Grace Hulter was Professor Bebeef s youngest sister. The natural philosopher had always doted on her when she was small; as she grew, she returned the favor severalfold. They were close despite the years between them.
Grace's husband had left to join the Continental Army the previous year; she had had no word from him since. Grace refused to countenance the neighborhood whispers that he had met his fate below White Plains. True or not, the rumors filled even her most vitriolic Tory neighbors with pity for the famously kind woman. Grace administered mild cures to all in the surrounding country without regard to politics. Thus her husband's sins were not held too strongly against her, though she was suspected of being a quiet rebel herself.
By the time Jake unloaded the sleeping Alison from his shoulder onto a wooden chair propped near the front door, the sun was sending an advance party of rays to test the horizon. Timothy led Jake directly to the back yard, where the old professor was sitting beneath a rare and beautiful rose bush. In his hand was a brown-colored rock not more than three inches long and another inch wide, rough-hewn around the edge, as if it were a petrified piece of wood. It seemed to glow faintly; the old man's eyes, wide open in what seemed like perpetual astonishment, shone with the reflected light.
Despite the fact that he was now, well past sixty, Bebeef’s hair was full and thick, the magnificent locks falling around his ears and draping across the velvet of his fine cloak. He wore the doctor's robes of the monastery where he had studied during his youth, as was his habit when engaged in one of his more esoteric experiments.
Jake had never seen him in such a stupor. He advanced cautiously. Despite all his learning and experience, he could not dismiss outright the possibility that the stone did indeed contain some form of black magic.
"Professor, it's Jake Gibbs. I need your help. Professor?"
Bebeef s stare did not alter, nor was there any other sign that he had noticed Jake.
"He does not stir for days at a time," said Mrs. Hulter, coming out from the house. Dressed in a plain white country dress, she seemed to float across the stone path, her willowy hair tied in a modest bun at the back of her neck. "He will not move or acknowledge anyone and eats only a small bit of food."
"It's good to see you, Grace," said Jake, hugging her.
"And you, too." There was a look of regret in her eye at that moment, and perhaps a veiled acknowledgment that her husband had indeed met his fate. She quickly stepped back when Jake released her.
"What is the rock?" he asked.
"From looking at it, I would say a simple Bezoar stone. It arrived unannounced, with a note proclaiming its magic as a mad stone. My brother scoffed, then took it with him to the garden here. That was nearly two weeks ago. Nothing I have done has helped."
"Have you tried to remove it from his hands?"
"I cannot seem to shake it loose. It is as if it were glued."
Jake knew of mad stones, even if his scientific studies had not included them. Stones of various descriptions had been known for centuries, and they were generally said to cure ailments such as warts and sniffles. Jake's family had even attempted to buy one famous for its fever cures in Virginia. But the spell this stone seemed to have cast on Bebeef was right out of
The Arabian Nights.
Or perhaps a very esoteric cure book.
"Is your brother's library still stored in the barn?"
"Of course," answered Mrs. Hulter.
"There is a book based on notes by Avicenna, the grand vizier and body surgeon of Persia," said Jake. "I would like to consult it."
Mrs. Hulter had no idea which book he was talking about, but was only too happy to do anything that might cure her brother. Most of his store of ancient texts was packed in crates in the cellar below the barn's main floor, protected by a ponderous guard of heavy rocks. It took Jake more than two hours to move the stones away and find the work, a translation in Latin of a text dating from the tenth century. Mad stones were fully described, and though Jake's command of the noble tongue was rusty, he was able to ascertain that no such effect was documented. He therefore turned to Bebeef s own encyclopedic study — not of mad stones, but of paralytic poisons.
It was nearly noon before he had read enough to attempt a cure. As Timothy had gone off to bed and Alison was still slumbering, Jake enlisted Mrs. Hulter as an assistant. He made her wrap her hands in thick gloves, and cover her body with several layers of clothes, until only her eyes showed through. These he covered with gauze so tightly that she could barely see.
"I hope you're not expecting me to speak in tongues," she declared.
"Hardly," said Jake. "There is no magic here, just a powerful poison. The cure is surprisingly simple — largely coca powder and menthol. But first we have to strike the rock from his hands. If my guess is correct, the underside is covered with a gummy substance obtained from a bush in the French Alps, which acts as a glue."
Jake filled a pot with water and let it boil over the fire. As he waited, he too covered his body with the thickest cloths he could find.
His hands were so well padded that he was able to take the hot iron handle of the black kettle in them.
"Are you going to burn him?" asked Mrs. Hulter, the concern in her voice clear despite the rags protecting her face.
"I am afraid it will," said Jake. "When I give the signal, grab his head and pull him away from the stone."
They walked back to the garden, where the philosopher had not stirred an inch in the hours since Jake had left him. The patriot spy took up the kettle and held it over Bebeefs hands, then told Mrs. Hulter to be ready.
"I'm sorry to hurt you, professor," Jake told Bebeefs unmoving body a second before tilting the burning liquid. "But I believe the cure better than the disease, and I have great need of your help."
Mrs. Hulter grabbed her brother beneath the arms and hauled backwards as Jake started to pour the water. Bebeef fell from the chair, but the shock of the scalding water barely registered on his face. His hands were still stuck fast to the stone.
Jake kicked at his wrists and poured the rest of the water. Finally, with a loud, piercing scream, Bebeef began to writhe beneath his sister's arms, and the poisoned stone fell from his hands to the ground.
Chapter Thirty
There's no fool as an old fool," said Bebeef a half hour later, restored to consciousness and some comfort by a formula taken from his own book of cures. He had refused bed rest and was even now setting his laboratory in the barn loft back to order. The immense room was filled with even more tubes, jars, and bottles than his store in Manhattan. A long table ran through the center of the room, and a large cabinet of fancy walnut trays sat beneath a triangular window at the far end of the room. A jar of healing salts sat open on the middle rung, having been used to take some of the sting from the burns.
"Naturally, I should have suspected something was amiss when the package arrived. But I have such a contempt for these blasted stones and their superstitions. People look everywhere for cures these days, instead of consulting with those who have studied the body and its humors scientifically."
"I am sorry about your hands," said Jake. "But according to your notes, there was no other way to destroy the gum."
"Couldn't be helped," said the old man almost cheerfully. Thick gauze saturated with several ointments covered his hands, but otherwise he was in good shape. "These will hamper me, but I have suffered handicaps before."
"Do you know who prepared the stone?"
"There are only a few people with the knowledge to concoct something like this, and none bear me grudges," said the professor. "With the exception of one man, who has betrayed all his oaths and duties to the sacred knowledge he has gathered. He conducted human experiments for many years in London, and some friends have tried to have him arrested. I joined their petitions some months ago, but I had not heard if they were successful."