The Maid Is Not Dead

I postponed going to the bureau, seeing as its opening loomed yet several hours away. Neither did I head straight up for the foothills. Instead, I wandered into the northeastern quarter of the town and sought out a certain yellow-painted apartment and the corner store built into it.

I gave the front door a spirited rap. It lacked a knocker. It did have a bell on the inside to notify when a customer came in, but with the door being closed and securely locked, the bell was of no use to me. All I could do was knock, so I knocked. I seized the opportunity to try out various methods of knocking, which part of the hand and which part of the door produced the loudest possible level of sound with the least amount of effort. My experiments had reached knuckles square on the dead center, when I spied faint movement inside through the narrow glass pane in the door, and the grumpy appearance of a hauflin alchemist arrived to greet me.

"Yes, yes, I hear you! I heard you! Could you stop abusing people's doors at this godless hour? Is the house on fire? Oh, it's you."

Master Vivian's face turned, if possible, even sourer when she recognized me.

"Good morning, Master Townsend," I said. "Is that a face you should show to a well-paying regular? Is your business doing quite all right?"

"We're not open now!" she snapped back. "Which the sign hanging there should convey to you plainly enough! C-L-O-S-E-D! Can you see? Are you literate?"

The fact that the expert was still dressed in her pajamas, complete with a nightcap that had a large felt ball dangling off its tip, suggested it was not only an excuse to fend off unwanted customers.

"Would you consider making an exception for me this once?" I requested. "I'd like to leave early today and expand my potion stock before I go. On the side, I would appreciate a light breakfast too, if possible. I can pay you extra for that. Also, may I ask how old you really are?"

"What is your problem!?" the girl howled. "Who died and made you Queen?!"

Agitation appeared to get blood flowing into her head again, and she suddenly thought better of the deal. Her demeanor turned entirely around in the span of a wink.

"Well, if you are willing to endure testing my latest potion recipe, I might just consider treating you this once. How about it?"

"Deal."

"...I know it's not my place to say, but shouldn't you treasure yourself a little more?"

The small alchemist sighed and let me in.

She led me again through the shop floor to the laboratory hidden in the back room, saying it was better to conduct the experiment before breakfast, for reasons that were better left to imagination. Scouring her small drawers, she soon brought out a glass vial of colorless liquid, which gave me a keen feeling of having experienced the same precise situation before.

"This couldn't possibly be…?"

"Yup, that's right," the hauflin triumphantly answered. "This is an improved version of my magnificent truth serum!"

"You still haven't given up on that absurd concept?"

"Of course not! It's one of my biggest dreams after all, which will one day revolutionize the world. Don't like it? Then you know where to find the door. Your choice."

I took the vial from her hand, uncorked it, and emptied it in one go. It tasted a bit like cherries and went down painlessly enough. Master Vivian watched me eyes round for a moment, likely wondering why my attitude towards the poison was so different from the last time. But they cared not about hearing harsh truths where I was headed today. Shortly, she switched over to a mindset more befitting a researcher and observed me curiously from every angle, as if expecting me to sprout horns soon enough.

Meanwhile, I warily gauged my bodily sensations.

"Um. Well. How does it feel?" she finally asked. "Do you think you'll be able to tell a lie?"

I thought up a quick, experimental topic, as before.

Think what you will, but I couldn't so easily spew lies on demand. It took conscious calculation.

"I think the rose soap you make is grossly overpriced," I finally said.

Master Vivian clicked her tongue with frustration. "So it's another failure."

I shook my head. "Not at all. That is the raw, naked truth from which I've always sought to protect you, but which now has forced its way into light. Rejoice, Master Townsend. Your long-cherished dream has come true today. The serum is working. My tongue simply won't stop moving."

"Eeh, truly?"

"Yes, true as day. Also, the hand cream you sell, labeled 'wild strawberry,' in fact smells more like raspberry. It must be a faulty patch and should be sold heavily discounted. I'm sorry. I cannot help it. That's just how it is."

The girl's eyes, which had briefly glimmered with child-like awe, returned now to jaded skepticism.

"Are you really saying this because of the serum? It sounds rather more like your personal opinion to me!"

"On my honor, it is true, every word," I assured. "Further, Master Rydia sells the same Velvet Nights tea blend you do, but her bags have half an ounce more leaves, though the price is the very same down to a copper. When I discovered this, I must confess, I thought you were the greediest, seediest, half-length merchant to ever run an alchemy store, even if awfully cute on the outside and a pleasure to carry around. Oh, I am terribly sorry, Miss. It's the potion talking. It cannot be held responsible for my words while chemically manipulated like this."

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"All right, all right! I get it already! It was another bust, so shut up!"

But not a word I said was false?

Gold-brown toast. Thin-cut slices of smoked ham and cheese. Bright red cherry tomatoes, lettuce, and pickled cucumber. Tea with fruitcake, biscuits, apricot marmalade, and scones dressed in clotted cream. Laid down was a breakfast modest by hauflin measure, yet quite baronial compared to the local average. I could only wonder where Master Vivian had gotten her hands on such a varied range of fresh produce, given the times. Much of the offerings had to be homegrown. Suppose having a green thumb went hand in hand with alchemical expertise, if you may pardon the senseless turn of phrase.

As stood to reason, I could find no fault in the host's tea-brewing skills either.

Vera and Norn disliked bergamot in their tea, whereas the imperial family members favored it, and I had grown to miss the flavor.

But I was not there to review her breakfast table.

We had moved up to the second floor, where the alchemist had her private quarters and a cooking alcove so small it was like from a children's playhouse. But for a home, it was still very cutely and cozily furnished. The rising sun from the east side window cast a blinding blade across the tiny square table between us. I now glanced up at the still-disgruntled hauflin maiden opposite me and broke the silence,

"A question, if I may?"

"What?" she barked. "You want honey in your tea? I'm all out!"

"I can live without. There was another thing I wished to inquire."

"Well, spit it out then," she acquiesced with a sigh.

"Is the name Helen Townsend familiar to you?"

Master Vivian stared back at me, her irritation momentarily melting away.

"Hmm? Sure it is," she answered. "It's my own mother's name. Why?"

"I see," I thoughtfully remarked, realizing my mistake. "So you do not merely look like a child, but, as a matter of fact, are a child."

"I'm not a child," she protested once again with a snort. "How rude. I've already turned fifteen and am fully of age."

"I believe most people leave college in their mid-twenties, or later than that."

"Well, I didn't go to dashed college," she informed me and sipped her tea. "There are other ways to get certified. I studied under the Master Alchemist Isolda Garnier in Brune. She taught me much better than any stuck-up professor could have."

"You can't have been very old when you began your studies, yes?"

"Why, I started from the cradle. My parents left me in Master Garnier's care when I was still but a toddler. Their work was of the mobile sort, and too dangerous to carry a baby with them. Or so I heard. Growing up in the household of an alchemist left me little choice but to absorb the profession via osmosis. Well, I enjoyed it, so I didn't mind."

What an enviable situation.

"Your parents were both adventurers, yes?" I asked.

"Indeed, they were. But how could you know that? And why such a sudden and perverse interest in my family?"

"I considered picking you up myself if you happened to be unwanted by anybody."

"I'm not a stray cat! And don't call me unwanted, I'm very much wanted!"

"I see. How many have your experiments killed so far?"

"Not wanted by the authorities! Are you doing this on purpose!?"

Of course I was.

I briefly considered how much was well and wise to tell. Master Vivian was perhaps awfully clever for her age, but still in many ways naive, clueless about the world at large and the evils of man. Therefore, I said,

"The truth is, I met someone who seems to have known your parents. Perhaps."

"Really?" She blinked in surprise. "Who was it?"

"That, I will tell you another time. Your answers have filled in certain blank spots in the story, but there are still a few more details I must ascertain before I can decide if the two of you should meet. Forgive my nosiness, but as your elder and regular, I find myself invested in your continued well-being. As such, could you entrust this matter to me and not go look for that person on your own?"

"I think you're the number one most suspicious person in town," Master Vivian annoyedly grumbled. She shook her cup left and right in thought, before setting it down on its peony-patterned plate, a somber look on her childish face.

"Honestly, I can't remember much about my parents. I never saw them again after the day they left me, and most of what I know is what Master Garnier told me when I grew older. She was the one who knew them better and diligently answered every question I ever thought to ask. But the only memory that's truly my own is the sight of my mother's face, bidding me goodbye when she left. She was—a very beautiful and kind woman. Beautiful, but tough inside. That's the impression I got, anyway."

"I see."

"Thinking back, I got the feeling like my parents were running away from something then, as much as they sought to hide it from me. Like, someone or something was hot on their heels, and they had to leave in a great hurry, so as to not bring the danger to me and Teacher. I can't imagine what it could have been that terrified them so. Then again, I may as well have dreamed it. I was so very little then."

Then she raised her face, her eyes ashine with the usual willful light.

"Frankly, I've never been very eager to find my real parents. It is hard to miss something that was never there. Master Garnier is the only person I care to call family. And yet…It would be a lie to say I'm not at all curious. What kind of people were they, really, and what was the life they led? If this person you met truly knew my parents, I'd like to talk to them."

"Even if that person were dangerous and not worth knowing?"

Master Vivian hesitated to respond.

That look said enough. At the end of the day, she was neither a warrior nor a wizard, but only a brewer of potions and a merchant, and barely fifteen summers old. And though she wouldn't ask for it, this was such a delicate situation that called for the intervention of an adult.

"I shall let you know how the situation develops," I said and finished my tea.

She huffed haughtily in answer.

"Really, I wish you'd mind your own business and not make everything so complicated!"

Once we had set aside the breakfast and returned to the shop floor, I purchased two additional restoratives, a stimulant to ward off weariness, and a bottle of the potion of prescience she claimed was still under development, and then took my leave. It was time I headed to the dungeon, to write the next chapter of my personal story.