Originally published in Spirit Machine: Tales of Séance Fiction.
overture
Two girls meet. The first, a glassblower’s daughter, hides behind the thick arm of her father. When he places a glass brooch in the other girl’s hand, the other girl smiles as bright as the midday sun.
i. reliquary
“Some of my learned colleagues posit that the powering of any electrical device, namely the electric light, must begin with wanting. To properly achieve power, they write, one must desire it above all else. I, however, am of the view that the powering of the electric light must first begin with the crafting of the appropriate vessel.”
—Dr. Cornelius H. Fortescue, A Treatise Pertaining to the Powering of the Electric Light.
Elspeth knows about wanting—that it aches in your gut, white-hot, burning, and cools just as fast, into something solid as stone but frail to the touch. Not like Annabelle, beautiful Annabelle, who knows only about getting—how light it is, how easy.
Sweat drips down Elspeth’s forehead and she breathes in deep, holds, and then exhales all of her desire, her need, her very heart down the blowpipe, and spins it on the yoke. Though the furnace roars, the workshop is dim even in daylight. Elspeth has never liked the dark.
The bulb grows, round and cloudy, with an arched window of smooth, air-clear glass on the one side, church-like. Elspeth blows until the air runs out and the glass is thin, so thin that it might break at any moment. But she is careful; Elspeth knows her work, knows the glass will hold as she knows the way the dark feels when it clogs her throat—and how it clears when Annabelle smiles sunshine.
It is simple, and yet it is the most beautiful thing the glassblower’s daughter has ever created—or it will be, when it is full and shining like the new lights in the city. Street lamps with haunted faces screaming out where flames once sat—no longer lit by lamplighters and their candles, but the stolen dead and the song of the glass. The light still flickers, brightening and dimming with the rise and fall of their pitch.
Dr. Cornelius H. Fortescue’s Electric Spirit Lamp, the light that shines eternal! That’s what it says in the papers they use to wrap their glass. The latest in a line of Fortescue electrospirit inventions—where the dead pay their dues, at least for those who can afford it. Elspeth does not have money but she does have the book and the glass and the wanting.
Elspeth rests her creation and lifts a newspaper-wrapped parcel from the workbench. A label, affixed with string, reads To Miss Annabelle Edevane, From Your Betrothed, Care of Glad & Son’s Glassmith. The paper creases beneath her whitening knuckles. Deep in her stomach, a knot is burning.
ii. soul
“Once you have escaped the tedium of creation, or commission should one be of sufficient wealth, the selection process begins. Now, if one were to listen to Tesla or Edison, they might scoff at the words in this work. To the foolhardy, I say, good luck, old chap! For any learned scholar knows that true illumination can only be achieved with employment of a soul.”
—Dr. Cornelius H. Fortescue, A Treatise Pertaining to the Powering of the Electric Light.
Miss Annabelle Edevane, eldest daughter of Admiral Clarence Edevane—who has commissioned so much blown glass for his daughters that Elspeth is a near-permanent fixture in his household—is sprawled across a fainting couch when the glassblower’s daughter arrives, package pressed against her chest.
“Oh, Elspeth, do you have my present?” Annabelle is glowing, her smile so wide it might cleave her face in two. There is a blush about her cheeks and a sparkle in her bright eyes that makes the hair on Elspeth’s neck stand on end and her palms dewy with sweat. Elspeth does not realise how she is pressing the parcel into herself as if to tuck it tight within her ribcage until the other girl says, “Well?”
Annabelle barely looks at the label before shredding the newspaper, scattering words across the polished floor. She pulls the gift close to her face and lets out a giggle, girlish, which bubbles up from her throat like an accident, only perfectly staged. “Look, Elspeth. Isn’t it pretty?”
When Annabelle opens her cupped hands, the knot in Elspeth’s stomach quivers—tense like glass before it bursts. The glasswork between Annabelle’s palms is delicate, Elspeth knows the feel of it on her fingers. She knows exactly how much breath it took to inflate the body of the small bird, how the canes burned her palms through the gloves when they were pulled for its cage. How there is a mark above her heart in the shape of its wings, which would have been dashed to the floor had she not caught them against her chest.
“He must love me, truly, my betrothed, to have sent such a thing, don’t you think?” Annabelle holds the caged bird up so that the window-light refracts feathers across the room.
Elspeth swallows. “He must want to cage you, if that is what he sent.”
The caged bird had been her own idea, Annabelle’s betrothed knowing only that his bride-to-be was fond of delicate, pretty things.
“Elspeth, always so callous and sharp, you are. I think it’s beautiful.”
“It is,” says Elspeth, “but the beauty is from the blower, not the buyer.”
“Well, you shall have to thank your father for me then. Truly, he must love me like a daughter to create such a pretty little thing.” Annabelle smiles sweetly—it is no secret that Elspeth is the one who puts breath and heart into the delicate ornaments. Not her father, who had always imagined strapping sons to blow thick glass bottles for whisky and port, like he does.
For a moment, Elspeth imagines her hand reaching up and snatching the little glass cage, squeezing it until it breaks and jabbing the shards into Annabelle’s pretty face—surely a beauty even when she bleeds. Instead, she wets her lips, closes her eyes and breathes. Not yet, Elspeth. Not yet. She might still…
When she opens her eyes, Annabelle is still prattling. It is her betrothed’s eyes she wonders about now, blue like forget-me-nots, she says.
“Would you run away with me, if I asked?”
The words are out before she can catch them in her hands and Elspeth does not blink, does not breathe, while the other girl regards her.
The grandfather clock ticks. Its seconds ring loud in the silence before Annabelle says, “What’s gotten into you, Elspeth Glad? What a silly, strange thing to say. You are quite odd, Elspeth, did you know that?”
Elspeth sighs then, her voice resigned. “Yes, Annabelle.”
“It’s all that glass. The fumes’ve got your head muddled. Run away with you, honestly. I’m to be married to a duke.”
“Yes, Annabelle.”
“Not to worry, we shall forget all about it. Tea? Let’s head to the parlour. The light is so much better at this time of day—and we’re not expecting visitors.” Annabelle scoops up the glass bird in its cage and all but skips from the room. She does not turn to make sure Elspeth is following her—Elspeth always does.
While Annabelle walks, Elspeth listens to the bird sing against the cage and the knot in her belly tightens.
A breeze ruffles her hair; the servant stairs, leading their steep way down to the scullery, are open. Elspeth clears her throat. “Would it not be quicker to go this way?” she asks.
Annabelle scrunches her nose and purses her lips. “Some silly little thing must have left it open. We don’t air the stairs in polite company, Elspeth. You know that. Down the servant’s passage, indeed. Anyone might walk in.”
When Annabelle comes to close the door, which on the polite side looks just like the wooden panelling on the wall, she wears her sunshine smile and, for a moment, Elspeth hesitates. The glass bird in its cage stares at her and shapes its beak as if to say, What if you didn’t? What if it wasn’t Annabelle?
Then Annabelle shows her teeth. “It might be all very well for you, loitering about in cold dark spaces, but I couldn’t possibly. Can you imagine if I were to be seen? It’s already risky enough that you’re here—”
That’s right—Elspeth knew of the risk, of how Annabelle had shoved her into the tack cupboard when she was still small enough to fit—lest they be seen together by some visiting Viscount or other. How she’d howled when Annabelle left her there in the dark and the cold, locked up long after the last stablehand had retired for the night. Where was Annabelle when Elspeth had ripped her nail beds raw trying to get the door open? Where was Annabelle when Elspeth had screamed herself hoarse?
When Annabelle screams, it isn’t as pretty as Elspeth is expecting. It is a strangled thing cut short by a crack, then a regimented march of thudding as the other girl tumbles down to the last wicked stair. Elspeth knows she is dead before the red begins blooming from the back of her head.
Elspeth’s throat squeezes and something between a cry and laugh ekes out. The knot unravels in her belly and its string roils about, threatening to rise up and choke her.
Below, the glass cage is shattered—its bars piercing Annabelle’s fine fingers—and the little bird flies down the mottled floor—free and unbroken.
entr’acte
Two girls tell each other ghost stories in the grass. The first, the prettier, is making daisy chains. The other girl, tattered and soot-stained, holds a glass flower in her hand. With a small stone, she shatters each delicate petal: she loves me, she loves me not…
iii. filament
“There are many ways to lure a soul. Ask any fortune-teller or street peddler. In the scientific method, there is but one proven for longevity. It is to this method that we must now turn our attention. When one has one’s vessel, one is only part-way ready. As within the common bulb of my contemporaries, one must secure a filament. I find that the most effective filament comes from the soul’s own personage—that is to say, something with which they were buried. A trinket, a trifle, or dare I say, a sliver of tooth or bone.”
—Dr. Cornelius H. Fortescue, A Treatise Pertaining to the Powering of the Electric Light.
The late Miss Annabelle Edevane is resplendent in her coffin, trussed up in what would have been her bridal gown had she only lived to wear it. The undertakers have painted a pretty blush upon her cheeks and lips, and have dressed her pale hair with pearls of blown glass. Elspeth Glad feels a warmth in her chest when she sees them, her own breath to be buried with dear Annabelle—in this way they will be together forever.
The mourners will arrive soon to accompany her body from the house where she lies in repose, an exhibit to be admired, to the churchyard—but for now, they are alone.
Cracks of guilt spread red across Elspeth’s cheeks—she had to, she had to.
“All will be well, Annabelle. You’ll see. I’ll fix it,” she whispers.
She feathers her fingers down Annabelle’s face, traces her features and commits them, bright and blushing, to memory. As she reaches her closed eye, Elspeth plucks three curved eyelashes from her lids. She cups the dead girl’s head in her hand and from the back snips a curling lock of blonde. Then, Elspeth moves down and tears a scrap from Annabelle’s gown; she would have made a pretty bride.
Annabelle had always known it—of course. When they were small, their fathers away in the Admiral’s study to discuss a great glass commission for Annabelle’s birthday, Annabelle and Elspeth laid among the rosebushes and whispered about wedding dresses and cake and walking down an aisle covered in petals.
“We’ll do it together,” said Annabelle who had not yet learnt the shame in their friendship. Elspeth’s heart rose to her throat—
“You can carry my train and hold my flowers when I kiss my husband.”
—and then sank to her stomach, heavy as stone.
Annabelle rested her head on Elspeth’s stomach, her legs out and away from the bushes, to gaze up at the roses.
“You make a very fine pillow, Elspeth Glad,” she said and the glassblower’s daughter flushed pink with smiling. How easy she forgot back then. How easy she forgave. Hope rushed bright through her veins and the glassblower’s daughter still thought maybe—just maybe—if she was patient enough, attentive enough and if she learned to make glass prettier by far than her father’s, Annabelle might find her pretty too.
It was only when they stood that Elspeth felt the thorns in her back, her arms, her legs, red seeping across her dress and drying brown like mud—while dear Annabelle remained sweet-smiled and unblemished.
iv. trap
“This final step is the hardest and those scientifically-minded readers will surely recoil in terror and shun this humble Doctor from scientific practice—but it is the only way. To capture a soul, one must truly believe. One must truly see. Without belief, one cannot take a soul between their teeth. Without belief, one cannot achieve true illumination. Do not balk, my learned friends. Do not turn away, for you are close, so close now, to enlightenment.”
—Dr. Cornelius H. Fortescue, A Treatise Pertaining to the Powering of the Electric Light.
Elspeth has never seen the Edevane house at night, wreathed in cool shadows so that it looks like it’s been coloured with smalt—a house of blue glass now cold from the furnace. She clutches her bag close, makes herself small so the dark can’t see her, can’t grab at her with its claws.
There is a glow in one window, a candle left lit to guide Annabelle home. The glassblower’s daughter breathes in deep and straightens her shoulders.
It doesn’t stop her hands from shaking.
She finds her in the garden—Annabelle in her wedding gown. Annabelle staring into the fountain. Annabelle with stains beneath her eyes and a frown on her pretty face—blood on the back of her head, her neck at an awful angle.
Gravel crunches beneath Elspeth’s boots and the ghost of Annabelle Edevane jumps.
“Oh, Elspeth,” she sighs. Then she sobs. “Father won’t talk to me and Mother is crying all of the time. I don’t know what’s happening, Elspeth. They look right through me.”
The glassblower’s daughter wets her lips and clenches a fist against her stomach, squeezing the guilt that swells there before it can rise to her throat and choke her. She swallows and says, “You’re dead, Annabelle. You fell. You died.”
But the girl is not listening. “The Duke was here. He didn’t even ask to see me. I tried to speak with him and he just walked straight by.”
“He couldn’t see you, Annabelle. You’re gone.”
The ghost of Annabelle Edevane stills and slowly, so slowly raises her eyes to meet Elspeth’s. Where her feet touch the ground, frost and rot spreads. “You’re lying. I am his bride, I am in my wedding gown. We have been married. He is my husband.”
“No, Annabelle. You’re wearing the gown you were buried in.”
“You’re lying. I’m married. It’s my wedding day. I’m married.”
Elspeth reaches for the other girl’s shoulder, but pulls back when she realises that she can no longer touch her. “Why don’t you remember the ceremony, Annabelle?”
“I do, I do. I—” Annabelle flaps her hands and squeezes her eyes shut and in the fountain, the water begins to freeze. “I remember… I remember a glass bird, and a door. An open door, and you.”
She stares at Elspeth for a moment. Her hair floats about her head as if she is beneath the ice but when the dead girl leans over, Elspeth can see none of Annabelle in the cloudy surface.
“I remember you and your hands, and the stairs.” Annabelle grows then, much taller now than she had ever been in life, and the night winters. “I remember the stairs.”
Elspeth holds up her hands and steps backwards. “It had to happen. It had to be this way. You’ll see, Annabelle. This is the only way—we can chase the dark away. Forever. Don’t you want to?”
The ghost of Annabelle Edevane does not blink when she says, “Would you run away with me, if I asked?”
The words drip with venom and are so barb-sharp that when the glassblower’s daughter presses a hand to her chest she expects it to come away bloody.
“I’m not sorry,” Elspeth spits back. The lie slides hot from her tongue like molten glass. When it’s out, it hardens, too firm now to take back.
She reaches into her bag and the glass that meets her fingers is cool and smooth. Elspeth takes the bulb in her hands and Annabelle drifts closer.
“What is that? What are you doing?” Annabelle tries to find purchase on the frozen fountain but her hands fall straight through, leaving only frosted handprints in their wake—sparkling like diamonds.
“Like glass,” Elspeth whispers as she takes them in.
Annabelle is almost nose-to-nose with her now. “What’s happening to me?”
Fear shines bright in her pale, dead eyes.
The glassblower’s daughter holds the bulb out in front. Plaited into the filament is Annabelle’s golden hair and the scrap of her dress, weaved through with her eyelashes and pearls of blown glass.
Annabelle tries to rake her nails down Elspeth’s face but the glassblower’s daughter feels nothing but cold.
Annabelle’s blonde curls and the hem of her dress are already being pulled into the bulb, coiling themselves around the filament like vines laying roots. Where they touch, a dim light flickers, growing brighter the more of her is imbibed by the glass. Her mouth, too open, emits a wail that cracks the fountain ice and makes the bulb slip in Elspeth’s grasp.
For one dreadful moment, Elspeth imagines the glass shattered on the ground and Annabelle, made giant with burning cold rage, crushing her between her ghostly fingers. But the glassblower’s daughter catches the bulb between her palms and holds it steady. As her fingertips blacken from the cold of it, Elspeth bites her tongue until she tastes metal, and finally, finally, the last of the dead girl whirls into the glass and scatters frostwork across its surface.
Elspeth places the flickering blue of the bulb into her bag and runs—up above, the sole candle gutters and then is extinguished.
v. illumination
“Ah, here we are on the threshold. That moment between darkness and ever-light. Call now upon lightning made tame—on this, Tesla, Edison and I are in agreement. The beauty of electricity.”
—Dr. Cornelius H. Fortescue, A Treatise Pertaining to the Powering of the Electric Light.
Flickering blue rage fills the glassworks as Elspeth untangles herself from wires and electrical accoutrements. A vast diagram is spread across the floor and her own shrewd approximation is nearly complete. Just one last socket to fill.
Annabelle hammers on and shouts through the glass, her ghastly screeches muffled and her face in a permanent scowl.
“Just a minute, and all will be well,” says Elspeth. She holds the connectors steady, and gazes into the angry eyes of Annabelle until she convinces herself that the dead girl is smiling. “Three, two, one.”
The power connects with a hum and the bulb glows golden. Lines of electricity branch across Annabelle’s face and the ghost in the glass screams. As the pitch of her cry rises the bulb grows brighter and the light steadies.
“The ever-light,” Elspeth whispers, eyes wide in wonder. “Look, Annabelle, everything’s better now. You see? Everything is all right.”
If she looks long enough and listens just so, she can pretend the dead girl is singing.
Elspeth places her palm on the glass and Annabelle’s hand, fingers constricted and shaking, rise pleading to meet it—in this way they will be together forever.
finale
Two girls are in the glassmith. The first pulls something shining, molten, from the furnace, takes the blowpipe to her lips and exhales. A rose blooms on the end, deep red, and threatening to crack. The other girl, delicate, dead, is suspended, shuddering and screaming, in a bulb of clouded glass.
At all times and for always, the song of the glass rings out and the glassworks is bathed in light, bright and shining gold as the midday sun.
