RSoA Ch. 1

A Chapter by Rebecca Davis

In which we meet the protagonist, Jasper Barnaby Worthington.

Jasper Worthington. Wealthy landowner, brilliant mind, and troublemaking 15-year-old boy. In fact, his trouble-making side was the only similarity to any other boy his age. It could be agreed upon by nearly all who met young Jasper that he was indeed a very strange lad. But not many people had met him at all.

Since his father disappeared, leaving Jasper alone in their large estate, the boy rarely ventured outside of the grounds. His servants took care of feeding him, and his tutors dealt with his education as best they could. Truth be told, though, it was often Jasper that did the teaching.

His father went missing two years previously, and since then Jasper devoted much of his time to deciphering his parents’ research. Deciphering was the most appropriate word, since both his father and his mother had encrypted their research in a code that Jasper could still not figure out. He had spent the last 18 months pouring over their journals and had only been able to glean what little information he could from the photographs and drawings. The words were still eluding him, even though he studied devoted a part of every day trying to figure them out. He was sitting underneath his favorite tree doing just that when he noticed two men crossing the back yard of his estate and heading directly toward him.

To most, the appearance of these two men would have seemed very strange. But Jasper had seen both photographs and drawings of people clad in the very same garb. They wore long cloaks, one was black and the other was a deep red. There was an ancient quality to them. The man in the black cloak was very humbly adorned. Next to the man beside him he looked nearly like a peasant from medieval times. The man in the deep red cloak looked almost like clergy. His cloak was trimmed with gold. Unlike his counterpart, his garb underneath seemed more modern. And rich. He wore a finely tailored black suit with tails. On his head was the tallest and fanciest top hat Jasper had ever seen.

Jasper found himself judging these men immediately, so in order to stop he tried to imagine the way he appeared to the men themselves. Sandy brown hair, shaggy because he refused to get it cut. His own clothes were quite expensive and at one point probably looked as fine as the man’s in the red cloak. But Jasper also refused to go into town, so he had not seen a tailor in years. Therefore, his clothes now were worn and faded and too small for him.

Jasper had surrounded himself by his parents’ journals, and it occurred to him at that moment that he had probably put them away. If the past had taught him anything, most visitors to the house came for one of two reasons. The most often reason for calling was to protest his parents and what they stood for. Usually the ultimate goal of these visitors was to destroy the research that his parents had spent nearly their entire lives putting together.

Every once in a while a thief was caught by one of the servants or groundskeepers. Jasper did not know who exactly was so desperate for a peek at the research, but he was certain it was not the thieves that attempted to obtain it. His most recent theory was that the thieves had all been hired by the same person or group. It mattered little, though. Jasper was determined to figure out what exactly his parents had discovered before letting any of it be seen by the public. It was his opinion that only giving the public glimpses was the exact reason his parents were shunned from their community of explorers and scientists in the first place.

Jasper quickly put the research away and replaced it with a mathematics book, just in time for the two men to reach him. The well-dressed man looked at Jasper and smiled. The smile made Jasper uneasy. It was not a warm and open smile. It was the smile of someone who was hiding something. Jasper found himself judging once again, and thought better of it. He himself had not had much contact with other people in the last few years. Perhaps it was his inexperience with social protocol that was making him uneasy.

“Mr. Worthington?” the man in the red cloak asked.

“Perhaps,” replied Jasper, trying to sound mysterious. He immediately realized that his response sounded more immature than anything else.

“Your servant was kind enough to point you out to us, sir,” said the man in the black cloak. Even though his clothes looked like those of a servant or peasant, he did not seem to be other man’s subordinate. He was more than free to say and act as he wished, and Jasper was immediately hit with the oddness of this couple. His brain was flashing through scenarios and strategies much too fast for Jasper’s liking and he knew he had to slow it down in order to get through the encounter.

This was often Jasper’s problem and perhaps the biggest reason he did not interact with people. His mind, labeled as brilliant by his teachers, had its downsides as well. Most of the time Jasper had trouble quieting it long enough to focus on something as simple as a conversation. Jasper’s distrust of these two men only made it worse.

At that particular moment Jasper’s mind was torn in several different directions. He was assessing the men and their relationship to each other, still trying to decipher the red cloaked man’s smile, wondering why his servant would have pointed him out so quickly to strangers, wondering what food was being prepared for dinner, and cataloguing a peculiar bird call in his memory for further research later. Jasper added on top of all of that the knowledge that if he did not focus he may find himself in a vulnerable position. With his left hand that was resting on his crossed leg, he pinched himself hard and managed to bring his mind to the here and now.

The red-cloaked man spoke again. “We have been observing you for a while now, Mr. Worthington. We took it upon ourselves, once your father… disappeared… to keep an eye on you and make sure you had everything you needed.”

Jasper’s mind wanted to wander again, but he managed to force himself to stay focused on the task at hand, which was the conversation.

“Is that why my servant knows you?” Jasper said. “He would not have pointed me out to a stranger. So who are you anyway? You know my father?”

“My name is Archibald Wickham,” replied the man in the red cloak. “This is my associate, Mr. John Eggleston.”

The man in the black cloak, John Eggleston, reached into his pocket. This made Jasper tense. But Eggleston did not draw a weapon. He extended an envelope to Jasper. Jasper took the envelope hesitantly.

“We are from the Royal Society of Alchemists, Mr. Worthington,” said Mr. Wickham. “We are here to offer you an amazing opportunity.” Jasper looked up from the envelope into Mr. Wickham’s face. He could not read the man at all.

“Go ahead, take a look,” said Mr. Eggleston. Jasper opened the envelope and unfolded the paper within. To his shock, staring up at him from the paper was an official crest that he had seen more than a few times in his father’s research. RSA…The Royal Society of Alchemists! All of a sudden, this encounter made much more sense to Jasper. This was the society that his father had been connected to. But why come to Jasper now, after two years? Jasper kept reading.

Dear Mr. Worthington,

It is my esteemed pleasure to offer you admittance into The Royal Society of Alchemists. Your father was one of our most valuable members, tirelessly working to advance our research.

Forgive the long delay in offering you membership, but we felt that with your age and the freshness of your father’s disappearance it was best to wait.

If you accept this invitation you are invited to join us in our London headquarters immediately. There, you are invited to use any resources that we can provide to continue deciphering your father’s work. We also have instructors that can help further your education in a way that your previous tutors could not.

All we ask in return as a member of the Society is that you help us, with your doubtlessly excellent intellect, to advance our study of the field of Alchemy.

I look forward to meeting you in person.

Most sincerely,

Sir Byron Kerr

High Alchemist, RSA

Jasper was astonished. And excited. He attempted to hide his emotions, but it seemed too good to be true. An opportunity to access more of his parents’ research. More clues to what they were searching for. He might even be able to find the key to deciphering their manuscripts.

His parents’ life’s work. His parents… his mother. Jasper realized that neither the men standing before him nor the letter in his hand had mentioned one word of his mother, even though Jasper knew her role in his parents’ research had been invaluable before she died, only a year before his father disappeared.

Jasper decided not to mention it, especially since his excitement was matched by distrust in his mind. He decided to let these alchemists reveal a few more cards first, even though he knew that meant him going to London. And as much as going to London terrified him, the thought of finally making a breathrough as large as cracking his parents’ code was enough to force him out of his hermit lifestyle that he had become so accustomed to the last few years.

“We can give you some time to think it over Mr. Worthington,” said Mr. Wickham. The two men turned and began to walk away, when Jasper interrupted their exit.

“I need no more time, gentlemen. When do we leave for London?”