Strange Star (12 page)

I gasped out loud in pure relief. So Da had returned from Bristol and, finding me not at home, had gone out in this terrible storm in search of me.

‘You’d better untie these ropes,’ I said. ‘Because if my da comes here and sees what you’re up to …’

Someone came and stood at my shoulder. The smell of cooking and beeswax polish told me it was Ruth.

‘What the devil have they done to you, Lizzie?’ she whispered under her breath.

I dreaded to think how things looked to her. If only I’d heeded her warning earlier. ‘What does my da say?’ I cried. ‘Is he coming for me?’

‘The note isn’t for you,’ she whispered.

‘What d’you mean? It must be.’

‘It’s from Miss Godwin’s father. She’s …’ Ruth paused, ‘…
run away
with Mr Shelley and Miss Clairmont’s tagged along too. Mr Godwin is furious.
He’s come to take her home before she brings shame on the family.’

So it was someone else’s father who wanted his daughter back. Not mine. Before I could help myself, the tears were back in my eyes.

Then, all at once everyone seemed to be moving. Seats creaked, skirts rustled and Ruth was shooed out of the door.

‘We must leave immediately,’ Mr Shelley said. ‘Mary, Claire, go upstairs and gather your things.’

The experiment was forgotten. And instead of disappointment I felt suddenly ridiculously grateful to Miss Godwin’s father, who by coming after his runaway daughter had saved me too.

Miss Godwin was not so thrilled. She hadn’t forgotten the experiment, either.

‘But Francesca is all set to show us her idea. Can’t we wait another hour?’ she pleaded.

‘No, we cannot,’ Mr Shelley said. ‘If we leave now, we’ll reach the coast by morning and catch an early sailing across the Channel.’

Miss Clairmont joined in. ‘I agree with Percy. We should go now. The sooner we get to the Continent and to Switzerland the better.’

I could’ve hugged them both.
Go then. Stop
dithering
. This Switzerland place sounded a long way away. Hadn’t they best get going?

‘You always agree with Percy,’ Miss Godwin snapped. ‘Personally, I’m in no hurry to make a sea crossing in this foul weather. You know how sick I get.’

‘It’ll be clear by morning,’ I said, though no one heard me.

‘Well, I can’t wait to see the Villa Diodati. It’s got the most wonderful views of Lake Geneva, so I’m told. It’s so kind of Lord Byron to invite us,’ said Miss Clairmont.

‘He invited Percy and me, Claire,’ Miss Godwin said. ‘You chose to come along because you’ve nothing better to do.’

I reckoned those two women could’ve bickered all night. Mr Shelley, though, was keen to leave.

‘Let’s not dally,’ he begged.

‘But I’m desperate to see if Francesca’s idea really works,’ Miss Godwin said, close to tears. ‘Just think what could come from this, Percy. Our dear sweet Clara might never have had to die.’

I held my breath, willing Mr Shelley not to buckle. Hoping they’d all just go.

To my massive relief, he stood firm. ‘Your father’s very angry, Mary. He wants his daughter back and he
wants the money I promised him. But think of what
we
want, what we promised each other.’

Miss Godwin sighed. I imagined her folding her arms like Mercy did when she was cross.

‘To be free, to be different,’ she murmured. ‘Just as my mother was – yes, I know.’

Then Miss Stine said, ‘Mary, Percy, listen. I’ve another idea. It’s a little unusual but it might go some way to helping with your grief over Clara. Come with me and I’ll show you, though we’ll need to be quick.’

Almost as fast as I’d entered the room, the guests left it. But not before someone had untied my wrists and unhooked the wires from my head and body.

‘Thank you,’ I said to I didn’t know who.

Then the door closed and I was left alone, rubbing life back into my arms. I felt stunned. I wasn’t even quite sure what had just happened. But I knew I’d had a lucky escape. Then I remembered Peg asleep upstairs.

We had to get away from this dreadful house. I’d been stupid enough to think we’d be safe here. I’d believed Miss Stine had a genuine interest in me. But vanity had dimmed my wits.

Everything
at Eden Court felt dangerous.

Outside was a wild animal on the loose. Inside was
Miss Stine, whose ambition made her as ruthless as that creature killing poultry. What she’d planned to do in this room was bad enough. I could only imagine what horrors went on in that other room, the one full of little bodies in jars. Instantly, my mind filled with images of limbs hacked off, of animal heads and Miss Stine in a blood-stained apron like a butcher.

I stood up very slowly. The ground seemed to flex, then settle again. I walked until I found the nearest wall and felt along it for the door. I’d taken four or five steps, when hearing voices, I stopped.

On the other side of the wall men were talking in a loud, boastful fashion.

‘Did you see my shot, Mr Walton? I picked him off clean, didn’t I?’

‘Indeed you did. You finished him completely. Bravo, my man.’

The men were back from their hunt. And from the sound of it they’d killed the beast. As I pressed my ear to the wall, their voices out in the passageway grew clearer.

‘Careful, don’t drop him, Cox. She wants him as unspoiled as possible,’ Mr Walton said.

‘Bit late for that,’ the gruff man said.

They grunted and puffed as if they were carrying
something heavy. Their boots tapped over the floor, growing fainter as they moved away.

Finally finding the door, I opened it just a crack. The passage was quiet now. Yet the creature’s damp, woody smell still lingered.

Some way off another door creaked open.

‘Good timing, Mr Walton, Mr Cox,’ said Miss Stine. ‘The guests have just left for Switzerland – I don’t think they were quite ready for my work, after all. Bring him in, gently now.’

‘Don’t you want us to bury him?’ said Mr Cox.

‘Goodness, no!’ Miss Stine said, and something else I didn’t catch as the door closed behind them.

There was nothing more to hear but the crash of thunder. It was time to go. To find Peg, and run. Yet no sooner was I feeling my way down the hallway, than footsteps came up behind me.

‘Sneaking off, are we?’ Mr Walton said.

I kept moving. ‘Peg and me are going home. You can’t stop us.’

Yet it seemed he could, as a hand clamped around my upper arm.

‘Let go or I’ll tell Miss Stine!’ which was a stupid thing to say, but I prayed it might just throw him.

‘Miss Stine? She sent me to fetch you, idiot girl!’

I wasn’t about to give in. We grappled our way down the passage like a pair of fighting village boys, all arms and elbows and kicking feet. Once or twice I slipped in something wet. Something oily. I didn’t want to think what it was.

Just at a point where the dark was at its darkest, Mr Walton let me go.

‘Enough!’ he said, breathing heavily. ‘This is ridiculous, this fighting. What are we
doing
?’

I’d no intention of finding out.

‘Wait, Miss Appleby,’ said Mr Walton, as I turned to run. ‘Please.’

Something in his tone made me stop. He sounded odd. Almost broken.

‘What is it? What d’you want?’ I said.

He sighed. And it was a sad, sorry sound. ‘All my life I wanted to make history. I had ambitions of my own, you see, to be the first man to explore the Arctic,’ he said. ‘Two years ago, I very nearly managed it. But the moment we hit pack ice, my men got scared and refused to sail on. I almost had a mutiny on my hands.’

It was hard to hear him against the thunder, which still roared and grumbled outside. I didn’t know why he was telling me these things, either.

‘You’re not scared, though, are you, Miss Appleby?
You have these injuries yet you never give up. Perhaps I should’ve taken you with me – we might’ve made it then. And I’d be the brilliant one, employing people to assist
me
. As it stands, my ambitions are dead.’

‘I don’t know about ambitions, Mr Walton,’ I said.

‘Really? Have you never wanted something
terribly
? Have you never started something risky and dangerous, and kept going because you wanted the glory that comes with the achievement?’

I didn’t reply. Yet deep in my heart, I understood what he meant and pictured Mam chasing cattle in the snow. She had no intention of giving up that day. Though I loved her with a fierceness that would never die, she’d paid too high a price. So had I.

But I wasn’t about to share such personal matters with Mr Walton. And not with the lightning storm still flashing outside.

‘I’m not hanging around so Miss Stine can fulfil her ambitions on me,’ I said. ‘Goodnight.’

I took a step only to be yanked back again by my shawl.

‘Not so fast, Miss Appleby. Miss Stine is still keen to convince you of the merits of her work. She wants you to witness a wonder of science.’

He spun me so I was facing a different way. I felt
dizzy. Disorientated. With my arms now pinned behind my back by his hand, I couldn’t wriggle free. With his other hand, Mr Walton rapped at what I guessed was a door –
rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat
– then waited. I caught snatches of conversation from inside.

‘… a single shot to the neck …’

‘… considerable blood loss …’

‘… I don’t believe …’

Then Miss Stine, very firm. ‘You’ll do as I say. Now, let’s put him on the table.’ There came a grunt and a ‘one … two … three … heave!’ then the thud of something heavy being laid down.

I swallowed, for my mouth had gone dry. Mr Walton, impatient, knocked again in the same six-beat way. Still no one came. Inside, I heard people moving about. Sighs, tuts, the lifting and putting down of more things.

‘Enough of waiting,’ Mr Walton muttered.

Swinging the door open, we went inside. The smell hit me straight away. We were back in that room where the tunnel had brought us out. And the sounds were echoey, hard, like in a dairy where the floor and walls were covered in tiles. I tried not to think of what was up on the high shelves, floating in those jars of fluid.

‘Great dickens!’ Miss Stine cried from deep within the room. ‘You were told to use our special knock!’

‘I did.’ Mr Walton pushed me forward so I stumbled. ‘Here’s your audience, as requested.’

‘Bring her in.’ Then to me, ‘My experiment on you didn’t go as planned, Lizzie. So you’ll now observe another procedure. I appreciate you won’t see what occurs. But you’ll hear what we do and perhaps sense it too.’

I felt a surge of panic. ‘Haven’t you seen enough of me? Can’t I just go home?’

‘If I let you go now, you’ll run off with the idea that my work is evil. You’ll tell people, who’ll tell other people and my reputation will be ruined.’

‘I won’t tell anyone. I promise.’

‘I can’t risk it, Lizzie. As you’re here, and the storm is still raging, I want you to witness what wonders science can achieve. What we couldn’t perform on you tonight, we’ll try on this poor beast instead. Then, you will not fail to understand the potential life-giving properties of electricity.’

Before I could object, Miss Stine guided me further into the room. The smell changed to the meaty stench of blood. My stomach turned queasily.

‘Put this on,’ she said, handing me what felt like an apron.

In the end she had to help me because my fingers were shaking and I couldn’t tie a knot at the back. Nor could I bear to think what awful things might splash onto my nightgown without it.

‘Stand here at the table.’ Miss Stine placed me on her right side. She directed Mr Walton and Mr Cox to stand opposite us.

‘Now,’ she said, ‘let us begin.’

‘On the table we have an animal, killed instantly by a single gunshot wound to the neck,’ said Miss Stine. Then, with a break in her voice, ‘I had planned to use rats for my experiments. This beauty, I hoped, would be brought back alive.’

‘But he escaped again, miss,’ Mr Cox said. ‘He was dangerous. We had to shoot.’

She didn’t reply.

‘He’s a fine specimen though, isn’t he?’ She sounded almost fond: it made me think of how I’d spoken to my geese. ‘We had two to begin with. We’d hoped to breed from them, but our female died so we had her preserved. She was a beauty too, you see, and we kept her in a glass case … well, we
did
, though she didn’t fare too well on the journey here.’

My face warmed at the memory of Peg clinging to that dead dog. But Miss Stine had already moved on.

‘Which,’ she said, ‘makes this creature lying before us here the last wolf in England.’

My hand covered my mouth.

Wolf.

She really did just say
wolf
.

Instinctively, I took a step back from the table. Mam had told us stories – thrilling, glittering stories – of wolves preying on sheep and goats and tiny children in their cribs. And heaven help you if you saw one coming towards you across the snow, all yellow-eyed and slavering. ‘Oh, Lizzie, they don’t live in
England
, not nowadays,’ she’d laughed, hugging me when I’d gone stiff with terror.

Yet one did live here at Eden Court. Numerous times it had escaped into
our
village, killing
our
livestock. I didn’t suppose the locals would believe the truth, not for one minute. The evidence was right in front of me, and I was struggling to believe it myself.

‘Come closer to the table, Lizzie,’ Miss Stine said, her hand pressing into the small of my back.

I took a shaky step forward. The animal smelt of blood and filth. But underneath was just enough of that earthy, woody scent to make me sure it was the same creature I’d heard in our hedge that night. Being this close to it now, I felt a strange mix of fear and awe.

‘If this goes to plan, you’ll witness something truly incredible,’ Miss Stine said. ‘But before you do, I’d like you to touch the wolf, to feel how dead it is.’

And suddenly, I didn’t know why, but I
wanted
to. I took a step even closer. My hand hovered, unsure where to start.

‘Begin at the head,’ said Miss Stine. ‘The wound is on the underside of its neck. Avoid it if you can, it’s rather bloody.’

The first things I felt were its ears. They were wet from the rain and surprisingly soft and small. And cold. Then on to the head, which felt as sleek as a house dog’s, and a muzzle, now shut, that made my heart skip faster. After the head, the neck and shoulder fur got coarser. My fingers sank into its thickness.

‘Is he grey?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ Miss Stine said. ‘He’s a male, caught in the Alps as a juvenile. Shipped over here for study.
Canis lupus
: the grey wolf. In appearance he’s dark grey on his upper body and cream-coloured on his underside. His eyes are yellow.’

I nodded. Moving on, I felt the wolf’s flanks, the ribs underneath, and the lean sinew of his long legs and the paws as big as a dancing bear’s. The sheer
animalness
took my breath away. I imagined
him alive – running, panting, watching with those marigold eyes.

And then.

He ended in a sad tail, hanging limp off the end of the table. I blinked. I wouldn’t cry.

‘Very good,’ murmured Miss Stine beside me.

It didn’t
seem
good. By rights, I should be glad he was dead. Instead, I felt miserable. This was a wild animal. We didn’t understand it, and so we were meddling with it when it should have been left in peace, to roam about the mountains with his own kind.

The rain, still driving hard against the window, seemed to echo my bleak thoughts.

‘He’s dead. We should leave him be,’ I said.

‘Aye,’ Mr Cox agreed.

Mr Walton gave a smug, self-satisfied ‘hmmm’. ‘Do you hear that, Miss Stine?’ he said. ‘Your audience objects.’

‘That will change when they see what I’m planning for our dear, dead wolf,’ she replied.

She moved quickly across the room. From behind me came the sounds of jars being opened, of metal scraping metal. My stomach twisted with dread. Moments later, she was back beside me.

‘First,’ she said, ‘I’ll remove the shot from his neck.’

I gulped.

‘Oh heck.’ Mr Cox sounded terrified.

‘Mr Cox, you killed him,’ Miss Stine said. ‘Now I’m merely restoring him to life.’

I’d known it was coming. But I still couldn’t quite grasp what she was saying.

‘Mr Walton,’ she said. ‘Pass me that blade.’

A great flash of lightning made everything suddenly white then blackest black. Bit by bit the black turned to grey, and I saw people-shaped shadows again: one, nearest me, was hunched over the table, the other two opposite held lights aloft. There was no mistaking how those candle flames trembled.

The other details I couldn’t see. Didn’t want to, either. The sounds and smells were enough to make a person faint. I was beginning to wonder if Miss Stine was even human, the way she leant in close, cutting and slicing without so much as a shudder. We could have been witnessing her pulling a tooth for all the fuss she made.

Yet as the minutes passed, I grew less aware of that bloody smell. The squelching and the snipping and the tug of knife against flesh became noises almost like any other. Miss Stine’s actions were neat. Precise. It made me think of Da at work on a length of wood.
At last, the shot came out, landing with a ping in a metal pail.

‘I’ll close the wound now,’ Miss Stine said, and in moments that was done too. I’d known petticoats take longer to mend.

The lightning came again. One flash, then two more. Just a few beats between and we heard thunder. The air around me seemed to fizz. My hair, crackling, lifted off my shoulders. I imagined how it must look – mad and stuck out like spun sugar. No one was watching me now, though. Miss Stine, snapping her fingers, barked out orders.

‘The wires! Quickly! And the cutthroat razor – is it sharp enough?’

I was aware of people rushing. Of heavy objects being lifted down off shelves and lids being prised open. In amongst the activity, the wolf lay very still. I reached out to touch it again. My fingers found a forepaw, already cool and stiffening. If Miss Stine was right, then the wolf’s
life force
had gone. Without it, he was no more alive than a piece of oak or beech.

‘Don’t touch him now!’ Miss Stine nudged me aside. ‘You’ll ruin his electricity. Stay where you are.’

I sensed myself only a short distance from the table.
Close enough to still smell the wolf. To hear the frantic rubbing of skin against fur.

‘Why are you doing that?’ I asked.

‘To create static. It helps carry the electrical charge. Mr Walton,’ she clicked her fingers. ‘The connectors and the wires, please.’

As she leant over the table again, I could almost feel those little metal pieces pressed against my skin, as they’d been not an hour earlier.

‘You’ll get electricity from the pole on the roof?’ I asked.

‘Yes. If the lightning strikes, it’ll travel down through wires we’ve set up inside the house. The wolf is attached to those wires on his head, paws, chest.’

‘Just as you did with me in the drawing room.’

‘Yes. The wires run into that room, too.’ She said it like we were discussing wallpaper or carpets. But my teeth chattered with fear.

The wires fixed, Miss Stine straightened up. She took a deep breath. I hardly dared think what was going to happen next.

First came a hush.

All I heard was the rain. Lightning flickered around the edges of my eyes. My heart was beating very loud, very fast. Next to me, Miss Stine began to count:

‘Three … two … one … NOW!’

All at once, white light filled the room. There was a crackling, spitting sound. I felt heat surge through me, almost lifting me off my feet. Then came an almighty roar. It made my ears sing. I tasted metal. And I was sure the earth had split open, and we’d fallen inside.

Only then, the roar became a grumble, and I realised it was thunder. The crackling eased. Everything went back to grey.

Then silence.

Miss Stine stepped up to the table to inspect the wolf. She seemed to be picking up each of his legs, for as she moved round him, she’d go quiet then let something fall with a thud.

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘No sign of life.’

On the opposite side of the table, Mr Walton gave a huge, relieved sigh. ‘That poor animal is better off dead,’ he said.

I looked up in surprise. He was the last person on earth I’d expected to say this.

‘Let me take it outside and bury it, miss,’ Mr Cox said.

‘Good gracious, men! Where’s your mettle?’ Miss Stine cried. ‘I’m not giving up after one attempt! Stand back. We’ll try again.’

She started counting. This time the lightning struck faster. The flash was dazzling. Again, I felt heat and heard strange, sizzling sounds.

Then the quiet.

Miss Stine inspected the wolf. ‘We’ll keep trying,’ she said, when it was clear it hadn’t worked. ‘More static, I think.’

She started rubbing his fur again. As she worked, I reached out – I couldn’t help myself. I felt a paw. A shoulder, warm to the touch. I dug my fingers deeper into the fur.

Miss Stine grabbed my wrist.

‘Lizzie! I’ve told you not to—’ Seeing my face, she froze. ‘What? What is it?’

‘Its shoulder twitched. I swear it just moved.’

A scrabbling of claws on the table top confirmed it.

Mr Cox said a prayer out loud.

‘Oh … my … goodness,’ Mr Walton said in total horror. ‘What on earth have you done?’

There was a grunt. A creaking of the table. The sound of an animal shaking itself. Then came a soft, low growl. The last wolf in England was alive and stood before us on its feet.