The Dark Between (39 page)

Elsie slowed her pace as she neared the old lab. The gardener had cleared away most of the broken glass and other rubbish from the front of the building, but it still looked a wreck. Smoke blackened the window casements, and the soot-streaked door barely clung to its hinges.

She had no wish to go inside.

Gingerly, she picked her way through the grass toward the low window at the north side of the structure. Her head throbbed with questions and doubts as she knelt and reached into the overgrown weeds creeping up the brick wall. Her fingers found the hard corner of her camera. It was damp with dew but otherwise seemed none the worse for wear.

Clutching it to her chest, she walked to a nearby tree. Once seated, she studied the compartment that held the single exposed glass plate. She absently tapped the leather case as she struggled to still the noise in her mind.

This was an opportunity to “remember”—to bridge the gap she’d placed between herself and her friends. If she took the camera back and developed the plate, she could confess everything to Asher and Kate.
The photograph has brought it all back
, she might say.
Tec was there, too. It was his body they found in the old lab
.

Kate would be forced to mourn Tec all over again. She
would suffer, and yet she would finally know the entire truth. Elsie owed her that, didn’t she?

But Simon …

Somehow I feel you with me
, he’d written. Their time together in the dark between had forged a link—two minds connected telepathically, just as Marshall had theorized. His feelings could flow through her mind and body, no matter the distance, and his message confirmed that he perceived her presence as well. Could she now betray that connection?

“Simon,” she whispered. “Tell me. What should I do?”

She opened her mind and waited.

Nothing.

Closing her eyes, she concentrated on his face, her lips tingling at the memory of his kiss.

Her mind and body stretched to listen, but silence was the only answer. He would not guide her. The decision was hers.

I’m sorry, Kate
.

With tears sliding down her cheeks, she pulled the plate holder from the camera and held it up to the bright sunlight, erasing the image forever.

Author’s Note

Kate Poole, Asher Beale, and Elsie Atherton are products of my imagination. However, the setting, conflicts, and many of the characters of
The Dark Between
were adapted—with much creative license—from history.

Cambridge, England, is a real and thriving city, and its university, comprising thirty-one colleges, is considered one of the most prestigious institutions of post-secondary education in the world. Summerfield College is based on Newnham, a women’s college established in 1871. For more background on Newnham, you might read Ann Phillips’s
A Newnham Anthology
or Alice Gardner’s
A Short History of Newnham College, Cambridge
. To learn more about daily life in turn-of-the-century Cambridge, read Gwen Raverat’s
Period Piece
, a charming memoir of growing up in the quirky Darwin family. (Gwen was granddaughter to Charles himself.) And for a nineteenth-century American perspective on student life at Trinity College and the city of Cambridge, Charles Astor Bristed’s
An American in Victorian Cambridge
is sure to inform and entertain.

The Metaphysical Society is based on the very real (and still kicking) Society for Psychical Research, founded in London in 1882 to investigate paranormal phenomena “in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned enquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many problems” (
spr.ac.uk
). Frederic Stanton, Oliver and Helena Thompson, Harold Beale, Simon Wakeham, and Philip Marshall are all loosely based on members of the Society.

If you wish to learn more about the real people behind the Society, I enthusiastically recommend Deborah Blum’s
Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death
. Blum, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, brings these fascinating men and women to life in a carefully researched and meticulously documented book that reads like a novel. (I’m still waiting for HBO to option it for a mini-series.) You would also do well to look at books written by the members themselves, in particular
Phantasms of the Living
(a portion of which is quoted almost verbatim in
chapter 10
of
The Dark Between
), by Edmund Gurney, Frederic W. H. Myers, and Frank Podmore, and
Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death
, by Frederic W. H. Myers.

Electricity has been a part of medical treatment since the eighteenth century. If you’re keen to know more about induction coils and electrotherapy, an exceptionally detailed overview can be found in
Electricity and Medicine: History of Their Interaction
, by Margaret Rowbottom and Charles Susskind.

For more details about the world of
The Dark Between
, please visit
soniagensler.com
.

Acknowledgments

Launching a book into the world is a collaborative process, and I was fortunate to have many talented people working with me to make
The Dark Between
the best story it could be.

Michelle Frey and her assistant Kelly Delaney deserve my eternal gratitude (and a lovely afternoon tea on me) for patiently shaping this story with their questions and insights. The copyediting team certainly earned heartfelt thanks for their painstaking work. Art director Isabel Warren-Lynch and designer Melissa Greenberg thrilled me with their beautifully creepy jacket art, and I thank them for that. Hooray for Team Knopf!

Bear hugs to Jennifer Laughran for her wisdom, humor, enthusiasm, and therapeutic skills. It’s an honor to work with you, Tenacious J!

Many dear friends were willing to read drafts of
The Dark Between
. L. K. Madigan was an early reader whose love for the story fueled my belief in it. (You are forever in my heart, Lisa, and I miss you so, so much.) Love and gratitude go out to Oklahoma critique buddies Brandi Barnett, Kelly Bristow, Martha Bryant, Dee Dee Chumley, Shel Harrington, and Lisa Marotta—thank you, Inklings, for always being there for me. Diane Bailey, Kim Harrington, Christine Johnson, Lisa Mason, Myra McEntire, Saundra Mitchell, and Natalie Parker also deserve thanks for their support, critical feedback, and all-around adorableness.

Thanks to Deborah Blum for writing
Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death
, which captured my imagination and inspired a novel that probably should be subtitled “Children of the Ghost Hunters.”

Special thanks also to the porters at Newnham College, Cambridge, for always greeting me with a smile and allowing me to wander around the campus at my leisure. I also should thank a certain Trinity College porter for allowing me a very discreet peek into New Court when the college wasn’t officially open to the public.

As ever I wish to give my family and friends grateful squeezes for their love and unfailing support. I’d be lost without you.

And, Steve, my dearest love and bestest friend, thank you for being my everything. Always.