City of Lost Dreams: A Novel

by Magnus Flyte

  They were all, Sarah realized, looking at her now.

  “I don’t have any Westonia,” she said. “I took the last of it in Innsbruck.”

  “Oh, Harriet will share. She’s not much good on it herself.”

  Sarah looked at the wasted figure of Harriet.

  “You really did find the antidote?” Nico was at her side now. “That’s the ‘something’ that you found at the castle?”

  “I broke the Westonia in half,” Sarah confessed. “I took one half in the lab and the other at the castle. And I saw Philippine. I . . . I was her, I think. For a few minutes. She had made the elixir for immortality. And the antidote. She gave it to me. I can’t really explain how it happened.”

  “Interesting,” said Nico. “Especially since I have the other half of Westonia right here.”

  He produced a half pill from his pocket.

  “But,” she insisted, “I hid the Westonia in my pocket.”

  “And I stole it, and replaced it with half an Altoid.”

  “Then who . . . what? I saw everything. Ferdinand. And Philippine. I saw Mozart, and . . .”

  Elizabeth and Nico exchanged a look.

  “Placebo effect,” said Elizabeth. “She doesn’t need the drug.”

  Nico nodded. “She has the gift. I did wonder.”

  “Me, too, at the ball,” said Elizabeth. “Scared the hell out of me. She has it.”

  “I have what?” demanded Sarah. “What happened to me?”

  “My dearest one,” said Nico, “It seems you never really needed the drug, after that first time. You only needed to think you had taken the drug. You’re highly sensitive to energy fluctuations, to put it mildly. Sherbatsky suspected this, I think.”

  “So unfair,” said Harriet. “She doesn’t even care about history.”

  “You’re saying I . . . But all the physical sensations . . . the sickness.”

  “I didn’t say it was an easy thing. Perhaps you will get better at it.”

  Sarah thought of how she’d been catching glimpses of Beethoven all over Vienna. Did she really have the power to see him? Did she only need to give herself permission?

  “Lovely,” said Elizabeth. “No sense wasting good drugs. Ingredients are so hard to come by these days. I had to order powdered lion heart from some redneck animal dealer in Texas, for God’s sake. Now. Sarah. Pols is waiting. Time, my dear. Time. We need to make a deal.”

  “Fine!” Sarah snapped. “What do we need to do to speed this show along?”

  Elizabeth kneeled and bent her head in prayer for a moment.

  “So you’re not kidding?” Nico said. “You could bring back Aristotle, or Jesus, or Seabiscuit. And you’re bringing back—”

  Elizabeth was eye to eye with him. “Tell me, Jepp, wasn’t there a girl . . . why, I believe she was Tycho’s sister. Sondra, was it?”

  “Sophie,” said Nico quietly.

  “Wouldn’t you like to see her again?”

  Nico seemed to struggle with himself for a moment, then said harshly, “Not on this side of things.”

  Sarah saw Hermes stick his nose out of Nico’s suit pocket. The little man pushed him back down.

  “Max, spread out the folio,” he barked. “Sarah, put that vial away for now.”

  “Harriet, you’re going to love this!” cried Elizabeth. “The portal was hidden by alchemy, and only alchemy will reveal it. It’s magic time.”

  “I assume you have the ingredients?” asked Nico.

  “Removed for curatorial purposes from across the land,” sang Elizabeth, pointing to the pile of boxes. “The hardest to find was a sixteenth-century Venezuelan fruit fly preserved in amber. A favorite ingredient of Philippine’s. That was hidden, if you please, in a galleon inside the British Museum.”

  “That’s what was in the galleon?” Sarah swung around. “I got high off a fruit fly?”

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “The cannon in the secret compartment in the galleon. I got blasted with it.”

  Elizabeth smiled.

  “Oh, that. That was just a wee something Philippine stored for Rudolf. A nice little seventeenth-century tonic for the vagus nerve. Not important. If you had popped off the head of the emperor figure on the ship, you would’ve found the fruit fly. Not that you would’ve known what to do with it. Anyway, thanks ever so for returning the galleon. I decamped from Vienna so quickly, I didn’t have time to dispose of it. And I always cover my tracks. So. Let’s begin. Nico, read out the instructions.”

  Sarah watched as Elizabeth sprinkled various powders and liquids and objects at precise points in the room. A lifetime’s worth—no, several lifetimes’ worth—of collected ingredients. The feather of a dodo. A meteorite from the asteroid Vesta. Tears of an elephant shed during sorrow. A sparrow’s egg impregnated with twins.

  Elizabeth gathered powdered vials of gold, silver, and copper, and set a large hourglass in the center of the room Nico took a piece of chalk, marched off the paces, and drew celestial symbols on the terra-cotta floor tiles—the Sun, the Moon, and Venus. Elizabeth emptied the vials onto the chalk symbols.

  “Iron, tin, lead, and quicksilver,” said Nico. “Here, here, here, and here.” He drew the symbols for Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mercury. He seemed to be almost in a trance. “It’s been a long time,” he said. “I helped the Master draw this circle many times.”

  “As I assisted my stepfather,” said Elizabeth. “Cardinal, mutable, fixed, calcination, congelation, fixation . . .”

  “Distillation, digestion, solution,” added Nico. “Sublimation, separation, creation . . .”

  “Fermentation, multiplication, projection.”

  “Abracadabra,” said Sarah. “I’m waiting here.”

  “Now, we do need someone to take my daughter’s place in the past. I had to send Kubiš and Nepomuk back through because if someone comes out, someone must go in. Or things are out of balance.” Elizabeth pointed at Harriet. “You,” she said, “are going to have such a lovely trip.”

  “Harriet”—Max moved to her side—“you don’t have to do this.”

  “I think it’s all so fascinating,” said Harriet, swaying. “Don’t you?” She stumbled toward Elizabeth. “I’m ready.”

  “The time is right,” said Nico. “We must marry the red and the white, Mercury and Sulfur.”

  Nico and Elizabeth began chanting something in Latin. “Ut supra sub ratione temporis unum spatium itineris conficiendi hic spiritus flectatur dimittam . . .”

  And then the floor began to rumble.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  Many of the alchemists were seriously good engineers, Sarah reminded herself, as the floor began moving under her feet. The stones were rearranging themselves by some unseen force, like domino tiles. The whole building began to shake. Plaster bits fell from the ceiling, and each of them—Sarah, Elizabeth, Harriet, Max, Nico—retreated from the center of the room as the stones slid away to reveal a short flight of stairs down into darkness. Sarah lurched forward. The key around her neck was vibrating, tugging her down to her knees.

  “The portal is down there,” Elizabeth said. “But before you open it you must find my daughter.”

  “Not until Pols is safe,” Sarah warned.

  “I get my girl, you get yours,” said Elizabeth. She dragged a large cardboard box from the corner and began slicing away the sides.

  “Why don’t you take the drug and see her yourself?” asked Sarah, stalling. “It’s named after you.”

  “Hasn’t the dwarf told you? It doesn’t work on us. Our cells are modified in a way that makes it ineffective.” She pulled the last of the box away and dragged out a . . .

  An armonica. A glass armonica.

  “Where did you get that?” Sarah moved forward. “It’s not . . . Mesmer’s armonica, is it?”

  “Quiet. Now, help me bring this down the steps. Portia will still be weak and ill when she comes through the portal. I will need to keep her alive until I determine what
drugs will cure her for good. I will not give her immortality in a sick body. Come, all of you. You, too, Harriet. You must be ready to enter the portal.”

  They descended the steps with their awkward burden. The staircase led to a small, round room.

  It was the round room from her dreams. But there was only one door here, a rather innocuous-looking trapdoor in the floor. The key around her neck was jumping now. Elizabeth moved the armonica to a position a few feet from the portal.

  She looked at Sarah. “Now. Find her.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Sarah snapped. “I can’t just turn it on and off. And I get confused easily.”

  “We were here,” said Elizabeth. “Upstairs.” She pointed to the opening at the top of the steps. “My daughter and I were here. It was the last day in April. They opened up the palace on Walpurgis night, and we came. Portia was wearing a red cape. We stood upstairs, with the rest of the revelers, drinking hot wine.”

  There was a new tone to Elizabeth’s voice. Plaintive.

  “Look for her. She’s here. It was Carodejnice. Walpurgis. The emperor opened the gates of the preserve to the townspeople for the bonfire, spreading a little goodwill to counter the purges. I know you can find her.”

  Sarah moved back to the steps.

  “Don’t use your eyes. Feel her. Like music. Feel her,” Elizabeth whispered.

  Sarah closed her eyes. Hundreds and hundreds of people over the centuries had wandered through the room above them. She must not get distracted. Her mind stretched out, seeking. She could smell chestnuts in the air, hear something howling in the woods outside the palace. Walpurgis in the early seventeenth century. The pagan rite that marked the end of winter. Sarah wasn’t sure when the local populace had transitioned from annually burning a real live woman to burning a straw witch. Maybe not yet, she realized.

  She heard voices, saw figures moving above her. She moved up the steps until she was standing in the central room.

  A little girl in a red cape. Elizabeth standing next to her, wearing a black cloak like the one she wore now, looking like a child herself. The room was crowded with other figures, but they were dim compared to the hot intensity of Elizabeth’s energy. The girl began coughing. Elizabeth held her tight, and the girl coughed up a spot of blood that Elizabeth wiped away with an already bloodstained handkerchief. She gave her a sip of the hot wine.

  “Where is Pollina?” shouted Sarah down the steps.

  “Do you see her? Do you see Portia?”

  “I see her. Where is Pollina?”

  • • •

  In the past, Elizabeth put her hand against Portia’s forehead. “Oh, my child,” she said. “We must get you home.”

  • • •

  “You’re going to leave,” said Sarah. “You’re going to walk away. Tell me where Pollina is.”

  “No!” said Elizabeth. “We mustn’t leave. This is the day, the day it happens. Walpurgis. The only day we were here, in the Star Summer Palace. I could feel the energy; I thought it would help her. I had tried prayer. I had tried medicines. In my desperation I was ready to try magic. I remember this. I remember the pull. I remember I was afraid. Start coming back down the stairs. She will feel your energy. She will follow it.”

  Sarah heard it in her voice. The sound of someone who would do anything to save the one she loved. She knew that sound. It was in her, too. She came partway down the stairs, but she could still see Elizabeth and Portia above her.

  • • •

  In the seventeenth century, Elizabeth was straightening Portia’s cape, pulling up her hood. “We must go,” Elizabeth said to Portia.

  “Please,” said Portia. “Just a little longer, Mama?”

  • • •

  “Where is Pollina?” Sarah snapped over her shoulder.

  “She’s here.” Elizabeth’s voice was cracking with emotion. “On the top floor. She’s not hurt. I wouldn’t hurt her. I couldn’t. She’s so much like Portia. Please. Please help me. I know you hate me. I’ve done terrible things, but only to help a sick little girl.”

  “In the name of love? You’ve perverted the whole concept.”

  “Maybe. But don’t you see what he did to me? I was a child just like Pollina. He ruined me. And I’ve been alone for so long. The alchemists wanted knowledge. They wanted power. All I want is to have my child back. Please, please, help me bring Portia here. Let us be together. I didn’t choose this, Sarah. Please.”

  “How do I do it?” asked Sarah. “The staircase is still covered up in her time. I can’t drag her through the floor.”

  “She will come,” Elizabeth whispered. “She must. I will help.”

  Elizabeth pressed a foot pedal on the armonica and the bowls began to spin on their treadle. Sarah thought of the woodcuts she’d seen in old alchemical books, of a musician playing near a hell portal. Music, of course. Music was the language that traversed time.

  Elizabeth struck a note.

  • • •

  In the seventeenth century, Portia suddenly grew very still. Sarah saw the little girl’s white face turn even whiter.

  “Do you hear that, Mama?”

  • • •

  Elizabeth played a series of notes. Not a melody but a kind of calling. Summoning. Luring. Seducing.

  • • •

  “Music,” said Portia. “It’s pretty.”

  “It’s the spirits,” Elizabeth whispered. “But are they angels or demons?”

  • • •

  “It’s working,” said Sarah. “They can hear you.”

  “Yes. I remember. I will try to stop us. Don’t let me.”

  • • •

  In the seventeenth century, Elizabeth knelt and pressed her hand against what was, in her time, the floor. Her hand was only a foot above Sarah’s face. Sarah could see the veins in Elizabeth’s hand.

  “Music below,” Elizabeth said. “I can feel it.”

  “I want to try,” said Portia. If the little girl put her hand down, too, Sarah thought, she could reach up and grab it.

  Portia began to lean down, reaching toward the floor. Sarah reached up, but Elizabeth caught the girl’s hand, pulled it away, and kissed it. “This is a bad place,” said Elizabeth. She shivered. “Things happen here. Evil things.”

  • • •

  “You won’t let her come close,” said Sarah. “You’re afraid. She’s right here.” Sarah reached up her hand again, but she couldn’t quite touch the little girl.

  Elizabeth abandoned the armonica and raced up the stairs, holding out her hand to her daughter, and in that moment seventeenth-century Elizabeth did the same, beckoning her daughter to leave. The girl stood in the middle, two versions of her mother on either side of her, holding out their hands to her. Portia hesitated. Sarah held her breath. The little girl was looking at her, as if she could see her at last.

  • • •

  “But it will change things,” said Max, below them. “It will change everything.”

  • • •

  Just above them, Sarah saw Elizabeth draw her daughter close.

  “You must come with me,” said the woman, holding her daughter. “We must stay together.”

  • • •

  Next to Sarah, Elizabeth was breathing rapidly.

  “I remember,” she said. “I remember. But we can change the past.”

  • • •

  But the Elizabeth of the past was leading her daughter away.

  • • •

  “Open the portal!” Elizabeth screamed, shoving Sarah down the steps. “She will come back. She will feel it.”

  Sarah landed hard on the floor. The key lurched forward and she grabbed it.

  “No.” Sarah’s head was spinning. “No. She’s never going to come through. Because you are never going to let her go. You know this.”

  “We can change the past!”

  “No,” said Sarah. “Only the future.” She reached to still the key. “It won’t do any good to open the portal. She won�
�t come.”

  • • •

  “No!” With a yell, Harriet threw herself at Sarah, grabbed at the key, and scrambled toward the portal. The chain held fast, and Sarah was dragged by her neck. They struggled together on the floor, Harriet screaming as the key burned the flesh of her hand. The magnetic pull of the key met the force of the door, and with a wrench it flew upward. Sarah closed her eyes against the brilliant flash of light. And then nothing. No scent, no sound, no light. Nothing but the pull of the portal. Sarah could feel herself sliding toward it, and then Max’s hands on her shoulders, pulling her back. Harriet let go of the key around Sarah’s neck.

  And disappeared.

  The portal door flew shut with a thunderous crack.

  Light and smell and sound returned. An awful sound.

  Sarah looked over to where Elizabeth was on her knees at the stairs, weeping. It was pitiful, heart wrenching.

  “So close,” she sobbed. “So close. Maybe. Maybe we can try again.”

  “No,” said Nico. “Sarah is right. In the past you will never let your daughter go. This was all madness. This was a dream.”

  “Max,” said Sarah. “Pols is here. Upstairs somewhere.”

  Max leapt over Elizabeth and sprinted up the stairs. Sarah, who found she could barely stand, half crawled to the crying woman.

  “Bettina, Elizabeth, whatever your name is,” said Sarah, “you’ve got to help Pols.”

  “I can’t.” She looked up at Sarah through her tears. “The drugs she’s already on should have worked. There’s something else. Something I can’t see. I wanted to help; I did. I looked at everything. But I can’t help her. I’m sorry.”