calming hand on his sleeve, an urgent plea to forbear; Gaelan snapped his arm away.

  With a peevish edge to his voice, Gaelan steered the topic from the dubiousness of the apothecary trade. “What if your consulting detective cannot die?”

  Conan Doyle stared him down. “Whatever do you mean—cannot die?”

  Simon worried a loose thread in his linen napkin, his hands knotted with tension.

  “Yes,” Gaelan continued, ignoring Simon’s disquiet. “Well, after Reichenbach, Holmes is, of course, presumed dead, his body not found. Unsurprising, given the terrain, but I assume your new story finds him quite well. Might you not suggest, therefore, that Holmes’s invulnerability extends beyond the intellectual—that he, in fact, cannot die by any natural means, improbable though it may seem? Already, you have toyed with the notion—your Sorsa in ‘The Ring of Thoth.’ You need
n’t ever be explicit of course; allow your readers to speculate and draw their own conclusions. Holmes’s devotees will be so elated that none shall even question how it is possible.”

  He mimed a vaudeville marquee with his hands high above his head, commanding the attention of the entire table. “The immortal Sherlock Holmes lives on in a new series.” At once self-conscious, Gaelan thrust his deformed left hand into his trouser pocket. “He’ll live forever, by Jove, your creation shall. Perhaps long after you, sir, have gone to your grave.”

  Conan Doyle’s enthusiasm seemed tepid at best. But Gaelan pressed further. “As well, do you not imagine, sir, whilst giving new life to your most popular creation, you might also draw upon your truest passion—the supernatural world? Would that not, as it were, be killing two birds with one stone?”

  “Ha!” Conan Doyle pointed an accusatory finger at Gaelan. “You, sir, sound too much like my publisher.”

  Joseph broke in. “Please, ladies and gentlemen, let us go through to the drawing room. We might continue our conversations there in more comfort—”

  But Conan Doyle was not to be stopped. “In a moment, Dr. Bell,” he said, holding up his hand to forestall the company. “I’ve a question for Mr. Erceldoune. Our dear Joseph made mention that you are an apothecary?”

  Simon backed farther into his chair, cursing himself that he had disclosed even this small fact to his ever-curious cousin. He twisted his napkin, eyes pleading with Gaelan to be still.

  Gaelan leaned toward Conan Doyle, a vague threat in the set of his jaw. “That I am, but why is that of concern to you or anyone here this evening? Do you mean to put me in my place as amongst the same company as Lentine, whom Miss Leckie has just now vilified—and with ample cause, I might add?”

  “I mean no disrespect, nor to dishonor you amongst the fine physicians at this table. . . . I am curious, and that is all.” Conan Doyle paused a moment, as if to consider something. “I understand, sir, that many apothecaries in eras past were adept in alchemy, even magic.”

  Gaelan settled back into his chair by a degree, coiled as a snake. “That, sir, may have been more the case, say centuries ago—a blurring of the lines. However, Sir Arthur, I possess no personal knowledge, for example, of any apothecary or druggist nowadays claiming to hold in his hands the secrets of life through alchemical abracadabra, if that is what you are suggesting. As for myself, I am quite well tutored in chemistry and toxicology, and a disciple of Paracelsus. Many of his dicta still ring true for me. Sola dosis facit venenum . . . the dose makes the poison. Paracelsus coined that in the sixteenth century—today it is an axiom of modern pharmacy. He was both an apothecary and an alchemist—and a physician. I would consider myself in esteemed company to associate myself with his understanding of alchemy. He had neither desire to make gold from lead, nor to find the elusive lapis philosophorum, but only to reveal the medicinal science it concealed by its art.”

  Conan Doyle leaned forward confidentially, as if the rest of the company had vanished. “I have no desire, sir, to offend you. Forgive me if my questions seem more interrogation than polite dinner conversation. I am first and foremost a journalist, but my ardent interest is personal and much to do with my curiosity about the occult, as you may have guessed. I am quite sad to think about how much of the ancient arts were lost or have gone into hiding, along with their knowledge. Our ideas must be as broad as nature if they are to interpret nature, and if ideas—no matter how unusual they seem to our modern sensibilities—are destroyed and visionaries burnt either literally or metaphorically at the stake, we stand not a chance. And by the way, sir. I must aver that you are only one of a very few to have read ‘Thoth.’”

  “But to your point regarding our natural fear of the . . . unusual . . . On that, sir, at least,” Gaelan said, “we might agree.”

  “Let us, then, if we may, Sir Arthur,” Joseph repeated, clearing his throat, “go through to the drawing room. Miss Leckie, would you do us the honor of leading the way?”

  “But of course,” she agreed, patting Conan Doyle’s hand affectionately. “Shall we, my dear?” She rose, and the rest of the company followed her from the room.

  Gaelan and Conan Doyle found themselves in a secluded corner of the large drawing room as the other guests mingled. Simon stood nearby, gesturing with growing disquietude that they should leave, and quite soon.

  Gaelan turned his back on him as Conan Doyle leaned in again. “By the by, sir, I do recognize your unusual name—Erceldoune—I have come across it on occasion in my research into the Otherworld—”

  “The Otherworld.”

  “Indeed. Where the fae folk rule. I’ve heard of an Erceldoune associated with legends of old, a certain Thomas Learmont de Erceldoune, a relationship with Tuatha de Danann, the—”

  “Fairy folk, Sir Arthur?” Gaelan managed a laugh. “You, sir, hold me in exalted company, and I am sorry to disappoint you, however—”

  “It is said that this man Erceldoune had a book possessing great power, given him by Airmid herself, Celtic goddess of healing, a gift for his act of kindness. Have you not heard the tale?”

  “My family, old though it may be, Sir Arthur, boasts neither connection with the goddess Airmid nor any of her folk—the Tuatha de Danann, if indeed they ever existed. Besides, was not Airmid an Irish fairy? And I am, as are you, sir, of Scottish blood.”

  Gaelan glanced around the room again, finding Simon’s anxious eyes beseeching him to end the exchange. “We’d best join the rest of the company. I see my dear friend Simon is quite unsettled, and we ought soon set off for—”

  “It is a book of great healing,” Conan Doyle continued. “All the diseases of the world—and their cures—held in a singular volume, said to be written by her very hand.”

  Gaelan paused, a petulant sigh escaping his lips. “I cannot say I can recall its mention, even amongst family lore.” His lips tightened into a tense line as he stood. “Now if you will excuse me, sir, I grow tired and fear it is time Dr. Simon Bell and I return to his flat.”

  “Have you not done enough damage for one visit?” Simon’s ice-gray glare drilled into Gaelan as they warmed themselves before Simon’s fireplace.

  “What do you mean?” Gaelan held his hands up to the blaze, suppressing a wince as a sharp pain threaded through his left hand. Unrepentant, he sighed; yet he understood Simon’s displeasure. “I was bored; the chatter of the rich and idle was more than I could handle. I’d forgotten how lifeless it could be.”

  “It is not what I meant.”

  “I could not abide that insipid Miss Leckie and her tirade—all their tirades—against those of my trade.”

  “Do you disagree about Lentine?”

  “You know I do not. But to classify the whole of the apothecary trade as a society of rogues and street mountebanks—”

  Simon rose from his chair and paced in a small line, hands behind his back, tone clipped. “So for that you had to provoke Sir Arthur at his celebration?” Grabbing a poker, he stabbed at the hearth as if it were a dragon and he St. George.

  “Had I not gotten them off that subject, I do not know what I might have done.” The warmth of the fireplace, the aromatic burning of tinder and cigars did nothing to defuse the piercing pain that throbbed along the edge of his knuckles and beyond them, into the empty space where long ago existed three fingers. Eyes clamped shut, Gaelan sucked in a breath, trying to ride out the relentless assault he knew was but a phantom. “You might think after all this time it would not bother me still, but it does, oddly, as if the fingers were yet attached.”

  Simon’s annoyance dissipated as he came near to examine Gaelan’s hand. “And suggesting that Sherlock Holmes is somehow immortal was an improvement?” He prodded the smooth stump with his thumbs, and Gaelan grimaced with each touch. “I’ve some fresh ground ganja powder. A cup of tea from it might make it more bearable, unless you’d prefer something stronger. The kettle should be ready by now.”

  “Thank you; tea would be fin
e.” The mere anticipation of relief began to soften the knife-sharp pain.

  “Given that Sir Arthur is a journalist and has a particular interest in anything that seems to defy the laws of nature,” Simon continued, returning from the other room with the tea service, handing Gaelan a delicate China cup, “I must say his line of questioning triggered by your own provocation was disquieting, to say the least.”

  The warmth of the cup permeated Gaelan’s hand as he savored the tea, more soothing than the finest whisky. “Thank you, Simon. Already, the pain dissipates. It seemed quite fitting to offer the idea—about Holmes. I am, in fact, quite curious about how Sir Arthur intends to wrest his hero from that watery grave. And just because I made some oblique suggestion, must you forthwith believe I’ve painted a scarlet letter upon my forehead?”

  “I speak not just of the Holmes. He came a hairbreadth from—”

  Gaelan cut off Simon’s next parry with a wave of his arm. “Indeed,” he said, anticipating. “I must confess that his interrogation about my legendary ancestors unsettled me, as did his reference to that book.”

  “What if he has some knowledge of it? Useful knowledge. God knows the trail has long since dried up, and he is, after all, a journalist—a rather clever one. You might wish to inquire further for what he knows—”

  Gaelan slammed his fist into the arm of the chair. “No. He knows no more than you or I. He was fishing, and that is all.” There was no more to be said on the matter. Full stop.

  Simon grabbed the poker again, and sparks flared as he drove it deep into the hearth, his patience clearly at an end. “Perhaps it is time for you to go. More than a week has passed since my sister’s funeral, yet you are still here. Had you been so steadfast whilst Eleanor was yet living and breathing, she might have been happier, but because of your fear—”

  Gaelan flinched, stung by the truth of Simon’s words. But Simon, too, was grieving. Yes, he’d had no choice but to leave. But what of the intervening years? Might there have been an opportunity for a reunion with her? He sipped the last of the ganja tea and set down the cup.

  The clattering of iron startled Gaelan from his seat as Simon hurled the poker into its holder.