The Alchemyst

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

T he bell jangled as Nicholas Flamel pushed open the door and stepped back to

allow a rather ordinary-looking elderly woman in a neat gray blouse and gray

skirt to precede him into the shop. Short and round, her hair tightly permed

and touched faintly with blue, only the overlarge black glasses covering much

of her face set her apart. A white cane was folded in her right hand.

Sophie and Josh immediately realized that she was blind.

Flamel cleared his throat. Allow me to introduce He stopped and looked at

the woman. Excuse me. What do I call you?

Call me Dora, everyone else does. She spoke English with a decided New York

accent. Scathach? she suddenly said. Scathach! And then her words

dissolved into a language that seemed to consist of a lot of spitting

sounds which Sophie was surprised to find she could understand.

She wants to know why Scatty hasn t come to see her in the past three

hundred and seventy-two years, eight months and four days, she translated

for Josh. She was staring intently at the old woman and didn't see the fear

and envy that flickered across his face.

The old woman moved quickly around the narrow room, head darting left and

right, never looking directly at Scatty. She continued to speak, seemingly

without stopping for breath.

She s telling Scatty that she could have been dead and no one would have

known. Nor cared. Why, only last century she was desperately ill, and no one

called, no one wrote

Gran , Scatty began.

don't Gran me, Dora said, dropping into English again. You could have

written any language would have done. You could have phoned .

You don't have a phone.

And what s wrong with e-mail? Or a fax?

Gran, have you got a computer or a fax machine?

Dora stopped. No. What would I need one of them for?

Dora s hand moved and suddenly her white stick extended to its full length

with a snap. She tapped against the glass of a simple square mirror. Have

you got one of these?

Yes, Gran, Scatty said miserably. Her pale cheeks were flushed red with

embarrassment.

So you couldn t find the time to look in a mirror and talk to me. You re so

busy these days? I ve got to hear it from your brother. And when was the last

time you spoke to your mother!

Scathach turned to the twins. This is my grandmother, the legendary Witch of

Endor. Gran, this is Sophie and Josh. And you've met Nicholas Flamel.

Yes, such a nice man. She kept turning her head, her nostrils flaring.

Twins, she said finally.

Sophie and Josh looked at each other. How did she know? Did Nicholas tell

her?

There was something about the way the woman kept moving her head that

intrigued Josh. He tried to follow the direction of her gaze and then he

realized why the old woman s head kept moving left and right: she was somehow

seeing them through the mirrors. Automatically, he touched his sister s hand

and nodded to the mirror. She glanced at it, back at the old woman, then back

at the mirror, and then she nodded at her brother, silently agreeing with

him.

Dora stepped up to Scathach, her head turned to one side as she stared hard

at a tall length of polished glass. you've lost weight. Are you eating

properly?

Gran, I ve looked like this for two and a half thousand years.

So you re saying I m going blind now, eh? the old woman asked, then burst

into surprisingly deep laughter. Give your old Gran a hug.

Scathach carefully hugged the old woman and kissed her cheek. It s good to

see you, Gran. You re looking well.

I m looking old. Do I look old?

Not a day over ten thousand. Scatty smiled.

The Witch pinched Scathach s cheek. The last person who mocked me was a tax

inspector. I turned him into a paperweight, she said. I still have it here

somewhere.

Flamel coughed discreetly. Madame Endor

Call me Dora, the old woman snapped.

Dora. Are you aware what happened in Hekate's Shadowrealm earlier today? He

had never met the Witch before he knew her only by reputation but he knew she

needed to be treated with the utmost caution. She was the legendary Elder who

had left Danu Talis to live with and teach the humani centuries before the

island sank beneath the waves. It was believed that she had created the first

humani alphabet in ancient Sumeria.

Get me a chair, Dora said to no one in particular. Sophie pulled up the

chair she d been sitting on and Scatty eased her grandmother into it. The old

woman leaned forward, both hands resting on the top of her white cane. I

know what happened. I m sure every Elder on this continent felt her death.

She saw their looks of shocked surprise. You didn't know? She turned her

head sideways and stared into a mirror, directly facing Scatty. Hekate is

dead and her Shadowrealm is no more. I understand an Elder, one of the Next

Generation and an immortal human were responsible for her death. Hekate will

need to be avenged. Not now, and maybe not soon: but she was family, and I

owe her that. See to it. Scatty bowed.

The Witch of Endor had delivered the death sentence calmly, and Flamel

suddenly realized that this woman was even more dangerous than he had

imagined.

Dora turned her face in another direction and Flamel found himself looking at

her reflection in an ornate silver-framed mirror. She tapped the glass. I

saw what happened this morning a month ago.

And you didn't warn Hekate! Scatty exclaimed.

I watched one thread of a possible-future. One of many. In some of the

others, Hekate killed Bastet and the Morrigan slew Dee. In another, Hekate

killed you, Mr. Flamel, and was in turn killed by Scathach. All versions of

the future. Today I discovered which came to pass. She looked around the

room, turning her face from mirror to polished vase to picture-frame glass.

So I know why you re here, I know what you want me to do. And I ve thought

long and hard about my response. I ve had a month to think about it.

What about us? Sophie asked. Were we in your threads?

Yes, in some, the Witch said.

What happened to us in the others? The question was out of Josh s mouth

before he had time to think about it. He really didn't want to know the

answer.

Dee and his Golems or the rats and birds killed you in most of the threads.

You crashed the car in others. You died with the Awakening or fell with the

Shadowrealm.

Josh swallowed hard. We only survived in one thread?

Just one.

That'snot good, is it? he whispered.

No, the Witch of Endor stated flatly. Not good at all. There was a long

pause while Dora looked sidelong into the polished surface of a silver pot.

Then she spoke suddenly. First you should know that I cannot Awaken the boy.

That must be left to others.

Josh looked up quickly. There are others who could Awaken me?

The Witch of Endor ignored him. The girl has one of the purest silver auras

I ve encountered in many an age. She needs to be taught some spells of

personal protection if she is to survive the rest of the Awakening process.

The fact that she s still sane and whole these many hours later is testament

to her strength of will. Her head tilted back and Sophie caught the old

woman s face looking at her from a mirror suspended from the ceiling. This I

will do.

Thank you, Nicholas Flamel'said with a deep sigh. I know how difficult the

last few hours have been for her.

Josh found that he could not look at his sister. There was more to the

Awakening. Did that mean she would have to suffer more pain? It was

heartbreaking.

Scathach knelt by her grandmother s chair and laid a hand on her arm. Gran,

Dee and his masters are chasing the two missing pages from the Codex, she

said. I would imagine that by now they know or at least suspect that Sophie

and Josh are the twins mentioned in the Book of Abraham.

Dora nodded. Dee knows.

Scathach stole a glance at Flamel. Then he knows that not only does he have

to retrieve the pages, but he has to either capture or kill the twins.

He knows that, too, Dora confirmed.

And if Dee succeeds, then this world ends? Scathach said, turning the

simple sentence into a question.

The world has ended before, the Witch answered, smiling. I m sure it will

end many times before the sun turns black.

You know that Dee intends to bring back the Dark Elders?

I know.

The Codex says that the Dark Elders can only be stopped by Silver and Gold,

Scatty continued.

The Codex also says, if my memory serves me true, that apples are poisonous

and frogs Can'turn into princes. You don't want to believe everything you

read in that Codex, the witch snapped.

Flamel had read the piece in the Codex about apples. He thought it was

possibly referring to apple seeds, which were indeed poisonous if you ate

several pounds of them. He hadn't come across the section about frogs and

princes, though he d read the Book hundreds of times. There were countless

questions he wanted to ask the Witch, but that wasn't the reason they were

there. Dora, will you teach Sophie the principles of Air magic? She needs to

learn enough to at least be able to protect herself from attack.

Dora shrugged and smiled. Do I have a choice?

Flamel had not been expecting that answer. Of course you have a choice.

The Witch of Endor shook her head. Not this time. She reached up and took

off her dark glasses. Scatty didn't move, and only the muscle twitching in

Flamel's jaw betrayed his surprise. The twins, however, backed away in

horror, their faces registering their shock. The Witch of Endor had no eyes.

There were just hollow empty sockets where eyes should have been, and nestled

in the sockets were perfect ovals of reflective glass. Those mirrors turned

directly to the twins. I gave up my eyes for the Sight, the ability to see

the patterns of time time past, present and possible-future. There are many

patterns, many versions of possible-future, though not so many as people

think. In the past few years, the patterns have been coming together, weaving

ever closer. Now there are only a few possible futures. Most of them are

terrifying, she added grimly. And they are all linked to you two. Her hand

moved unswervingly to point to Sophie and Josh. So what choice do I have?

This is my world too. I was here before the humani, I gave them fire and

language. I'll not abandon'them now. I'll train the girl, teach her how to

protect herself and instill in her how to control the magic of Air.

Thank you, Sophie said carefully into the long silence that followed.

Do not thank me. This is not a gift. What I give you is a curse!