22

‘What is the essence of life? What turns us from lifeless matter into animated beings?’

Outside, the rain kept pouring, blown hard against the windows. In contrast, the room was strangely quiet. Miss Stine held everyone’s attention. I imagined the guests on the edge of their seats as I sat uneasily in mine.

‘What is the force that animates us?’ Miss Stine went on. ‘What makes our muscles move, our eyes open, our lungs breathe in and out?’

No one answered.

‘No, we don’t know,’ Miss Stine said. ‘Nor does the Royal College of Surgeons know – though that charlatan Dr Lawrence thinks he does. Yes, Mary and Percy, I appreciate you think highly of him, but I believe the answer lies right here.’

Her hand fell onto my shoulder. I flinched.

‘With me?’ I stuttered.

She kept talking. ‘On January twenty-third a freak thunderstorm descends on the village of Sweepfield. Two people rounding up cattle in a field are struck by lightning. One dies instantly, the other miraculously survives. Is it chance? Is it luck? Or is it something more complicated? Is it electricity?’

Miss Clairmont gasped, clearly thrilled. But I’d not expected Miss Stine to speak of Mam and it threw me off balance. This was my story, mine and Mam’s. The way Miss Stine told it made it sound so dramatic, so awful, I almost believed it had happened to someone else.

‘The victim died instantly, I’m told. The only marks to her body were on her fingertips, which were blackened and charred. Her boots were found twenty yards away: they had been blasted completely off her feet.

‘Yet the survivor here,’ she patted me, ‘was hit by the same bolt. Which must mean that as it travelled through another body, the lightning lost energy, making its second strike that bit less powerful.’

Mr Shelley cut in: ‘This is fascinating, but poor Lizzie is looking terribly pale. Perhaps less of the physical details?’

‘Shh, Percy!’ Miss Godwin said. ‘Francesca’s an anatomist, of course we need to hear the physical details.’

They might, but I didn’t. It felt like someone had stamped on my chest.

Pressing my hands against my ears, I blocked out Miss Stine’s voice until it became a hum. I stayed like that, until her tone softened. Then, hesitantly, I dropped my hands to my lap.

‘… so what I’ve learned is electricity can be weakened, and that there’s a point where its force can be tolerated. Too much and it causes damage. Our specimen here is damaged.’

I swallowed.

She was talking now about me. She’d pushed up my nightgown sleeve too, and though I should’ve sat still to be looked at like she wanted, I felt only toe-curling shame.

‘No, please,’ I said, trying to pull my sleeve down again. ‘I’d really rather you didn’t …’

She ignored my protests. ‘Observe the scars left by the lightning strike. Here at the elbow, and here at the shoulder and up to the neck and jaw. Come closer, do.’

Chairs scraped against the floor as people stood up. I felt them crowd around me. Heard their ‘oohs’ and ‘hmms’ and ‘my goodnesses’. I wished they’d stop, but I bore it because, despite myself, I still wanted to please Miss Stine.

‘Now to my purpose,’ Miss Stine said. ‘We know of the exciting developments already made in this field – Galvani’s work on making frogs’ legs twitch and Volta’s on how electric currents pass from one form to another. And we’ve all heard of the experiments done on dead bodies – on murderers fresh from the gallows.’

‘I haven’t.’ The voice was young, girlish – Miss Clairmont’s. ‘Though I’m not sure I wish to.’

I didn’t, either. Yet I felt compelled to listen.

‘These discoveries all point to electricity as a life force, a property of life.’ Miss Stine spoke quickly. ‘It is quite dizzyingly simple. A single potent energy that bestows life upon dead matter. Imagine what we could do with this knowledge! Imagine the power it might give us!’

‘Would it be possible, do you think, to bring the dead back to life?’ Miss Godwin asked, her voice husky with emotion.

‘I believe it is. We only need to fathom how much or how little electricity is required. And then, who knows?’

The room fell silent. Miss Godwin was the first to speak, in barely a whisper. ‘This is incredible. If what you say is true, we’d need never lose anyone to death ever again.’

It dawned on me what she meant. Everything died. Everyone died. That was life. It was as plain as the leaves on the trees.

And yet.

There were stupider things to believe in – in Pilgrim’s Meadow on Midwinter’s Eve there’d been superstitions aplenty. And if scientists found a way to bring back to life people who’d died, well, Miss Godwin was right. It would be incredible.

Yet none of what’d been said sank in; I wouldn’t let it. Just thinking of Mam alive again was so wonderful, so joyous, it was agony.

Miss Godwin, though, grew animated. ‘Imagine it, Percy. Our own dear daughter brought back to life. And my mother, sat here amongst us right now.’

It couldn’t actually work, could it? Twitching frogs’ legs were one thing, but to revive a whole human being was something else entirely.

‘Mary, my love,’ Mr Shelley tried to calm Miss Godwin. ‘This is a dangerous gift we speak of. People don’t take kindly to challenges on creation. It’s seen as us humans trying to be god-like.’

‘If it could spare our daughter from the grave, then I’ll gladly be god-like,’ Miss Godwin retorted.

‘Perhaps, and it is intriguing, but—’

‘I want to know more,’ Miss Godwin interrupted. There were rustlings as she took her seat again. She was a force to be reckoned with, this Miss Godwin. I didn’t know if I liked her or feared her. ‘Francesca, please, continue.’

Mr Shelley, tutting, sat down.

Something had changed. The room felt different. The air felt different, thrumming with excitement and expectation, and I couldn’t help but be swept along with it. Miss Stine cracked her knuckles in readiness.

From the direction of the windows came a sudden flash of light. The hairs on my arm rose up.

‘Is that lightning?’ Miss Clairmont gasped.

Perhaps someone nodded, I didn’t know. I felt my scalp tingle. And down my left side, my scar began to pulse. My fingers went hot, then cold. It was the oddest, strangest sensation.

‘Great heavens! Look at Lizzie!’ Mr Shelley cried. ‘What’s happening to her?’

The tingling got stronger. Strands of hair loose about my shoulders seemed to lift. I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream.

Miss Stine clapped in a sort of manic delight. ‘Yes! This is better than I hoped! She has an affinity with electricity, don’t you see? Her previous lightning injuries make her the perfect specimen for my experiment!’

‘Experiment?’ The word pulled me up sharp.

‘That’s right,’ Miss Stine said. ‘That’s why you’re here.’

‘But …’ I felt dazed, ‘… I thought you liked me. I thought you wanted to talk to me and make notes about me, and …’ Hearing how pitiful I sounded, I stopped.

The cold realisation was I’d been duped.

‘Don’t make a fuss. The storm’s almost here and we need to act fast,’ Miss Stine said.

I rose from the chair. Or tried to. Whip-quick, her hands were on my shoulders again, pushing me back into my seat.

‘I’m an anatomist, Lizzie,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘This isn’t about you, not personally. It’s about bodies and organs and blood and bone.’

In that moment I saw what I was to her. The fine room, the rich supper, the kind words were all just a pretence. Really, I was just another two-headed creature in a jar. Or perhaps I was like that poor wild beast being hunted with guns this very minute. All Miss Stine wanted was another body to investigate. She didn’t seem to care if it was living or dead. It was there in her voice; underneath those rich person’s manners she was as hard as flint. And I was just blood and bone.

Hot, furious tears sprang into my eyes. How stupid I’d been to trust her. I wouldn’t stay a moment longer. But again, as I tried to stand, she pushed me down. My legs buckled and I sat with a bump.

‘Keep still!’ she snapped, then to the others, ‘If lightning strikes the pole on the roof, it’ll travel down through these copper wires.’ She must’ve pointed to something or held the wires up for the guests all gasped. ‘We’ll channel it as our source of electricity. Quickly, we must work fast!’

The room became a whirl of footsteps and bewildering sounds: clinkings and snappings and the dripping of water. Lightning flashed once. Twice. The thunder came just a beat after.

‘Hurry!’ Miss Stine cried. ‘The storm is almost directly overhead. If lightning strikes now, it should hit the roof pole.’

I remembered what Mercy had seen on the roof, and how she’d mistaken it for a flagpole.

‘What are you going to do to me?’ I asked, hearing the tremble in my voice.

‘I plan to recreate that moment you were struck, to see how much electricity you can tolerate.’

My heart seemed to rise up into my throat. It stuck there, beating hard and very fast.

‘No,’ I said. ‘You can’t.’

Her aim was for me to be hit by lightning. To see if I survived it.

Again.

I felt a throb of terror so strong I almost passed out.

‘No,’ I gasped. ‘Please, no! You must let me go!’

But Miss Stine called for someone to help her and more hands seized me, pulling my arms behind my back. I twisted. Shouted. Kicked out with my feet. But I was no match for two, maybe three sets of hands. They yanked me and turned me, till I was sure my arms would be torn from their sockets.

‘Tie her fast! Make sure she can’t escape,’ said Miss Stine.

Something tightened round my wrists. As I pulled against it, it dug into my flesh.

And then it was done. They’d tied me to the chair. Try as I might, I couldn’t move.

‘This isn’t fair!’ I cried. ‘You can’t keep me here like a prisoner!’

‘Is there really any need to tie her so tightly?’ Mr Shelley asked.

‘Indeed there is – look how she rages!’ said Miss Stine. ‘I don’t want to make a mistake.’

This was all so wrong.

‘Get off me! You shan’t do this!’ I yelled.

The more I fought, the more determined she was.

‘Hold still, you little wretch!’ she spat, as someone rubbed vigorously at my temples, my neck, the soles of my feet.

‘No!’ I cried. ‘No!’

There was a clicking noise. She pressed cold metal against those places on my head, neck and feet. Wires criss-crossed my face.

Then, with a deep breath, she stood back.

‘The equipment is in place. I believe we’re ready.’ Her voice was icy calm as thunder roared overhead. ‘On the count of three …’

I clenched my teeth. This was it. I braced myself for a blinding blue flash. For that smell of burning and being blown out of my chair.

But there was no flash. Nor any lightning. Or if there was, nobody noticed for the door flew open and Ruth the maid rushed in, unannounced and very flustered.

‘Oh, miss! I’ve an urgent note! It’s from her father. He’s down in the village. Says he’s looking for his daughter what’s missing from home!’