The Alchemist's Door Read Online Free PDF Page A

thoughtfully. “Then he, too, searches for the Philosopher’s Stone.”
    â€œSo they say.”
    â€œGood,” Kelley said. “Let’s go.”
    Dee went into the bedroom. It was not late, but Jane was sleeping; her pregnancy had begun to tire her. How could she possibly travel now? But there was no help for it.
    Jane stirred and looked at him sleepily.
    â€œI must leave again,” he said.
    She woke fully and sat up, gazing at him with her level gray eyes. “Leave? But I cannot travel quickly in my condition—”
    â€œIt has found us again,” Dee said.
    â€œWhat has found you? You never told me what happened that night.”
    â€œI called something up—”
    â€œYou said we were safe—”
    â€œHush. I said you and the children are safe. I’m the one it wants.”
    â€œThis is because of Kelley, isn’t it? He’s the one who summons those things, isn’t he? I warned you about him from the start—”
    â€œListen,” Dee said urgently. “You’ll be safe here. It wants me—it comes only when I am present. Stay and continue on when you’re ready. I will write you from Prague”
    â€œPrague!” Jane said. “Are we going to Prague now?”
    Dee looked at his wife. What had Kelley seen? He studied
her features as if memorizing them: the reddish blond hair, the gray eyes. Kelley had said that her face …
    No. She was fine; nothing had happened to her. Nor ever would, he thought fiercely.
    â€œIt seems so,” he said.

2
    T WO HUNDRED MILES TO THE WEST, IN PRAGUE. Rabbi Judah Loew thought he heard something. He had been having a late supper with his family; his wife Pearl was talking. But over her another, louder voice spoke a sentence in a foreign language, and he heard the word “Prague.”
    Another voice answered, this one female, and she also said something about Prague. And somehow Loew understood that these people would be traveling to his city, that he would meet them, that his fate would be entwined with theirs.
    Something was about to happen, that much was certain. Those strange signs and portents in his study … He looked at Pearl, wanting for perhaps the hundredth time to tell her what he suspected, and for the hundredth time being unable to.
    The voices had fallen silent. “Judah?” Pearl said, looking concerned. She was a small woman, her figure rounded from childbearing. Over the years her hair had gone from a lustrous brown to iron-gray and had become coarser, almost wiry; she wore it, like all modest women, tucked up under a kerchief. Her eyes were a deep gray-green—like the sea, Loew had thought when he had first seen her. “Judah, did you hear anything I said?”
    He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. He gazed out over the table, seeing the three of his six daughters who had come for supper, his son, their spouses and children. The small room
had not been enough to contain them all; some of the younger children sat at a makeshift table in the tiny hallway. The tables bowed under the weight of the dishes; the candles shone over the faces of his loved ones, their cheeks shiny with grease after the large meal. Up until two months ago he had thought himself the most fortunate man in the world. But God, apparently, wanted more from him.
    Two months ago he had looked at the four books on his desk and had noticed that they were all open to page thirty-six. Engrossed in his studies, he had shrugged this off as coincidence and pulled another book from his shelf. The book had opened, almost of its own volition, to page thirty-six.
    Since then he saw the number everywhere he turned. He would be invited somewhere; the address would be thirty-six. He would buy a new book or some trinket for Pearl; it would cost thirty-six pennies, or he would get that amount in change.
    In all his studies he had come across only one meaning for the number