Preston Child - The Fountain of Youth

“What Mrs. Rutherford means to say is that some of those artifacts could be used to improve science in this day and age,” Christa corrected her daughter, but it was quite redundant.

“That is cause for concern, Dr. Smith. Power should be reserved for those who have the welfare of all in mind, not a minority out to dominate the world with it.” Purdue smiled, and raised his glass. “Mrs. Rutherford,” he suddenly attended to Clara, “if I may ask, where is Mr. Rutherford?”

“He’s dead, Mr. Purdue. He died falling from a cliff while he was on an expedition back in 1987,” she recited as if she had been taught the words.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he replied. But he didn’t care. Nina was the only thing on his mind and he had to play quickly to find out where she was. What Purdue did notice was the way in which Mrs. Patterson stared at Mrs. Cotswald. The two women looked the same age, both in early their seventies, and now that they sat opposite one another they looked remarkably alike.

“Mrs. Patterson,” Purdue addressed the Dean’s mother. “How about a turn around the vast dance floor, you and I?”

“Good idea!” Daniel cheered, but the lackluster look on Christa’s face denied him the pleasure. He turned his attentions elsewhere. “Mrs. Cotswald?”

“Would love to, but my dancing days ended a long time ago,” she smiled regrettably.

Daniel smiled, holding out his hand to Mrs. Cotswald. “No worries, I have two left feet. We can stumble about together.” To Christa’s dismay they both stood and locked hands to dance. She could feel the property slip out of her hands. She looked at Clara, motioning with her eyes that they should check on Nina.

“Excuse me,” Clara said. “I’ve had too much wine.”

Purdue watched her leave, but stayed where he was, intending to trail Christa instead. Also, he had a few questions for Mrs. Patterson. He was hoping that, while he danced with Mrs. Patterson, the music would drown their conversation.

“Are you thinking what I am thinking?” he asked.

“What is that, deary?” Mrs. Patterson asked, pleasantly surprised that he even brought it up and that she was not alone in her thinking.

“Well, Mrs. Cotswald followed the trail of her daughters to this building, to Prof. Ebner, your adoptive father.” He shrugged. “Just uncanny, that’s all.”

“Mr. Purdue, what are you implying?” she asked.

“I think you know, my dear Mrs. Patterson. You were adopted by Prof. Ebner, correct?”

She nodded, so he pried some more. “You lived here when the Cotswalds first tried to buy the property, and you were here when Mr. Cotswald discovered the fountain of youth before he…disappeared. Mrs. Cotswald should have been, if you’ll forgive my insensitivity, a name on a mausoleum by now. I can’t help but feel that both the spring under the rock fountain and the prospect of finding her daughters here have both had something to do with her wanting this property for so many years.”

When he looked down at his dance partner again, tears were trickling from her eyes, glistening in the soft lights of the ballroom. “My son has been trying to find my biological mother for years, Mr. Purdue. But his wife has kept the records from reaching him every time. I think it’s because she knows that I…” she hesitated, shooting a glance at Mrs. Cotswald, “am also the product of a Lebensborn union.”

Her response confirmed his notion, but he did not fully realize until now that this meant he was surrounded by members of the Order, and not all of them were malicious toward him.

As if Mrs. Patterson knew what he was thinking, she whispered, “Prof. Ebner adopted my sister and I, but he was not a kind man. I suppose that came with the territory of being a Nazi scientist. You know, he was one of Himmler’s finest and pleased the Führer greatly with his discovery of the elixir that could stump aging. Not only would the Lebensborn program deliver strong Aryan stock, but they believed administering the elixir would yield the longevity desired from a super race.”

“So you partook in the elixir too?” Purdue asked.

“We had to. But when I learned that my adoptive mother was killed after an altercation with the professor, my sister and I rebelled against him. We refused to be his experiment, especially after the properties of the water he prepared introduced some sort of mild mercury poisoning to our systems. One night my sister pushed him too far and…” she choked, dropping her eyes, “…he drowned her in that very fountain. He punished her. For rejecting his work and refusing to drink that water he simply drowned her in it.”

“But he didn’t kill you,” Purdue said, frowning.

“I lied to him. I pretended to drink from it, leading him to think that his elixir was useless. To him, I was still aging even though I drank of it, rendering his hard work worthless. As a result, feeling that he’d disappointed the Order and the memory of Himmler and the Führer, he shot himself,” she said evenly, with not a sign of remorse. “I indirectly caused his death and I inherited this fortress he had turned into an educational institution. And Christa hates that I hold the scepter here.”

Purdue was fascinated. Mrs. Patterson did not care about eternal youth or power, the same hunch he’d had about Mrs. Cotswald. It would appear that they really were related if only by their principals. Christa’s movement caught his eye. She put down her empty wineglass and stood up when Clara returned. They were discussing something in urgency.

To his disappointment their conversation was quite harmless. Christa turned off the music. “Sorry, everyone. I just want to show our guests to their rooms,” she said with a smile. “Clara agreed to give up her room for you, Mrs. Cotswald. If that is alright?”

“That’s not necessary,” Mrs. Cotswald protested cordially. “I can get a hotel room.”

“Rubbish! The Dean and I insist,” Christa said smiling. Her husband nodded in agreement.

Purdue waited to hear that he could use Nina’s cottage, but instead was offered a room at the Dean’s house. It was the ultimate proof that Christa wanted him close to her surveillance and he got the message. Without objection he accepted her invitation, but he would not be kept from snooping. It was not in David Purdue’s nature to be denied exploration.

As he was lying on his bed in the third spare room of the Dean’s large home, Purdue was checking his tablet, coupled with the device he still had not even named. Using Nina’s biometric information, he entered a search in Wolverhampton, just in case Christa, for once, was not lying. His stomach was churning at the thought of her being so very lost, so very untraceable, even more than when she’d first cut communication with him. A morose, emotional void filled Purdue. He could not decide which was worse — losing Nina forever to death, or knowing that she was alive and well while he was dead to her.

“Nothing,” he whispered in the quiet night, after the hosts had retired to bed. “Nothing, nothing, nothing. Wolverhampton, nothing. Hook, nothing. Nina, where are you?”

His window, and he did check first, was facing out toward the street, away from the courtyard. Christa wanted to make sure that Purdue had no way of investigating while she was asleep. Clara had her own cottage that Purdue did not know the location of, which posed a problem too. An almost inaudible knock at his window coaxed Purdue to take a peek.

Carefully he stole to the window and pulled the drapes aside. He kept his tall frame concealed behind the wall as he did, just in case the barrel of a gun was calling on him on the other side of the window. Instead he found the beckoning face of Mrs. Patterson standing in her tracksuit and a beanie, giving him a wave to open the window a crack. Through the slit of the frame she slipped him her copy of the house key and whispered, “I’ll wait by the door when you’re ready.”