The Elixir

My eyes flicked open. I sat up and listened. Nothing. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and crept to my bedroom door. I opened it a crack and peered out. All I could see was the pitch black hallway of my parents’ house.



The light switch for the hall was in the kitchen, which is where it led to, well that and the front door.  Suddenly the light flicked on and I jumped back. Somebody was in the house! Mum and dad were on a holiday in Mexico and I was the only one home. Well I was supposed to be.



I crept forward slowly, trying not to make a sound. I tip-toed to the door and opened it a little more. The squeak it made seemed loud in the silence. I decided to investigate. When I heard the banging and clanging and the sound of breaking glass, all I wanted to do was climb out my window and run.



Before I left the safety of my bedroom I took one last glance around. I had a sickening feeling that this would be the last time I saw it.



I managed to get to the end of the hall without making any noise. I peered around the corner and was shocked at what I saw. A tall, skinny woman with shoulder-length, shiny, black hair was tearing apart my kitchen! The glass door was broken and so were all the glasses and plates. That explains the glass I heard breaking. All the cupboard doors had been ripped off their hinges, but there were no tools that she could’ve used. Who was she?  What was she doing here? I needed answers.



Without giving it a second thought I stepped out of the cover of the wall and into the open. She didn’t turn around.

“Hey!” I yelled. “What do you think you’re doing?”

She still did not turn. Was she deaf or something? I walked up to her and tapped her on the shoulder with my shaking hand. She turned around and pushed me. She didn’t put any force into it but I still went flying across the room.



I smacked into the wall and cut my arm on a piece of broken glass. It hurt but I was too shocked to feel the pain. She had pushed me from one end of the room to the other by barely touching me. What was going on here?



I jumped up and ran as fast as I could up the hall, through the front door and down the street. My legs were covered in cuts and I could feel the bruises forming but I didn’t care. All I cared about was getting as far away from that house as possible.



I stopped running when I got to a park, three streets down. I sat on a bench and tried to catch my breath. I went over what had just happened in my head. It didn’t seem possible. What did this woman want? We were a normal enough family. My parents were both scientists. Not the freaky lab rat kind, just normal scientists. I was a normal fourteen year old. We were nothing special. What could she possibly want?



I glanced down at my watch. 2:00 AM. Now I was glad I never took it off. Behind me I heard heels hitting the pavement. I didn’t bother turning around. I figured it was just somebody walking to work. Then something hit me. Who goes to work at 2:00 AM? And wasn’t the woman who broke into my house wearing boots? Stiletto boots! I let out a scream.



“Wakey wakey,” the voice was terrifying. I opened my eyes. I felt groggy and my whole body ached. “What did you do to me?” I demanded in a voice that sounded sleepier than intended.

“Oh don’t worry you’ll be fine,” the woman said in a voice that suggested that everything was fine. As if I woke up in a strange place after being drugged every morning.



“So the way I see it you have two choices,” she said condescendingly. “One you can just tell me where it is, or two I can beat it out of you. Of course the first option is faster but I do enjoy number two.”

“Tell you where what is?”

“The disc of course. You must have hit your head harder than I thought.”

“Look, you’ve got the wrong girl. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”



She didn’t like that answer. She bent down and pulled a knife out of the strap on her boot. She turned it in her hand mockingly and said, “I have all week to get it out of you. So just tell me where the disc is and you can go back to your little house. Or you can stay here until you crack. If you don’t tell me what I want to know by the end of the week, then it will be the end of your last week, understand?” I was terrified but I tried not to show it. “I’ll let you think about it.” She left the room and I was alone.



The only discs I owned were just old CDs with my music on them. I highly doubted that she was going to kill me because she was a huge Metallica fan. Maybe it wasn’t mine. Maybe it belonged to my parents. They put all their experiments and stuff on discs. That must be it. They had hundreds of them in the study. If that’s all she wanted then she could have just said so, instead of trashing my house and threatening to kill me. This chick has serious anger management issues.



When she came back in she wasn’t alone. There was an older man with her. He looked to be about mid fifties.  She was taller than him but he was obviously in charge.  “Camilla would you like to explain to me why you have brought me a girl when I specifically asked for the disc?” he yelled at the woman whose name was apparently Camilla.

“She was home when I went to search for the disc sir. After I realised that the disc wasn’t in the house I went to find the girl so she couldn’t tell the police what she saw.”

“Not in the house! What do you mean not in the house?” He was completely enraged now.

“I couldn’t find it sir, so I thought I could make this girl tell me and if she won’t, I’ll just beat it out of her.” She said the last part with a smile that sickened me. I could tell that she was imagining what her beating it out of me would look like.



They were silent for a minute while the man thought about what to do with me. “What is on that disc?” I asked cautiously.

“That is none of your concern young lady,” he replied.

“It is if you want me to help you find it.”

“Explain yourself,” he yelled.

“Well it’s my house. If anybody would know where this disc is it’s me. I know where everything is and my rates are cheap. All I ask is that you let me go and never contact me or my family again.”



He agreed to my terms and promised to leave my family and me alone.

“The disc contains the results to a particularly important experiment. It has baffled scientists since the beginning of time and your parents have cracked the code. If they are foolish enough not to use the information to their advantage, they don’t deserve it.”



I still had no idea what he was talking about. He noticed the puzzled expression on my face and sighed, “Have you ever heard of Nicholas Flammel?” he asked impatiently.

“Yes,” I replied slowly, I wasn’t sure where he was going with this.

“The legend says that he figured out the code for the elixir of life. So he could live forever. That is false. He was a foolish alchemist who tried his whole life to crack the code. Your parents did what he never could. They know the formula for the elixir of life but don’t plan to use it. They plan to stay mortal and die a mortal death. I however do not plan to waste the gift.”



That was impossible. This whole day had been impossible. Since I got up just before 2:00 AM everything that had happened had been impossible. A woman with super human strength broke in and trashed my house, drugged me so I would fall asleep, I woke up in a room in the middle of God-knows-where, and now apparently my parents have the formula for an elixir that grants immortality. I am not awake.  This is one of those dreams where you know you’re dreaming. This can’t be real.



A few hours later Camilla returned. This time she brought a different man with her. He couldn’t be any older than sixteen. He looked at me with an extremely odd expression. Almost pity. He looked actually sorry for. I tried not to focus on that, he was probably just a good actor.



I woke up in the back seat of a small car. The soft seats felt strangely familiar. The comforting smell of the cheap, citrus scented car air freshener lingered in my nose. This was my dad’s car!

“Well it’s about time,’ said the voice I now recognised as Camilla’s.

“I told you not to use so much chloroform,” replied a husky soft voice. Was it the same guy that she brought into the room with her back at the place where they were holding me?



I stumbled out of the car, Camilla keeping a tight grip on my arm. I was fumbling around as if I were drunk. I don’t know why, but for some reason I felt embarrassed to be seen like this in front of the man from the front of the car.

“Find it!” Camilla demanded once we got inside. I tripped and fell numerous times on the way to my parents study. Camilla was clearly not happy that I was taking so much time.



I opened the cupboard where mum and dad keep all their files and documents. All the discs were kept in three big cases. I went through every disc in every case, under the supervision of Camilla and the man whose name I still didn’t know. None of them contained the formula for the so called “elixir of life.”



I still didn’t believe that my parents, the average scientists with a teenage daughter, could really know this secret formula. I didn’t even believe in the elixir of life. A few years ago I read a book about Nicholas Flammel and the codex, which is just an old book that supposedly contained the formula for the elixir of life. Basically the legend said that he spent his whole mortal life looking for the codex, and when he found it, him and his wife created the elixir of life and lived forever, and now apparently my parents are the modern day equivalent of Nicholas Flammel and his wife. Yeah right.



I pulled out the hundreds of files and folders that filled the cupboard and went through them all. There was still no sign of the disc. I stared into the empty cupboard and saw my fate flash before me. They would kill me. They would think I lied and kill me for it. I could only hope they would make it quick.



I had given up all hope of getting out of this mess alive, but then I saw something. In the back of the cupboard was a painting taped to the wall. I felt it with my fingertips. There was something under the paper. I started walking out of the study, heading for the tool shed.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Camilla roared.

“I am going to get some tools,” I replied simply.

“And what makes you think that you need tools?” she was being condescending again.

“There is something under the painting in the back of the cupboard but the shelves are blocking it. I need tools to get rid of the shelves,” I said impatiently.

Camilla walked over to the cupboard and with one hand ripped out a shelf. My mouth hung open. What was she?



Once Camilla had ripped out all the shelves in my parents beautiful mahogany cupboard, I tore the painting apart. I was enjoying ripping the paper. It was a good way to get out some of my frustration. When there was no more paper on the wall of the cupboard I could see a little square CD case heavily taped to the wall. I peeled it off and opened the case. It was a disc. NO WAY! This was NOT some kind of secret supernatural formula! It was probably just another experiment. There was no such thing as Nicholas Flammel or the codex or the elixir of life. There was no such thing as immortals. It just wasn’t true.



After staring at the disc for five minutes I handed it to Camilla who hadn’t noticed that I had found a disc that was hidden in the back of a cupboard in the study, buried behind files, documents and a painting. She wasn’t very observant.



Camilla couldn’t believe her eyes. Her mouth hung open just as mine had when I found the disc behind the painting. Her lips curled up into a sickening smile. It wasn’t the happy kind of smile, but the kind that a villain has when they trick superman. It was just like in the movies.



She let out a small laugh then put her hand into the inside pocket of her jacket. She pulled out a gun. Oh great! I just helped her get what she wants and now she is going to kill me. This has been a really bad day.

“No, you can’t kill me. You gave me your word, your oath.”

“No I didn’t you foolish girl, my boss said he wouldn’t kill you. I said nothing.”

Well that’s just perfect!





I was staring into the eyes of my killer. I guess I wasn’t going to die of old age as I had hoped. In my mind I said goodbye too all my friends and family and I vowed that if ghosts were real (if the elixir of life is real then why not ghosts?) then I was sticking around to haunt Camilla, her boss and whoever else had anything to do with this.



Just when I thought my time was up, I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see the bullet that would kill me. I heard her load the gun and I took one last breath. I thought about all the great times I’ve had in my short fourteen years. The time I went to South Africa with my parents for a science convention. My best friend Lilly and all my other friends at school. I remembered the cake fight that we had on my fourteenth birthday. Everything was simpler back then. I didn’t believe in some potion that could make people live forever. I didn’t really believe in anything, except that teachers were evil and that homework was a pain. I was so naive.



I had been thinking for a while and began to wonder why I wasn’t dead yet. Not that I was complaining but why hadn’t Camilla shot me? I heard something drop. It couldn’t be her gun, this was heavier. I opened my eyed to see Camilla lying on the floor, a knife sticking out of her. I turned around so I wouldn’t be sick, and then it hit me. Who killed Camilla?



The man! He was the only other one in the house. But why? I thought they were on the same team. This didn’t make sense. I turned back around to see the man looking at me.

“Why?” I asked. I couldn’t say much more. I was shocked

“Because I couldn’t just let you die. Especially over something like this, something that shouldn’t exist. And on that note...” He snapped the disc in half. My mouth once again dropped open.

“Thank you,” I said. Thank you didn’t even nearly cover it, but I was still having trouble speaking and I didn’t trust myself to say too much more without bursting into tears.

“Anytime,” he replied. He said it as if I were thanking him for a milkshake and not for saving my life. How was he so casual?



After about another fifteen minutes of silence he managed to talk me into going out for breakfast with him. I hadn’t even realised it was morning. We went out to a little cafe and talked for hours. Somehow it didn’t seem like I had just almost died. It just felt like a normal...date. Wait a minute, was this a date? We were laughing and talking like a date. He was defiantly cute enough for this to be a date, but did he think this was a date? Before I could think about it anymore, he leaned over the table and touched his lips to mine. Well I guess that answers that question. A date it is. I kissed him back.



Before too long we both forgot all about the whole Camilla thing and were just in a normal relationship. It was nice. Refreshing. Nate (I finally got his name!) and I have been dating for about two months now and it’s going great. I see him almost every day but every time I look into his dark green eyes I still can’t believe what has happened.



Today my parents finally came home from their trip to Mexico. It had been a long three months since I’d seen them, but I was used to it. With them being scientists they went to a lot of conventions and meetings that forced them to travel. When I was younger I went with them but it was always boring. Since I was twelve, and they had to go to Japan, they have trusted me to be at home alone. I have a special bank account for when they go away. They put money in it all year round so I have enough to buy food and pay the bills while they’re gone.



I met them at the airport and we shared the usual hug and kiss. We got into the taxi I had used to get here and before we knew it, they were home, unpacked and showered. Once gain everything was normal.



I went to see Nate the next day. And he had an announcement to make. “I haven’t been totally honest with you,” he said, looking guilty. I was shocked. After what had happened, we didn’t have any secrets, so for him to have kept it to himself for this long it must be big. “I’m...I’m not who I say I am.” I was silent. What was he talking about? “I can do things...Things that other people can’t. You saw what Camilla did, how she could rip out those shelves with one hand. Well it’s like that but I’m not super strong. I’m different.” He made it sound so real, but I had to believe that he was joking. He was Nate, he was normal. We trusted each other, we didn’t have secrets.



I didn’t say anything to Nate until he had finished talking. He had told me that he could tell what I was thinking, that he could read my mind. He also told me that he was super fast. He could run around the block in the blink of an eye. I kept telling myself that it wasn’t true and he was just playing a really bad prank, to see what I would believe, but I knew that it wasn’t. He was telling the truth.



Even though I believed him I still needed proof.

“Okay then Nate, what am I thinking right now,” I asked him.

“You are hoping that this won’t change anything, and you are finding it hard to believe. For that I can’t blame you, and....Oh My God!” Oh no! What had he found out? He had whispered those last words but they had a bigger effect then if he had yelled them.

“I love you too.” Oh My God! That’s what he heard! Wait, rewind a little, what did he just say?

“I said that I loved you too. Woops sorry. I don’t usually read your thoughts like that; it’s just hard right now. You’re thinking so loud!”



After making him promise not to read what I was thinking, I thought about what I had just heard. Honestly I didn’t know what I expected. He was associated with Camilla, who obviously wasn’t normal, it only made sense that he was too. At least he wasn’t trying to kill me...or is he?  NO! Nate is NOT trying to kill me. He saved me, and I trust him completely.



We talked for hours after that. I was processing all this news, and even though Nate had lied to me, I was glad he was here. He said that tomorrow he would teach me ways to block him out, so he can’t read my thoughts. He promised that unless I told him that he could, he would not even try to see what I was thinking. He was very gentlemanly about it, and gave me his word that he would respect my privacy. I couldn’t stay mad at him after all that happened.



I looked down at my watch. 8:30 PM! I had been here all day! Nate and I weren’t finished talking so I called my parents and let them know that I was safe. When they asked me where I was I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t told them about Nate yet. I decided that there was no time like the present. “I’m, uh, I’m at my boyfriends.” They were silent. All I could hear was the TV in the background. They had turned it down a little so they could put me on speaker but I could still hear it

“Hello?” I asked.

“Yes, we are still here,” my mother’s voice was calm, she always had a way of composing herself when she had to, I was always a little jealous of that. “You never told us you had a boyfriend,” my father was trying to be calm but I could hear it in his voice that he wanted to rip the head off of any guy that laid eyes on his daughter.



I calmed them down but they insisted that they meet Nate. Tomorrow.

“What? Tomorrow! Are you kidding?” Nate’s reaction was a little louder than I had hoped.

“I’m so sorry Nate, but they are very protective and insisted on tomorrow.” I kept my voice calm, even though I was completely freaking out inside. I could just imagine my dad with the shotgun in one hand, and a shovel in the other. Not that he would hurt Nate, he would just scare him away, so he didn’t have to worry about me as much whenever I wasn’t home or he was off on a science thing.



I talked Nate into going, said goodbye and headed for the door.

“Wait,” Nate called as I was about to leave, “are we okay?”

“Yeah,” I said with a smile “we’re okay.” With that I left. I thought it was sweet that he made sure that we would get through this, and we would, I wasn’t going to let anything stand in our way. With that in mind I went home and sat my parents down to have a little talk. They gave me the whole, “be careful,” speech, just as I expected. When they were finished it was my turn to lay down the law.

“You will be nice to Nate; you will make him feel welcome. You will not try to scare him off, and you will not drill him with questions about his plans or intentions. You may ask him seven questions and they must all be appropriate. Understood?” That right there scared me more than anything else, I sounded just like my parents! I have to work on that.



Morning came too soon. It was time to get up, get dressed, and go get Nate. We decided that he would come over at 12:30 for lunch. I went to his house at 12:00 to get him ready, I highly doubted he had ever met a girlfriends parents before so I would need some time to fix him up, and it turns out I was right.



I knocked on the door and found him in his favourite torn up jeans with a black T-shirt that said Born to kill on it. I said hello and walked in to his room, opened his wardrobe and pulled out a pair of nice, blue jeans and a white button down shirt with a black pattern across the chest, it was nice. I got him to put them on and I went into the lounge room while I waited. I had met his parents last month; they were nice and approved of me. I’ve seen them once or twice since then. They worked out of town and came home on weekends. They had a friend that lived next door that came around a lot so they didn’t have to worry. Nate came out two minutes later looking gorgeous.

“Is this better?” he asked.

“You look absolutely perfect!” I ran up to him and hugged him. “My parents are going to love you.”



We arrived on time and sat on the lounge opposite to my parents with a table of little sandwiches between us. “So, uh Nate, where are you from?” dad asked with clenched teeth. He was trying to obey the rules.

“I was born local. My parents don’t like to travel too far.” He replied politly. That’s one I counted mentally.

“Nate would you like a sandwich?” my mother asked cheerfully, she liked him already, unlike my dad, who had his hands balled into tight fists in his lap.



It was 1:45 and Nate had been here for over an hour. He was doing great and was pretending not to notice that he could be perfect and my dad would still hate him. The plate that used on be filled with sandwiches was empty so I took it into the kitchen and my mum excused herself and followed me.

“He is quite a man,” she said.

“Thanks mum.” I was so grateful to her today. She was being so nice to Nate and trying to give dad subtle hints to do the same. He didn’t but at least she made an effort.



Mum went to the bathroom and as I was on my way back to the lounge room I heard my father talking to Nate.

“What exactly are your intentions with my daughter?” he said accusingly.

“I, uh...” Nate stammered.

“Dad can you give me hand in the kitchen?” I said, not bothering to hide the fact that I was trying to get him away from Nate. He got up and came into the kitchen, obviously angry that I had interrupted him trying to scare away my boyfriend.

“I don’t trust him,” he said as soon as we were out of earshot.

“Yes dad I know you don’t, but I do. I thought we had an agreement, you are not supposed to ask Nate that sort of question.”



I made dad promise to keep his word and be nicer to Nate. We decided it was time to go about twenty minutes later. I walked Nate out so we could talk.

“Well your dad loves me,” he said sarcastically.

“He’s just protective of me. My mum likes you, and more importantly, I like you.” He ran his hands through his wavy brown-blonde hair and wrapped his arms around me.

“He was trying to get me to dump you wasn’t he?”

“What he was trying to do doesn’t matter. What matters is what you are going to do,” I said.

“I’m going to prove to him that I am not going to hurt you, and I’m going to make him like me.” That day made me forget that all about last night and his powers. To me he was still just Nate, sweet, determined and most importantly, he was mine.



Nate came over every few days and dad got used ignoring him, or in most cases, grunting in reply to the perfectly polite greeting Nate was sure to give. We practiced blocking his powers, which was going well. He would try to read what I was thinking and I would think of a big thick brick wall rising up to stop him. I could do it most of the time, and when I couldn’t Nate would just laugh because he saw that I was thinking about things like how perfect his hair was or how much I loved his eyes.



We were in my room practising my power blocking. We were sitting on the end of my bed with are hands in each others. This time when he was trying to hear my thoughts I didn’t try to stop him. I thought about how much I loved him and I thought about kissing him. Before I knew it I wasn’t thinking at all. His lips were pressed against mine and it was bliss.