Fragments of Alchemy: The Code Keeper

The Purple Scroll

The dim light in Aunt Fanella’s domicile made it too hard for Thea to read the curling letters on the scroll. She went to Aunt Fanella’s pink chair and sank down into the velvety soft cushion, where a glowing lamp hung nearby. All too aware that her parents and aunt and uncle all watched her nervously, she brought the scroll up to the light.

Thea’s mind whirled unsteadily. Someone wanted her to do all these things. No, she realized. Someone wanted all these things to happen to her.

“I don’t recognize this handwriting,” Thea said. “Who wrote this?” She looked up.

Her parents made guilty faces at each other.

“Who wrote this?!” Thea snapped.

“The Keeper gave that to me,” Aunt Fanella finally said. She put her hands together under her chin. “I know it might be hard to hear this, but he has your best interest at heart. He knows what’s best for you.”

Thea jumped up from the chair. “I’ve only met him once. He barely knows me!” she yelled, surprising herself with the tone of her own voice. But she reeled unsteadily from the thought that the Keeper has been manipulating her for probably her whole entire life. The ranch, her home, had been a prison. Her new Chimaera was just a pawn in the Keeper’s plan.

“C.C.…” Thea thought, and put her hand into her pocket to caress her Chimaera, who had awoken when Thea shouted. The tiny Chimaera fidgeted in her pocket. “This says I was supposed to create C.C. Why?”

They all shrugged and shook their heads.

“You don’t know, but you let me break the rules anyway?” Thea’s stomach went cold. She broke the rules and made a Chimaera, and now she couldn’t take it back. She’d been breaking the laws of Alchemy her whole life because the Keeper told her parents it was supposed to be that way.

“This says my memory was supposed to be Extracted after we arrived in Norway,” Thea said, after reading the note again. “Why? I don’t understand why I was supposed to forget the Dimension Walk.”

Thea’s mother shrugged. “We don’t know.”

“But you did it anyways!” Thea yelled, turning to look at Aunt Fanella. “You erased my memory on purpose! You made it seem like an accident…”

“I did what the Keeper said to do,” Aunt Fanella said.

“You just blindly follow his orders?” Thea’s throat went tight, and her voice quivered. “Those were my memories, and you stole them.” She took a step backward. “How could you do that to me?”

“I’m sorry Thea, but it was the right thing to do.” Aunt Fanella clenched her fists and took a step forward. “We’re doing the right thing; you must trust us.”

“Trust you!?” Thea’s voice rang out in the silent room, and Quentin jumped. He ran to his mom and hugged Aunt Fanella, burying his face in her stomach. She rocked back and forth while she hugged him. The sudden action snapped Thea out of her anger. That’s when the tears started falling. “The Keeper wanted me to become a Spectrum Scholar,” Thea whispered, her throat tight. “Why?”

Thea’s mother took a few steps forward. “We believe this is all meant to protect you,” she tried to explain.

“Protect me from what? The Shadows? Dad said they would notice me more now that I’m a Spectrum Scholar. How is that protecting me?!” Thea felt the anger come back as she clenched her hands into fists, crinkling the purple scroll.

“I’m so sorry Ally,” her father said, stepping forward and putting his heavy hands on her arms above her elbows. His brown eyes pleaded with her. “I didn’t want to tell you this. I knew it would upset you.”

“You wanted to hide this from me?” Thea stepped back. “You’ve been hiding this whole thing from me!” She shook with the realization that they had all been looking at this scroll together since yesterday. They might never have shown it to her if she hadn’t asked to see it. Even worse, they were supposed to show her. That meant the Keeper wanted her to see it.

And her parents would do whatever the Keeper told them to do, regardless of her feelings. Regardless of her safety. Why? Suddenly she just had to know.

She spun on her heels and went for the door.

“Ally, where are you going?” Her father reached out for her, but she dodged his hand.

“I’m going to ask the Keeper why he told you to do all these things,” she said through clenched teeth. Before any of them could respond, she hurried to the door, yanked it open, and shut it behind her with a sharp snap.

As she jogged down the White Wards, she rolled the scroll back up and clenched it in her hand, her other hand on C.C. in her pocket. The Chimaera shivered inside her pocket, clearly terrified.

Thea took deep breaths and tried to calm down, to put her Chimaera’s mind at ease. The last thing she needed was for C.C. to burst from her pocket now. With her Initium Vest slowly changing colors as she ran, Thea realized that anyone who saw C.C. would know that she had made the Chimaera illegally. She didn’t know what would happen if anyone found out about C.C., but the Keeper told her parents she had been meant to create her. Her head flooded with questions.

Why was she supposed to grow up breaking the laws of Alchemy?

Why was she supposed to skip the waiting period for having her Chakras Read by the Keeper?

Why was she supposed to become a Spectrum Scholar?

Why was she being manipulated by the Keeper in the first place?

Thea jogged by a few Alchemists in white who gave her odd looks as they walked down the White Wards. She slowed down, not wanting to draw attention to herself.

Behind her, Aunt Fanella’s door opened, and she glanced back to see her parents following her out the door. That spurred her back into a jog.

“Thea!” her mother called as Thea turned into the Keeper’s Antechamber. Alchemists and Chemists walked up and down the large Antechamber. She stopped jogging again and wiped the tears from her cheeks as she speed walked as quickly as she could down toward the Keeper’s door.

“And where do you think you are going?”

Thea looked over to see the grumpy Bookkeeper standing at his desk that held his giant book. He scowled at her. On his shoulder sat a large black crow. The bird seemed to glare at her.

“I want to talk to the Keeper,” Thea said in an unsteady voice.

Just then, Thea’s parents caught up to her. “Thea, let’s go home and talk about this,” her mother said.

“I’m not talking to you,” Thea retorted through clenched teeth. She was seething mad, she realized. But why shouldn’t she be? Her parents had blindly followed the ridiculous orders of the Code Keeper, and they couldn’t even tell her why!

“Ally,” her father pleaded. He gently grabbed her elbow, but she brushed him off and stared at Tenebrous impatiently.

The Bookkeeper looked them over with his stabbing gray eyes and then sneered. “Well, it just so happens that the Keeper is in a very important meeting. Not to be disturbed.”

“Isn’t that convenient,” Thea muttered under her breath.

“Your schedule is ready, by the way,” he said, turning his giant book to a page. He pulled out a roll of parchment, put his hand on the book and held the scroll up. “Similo!” he said in his gruff voice. A green Circle shimmered on the parchment. He rolled it back up and handed it over, waving her off.

Thea held the schedule scroll in one hand, the purple scroll in the other.

“Let’s go back home and discuss this,” Thea’s father said.

“I’m not going home.” Thea turned back to the Bookkeeper. “I want a room.”

“A room?” He glared down at her.

“A dorm room. Yeah. Other Chemists have them. I want one too.” She stood tall and held her chin up. “I’m moving out.”

“Don’t do this, Thea,” her mother pleaded.

“No,” Thea said, waving the purple scroll at them. “This is your fault. This is the Keeper’s fault. Don’t blame me for this.”

“A room for the Spectrum Scholar,” Tenebrous said, holding out a key on a chain. The intricate key had a tree for a handle. The metal felt cool to the touch as Thea took it.

“Thanks,” she said, stepping to the side. She looked up at her parents long enough to see that her mother had tears in her eyes and her father’s face looked red, probably from anger.

She almost felt bad for making them so upset. But she wasn’t overreacting, she told herself. She shouldn’t have to put up with being manipulated like this for another second.

The key had her room number etched into it. Viridian Hall Room #107. She put the key’s long chain around her neck, adding the new necklace to her Fortification necklace and her Intuition necklace. Without even glancing at her parents, she walked down the Antechamber toward the White Ward, her parents trailing after her.

She continued down the hallway tiled in white triangles, taking big steps with her arms swinging freely, the scrolls in each of her hands. “I’m taking my stuff with me. Are you going to help me move or not?” She turned to look at her parents.

Her parents exchanged glances. “Is there any way we can talk you out of this?” her mother asked finally.

Thea glared at her and said nothing.

“Owen, you take her to her new room. I’ll get her things from the party.” Her mother walked on ahead of them, but her father chased after her.

“We can’t let her move out!” he said to her.

“Don’t think for a single second that this wasn’t meant to happen.” Thea’s mother looked up into his eyes unflinchingly. “Besides, it’s done. We can’t undo it. Let’s just do what we can to help her now. At least she still wants our help.”

“To move out! We won’t be able to help her at all now.” Thea’s father clenched his hands and glared up at the ceiling.

“Well, I’m going to help her.” Thea’s mother turned back to her and gestured for her to walk onward.

“Thanks,” Thea said. They turned together to go back to their domicile. Thea’s father followed after them, but he went back into Aunt Fanella’s domicile when they all walked by. Thea and her mother continued down the hall to their domicile.

Thea and her mother went straight to her room. Her mother silently created a Conversion Circle on the floor using a pen with a white feather. She sighed heavily as she took Thea’s purple quilt off her bed and folded it neatly on the floor. She struck a match on the floor and said, “Minuo!” The Code Word shrank the blanket down with a sparkle of orange light.

Thea grabbed the miniature quilt and put it in her rucksack. Her mother continued helping her, shrinking down all her uniforms, her underclothes and pajamas and shoes, and her pillow, until she had put them all in her bag.

“I want my bookshelf too,” Thea said.

Her mother shook her head. “You won’t have room for it. You saw how small Todd’s dorm is.”

Thea huffed in annoyance and stomped up to the bookshelf. After staring at the shelf of books for a second, she finally grabbed an empty notebook and the book she had recently started reading, Oathbreakers: book two of the Vows and Honor series. She also took her Beginner’s Guide to Alchemy off the shelf and shoved all the books into her rucksack and trudged to the door.

“Thea, wait.” Her mother followed her out, and Thea stopped by the door. She put her hands on Thea’s shoulders. “I’m sorry for all this, Thea. Truly I am. I want you to know I only followed the Keeper’s list because I thought it would keep you safe.”

“Safe?” Thea looked up into her mother’s face.

She nodded. “I don’t know what will happen if you move out, but I think the Keeper told us to give you that scroll for a reason.”

Thea shook her head. “Even now that I’m moving out, you still think this stupid scroll is more important than how I feel right now.” Thea shoved the scroll at her mother.

“Thea, that’s not what I meant!”

She didn’t stop to let her mother explain herself.

Thea nearly ran into her father as she walked through the doorway of her parents’ domicile. He had a small present bag from her party, and he handed it over to her.

“All your presents are in here,” he grumbled.

Thea took the bag without a word. He must have shrunk everything down to fit in the bag. With her rucksack filled with all her things, and her present bag filled with all her gifts, she turned to head down the hall toward her new dorm. She didn’t even say goodbye to her parents, who stood at their door and watched her leave with morose looks on their faces.

Thea looked at her room number on her key again. She took off at a speed walk up the Main Hall toward the green hallway and her new home.

All throughout the long walk, her mind whirled with thoughts. She couldn’t help but think about how the Keeper wanted her to become a Spectrum Scholar. And how her dad told her that everyone would notice her now because of her Spectrum Vestments. She watched all the Alchemists and Chemists as she walked down the hall, wondering if any of them noticed her, or if anyone was following her. Maybe she should have taken her vest off.

No! Her choice had been her own. She had wanted to become a Spectrum Scholar immediately once she learned that such a thing existed. She couldn’t second-guess her own decision now. Who cared if the Keeper wanted her to be a Spectrum Scholar? She wanted to be one. That mattered more than anything else.

Thea put her hand into her pocket to caress her Chimaera. She had wanted to create C.C. too. Nobody had told her to. It had just simply been her decision. Since the moment she had made her, Thea felt like she was meant to have her. Whether the Keeper wanted it to be this way or not, she realized that she wanted it to be this way, and maybe that was all that mattered.

A nagging thought lingered. The Keeper had manipulated her parents into allowing her to do things she wanted to do, like go be with Tajana. She wanted to find out why, but that nasty Bookkeeper would never let her see the Keeper. The thought made her tsk in disgust.

She made it to the green hall and turned to the right. The first room had the number 100 engraved on it, so after walking several steps, she found her room. Somehow, her name was already engraved on the nameplate near the door.

Viridian Hall

Room 107

Althea Presten

What if the Keeper knew that she would move out? She thought she was making her own decision for once, but it turned out that the Keeper was still manipulating her. The thought made her stomach feel queasy.

She unlocked the door and slipped into the room. By the door, a little globe floated in midair. She touched it, and the globe lit up, so she could see her new room.

It looked just like Todd’s. The room’s shape resembled a maple leaf, with a table and two chairs in the right corner, a bed with only a sheet on it in the left corner, and a wardrobe and short shelf in the back on either side of an alcove. She glimpsed a sink back there in the alcove too. Despite the small size of the room, the layout made it feel less stifling than the rectangular-shaped bedroom back in her parents’ domicile.

She sank down on the bed, setting her present bag on the floor. She took off her rucksack and held it in her lap. She’d never been on her own like this before. What if she had put herself at risk by moving out? She hugged her bag, a tightness growing in her throat. Other than her mother and father, she only knew a few people: the Keeper, the Bookkeeper, and Todd and Tajana.

She wanted more than anything to see Tajana right now and tell her what had happened. But that would mean talking to the Bookkeeper again. And he had refused to give her Todd’s room number in the first place, so she realized he most certainly wouldn’t give her Tajana’s room number.

Todd. He was the only one she could go see right now. Without even hesitating, she left her room, locked the door behind her, and took off for the blue hallway.