PART 4
Wilhelmina Bosch lived in a neat blue and white A-frame house that was perched on a low hill near the south end of town. Colorful flowers surrounded the property on all sides and spilled from window boxes and hanging planters. Carefully manicured hedges in geometric shapes bordered the front lawn, which was a healthy, uniform bright green. Two identical trees with straight white trunks stood on either side of the front walk like sentries. Their branches were decorated with festive paper lamps, the kind that could be lit at night to entertain an outdoor dinner party.
"It's like something out of a story book," Al said.
Ed was shamefully out of breath after the short climb uphill. Too much time spent on trains instead of training, he supposed. Still, he shouldn't have felt this out of shape. After a moment he felt like he had enough breath to reply to his brother.
"She's quite the gardener."
Truthfully, Ed was awed. Now he understood why she must have been so upset about her hydrangeas. This was no hobby. Unless Wilhelmina Bosch employed an army of gardeners the time and effort that it must have cost to cultivate a garden this impressive must have taken a level of dedication that bordered on obsession.
Ed stood staring –admiring, rather- Mrs. Bosch's workmanship. As an alchemist he had a profound appreciation for clean lines, precision and detail, no matter what the medium. This garden was a work of art.
"Brother, come look at this."
Ed trotted over to his brother. Al had circled behind the house and come face to face with the reason that they had been called here.
If the front yard was a work of art then the back yard was a masterpiece of flowering bushes any ivy-covered trellises, but in the middle of that masterpiece it looked like some violent deity of anger and destruction had descended from on high and smote the property. A shattered heap of wooden beams and planks lay spread out over the lawn and bushes. The lush greenery was flattened and the earth had been slashed open in places where the broken structure dug into the soft soil.
Before seeing this Ed hadn't felt any particular emotion toward Leon Mueller, whoever he was. Hell, Ed could cause more destruction than this in under a minute and over a much wider area, but seeing something that was obviously a work of passion destroyed by shear incompetence really pissed Ed off.
As he stood surveying the damage Ed became aware that he and Al were not alone on the property. A plump, gray-haired woman wearing an apron and a wide-brimmed straw hat was approaching from behind.
"Terrible, isn't it?" she asked, coming up alongside them. In one gloved hand she was clutching a set of gardening shears. In the other she held a fistful of tiny branches. She planted both fists on her hips.
"It's awful," Ed breathed.
Al turned his helmet towards her. "Ma'am, is this your garden?"
"That it is, young man. If you two are looking for the festival then you're headed in the wrong direction. It's back down that way." She pointed with her shears.
"No ma'am, we're not here for the festival," Al said.
Ed tore his eyes away from the devastation long enough to say, "Colonel Mustang sent us. My name is Edward Elric. This is my brother Alfonse, and we're here for this," Ed finished, tipping his head toward the rubble in the middle of her yard.
Wilhelmina Bosch's expression hardened. Her grip on the gardening shears tightened, and the way she was holding them suddenly made the shears seem more like a weapon than a tool.
And there was no doubt in Ed's mind that she knew how to use them.
Talking fast and acting faster Ed managed to get Wilhelmina Bosch to describe the way that the porch had looked before it had collapsed. He wanted to get to work before the outraged accusations started flying. Somehow he even managed to get her to go into the house and locate a photograph taken the summer before of her grandchildren playing in the back yard. It was a valuable point of reference and helped Ed eliminate a lot of the alchemic guesswork he would have had to do otherwise.
It took Ed four separate transmutations to restore Mrs. Bosch's porch and backyard to their former, undamaged state: one to repair the exterior of the house, one to repair the porch itself, one to fix the plants and the yard itself, and a fourth transmutation to correct what Mrs. Bosch insisted were 'flaws' in the finished product. Ed was cursing and growling under his breath when he clapped his hands the final time. Gone was his earlier appreciation for her fastidious craftsmanship. Under his breath he was calling her a fussy old bat because he'd studied the photograph and as far as he could tell the porch was a perfect reproduction right down to the way that the nails were driven into the wood, thank you very much.
Reshaping the hydrangeas and the other plants had been the most difficult part of the rebuilding process. Cut flowers were easy. They would wither within days, so their structure and composition didn't matter so much, just as long as they looked pretty and smelled nice. Ed could even make adjustments to their structure so that they would last longer. Plants that were already living and were expected to keep living and growing on their own took more energy and attention to repair. Transmuting a living plant was not the same as transmuting a living animal or person. Ed should know. He had given the subject a lot of thought. There was nothing taboo about it. Even so, transmuting plants (or doing it well, at least) required a level of understanding, a talent almost like having an ear for music. Ed's fourth consecutive transmutation seemed to have sucked him dry, but the finished product was a work of art if he said so himself.
When the last of the blue and white light faded Ed stayed on his hands and knees, chanting a silent mantra of 'don't find anything wrong, don't find anything wrong' while Mrs. Bosch fastidiously inspected her property. Agonizing minutes passed and Mrs. Bosch finally turned to face him, her expression grim. Ed's heart sank.
"It's lovely," she said, and an approving smile broke her weathered face.
Ed's shoulders sagged in relief. He sat back on his heels.
"We'd like to ask you a few questions about the alchemist who repaired your porch the first time," Al said.
"If you can call what he did a 'repair'!" she said.
"Please, it's very important."
"He's one of your own. I should be asking you two about him. Doesn't the state put its alchemists through some kind of training? Are they so eager for recruits now that they'll take incompetent practitioners and children?"
With difficulty, Ed ignored her jab. "He wasn't trained by the state," he confessed. Mustang had told them to be circumspect, not to reveal that Leon Mueller wasn't a state alchemist. But Mustang wasn't here and besides, Ed wasn't telling the full truth anyway and he had no plan to. "We don't know him. But it's important that we find him."
Mrs. Bosch sniffed disdainfully. "I hope you do."
Ed coughed into his elbow, which made Al look this way. Ignoring the unwanted attention Ed got a knee under him and staggered to his feet.
His head was light, his ears were ringing and the ground was uneven.
"Brother!"
Al caught Ed's arm before he could fall.
Ed blinked a few times and then jerked his arm away. "M'okay. Just tired."
"Here, bring him inside."
Ed tried to protest but it didn't do him any good and he found himself being marched up a flagstone path by his unrelenting mobile fortress of a brother. Once they were indoors Mrs. Bosch herded the two of them into her kitchen and shooed a black and white spotted cat off of a wooden chair at the table so that Ed could sit. Al deposited him there, then stood looming like a thundercloud.
"You can stop shoving me around. I'm fine." Ed complained.
"You're white as a ghost, dear," Mrs. Bosch informed him.
"The transmutation just took more out of me than usual is all," Ed groused, folding his arms dejectedly on the kitchen table. He added quietly, "If someone hadn't been so picky…"
Mrs. Bosch busied herself in the kitchen, stripping off her gardening gloves, opening and closing cabinets and setting things out on the counter.
"We're sorry to impose, Ma'am," Al apologized. "He hasn't been feeling well for the past few days, you see, and he has a tendency to overdo things."
With her head and arms already deep in her cupboards Mrs. Bosch tsk-tsked. "My oldest son is the same way. I've got something that will fix you right up."
Mrs. Bosch's kitchen was small and lit by a cheery little fire in the hearth. The air was warm and dry but it hadn't even occurred to Ed to remove his coat. Underneath his layers of clothes his skin still felt damp and cold.
"I don't need anything. I'm fine," Ed's protests were weaker this time because he knew that he was going to be ignored, and he was right.
Mrs. Bosch and Al continued to carry on a polite conversation over the top of Ed's head, much to his annoyance. They talked about the garden and the porch and her grandchildren and the goings-on of her neighbors and a hundred other things that Ed couldn't possibly have found less interesting if he'd tried. While Al sat and nodded and asked questions about the type of fertilizer she used to keep her tomato plants so healthy Ed scowled and fumed and wisely kept his mouth shut so that Al could smooth things over with the lady of the house. Al was good at smoothing things over. He'd had lots of practice.
Bored, Ed folded his hands on top of the quilted placemat in front of him. The second that he rested his chin on his hands Mrs. Bosch set a flowery saucer and teacup right in front of him, almost under his nose. Ed sat straight up. The aroma rising from the steaming brew that filled the teacup was so strong and unexpected that Ed felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.
"I used to make this for my children when they were ill. It's an old family remedy."
Ed lifted the teacup and inhaled the steam, trying to determine the contents of the cup. It seemed to be some kind of tea. The aroma was strong and spicy. He blew on the surface of the liquid to cool it, and then took a polite but tentative sip, aware that both Mrs. Bosch and Al were watching him expectantly.
Ed swallowed. To his relief the brew didn't taste bad. It was strong, yes, and very sweet: licorice tea with honey and herbs. There was a medicinal bite underneath the other flavors, something familiar that he couldn't quite put his finger on.
Ed put the cup down and coughed into his fist. "It's good. Thank you."
Mrs. Bosch smiled in satisfaction.
Al looked unnecessarily relieved. What did he think Ed was going to do? Spit it out?
Ed considered for a moment. Okay, well, maybe Al was right to look relieved.
Al turned to Mrs. Bosch, "I'm sorry for taking up so much of your time, ma'am. If you wouldn't mind answering a few questions about the alchemist who tried to fix your porch we can be on our way."
"Don't be ridiculous, dear. It's a pleasure to have company." She was really only looking at Al when she said it.
Ed sipped his tea quietly.
"What can you tell us about Leon Mueller?"
"Oh, was that his name? He didn't properly introduce himself. In fact I didn't even know that he was an alchemist until I saw his pocket watch."
Ed found that the tea had a pleasant numbing effect on his throat. Before he was aware of it he had almost drained the cup. Without being asked Mrs. Bosch took his teacup and saucer into the kitchen to make him another. As she rattled around in the kitchen she described her brief, and as it turned out, very strange encounter with the rogue alchemist.
Mrs. Bosch had awakened the morning after the earthquake to find cracks in some of the timbers supporting her back porch, so she went into town to hire a few men to help her shore up the damaged supports. When she got back she found a dark-haired young man in civilian clothing standing in her back yard, packing books into a satchel. Designs that she recognized as alchemic arrays had been drawn in the soil under her porch and the cracks in the beams had apparently been completely repaired. The young man had appeared to be in some kind of hurry.
"He kept checking the time on his watch, like he had an appointment to keep," she said, setting a fresh cup of tea in front of Ed.
"And what did the watch look like?" Al asked. Ed's mouth was full of tea.
Mrs. Bosch seemed mildly insulted. "I've been around for a while, dear. I know a state alchemist's pocket watch when I see one. It was silver and it had the state crest engraved on the front."
"Did you know where he went after he left?"
She nodded briskly. "The Clebolds, just down the way. There was a flash of blue light, almost like a lightning strike, but coming up from the ground. Then he visited the Frays and Mr. Fisk at the bottom of the hill. My porch didn't last two hours. The Clebolds' chimney didn't even last that long. The Frays' foundation cracked open again by sundown and half of Mr. Fisk's roof collapsed by morning. Thank goodness his bedroom was in a different part of the house!"
Ed thought that she certainly seemed… well informed. He suddenly had the suspicion that he and Al having tea with the town busybody.
Speaking of tea, Ed looked down into his second cup. A warm lassitude was spreading outward from his stomach to his extremities, his flesh ones anyway. His fingers, curled around the tiny porcelain vessel, felt thick and clumsy, almost swollen. Ed should have been alarmed, but he felt strangely at ease. It was becoming increasingly difficult for him to follow the conversation, which was fine because Al seemed to have taken over. Ed was more than happy to let him.
Ed leaned he elbows on the table and laced his fingers under his chin, thinking that he should at least try to look like he was paying attention. Paying attention was hard, though. Either he was more tired than he thought or this was the most comfortable table he'd ever sat at because he didn't remember resting his head on his arms but he must have because that's where his head was when someone dropped a cold, wet cloth onto the back of his neck.
"Zzzzzzggghhh!" Ed protested through gritted teeth.
He sat up and tried to pull the cloth away from his skin but a small, papery hand held the cloth in place.
"Just leave it there for a moment. You're flushed," Mrs. Bosch said.
Ed relented, but when her hand crept around to feel his forehead that's where Ed drew the line.
"Okay, I think we've taken up enough of your time."
Ed stood and pulled the cloth off of his neck with numb, clumsy fingers. He quickly but politely folded it before handing it back to her. "Uh. Thank you, but we need to go now."
Ed's legs felt strangely detached from the rest of his body, like they belonged to someone else. He stumbled over the legs of his chair but somehow managed to keep both it and himself upright as he pushed it in and backed carefully away from the table and towards the front door. Al followed in his lurching footsteps, his giant iron shadow.
"Do you boys have someplace to stay while you're in town?" Mrs. Bosch asked, trailing after them, still holding the damp cloth. "The inns around here book up rather quickly- "
"Uh huh, yeah, we figured that out," Ed said. He had never taken his coat off and he was glad. That was one less obstacle keeping him from running for the door.
"The sheriff was kind enough to let us stay with him," Al amended for his brother. He turned to Ed's retreating form and extended a hand, "Wait!" He turned his head toward Mrs. Bosch. "Thank you for your hospitality, Ma'am. You've been very helpful. Please call the sheriff if you remember anything else."
"There was one more thing," Mrs. Bosch spoke up, hooking a finger thoughtfully under her lips.
Ed, already at the door, turned.
"The books that he was packing up. They looked like textbooks. When I first saw him I thought that he looked young enough to be a student."
Al asked, "Did you notice any titles?"
"I can't remember the titles, no, but the pages were bookmarked and ragged. My sons both went to the university in Central. I remember that that's what their books looked like, they were so worn from use." There was pride in her voice.
"I see," said Al. "Thanks again for everything. If we have any more questions, may we come by and see you again?"
"Certainly, and if there are any further problems with my porch I will be sure to come and find the two of you," she assured them. It sounded to Ed like a threat and a promise both.
Ed scurried out the door, never once looking back to see if Al was following him.
Ed slowed once he reached the road, mostly to get his bearings but also because the strange, heavy feeling in his legs hand not gone away. He hoped that if he walked for a while he might start to feel better, but as they began to move in the direction of the Clebolds' house he realized that the feeling was only getting worse.
Ed swallowed his pride, "Hey Al… I don't feel right," he said, slowing down. Ed had trouble getting his body to stop completely. His legs seemed to be in love with momentum.
Al hovered protectively. "Do you need to be sick?" he asked.
"I don't think so." Ed's throat tightened preemptively at Al's suggestion, but the problem wasn't in his stomach…or maybe it was. "Hey, did you see what went into that tea that she gave me?"
"Dried herbs and honey. Hot water. It didn't look like anything that would hurt you…" Al said with a fearful edge to his voice. "Maybe you should try to throw up."
Ed shook his heavy head.
"Then maybe we should find a place for you to lie down."
"No, I think I'm good. I just feel kind of numb."
"We can go back to town. I keep telling you that you need to rest."
Something about Al's response to Ed's condition seemed off. Al was giving him a very strange look, and for a suit of armor, that was saying something.
Ed held up his hands, flesh and automail. When he dropped them to his sides they felt equally loose. The aches and pains that he associated with his automail were dull echoes. He added up his symptoms with Al's guilty reaction and then subtracted them from what he knew about rural cold remedies. Having grown up in the country Ed knew a thing or two about the subject. So did Al.
"Al," Ed concluded, "I think I'm drunk. I think the old lady put spirits in the tea."
Judging from Al's lack of surprise his younger brother seemed to have come to the same conclusion.
In fact, Al seemed a little too unsurprised. He sighed and assured Ed, "You're not drunk. You just seem…relaxed."
"I don't like this," Ed moaned. "I feel like my muscles are melting."
Al sighed. "You're being dramatic, brother. It'll wear off in a little while. She didn't put very much in."
And maybe she hadn't, for a normal person, but Ed's guard had slipped enough for him to admit to himself that he wasn't exactly normal-sized. That fact aside he was missing two limbs, making him really about three-quarters of the person that he appeared to be. What would have been a mild dose for anyone else was a potent medicine for him.
"Mean old bat," Ed muttered.
"Ed," Al said firmly, "that's not very nice. She wasn't mean at all. She has kids of her own, and grandkids! She's just strict."
"How can you say that? She poisoned me!"
"She invited us into her home-"
"After I practically passed out trying to get her back yard perfect!"
"She was worried about you! She even tried to invite us to stay with her!"
"As if I'd stay with a nasty old crone!"
Al actually growled at him, clenching his leather fists at his sides. Looking the way that he did, the pose was actually quite menacing. Ed's eyes opened wide and he took a stumbling step backwards.
"Brother, you're so…" Al began, his metal body trembling with rage.
When they had been children Ed had always been a little thicker, a little sturdier than his younger brother. Now Al was sturdier by far, but that didn't stop Ed from standing toe-to-toe with him in the middle of the street. He was scowling and swaying, hands clenched, a mirror image of his brother's posture, but far less intimidating. "What? I'm so what?"
The tension in Al's metal frame evaporated. If Ed was looking for a fight, he wasn't going to find it here.
"Let's just go."
Ed's shoulders dropped. He stood staring after his little brother as Al walked away from him.
And for once it was Ed's turn to chase after Al.
Ed was practically useless at the next house that they visited, and it seemed like Al was making sure that he felt like it too.
"So he told you that he was a state alchemist?" Al asked. He and Ed were seated on a long green couch in the Clebolds' living room across from Mr. and Mrs. Clebold and their four-year-old daughter Lucy.
Mrs. Clebold nodded, prying her squirming, hyperactive daughter off of her lap. Lucy immediately rushed over to Alphonse and began to climb him like a tree.
"Lucy!" Mrs. Clebold snapped. "Sorry, Mr. Elric."
Alphonse was laughing, though, something that Ed wouldn't have been doing in his place. "It's alright. Um, you were saying?"
"Yes. He told us his name and said that he was an alchemist for the state. He was very polite." That last part seemed to be directed at Edward, who, when he hadn't been tripping over the rug, the cat and his own feet had spent the majority of their visit scowling at the offending objects while his brother handled the transmutation that restored the Clebolds' chimney to working order, hunted for clues and made productive use of their time in general.
Ed felt like a snot-nosed little kid tagging along after a parent.
"He seemed very apologetic," Mr. Clebold added, "almost like he thought the earthquake was his fault."
"Huh," Ed snorted.
"He didn't exactly seem confident in his work, but I'm sure he didn't mean for the chimney to collapse," said Mrs. Clebold.
"Tell me, does the state always sponsor amateur alchemists this way?" Mr. Clebold asked in a way that Ed interpreted as condescending. "Is this some new program?"
Ed bit his tongue and let Al take the reigns on this one. He instinctively didn't like this idiot Clebold. The wife and kid were fine but the husband struck Ed as a man who sat behind a desk all day and told other people what to do, and didn't that sound familiar...
"The process of obtaining a state certification is very involved," Al informed them seriously. "The military doesn't give watches to just anyone. That's why it's very important that we track him down."
Mr. Clebold scoffed, "Sounds like the military needs to do a better job of keeping tabs on its people."
Ed almost didn't hear the rest of the conversation over the sound of his own teeth grinding.
Apparently Al got something more out of that sentence than Ed did. "You're the second person to mention that you thought he was a student."
"Well, he said that he was a student."
"Did he say that he was studying alchemy?"
"Not specifically, but that part was obvious, and if you ask me, he needs to study a little bit harder."
"Nobody asked y- " Ed started to say, but a heavy leather gauntlet covered his mouth and Ed had to fight the urge to bite down, but he was only successful because he knew it wouldn't do any good.
Ed sulked his way through the rest of the visit and poured his remaining energy into controlling the urge to cough everywhere. Once they had said their goodbyes (their torturously long, lingering goodbyes) and were out the door and safely down the road a bit, Ed rested his hands on his knees and hacked until he thought he was going to produce a hairball or a lung or both. In between fits he gasped out, "I can't believe he had me defending that guy when he's the whole reason we're out here in the first place!"
Al said nothing. He just stood patiently by the side of the road, waiting for Ed's coughing fit to pass. Anyone who happened to be passing by was going to wonder why Ed was having a conversation with a statue.
After a while Ed straightened up, wiping a hand across his mouth. The affects of the alcohol that Mrs. Bosch had put in his tea were beginning to fade. The false warmth in his limbs was fading, and the cold was seeping back in. Beside him, Al's frosty demeanor seemed to magnify it.
Ed sighed. He looked down at his boots, which were covered with dust from the road.
"I hope the little girl doesn't catch my cold," Ed said quietly.
"Oh, so now you're being considerate?" Al's question seemed to explode out of him, as if it had been held under pressure for a long time.
"Are you still mad at me?" Ed asked.
Al turned his helmet towards him. "You know how I feel, Brother. You should go back into town, get some more rest and take your medicine. You're not going to be much help in the shape you're in."
Ed filled his lungs, prepping for an argument but the whole thing just seemed like too much work at the moment. His breath sighed out of him, punctuated by a weak cough at the end of it.
"I'm sorry, Al. I'm sorry I'm being such a pain in the ass. I just… don't feel well and I'm taking it out on everybody including you."
"It's okay, brother," Al soothed sympathetically. "But you need to go a little easier on everybody, and that includes yourself."
Good old Al, always the voice of reason.
"I'll make you a deal: If I get out of line again you can drag me back to town and throw me in one of the jail cells."
"That wouldn't work. You'd just transmute your way out."
Ed stuffed his hands in his pockets. Sometimes it was tough to have someone around who knew him so well. Mustang and his staff he could fool at least most of the time.
"I just want to hurry and get through this assignment. I won't be able to rest until we've figured this out."
"I know, brother. Just… try to be less of a jerk, okay?"
"I guess, as long as all I have to do is try."
To be continued...
