The Scent of Neroli

Chapter 2- Philtre, The Alchemist The woman whipped up a flame of torch and led her through the dank inner passages of the palace which seemed to have been forgotten by time but soon revealed the chamber of a man working on beetles at the corner of the room. The room was almost dark but for the light of a slight lamp whose weak light revealed a man with a beard busy, busy, busy in his room full of flasks and single open flames, not unlike a laboratory of sorts. There was also a panel of books by a wall."I brought you the Queen Serena, sir Alchemist Philtre." The woman said.Philtre looked up from his work and was immediately entranced by the sorrow in the woman’s mien. He had never seen a woman so beautiful and yet so sad. He wanted to vanish the creases of worry on her face which was not possible because he was only a man, an alchemist, at the mercy of the Caliphate who had taken him to live here so he could control the man from spreading h

Chapter 4- In Another Lifetime   Lucien scraped his palm over the rough wall of the University dark corridor lit by sconces of electric light. He was walking through a dark passage and at the end was light. And a rowdy classroom of high school students who quieted as soon as he stood before them with a pile of books he dropped on the table before them. He adjusted the glasses on top of his nose and gazed at the students suddenly not knowing what to do. He was about to write some equations on the whiteboard when his gaze wandered towards the window where an orange tree stood with its white flowers and stark orange fruits were in full bloom. The scent of the orange tree wafted inwards to the classroom and he felt weak all of a sudden. He wrote the equation on the whiteboard and told his students to research and solve the problem. They were welcome to stay in the classroom with their laptops or go home and do it there. He sat down and played with his pen wh

Magdalo was given to rages. He would accuse Stella of looking at other men and being jealous. But he himself was a womanizer who wounded Stella by having courting other women despite promising her a wedding band wound about her finger, soon. It was always soon and she believed him.They met when she was applying to have her perfume branded by their company. He did not like the perfume so much, and not as much as he liked Stella so badly he hired her immediately. Stella, out of sheer gratitude and a skewered notion that he was kind, became attracted to him, blindly like a fool. She wanted to please him all the time. It wasn’t because Magdalo owned the company or that he was rich and owned other fashion merchandise and businesses. It was, just gratitude that he took a notice to her perfume and ofcourse, to her.Magdalo belonged to an old Spanish family who were bootleggers when they arrived in America. They were a fiery, tempestuous family who stuck together and fo

Stella wakes up beside Lucien. He is still asleep and so she goes to his kitchen and scrounges for some breakfast. She finds a box of ready-to-cook pancakes and some maple syrup in the fridge. She flips the pancakes, pours the maple syrup on top of it, and adds a few leaves of basil. She adds some instant coffee to go with it and serves it to him on a tray she found near the sink.Lucien was awake when she came over with her lovely dish of pancake. Lucien put on a shirt suddenly feeling shy before her. She herself is wearing the previous day’s blouse open on top and the bottom. She becomes self-conscious herself after realizing that he was shy. As it is, she was younger than he was. But it didn’t seem to matter yesterday, now she was irritated that he was.Lucien sensing this, wore his glasses and watches her. Stella laid the tray on the bed, hastily buttoned her blouse and put on her jeans, and grappled her handbag.Lucien rushed to her and she turn