Page 5 of Alchemy of Secrets

It’s the second night of class.

You’re once again in the old theater. Tonight, it smells slightly sweet. Caramel corn—or is it Cracker Jack?

The scent is so sticky and strong you half expect to see the student closest to you munching on a box of the classic candy.

But everyone is transfixed by what’s happening on the stage.

No one is drinking their coffees or typing on their laptops.

Of course, laptops are not allowed, just pens and notebooks— thank you very much —but no one is using those, either.

The Professor has already begun.

A tiny click echoes, and she smiles as a slide appears on the silver screen. It’s a photograph of a rectangular business card. Black, with a series of gold art deco–style lines around the edges. It looks as if there was once writing in the center of the card, but it’s blurred now.

The next slide is clearly older; the gold and the black are duller. The design of the business card is unmistakably the same, only there doesn’t seem to be any writing in the middle, blurred or otherwise.

A few more slides take their turns, each one more aged than the last. But the gold-and-black business card in each picture is always the same.

You never thought you cared for art deco before, but you’re mesmerized by the elegance of the border when the slides turn to black and white.

At the bottom of one slide is typed 1942.

Then 1936.

Followed by 1927.

The entire time, the Professor doesn’t speak.

You keep expecting her to say something—she promised to tell a story—but she’s just standing there with a Mona Lisa smile.

Finally, someone raises his hand and, without waiting to be called on, says, “Are we supposed to find one of these cards?”

The Professor laughs, dry and raspy. Not quite amused.

“You do not find these cards, young man. There’s only one way to obtain one.

” Finally, she launches into her story. “There are a number of haunted hotels in Los Angeles, and there is one in particular that the devil favors. It’s said he enjoys drinking their sidecars. ”

The person next to you whispers, “What’s a sidecar?”

“I think it’s a drink,” you murmur.

“It’s a cocktail,” the Professor says, looking right at you.

“Made of cognac and citrus, the sidecar has been around for over a century, and if you buy one of these for the devil, he’ll give you one of his business cards.

Each card may be used only once for an appointment with the devil, where you can make a deal for whatever you want, and then—”

She waves her fingers in a gesture that universally means magic , as she explains that this is why the cards are all blank—they have been used for deals with the devil, and thus the writing has disappeared.

You’re skeptical. Her only proof is the photographs, and you’re not even sure they’re real. Anyone could have created these images.

The devil is a myth. One you don’t believe in.

But when you walk out of the theater, you want one of those cards.