The Water Devil by Judith Merkle Riley Read Free Book Online Page A

the same to God, and the whole world is wrong, but I still have to embroider,” said Cecily.
    “Cecily, you are a sage child. The man who marries you will be terrified,” said Brother Malachi.
    “Hurry and get that Stone,” said Cecily, sighing, “I know I'm going to get very tired of pretending to be a lady until then.”
    “Well,” said Brother Malachi, setting down his soup spoon,“we'll just go in and see if we've got our White Stone. Things ought to be cooled down enough now. I think I've just lost another philosopher's egg, but the precipitate inside ought to be what we're looking for if the ever-wise Arnoldus is right.”We watched as he took a deep breath, plunged back into his laboratorium and opened the window into the back garden, then donned his heavy leather gloves. Sim ran in behind him to hand him his rod and touchstone. Despite the fast fading smell, we all crowded round to watch him reach into the heart of the athanor. There in the sandbath sat a blackened, cracked glass vessel made in the shape of an immense egg. “As I thought,” said Malachi. “It's ruined. Margaret, you have no idea of the cost of these things. And there's only one glass blower in the entire realm that can make them properly. Ugh. I'm making his fortune. Now—let's see—well, at any rate, it shines—” he prodded the blackened metallic stuff inside the broken egg with his rod. Bythis time, Cecily was quivering with excitement, and even Mother Hilde and I, hardened by his many previous attempts, held our breaths.
    “Everything's smoked up—let's see—” he poked off ash and blackened, crumbly stuff to reveal the metal beneath.
    “Looks all ashy and black, like silver tarnish,” said Cecily, her voice sad.
    “Child, must you be so blunt?” said Malachi. Frowning, he tapped the ash off his rod. “The mercury hasn't vanished the way it was supposed to; it's created some sort of compound. A—blackish, silvery—compound. I wonder if it's good for anything? Let's see, if I reversed the process before the three-headed dragon and calcinated the—”
    “Smoke is everywhere. Looks like making hams id here. Whad are those bones on the string? They look like muddon bones.” Alison, ever fastidious, was holding her nose, making her voice sound as if she had a bad cold.
    “Mutton indeed, they're—”
    “Malachi, must you?” I asked. “They're still so innocent.”
    “Saints' backbones,” announced Sim, Malachi's apprentice, in a cheerfully malicious voice. No one knew how old Sim was, including him, except that he didn't seem to grow much and his head was too big for his body. More than twelve, less than twenty, and cynical enough for three old men. “They're all nice and old looking now,” he added.
    “Margaret, you must understand that there's a world of difference between innocence and gullibility,” rumbled Malachi. “Now these, girls, are my stock in trade for my summer business…”
    “Saint Ursula's martyrs—hundreds of 'em—they'll fetch a pretty penny this summer when we go travelin'.” Sim's voice had a froggy sound. Was it due to change sometime? Then he
had
to be more than twelve. Let's see, would that make him about eight when Malachi found him in the street—but then he could have been ten, so if you add on…
    “They look more like pig's backbones, not mutton,” said Cecilyin her sharp little voice, peering closely at the strung-up vertebrae. “Will you wrap them up fancy, like the ones in church?”
    “—my stock in trade, which is, in truth, faith and hope, without which the human race could not carry on, which these—ah— artifacts—allow people to attain through contemplation—”
    “You'll need the money for a new glass egg,” observed Cecily. “It's good you can make more of these whenever you like.”
    “Child, more and more I begin to understand you are your father's daughter—ah, yes, old Master Kendall was a shrewd one, that he was.”
    “Yes, it's better to make