Gene of Isis

‘I am happier than I was yesterday.’ I returned to the bed and took hold of her hands. I had no desire to bring her down from heaven. ‘I’ll tell you a little secret about Mr Devere, which you must swear upon my honour you will not divulge.’

Her blue eyes grew wide and she nodded in encouragement. ‘I swear.’ She squeezed my hands tighter.

‘He kissed me.’

‘No!’ She placed both hands to her mouth to smother her shock and delight.

‘Just a little one.’ I held my thumb and first finger almost together. ‘It was ever so innocently delivered, and quite brilliant really.’

Susan had given up on covering her shock. ‘I haven’t even been kissed yet, except on the cheek in public, and that doesn’t really constitute a kiss. Where did it happen? In the lower drawing room? Yes, it was a very cosy arrangement when we arrived home. Did you find it so?’

I nodded and dwelt on the moment fondly. ‘He wants to take me travelling.’

‘I know.’

Susan’s reply startled me from my memory. ‘You knew! Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Mr Devere wanted to tell you himself, but you wouldn’t give him the chance.’

That explained why Susan was always promoting his suit to me. ‘I fear the smart thing to do is just surrender to the will of the universe.’

Everyone seemed to agree it was the wisest thing for me to do.

I do not think that would be the wisest course. Albray had changed his tune when I spoke to him in my room as I ate breakfast.

‘But yesterday you said I should speak with Mr Devere about the travel?’

You asked for the quickest way to guarantee travel was in your future, he pointed out. This is not the only way, or the best way, if you choose it because you feel it is your only option.

‘I would be safer travelling with a husband,’ I reasoned. ‘He can make all my travel plans with no questions asked.’

And the price of that ticket is your love. Albray spoke frankly. Are you prepared to wear that cost?

For a moment I thought my knight was talking sense, but then he added: If it is only security you seek, I can award you that.

He was asking me, in no uncertain terms, if I loved Mr Devere? ‘He is as pleasing as any young man.’ I smiled at Albray who was older than Mr Devere by at least ten years. ‘And our marriage would serve to get my father and everyone else off my back so that we might get some serious study done.’

You don’t think that being a wife is going to be a distraction to your study?

I was beginning to wish I had never brought Albray into my personal affairs. ‘What other choice do I have?’

The red book, he said. I suspect it contains many secrets.

My heart skipped a beat. If Albray was psychically linked with me then he knew about the vial. ‘Do you know what it contains?’

It is the key ingredient in the Bread of Life. It is 0 = (+1)+(-1).

I was frowning. ‘That is a riddle not a sum. When applied to physical matter it’s an impossible equation. You can’t add a negative one to one and be left with nothing. You’ll always have the one.’

Unless? he prompted.

‘Unless nothing, it can’t be done,’ I insisted. He grinned and shook his head as if disappointed by my lack of vision.

The only way to turn something into nothing, in a material sense, is to transmit that something to another dimension and make it disappear completely from the mundane environment.

‘A transformation of matter.’ I caught his meaning. ‘Something like digestion or incineration?’

Albray nodded.

Moments later I had unlocked the red book and held the vial of glowing substance in my hands.

Actually, the substance is affected by heat in a very interesting way. Do you want to see how the Egyptians built the pyramids? Albray piqued my curiosity, and pointed to a footstool. Place that in front of the fire. We’ll pretend that the heat of the fire is the hot Egyptian sun. Take the stopper from the vial and run it quickly along the top of the stool, and keep your thumb over the mouth of the vial until you replace the stopper.

‘Does the powder have a bad reaction to air?’ I wondered about the safety precautions as I followed them with care.

Watch, he suggested, as I replaced the stopper and found a few particles stuck to the back of my thumb. The tiny particles floated upwards off my finger. ‘This substance defies gravity.’ My hand seemed to feel lighter, then I saw that the footstool had begun to rise off the floor. ‘Oh, my god.’ I couldn’t believe it. The tiny particles of light floated above the footstool, towing it into the air. ‘And heat accelerates the properties of this substance?’

Indeed. Under extreme heat, this substance sends the particles of anything it is attached to into a highward spin state until they achieve perfect unity and transcend the physical realm . .. when cooled again, they