Chapter Sixteen

A Touch of the Grave

 

Verity was assigned by Julia the role of carrying the bits and pieces they would need, while the Scottish girl held tight to the ætheroscillator. It was hard to balance all the wires, tools, a pillowcase of assorted bits and bobbles salvaged in haste between the acquisition of the oscillator and the ‘Lights Out’ call, and oddly a long listening horn a deaf person might use, but for once Verity was content to be lab assistant. With Emma helping, what would have been a lot to manage became a bit easier.

The hallway was quiet, and just a little more frightening than it had been in her previous adventure. At least with the times Julia had been so insistent for everyone to follow, they had set aside enough time to get dressed. If they were going to be murdered, either by automatons or some creature from the other side of the æther, then at least they’d be properly attired.

Reaching the bottom of the staircase leading to the dormitories, they found Henry waiting for them, lurking in the shadows and right on time.

Henry’s gaze ran over the collection of technology Julia and Verity had between them and his eyebrow lifted. “I thought what we needed was the ætheroscillator. What on earth do you plan to do with all that?”

Julia waved at him as if he were merely a servant. “Don’t worry your pretty wee head, I have it all under control. This way, everyone. The automatons won’t be this way for at least two more minutes.”

The startled look on Henry’s face was most satisfying. With a grin, Verity followed Julia up the third hallway. This was the direction very familiar to Verity. Miss Delancy’s school had one of the most wonderful libraries she had ever seen, and even as they approached the door to the top floor of it, she grew a little warmer.

The library was a full three stories tall. The top floor was for students, the middle floor on level with the classrooms and laboratories was accessible during school hours, and watched over by an eagle-eyed librarian, while the ground floor was only for teachers and the headmistress.

Even so, the student door was locked every night.

“Julia, I love the library just as much as you do, but you are aware—”

Julia slipped a small disk over the keyhole. Verity could hear a low thrumming. Magnetism. Then came a rapid crackling in her head. Whatever this electromagnetic creation was of Julia’s, it was working similarly to a skeleton key.

“Reckon you could make one of those, Verity?” Emma whispered.

The door’s lock disengaged, and Julia ushered them both in. Securing the latches behind them, she carefully set the ætheroscillator on a reading desk. “You see,” she said, turning up one of the gas-lamps in a nearby sconce, “the library is almost completely soundproof. Apparently Lord Delancy did not like to be disturbed, so it is perfect for a séance.”

Verity frowned at the use of such a paranormal word. “So, you mentioned there would be science, yes?”

“Tonight,” Julia began gleefully as she attached hoses to the oscillator, “we will be performing a grand experiment at the intersection of science and supernatural. To communicate with the other side of the veil, we will be employing the cutting edge of technology.” She snapped her fingers and pointed to the pillowcase. “Henry, be a dear an’ fetch me the toilet plunger.”

Considering the complexity of whatever Julia was constructing, Verity decided not to get in the way since her friend seemed set on a real mission. Knowing how annoying it could be to have someone interrupt when in the middle of fabrication, she chose instead to circle the bookshelves which filled the walls, floor to ceiling. Her fingers lightly touched here and there, even as Henry—ever the inquisitive sort with not much social awareness—leaned over Julia, watching as she worked. Verity smiled crookedly in seeing him standing there with what looked to be a baffle of some description. Julia was most definitely upholding her family name.

A little sigh escaped her. Truly, the Academy Library was such a treasure, a reminder she had missed having such easy and bountiful access to books. Her father packed one room of their little country house with many volumes, mostly history and archaeology, but there were also engineering volumes for her mother, and curiously enough plays and poetry. She could still remember being curled up at her father’s feet in front of a roaring fire as he read to her mother.

“Verity?” she heard Emma whisper.

Hastily brushing away any moistness that might have escaped her eyes, Verity turned around. An eerie green glow lit her friend’s faces. Julia was wearing a huge grin, while Henry looked a little more concerned than excited. The æthergraph was hooked up to the oscillator, the baffle slowly moving up and down, and a few lights along the outside of Julia’s makeshift control panel twinkling on and off. The hearing horn was now screwed into the hodge-podge apparatus. The join was haphazard, and the entire creation not strong enough to hold if it was lifted from the table, but the machination seemed to be built firmly enough to remain intact.

Now would the whole contraption work? That was another question entirely.

Julia gestured her to take a place to the right of them, on the other side of her creation.

“Now, the connection,” she said, holding out her hands to either side of her. “Go on. Let’s join hands.”

Emma glanced across at Verity with a frown, but she gave a little shrug. At this point, they had nothing to lose. Despite her inherent pessimism, Verity took Emma’s hand, Emma reached over to Henry, and together the four of them made a small circle around the communicator. The Sound thrummed and surged in Verity’s head, keeping time behind the formless, somewhat comforting aural tapestry the communicator wove for her.

Verity leaned in closer to watch the green lights flicker. “So what have you put together here for us?”

“This, my dear, is something like a talking board; only this talking board actually talks to you.”

“Wait, hold on,” Henry said, “are you sayin’ we are actually going to talk to the dead?”

Julia blinked. “What did you expect?”

“You said a séance, so I was picturing one of us, namely you, letting a spirit talk through you…”

“Ach, you’ve really been readin’ too many of them penny dreadfuls from tha’ streets.” Julia bobbed her head towards the communicator. “This design would allow for one short burst of æthercommunication. Now, theoretically allowing for a verbal message rather than simply an alert like, say, a C.Q.D., the surge of energy required to carry voice would burn out the device after a few minutes.”

Emma gave a little gasp. “That’s why you are needin’ the oscillator. It’s going to give you more power so if you make contact with Mrs Pyke…”

“We can actually talk to her an’ get in more than one word or two.” Julia looked over to Henry, then to Verity. “Right then, we ready?”

Julia let go of Henry, and threw the final switch connected to the oscillator. The heart of the communicator hummed a bit louder as it rocked back and forwards. Julia’s eyes were fixed on it, but now even she looked a little nervous.

A smell of something burning, something foul like scorched flesh, emanated from the cobbled-together device. The four of them struggled to breathe for a moment, but then the contraption’s lights stopped flickering. The lights blazed bright green as a low-pitched whine filled the room. Verity’s grip tightened on Emma and Julia’s hands as The Sound assaulted her. This was a technology that was not clockwork, not steam, not electricity.

The Sound felt as if it were taking a solid form and trying to burst out of her skull. That coupled with the burning flesh smell threatened to wrench her dinner from the bottom of her stomach. She was about to break the circle, but Julia’s hand tightened like a vice.

“Do not break the chain,” Julia hissed through clenched teeth. Her eyes went to all of them as she said, “To contact the other side, the communicator needs not only technology but mana.”

“Whatta?” Emma asked, her own complexion looking slightly green.

“Mana. Life force. The energy we as living, corporeal things generate every day we are above ground. Without mana, we cannot break through to the planes. Mana is needed to feed the breach and maintain its integrity.”

“Feed?” Henry asked. “You make it sound as if the æther is alive.”

“It is alive, Henry, but it is not a kind of lifeform or intelligence as conventional science classifies.” This would be where Verity would usually rebut, but the Sound was taking on a new quality, one she had never heard before. Something was happening, she just didn’t know what. “Mana is a positive, powerful energy, and the more of it that is generated and consumed, the better the connection. This is the ‘super’ part of the supernatural.”

“So how will we know if we’re generating enough mana for the æther to feed on it?” Henry muttered.

Verity felt an insatiable urge to move—to run as fast as she could to get away from both the smell of death and strange, alien cacophony in her head. Her curiosity kept her rooted, though, as the temperature plummeted. The nausea began to pass, but in its place formed a hard, biting cold she felt on and underneath her skin.

“That,” Julia said, her breath forming in wisps of fog just beyond her lips, “is how we will know.”

The machine still thrummed and clattered in the centre of their circle, but suspended several feet above them, a strange green-tinged form began to take shape. Verity blinked a couple of times, just to be sure she wasn’t succumbing to vapours or some such, but there was no mistaking it. Mist and light was coalescing above Julia’s communicator. The thing was undulating and translucent, but not yet recognisable as a humanoid, male or female.

Verity was quite at sea. She had been raised by scientists and engineers, and everything she had ever done had been with things she could see, grasp, hold, and evaluate. So her mind raced through the possibilities. Could Julia be playing an elaborate joke with this combobulation on the table before her? She had only known her roommate for a short time, and thought she was prone to the occasional elaborate fancy, Julia was not a liar.

Yet she was a McTighe, and even Julia seemed to walk a fine line between inspiration and insanity.

Could it be a projection? Verity craned her neck, peering into the corners of the library which were all cloaked in darkness. No magic lantern would be able to remain concealed and produce such a phantasmagoria. Verity shot a look at Henry, trying to judge if he spotted something off about what they were seeing. His mouth hung open, his whole body leaning towards the spectre taking form above them. She turned back to Julia who looked as shocked as the rest of them. Obviously whatever her uncle Hamish told her about the device had not prepared her for such amazing results.

“Mrs Pyke?” Julia spoke, pitching her voice in a strange tone Verity immediately identified as the signature of spiritualists. While séances and talking boards were all the rage of the upper classes in parlours decorated with red and black draperies and finely polished rosewood, the lower classes had their own version of spiritualism. These supernatural ventures were less about piercing the veil and more about a good old fashioned ballyhoo. Travelers telling the future in abandoned cellars, or a blind man claiming to see into the Great Beyond. These parasites used the very same tone when speaking to their marks.

But this was Julia, and what she saw floating above them was not some elaborate illusion. She said they were going to the intersection of science and magic and here it was.

“Mrs Pyke?” Julia repeated, the sing-song tone of her voice now becoming a little more demanding.

The phantasm struggled to find some sort of true form, undulating and shifting as it did so.

“How’s she going to talk without a face?” Emma asked, chewing on her lip.

Julia’s eyes remained fixed on the spirit, but she did reply. “The spirit world does not comply to physical restraints... jus’ give her a moment...”

The mist rolled and blossomed, and its figure gradually materialised. However, the form did not seem to resemble Mrs Pyke, or anyone remotely feminine for that matter.

Verity’s spine tingled and her stomach flip flopped. Any thought of this being some incredible prank from Julia immediately was dismissed. A projection of Mrs Pyke would have been expected, but there was no possible way she would know to create this.

“Who the bloody hell is that?” Julia, who had somehow up until this point remained very proper, blurted out.

The mist became the glowing visage of an Egyptian man, a king since he was wearing a pharaonic crown. She could make out a fierce and proud face, lined with old age but still strong. He was hunched over in his linen kilt, and his brilliant, white-emerald eyes were staring directly at her. As he held her gaze, the low hum of the ætheroscillator was now changing pitch in the bell of the protruding horn. No, the pitch wasn’t changing. It was, much like the spirit, taking form. The deep drone was resolving itself into words, low and breathy though they might be.

“The Silver Pharaoh,” Verity whispered. “You’re here.”

“We should stop this,” Julia said, her voice rising.

“Leave it,” Henry replied softly.

Verity was just dimly aware of any living presence around her. Her entire attention was devoted to this new, ancient phantasm.

The Silver Pharaoh held out his hand to her, flat palm out, and a voice spoke to her in her mind. Only to her. He spoke words, words her parents would have been in raptures to hear. A distant memory of listening to her father talking with diggers, the best in Cairo she recalled her mother telling her, and their tongue had been similar to what echoed in her mind. His voice was from a civilisation long dead, and its sounds were beautiful but unknown to her, though his tone was kind. His hand beckoned, and she could see make out frustration in his face. Was he telling her to hurry up?

The Sound changed suddenly, the oscillator’s low drone wavering ever so slightly. Something was close to failure within the device. She needed to warn the others, and she should have spoken up, but the vision was far more important. This echo from a time before comprehension was trying to communicate something to her, and it looked urgent. Her parents had been working all of their lives for this kind of discovery. Hours bent over sandy holes, weeks sweating and burning under foreign skies, and here she was within inches of more understanding than they had dreamed possible.

The undulating pitch was growing more and more pronounced, and faster in its instability. There wasn’t much time. The face was insistent, and his hand gestured to her again.

When she addressed the pharaoh, Verity couldn’t tell if she was actually speaking aloud or if it were merely her thoughts. “But I would have to break the circle.”

The Silver Pharaoh’s face creased as his lips formed a smile. A distant, rational part of her screamed, insisted she tighten her hold on her friends, her family. Though that terror was so very far away from her, even as the eyes flared with malicious intent.

Something spoke to her. Take my hand, child.

Julia was next to her, Henry on the other side, and they were saying something to her, but their words sounded just as foreign as the ghost’s words. It sounded as if she were underwater. The Sound consumed her, and the world around her was muddy and formless. The pharaoh was not. He was real, and her fingers were only an inch from meeting his. He spoke again and the words wormed their way into her head. He was asking for her help with something. He needed something she could give him.

Take my hand, child.

The scream from behind her came closer. Closer.

Then a sharp pain erupted up along her side, and as water bursting through a dam, the high-pitched cry of the æthercommunicator, the angry roar of the portal from underneath the Pharaoh, and her friends calling out her name, all rushed into her.

Verity found herself on the floor, surrounded by darkness. The cobbled-together communicator and the lamps around them had all gone out, leaving the library in near-darkness, a narrow sliver of moon providing the only light. After a few moments of feeling around, Verity discovered the edge of the table and got to her feet.

“Everyone all right?” Julia called out. “Henry?”

“I’m in one piece, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he replied as he lit a match. Moments later, amber gaslight gradually filled the room.

Julia’s eyes were huge, and her hair looked as if she’d been riding in a motor car with no scarf. The Sound was gone, but Verity’s ears were still ringing. The oscillator was nothing more than a scorched husk. From the soot decorating Henry’s face, its ætherexplosion must have delivered quite the punch. Verity looked around at the chaos they caused. A few shelves now held singed volumes. Pieces of Julia’s contraption were strewn about the study. One chunk of the table was on fire, but the flame was slowly dying. Julia was by the bookcase at the door. Henry was on her left just now putting the shade back on the gaslight.

Where was Emma?

Spinning around, she found the younger girl sprawled across the floor. She was completely still.

The three of them rushed to her at once. “The Silver Pharaoh was about to touch me when Emma tackled me,” Verity said, her words tumbling out of her mouth. “He must have touched her instead of me.”

She felt a stab of unreasonable jealousy about that.

“Does she have a pulse?” Julia asked, nervously pushing back Emma’s chestnut hair. Well, not completely. A streak of white, the kind of hair a grandmother might have, now ran along its entire length. “Look at tha’. The White Forelock. A sign of æthereal contact!”

“Julia, not now!” Verity felt at Emma’s neck. “Yes, she has a pulse.”

“Emma?” Henry leaned over her and peered at her face as if it were one of his clockwork contraptions that had failed. “Emma?” His yell got no response.

“Look at her eyes,” Julia said in a whisper.

They were wide open, unblinking, and flickering with a green, æthereal glow.

The supernatural was not Verity’s forte in any manner, and she stared up at Henry for answers. When he shook his head, Verity’s gaze travelled to Julia. The McTighe girl’s expression tightened, going from confused to determined in a moment. Verity was glad of that, since she had no need of people who fell apart in moments like this.

“Pick her up, Henry,” Julia said, motioning to Emma. “There is one teacher here who specialises in æthersciences, but you are not going to like it.”

Verity’s heart sank. “Miss Delancy? Really?”

Julia nodded solemnly.

Despite herself, Verity had to ask. “Couldn’t we just read a book of hers? There’s got to be one around here, somewhere.”

Putting her hands on her hips, Julia glared at her. “Don’t you know better than to diagnose complex medical issues from reading books? It takes knowledge, not information, to properly do that.”

“She hates being wrong,” Henry warned as he scooped up Emma, “and I am pretty sure she’s going to hate confessing to the headmistress too.”