Sorry for such a slow update XD School sneaked up on me and I was only a quarter of the way through this chapter XD Anywho, this particular chapter delves somewhat into Evelyn's past, and how she became an alchemist (albeit not a very good one).
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Batman Begins or The Dark Knight or any other Batman reference I might have made somewhere along the lines of this story. I solely own Evelyn, Michelle, Charlotte and Greg.
"Trial and error, my dear," my 'aunt' Charlotte said, pushing her goggles off her eyes and onto her forehead. "Alchemy is a science, and science is based off the foundation of trial and error." I pulled my own goggles down around my neck, sighing.
"I know," I replied. "But you'd think after thirty times, I'd get the damn thing right!" I kicked the pile of debris angrily, causing some bits to fly off.
"I think we should stop…," Charlotte mused. I frowned, then stooped and gathered everything back into the pile.
"No," I said. "Let's keep at it. No way to get better unless I practice, right?" I kneeled by the pile, redrawing my transmutation circle in front of it.
"There should be one more line there," Charlotte said, pointing with a gloved finger. I added it in, then pushed my goggles back up over my eyes. I looked back over at Charlotte, who nodded. "Concentration," she said, smiling. I nodded, then turned back to the pile. I closed my eyes behind my goggles and took in a deep breath. I released it, then opened my eyes, placing my hands on the edge of the circle lightly. I concentrated all of my energy through my fingertips and into my alchemy. A ghoulish green glow emitted softly at first, then quickly gained in brightness. Its luminescent shine made me grin.
"Excellent work, Evelyn!" I heard Charlotte praise behind me as the near blinding light dimmed. Before me, where once sat the pile of rubble, was now a small replica of one of Gregory's old vases.
"Yes!" I shouted, standing up in a jump. Then my vision blurred and I passed out.
I awoke in my bed the next morning, Charlotte just entering. "You overdid it," she informed me, smiling.
"What?" I asked, sitting up slowly, propping my back against my pillows.
"That was your first successful transmutation, Evelyn. You can't just expect to have enough energy right afterward to leap in the air like an ape," she said, taking the chair from my desk and sitting down. I closed my eyes, sighing.
"I guess I just kind of got all caught in the moment," I mumbled, throwing my legs over the bed. I stood and wobbled to the door, heading for the bathroom. Charlotte smiled and followed, making her way to the kitchen. When I finally entered, fully clothed and clean, Charlotte had arranged a massive breakfast for the two of us. Pancakes were piled on top of each other, dripping with maple syrup extracted from the trees around the cabin. Bacon strips and eggs sat next to each other, steaming on their plates. A pot of tea and two mugs were in the center of the food, surrounded by small scones and sticks of butter. Fresh fruit bobbed in a large bowl of water close to the edge of the table.
"Sweet!" I cheered, taking a seat. I grabbed a plate and began to pile food onto it.
"Now that you've learned to successfully transmutate a simple object, it's time to move onto a more difficult one. That's why you get so much food this morning! Need all the energy you can get!" Charlotte said, grinning. I gulped down my mouthful of strawberries slowly.
"Great," I said sarcastically as I took a swig of tea.
"Sorry, can't work alchemy. Too full," I said as I followed Charlotte reluctantly out to the back of the cabin. She chuckled as we went through the back door.
"You have a choice today, Eve," she informed me. "Steel, wood, or glass." I knew this was a trick. She tried to make it sound like wood was the easiest choice here, as far as reconstruction. I knew better.
"Glass," I said. Charlotte grinned.
"Glass it is!" she exclaimed. From around the side of the house she brought a glass obelisk on a wheeled cart. She stopped the cart in front of me. "Bend it."
"What?!" I shouted. Her grin only widened.
"You thought it was going to be reconstruction, didn't you?" she asked. I didn't give her the pleasure of an answer. She didn't seem to mind, for she continued. "We're going to move onto something harder. Realigning the molecules in an object to form a different object from the starting one. It'll still be of the same material, but in a different shape. To achieve this, you need to concentrate very, very hard on the shape you want it to be. You also have to take notice of what the molecules are doing so you know whether they're expanding, contracting, or imploding on themselves. You don't want that last one."
"I can't imagine," I replied.
"So you'll be needing a slightly different transmutation circle," she said, kneeling next to me. She drew it on the ground with chalk almost effortlessly. "Study and replicate." I took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. I placed the tip of my chalk on the ground and began to draw.
"How's that?" I asked when I'd finished. Charlotte observed it a moment, then made one more line on the left hand side.
"Perfect," she said. "Now, bend the glass." I nodded and took the glass obelisk from the cart. I positioned it over my transmutation circle and kneeled back down.
"Okay…," I said slowly. I closed my eyes, envisioning the bended piece of glass in my mind. I kept it there as I placed my hands on the circle. I let the energy flow from my fingertips into the circle, and up into the glass obelisk. I could see a bright light from behind my closed eyelids and I smiled.
Then the glass shattered, and I threw my hands up to shield myself. I opened my eyes after the shards had ceased falling and huffed out an angry breath.
"It didn't work!" I observed furiously. "And I broke it!" Charlotte was just laughing, having a grand old time. "It's not funny, Charlotte!" I said, frowning.
"Oh, dear, it is! You did exactly what I did the first time I tried to bend glass!" she said. "Shattered it to smithereens!" My tutor was practically rolling on the ground now. I stood angrily and crossed my arms over my chest. Charlotte stopped laughing long enough to look up at me. One look at my serious face sent her spiraling into another fit of giggles. This time I couldn't help but join her.
"Oh, dear lord, Evelyn," Charlotte managed to say after she'd calmed down. She lifted up my chin with her hand gently. "You're bleeding! That glass must've caught you. Come. Let's get inside and make some tea and get you fixed up."
We took a break from alchemy for several days and I stayed the night with Michelle back in town. We were sitting in her room, watching The King and I, and it was not two minutes from the end when my cell-phone went off.
"Pause it! Pause it!" I hissed at Michelle as I fumbled to answer it. She took a dive for the remote as I flipped my phone open, not even bothering to see who it was. "Hell-oh?" she said, stressing the last syllable of the word.
"Eve? It's Charlotte," came the reply.
"Charlotte?" I asked, wondering why she was calling. I wasn't supposed to be back for another two days. "What's up?"
"A lot," she said. "I have to go back to England."
"What?" I asked. Michelle was at my elbow, trying to listen in. I batted her away. "Why? What's going on?"
"I can't say," Charlotte said. "Stay in Gotham. See if you can stay with Michelle. I'll send your things to her house." There a click and my phone read 'call ended.'
"What was all that?" Michelle asked, eyebrows raised in expectance.
"Not a clue," I said, closing my phone. "But it looks like I'm staying here for a while."
Michelle's mum didn't care if I stayed. Hell, she would've cared if I had lived with them for months on end.
Good thing, too, because that's exactly what happened.
I couldn't get a plane ticket back to Ireland, so I stayed with Michelle. I called my parents to tell them where I was, and they didn't seem to care, seeing as I was nearing my eighteenth birthday. They thanked me for calling them, and if I ever wanted to come to visit it would be fine, but they practically said that I was a free bird now and could do whatever I felt like.
So I decided to tell Michelle what I had been doing over the entire summer.
"You know how I said that I'd been at a summer school this summer, Mich?" I asked as we sat on her bed playing Black Jack one night.
"Mmhmmm," she replied. "Hit me." I gave her another card and continued.
"Well, I wasn't," I said. Her full attention was now on me.
"You weren't?" she asked. "We're you off with a boyfriend? You weren't into drugs, were you, Eve? Please say no!" She'd dropped her cards.
"Of course not!" I snapped, slightly offended by what she thought I was doing. "I was, uh, with my Aunt Charlotte. Well, she's not really my aunt," I confided. "She's more of a family friend."
"Aaaand?" Michelle prodded. "Point, please."
"My point," I said, "is that I was practicing alchemy with her."
"Alchemy?" Michelle sputtered. "Like, magic, turning lead to gold alchemy?" She tilted her head back with laughter. "You've got to be on drugs to expect me to believe that! Everyone knows alchemy doesn't exist anymore!"
"You're wrong," I said, slightly affronted. "It is real."
"Oh come off it, Eve!" my best friend replied, still chuckling slightly. I closed my eyes in frustration and hopped off her bed.
"I'll show you! Give me something I can fix," I proclaimed. She too got off her bed.
"Alright," she said, bending and reaching under her bed. She withdrew several pieces of wood. "It was a present my grandmamma gave me when I was six," she informed me. "It was a tiny wooden rocking-horse that my clumsy brother broke a few years back. I tried gluing it, but the glue wouldn't hold."
"Right," I said, taking the wood from her. "Let's go out on your back porch." Michelle followed me as I tromped downstairs and out into her small backyard. I took the piece of white chalk from my pocket and began to draw on the concrete patio.
"What's that?" Michelle asked from above me.
"It's called a transmutation circle," I told her as I made another line. "It's what alchemists use to fix things."
"Suuuure," she said sarcastically, snickering behind her hand. I scooped up the wood and placed it into the center of the circle.
"You sure that's all of the pieces?" I asked, looking up at her. She nodded. "Alright," I said, looking back down. "I need you to be completely silent." I closed my eyes, envisioning the rocking horse in my head. I carefully placed my hands on the edge of the circle and felt the energy flow from my fingertips. I heard Michelle gasp as a bright green light engulfed the small pile of wood.
Once it had vanished, I opened my eyes. I picked up the rocking horse, holding it out to Michelle. "Good as new," I said, placing in her outstretched hand.
"How in blue blazes…," she began, staring down at her treasured item. She looked back up to me. "That. Was. So. Cool."
"I think I deserve an apology after that, Miss-Alchemy-Doesn't-Exist," I said, folding my arms over my chest.
"Alchemy exists," she said, grinning. "Boy, does it ever."
Hope you enjoyed!