Galvanism and Ghouls

by Tilly Wallace

  Lord Dunkeith removed the tubing and stood next to his patient, waiting to see if his potion would have the desired effect.

  “Apparently he was always a studious child. Not every rich peer lives a shallow and frivolous life. Some can be quite productive members of society.” Hugh nudged her gently as he spoke.

  Hannah couldn’t help casting a glance to the back of the lecture theatre, where Viscount Wycliff watched the proceedings with a black stare. She wasn’t sure which category he fit into. No one would ever mistake him for a shallow and frivolous creature, but Hannah couldn’t quite label him as productive, either.

  Although he had apprehended two Afflicted who were murdering servants.

  Everyone waited as the grandfather clock ticked off the seconds. Soon the younger men in the audience began to fidget and chat among themselves. Hannah concentrated on the prone man. She studied the tips of his fingers and toes, hoping that the potion would restore him to life.

  Seconds turned into minutes and after another quarter of an hour, even Hannah was squirming on the hard wooden seat.

  The convenor of the event walked across the floor and raised his eyebrows at Lord Dunkeith.

  “Thank you, gentlemen and lady, for your time and attention, but it appears my opportunity is at an end.” With a bow and a smile flashed exclusively to Hannah, he walked back to his seat at the front.

  Doctor Husom was last. The doctor was in his late thirties, with dark brown hair clipped close to his head. While tall, he had the lean appearance of a scholar who often forgot to eat, and round gold-rimmed spectacles sat on his nose.

  He walked to the metal pillars and the array of mechanical levers and gauges. He flicked a lever and then grabbed the black handle of the wheel. He turned vigorously and a gasp came from those assembled as electricity sparked from one pillar and ran through the wire mesh to the other.

  Soon a steady blue arc connected the two pillars and a faint buzz filled the air. The hair on Hannah’s arms rose as the room became charged.

  “Doctor Peter Husom is exploring the effects of galvanism,” Sir Hugh whispered as the man in the centre of the room spoke.

  Hannah was aware of the scientific enquiry into the contractions of muscles. The process was named after Luigi Galvani, who had applied electrical charges to dissected creatures in the late 1700s.

  Doctor Husom donned heavy rubber gloves and then picked up two long copper knitting needles. Wires connected them to the cylinder beside one pillar.

  He thrust one copper needle into the dead man’s forearm and the other higher up in the biceps. Then he returned to the wheel, turning it faster and faster and making the blue arc spit and crackle. The electricity climbed higher up the pillars until Hannah thought it would escape and ignite the ceiling.

  As the electricity reached the top, Doctor Husom pulled a lever and light flashed along the wires toward the dead man. A bang made Hannah jump.

  A man behind her cried out, “Look!”

  Gasps and cries erupted from behind her, but Hannah was focused on the dead man. His fingers twitched and convulsed, then his arm slowly contracted as though he intended to touch his fingers to his shoulder.

  Applause burst out around the room. The doctor smiled and bowed. He flipped another switch on the machine and the electricity dissipated, along with the buzz that made Hannah’s ears ring.

  Everyone stared at the dead man as his arm slowly dropped back to the table.

  “Muscular contraction,” her father snorted. “Not resurrection.”

  “Would a larger electrical charge produce a more sustained physical response?” Hannah asked.

  “Only your mother and God could produce enough electricity to find out. We have discussed attempting to restart her heart with an electrical charge, but Sera thought there might be other, more unwanted consequences.” Her father clapped his hands as Doctor Husom bowed and questions exploded from the audience.

  6

  After the resurrection challenge, Doctor Finch led a spirited discussion on new ideas and theories about the Afflicted. Conversation swirled concerning how they remained animated and alert, despite the lack of a heartbeat.

  Hannah kept to herself her idea of its being somehow linked to the condition of the actual heart. The concept was a newly hatched chick and she wasn’t prepared to toss it from the nest and test its wings in public.

  The gentlemen raised a number of theories. The simplest, that a beating heart was not required for life, failed to pass scrutiny of the role the heart played in the circulatory system. The most outlandish theory was that the Afflicted were inhabited by poltergeists who manoeuvred limbs like puppeteers. Reverend Jones keenly examined that idea, as he suggested it dovetailed with his remnant soul theory.

  The meeting was called to a close in the early afternoon, just as Hannah’s stomach began to object about the length of time it had been since breakfast.

  Her father held out a hand to help her rise after the long time on the hard seats. “Shall we head home, Hannah, and see what Wycliff’s limb is up to?”

  In the excitement of being allowed to attend the meeting, she had quite forgotten the restless hand. “Oh, yes. I would like to study it more closely.”

  They waited for Wycliff to descend from the high back row to join them, and walked out to the waiting carriage.

  “What did you think of the challenge, Lord Wycliff?” Sir Hugh asked as he helped Hannah into the carriage first.

  “A shame nothing of any real practical application emerged from so much posturing and showmanship.” He climbed in and positioned himself next to Hannah, turning his body slightly toward the window and away from her.

  Sir Hugh frowned. “You call intelligent debate posturing and showmanship? We all strive for a cure, and that can only arise from sharing our theories.”

  Hannah glanced from one man to another. Both glared from under pulled brows and she had the distinct impression of two dogs with their hackles up, taking the measure of one another.

  “What is to happen to the limb, Lord Wycliff?” Hannah grabbed at the first idea in her mind to divert the men.

  His chest heaved in a short sigh and he turned to face her. “It will remain in custody. First I will verify whether or not it does belong to Joseph Barnes, who was the dock worker slain by Jonathon Rowley. If it is, I will try to find the rest of him.”

  “Would the hand work like a compass? Father has told me that a dismembered Afflicted will try to rejoin its pieces.” On an intellectual level, Hannah found the hand a fascinating specimen. It was amazing that it did things independently of a mind to direct its actions.

  Black eyes bored through her until she retreated further into her corner. Then he looked away and released her from his hold. “I am considering that possibility, although I’m not sure how one would restrain it so that it could not make its escape.”

  “Perhaps some sort of lead, such as is used for dogs? I doubt a hand moves very fast, however. It might be a slow search.” How long would the hand take to inch down the road like a spider from their house to London? Hours at least, if not days.

  Sir Hugh’s eyebrows shot up at the change of topic. “If Lord Wycliff will allow, I thought this afternoon we might detach hand from forearm, Hannah. They will rot at different rates and there’s no point distressing the hand by making it drag rotten flesh behind it.”

  “You make it sound sentient, Papa. Do you think it capable of independent thought? Given that Mr Barnes is a secondary Afflicted, the poor man is without any mind at all.” If a person were robbed of their brain, how did they command their limbs?

  Sir Hugh cleared his throat. “We have had no real opportunity to study the secondary Afflicted, since it was decided it is more humane to put them out of their misery. They still follow some directive, even without their brains.”

  Hannah concentrated on the pedestrians walking the road, laughing and talking, as she sought to remove the image of a secondary Afflicted from her mind. “I wonder if the
hand will rot if the body is not taking the required sustenance?”

  “Only time will reveal what course the rot takes in the hand. Another possibility is that without sustenance, it might enter a mummified state, such as the devout ladies in the Repository. This will be most interesting. We must write up our findings for the next SUSS meeting.”

  “I have no objection to your separating hand from forearm.” Lord Wycliff spoke from his corner. “If Miss Miles would be so kind, she might turn her mind to some sort of harness that would allow us to see if the hand can lead us back to the body.”

  Hannah stared at her gloved hand and wriggled her fingers. Where could one attach a leash that those fingers couldn’t find a way out of? “Something that goes between the thumb and index finger might work, so that it wouldn’t be able to squirm out. I’m sure Mother could concoct an enchantment as an extra protection to ensure it didn’t scamper off.”

  Lord Wycliff stared out the window while Hannah and her father discussed various aspects of the meeting. In no time the carriage was stopping outside their Westbourne Green home. Sir Hugh helped his daughter down first. Then the viscount stepped to the ground and charged up the gravelled path ahead of them. Hannah was still shaking out her skirts and pelisse by the carriage when the front door banged shut behind the viscount’s figure.

  After a small luncheon, Hannah changed into a plain, dark brown gown and dropped her canvas apron over her head. She tied the apron behind her back as she took the stairs down to the laboratory.

  “Will Lord Wycliff be joining us?” she asked as she laid out the instruments for the procedure.

  “No. He has saddled his horse and gone back to London in pursuit of Joseph Barnes, or what is left of him. He mentioned going to the docks to ask if the man had a tattoo of a vessel on his inner wrist.” Her father placed a magnifying lens over his head and angled it over his right eye.

  Hannah fetched the locked box with its regular and muffled tapping. She unlocked it, then her father grabbed the occupant with the tongs and laid it on the table. Hannah worked quickly to secure the limb at both ends with the leather straps.

  The forearm had the distinct mottling of rot now and a piercing odour wafted from it. She wrinkled her nose. How strange that while she had become accustomed to the sight of death, it was the smell that rapped at her brain for attention. “Do you think we should tell it what we are about to do?”

  The fingers waved and fought and reminded her of a large pink hairless spider trapped on its back.

  Hugh surveyed the supplies that Hannah had laid out on a trolley next to the table. “I suppose it would do no harm, but it has no ears or mind. How could it ever interrupt our words?”

  “But the hand is still full of nerves that must be sending messages somewhere. What if Mr Barnes is trapped in a coffin, experiencing everything the hand does, and directing its movement?”

  Sir Hugh picked up a scalpel and smiled at his daughter. “Remember, Mr Barnes is a secondary Afflicted and has no mind with which to think or feel. But I will not start until you inform Mr Barnes’ hand of our intentions.”

  Hannah concentrated on the hand and considered how to commence. Plain and simple would be best. There was no need to use fancy terms. “Mr Barnes, I do not know if you can hear me, but my father and I wish to help you. We are going to remove the forearm that does not belong to you, before it rots away. That should make you somewhat more comfortable. Then, if you promise to behave, we shall attempt to find the rest of you.”

  It might have been mere coincidence, but the fingers stilled as Hannah spoke. Then the fingers closed and the thumb lifted in a gesture familiar to her, before spreading itself flat.

  “Well, I never,” Sir Hugh muttered. After a moment, he began to slice the stitches holding the wound closed at the wrist.

  When each was cut, Hannah took the scalpel and passed over a pair of tweezers. Her father tugged each stitch free of the flesh and dropped it into the bowl she held out.

  With the clumsy stitches out of the way, Hugh worked with tweezers and scalpel to ease the two members apart. “This is most unusual. The tissue from the hand appears to have tried to connect to the forearm, but failed. Look here, Hannah, at the tendrils of nerves spanning the gap.”

  Hannah picked up a handheld magnifying glass and peered into the wound. It reminded her of a spiderweb, with gossamer-thin filaments running from hand to forearm, but as her father opened the gap further, they slid down until they separated.

  “Do you think it failed to heal because the forearm does not belong to the hand? Can you tell if this was attempted post mortem?” On impulse, she stroked a finger along the index finger of the hand and whispered, “You are being very brave. Thank you for holding still.”

  “A most excellent question. I think this was a post mortem surgery, rather than an attempt to stitch a hand to a living subject.” Sir Hugh passed the scalpel blade down the wound and the forearm tipped back away from the hand. “The bones and tendons are severed, with no attempt to reattach arteries or tendons. It was a crude procedure. Whoever did this either didn’t bother or didn’t think that they needed to do any more than stitch together the skin of both ends.”

  Hannah unfastened the strap on the arm and pulled it away from the hand while the fingers shook themselves.

  Free of the dead limb, the Afflicted one showed more animation. The tendons waved like tiny worms poking their heads out of the ground. Arteries closed and opened, like mouths seeking blood but finding none flowing from the heart.

  “Incredible,” she murmured as she watched this clear evidence of life after death in the hand’s severed wrist.

  “We will gather what information we can about the forearm, and then there is not much that can be done for it.” Sir Hugh continued to work, teasing out skin from around the wrist to cover the exposed area.

  “Why would someone do this post mortem?” Hannah asked. She passed her father a metal clip to secure two flaps of skin.

  “Practice, most likely. Or perhaps the forearm belonged to someone who lost a hand in an accident and some doctor thought to replace it with another, but the chap died.”

  “I’m sure Lord Wycliff will get to the bottom of it.” Hannah fetched a needle and a spool of catgut, from which she cut a length.

  “Wycliff is a most thorough chap, which is exactly what Sir Manly wanted in an investigator. It was also what made him an excellent officer until— Well, that doesn’t matter now.” With the edges of skin folded over and clipped like the wrapped end of a present, Hugh took the threaded needle from Hannah and began to stitch.

  Watching her father was like watching a skilled seamstress. People assumed that with such large hands, her father was only capable of butchery. Yet he used a needle with delicacy and made tiny, neat stitches that she swore were all exactly the same size and distance from one another.

  When he finished the last stitch and cut the catgut, he gave a satisfied hrumph. The hand now sported a sealed wound with stitches so fine they could have been used to construct a ballgown.

  Hannah glared at the plain metal box that had served as the limb’s prison. “I know it sounds silly, but do you think we should find a container with holes in it, or possibly one of the cages with bars? It doesn’t seem right to put this back in a sealed box when it is alive.”

  Sir Hugh wiped his hands and smiled at his daughter. “Not silly at all. I’m sure one of our many cages will be large enough, but the bars are sufficiently close that our friend here can’t slip out.”

  Hannah surveyed the empty cages on the shelves. One had originally been used for ferrets, which were also slippery creatures with a knack for escaping. She pulled it down from the shelf and placed it on the table. Next she dampened a cloth and wiped out the faint trace of dust in the bottom. On a whim, she took a metal wheel that had been used to keep the ferrets entertained, and dropped it into the bottom of the cage.

  “There, all ready,” she said.

  “You undo the stra
p, Hannah, and I will grab it with the tongs.” Hugh picked up the metal tongs and pinched the end of the wrist that remained on the hand.

  Hannah undid the buckle and the hand was deposited in its new home. It scuttled back and forth and spun the wheel on its way past. Watching it explore the limits of the cage brought a question to the forefront of Hannah’s mind. “Why is this hand so active? The secondary Afflicted we saw were slow and shambling creatures. This limb is rather more alert than I would expect.”

  “An excellent question, Hannah, for which I don’t have an answer. It is possible this is not Mr Barnes, in which case it could belong to a primary Afflicted or even a vampyre. Or perhaps there was something in the process of its amputation that has caused this reaction.” Sir Hugh picked up the cage and placed it on the shelf next to the mice.

  “If it is not Mr Barnes, I am sure the viscount will descend on the few male Afflicted we know of and demand to see their hands. I’m not entirely sure how one locates vampyres. I thought they all lived in Europe.”

  “Why don’t you ask your mother about a hand harness so we can take this fellow out for a walk, and see if he can sniff out the rest of him?” Hugh winked and Hannah suppressed a laugh.

  Whatever would the neighbours think when they took a human hand for a walk on a lead? Although they should be well accustomed to odd noises and sights at the mansion after the more than twenty years her parents had inhabited it.

  What to use to construct a harness and lead? Hannah pondered several options as she took the stairs up to the library to seek her mother’s advice.

  7

  Wycliff guided his mare through the busy London streets and toward the docks. He soon found the warehouse owned by Rowley and Sons, importers of fine champagne and brandy. However, the sons were down by one. After his murderous crimes, Jonathon Rowley now languished in the Repository of Forgotten Things—a situation that stuck in Wycliff’s craw. Why should nobles escape a death sentence because they had money or lacked a pulse?