Alchemy and Meggy Swann by Karen Cushman

sovereigns? But we agreed upon six."
    "A mighty sum, which you shall have," the first someone said, "when I am required to announce the tragic death of Sir Mortimer Blunt, our beloved Baron Eastmoreland." There was laughter and then footsteps moving toward the door.
    It was past time for Meggy to haste away. In a panic she pushed herself down the stairs, sliding like a small boy on a snowy hill. It made her bum sting a bit but proved a useful way of escaping. By the time the men had bid their farewells and descended, the girl was curled up on her pallet, making soft snoring noises. She opened one eye and watched as the redheaded lout and his gorbellied companion stole out the door.
    Her heart beat fast but silently, and her thoughts betumbled round and round. So she had not misunderstood. Master Peevish, Master Ambrose, her father, was indeed involved in something deadly. In murder. In payment he received the coins to pursue this Great Work of his. What was she to do? If she told no one, he would have his money and his work would proceed. But at what cost? He would be murderer, damned to Hell. Meggy also, belike, she thought with a shiver, for knowing but doing nothing. If she revealed what she had heard to someone who could stop him, her father might be seized. Burned at the stake or shorter by a head.
    The specter of the Devil invaded her thoughts. She pulled her cloak over her head and wished for morning. Finally falling asleep, she dreamed that the queen had come to visit and Louise bit her and was sent to the gallows at Wapping in the Woze.

THIRTEEN
     

    When Meggy climbed to the laboratorium the morning next, she had made a decision. Fearful and reluctant though she was, she would face the alchemist with what she had heard.
    Master Ambrose was seated at the table, fingering two gold coins. He spun them and stacked them and spun them again. "As you see," he said, "I have of late come by a measure of gold, and there will be more anon. My Great Work shall continue."
    "I heard the men who gave you the coins," Meggy said. "They wish you to dispatch someone." He did not deny it. "Are you not afeared? In sooth, would you see the world from atop a stick on London Bridge?"
    Master Ambrose shrugged. "This gold enables my work and provides you with candles and a chicken pie now and again." He continued stacking and unstacking the coins. He said naught more but dropped them into the copper pot, where they fell with satisfying clinks.
    "Even for your Great Work," Meggy asked, "will you really do murder?"
    "You wrong me. I kill no one," said the alchemist. "I but supply a solution of white arsenic. What others do with it is their affair. Mayhap they want to kill rats or rabid dogs. Why, I hear there are places where women mix arsenic in face cream to whiten their complexions." He stood and pointed to a shelf. "Give me the tall flask."
    She put it into his hands. "Why did they come to you?"
    "For my expertise and my silence. They know my reputation."
    He had a reputation as a poisoner, Meggy thought. He was her father and he murdered people. What did this mean about her?
    "I need funds," he said, "if I am to continue my work. For a more powerful furnace so that I may experiment with other kinds of metals. For larger retorts and alembics." He swept his arm around the room, pointing with the flask. "For dishes, beakers, jars and vials, filters, strainers, and stirring rods. For mercury, sulfur, alum, vitriol, and borax. For copper and silver, pelicans and alembics and crucibles." He set the flask on the table. "If I could unlock the secret of transformation, if I could turn base metals into gold, I would not have to sell my soul. But until then, I do what I must do. And I am close, so close. This very morning from a calamine and copper solution I saw come forth a metal that is neither calamine nor copper but is changed in its very essence. I have transformed metal! It can be done."
    His pale face shone, and Meggy thought she could see