Page 73 of Inkpot Gods

Lightning isn’t meant to last this long. Like Miss Cottingsly, it should fizzle and fade far before it can be released from its glassine prison.

Asphodel jerks upward like she’s been pricked with a needle. Perhaps that’s the answer. Mary Shelley knew the path, hypothesized that lightning could be used to wake the dead. Electricity is just tamed lightning. Perhaps it can serve the same purpose.

And if she’s starting with well-controlled lightning, perhaps she can control the rest of the factors as well.

Stormy nights are the best for graverobbing. Always have been. The rain and clouds provide solid cover, while the wet conditions mean that fewer people will be out on the streets, meaning less chance of being caught. Asphodel grabs her cloak and virtually flies out of the study and down the stairs, pausing only to beckon Miss Cottingsly from the kitchen and stick her head into the parlor where her uncle is going over his papers.

“I’m off to dig up a body,” she says, breathless and bright. “Don’t wait up.”

“I assume you’re taking Miss Cottingsly?” he asks, barely looking away from the ledger in front of him.

“Of course,” she says. “I have some sense remaining to me.”

“Then go with my blessing.” He finally glances up. “May I assume this means you’ve finally found your Invention?”

Asphodel takes a deep breath, steadying herself. Her uncle is her sponsor and instructor: he knows well how hard this past year has been for her, how many false starts she’s been forced to abandon and how many dead ends she’s pursued. He also knows how short the time remaining to her truly is.

“I believe I have,” she says, finally. “But I need a body to prove my hypothesis.”

“Raising the dead is no great achievement,” he cautions. “You may succeed only to fail when the Congress rejects your discovery.”

“If they reject me after what I’m about to do, they were never going to accept me anyway, and the Congress be damned,” she says.

“That’s my girl,” says her uncle, returning his attention to his work.

Asphodel nods, stepping back, and heads down the hall to the door with Miss Cottingsly at her heels. Once there she slips outside, and into history.

Boston is riddled with graveyards. Officially, there may only be so many, but a fair number of people still inter their dead at home, still bury their dearly departed in backyards and under beloved trees. Only broaden your definition of the graveyard, and the city is an ossuary ripe for the plucking.

The main graveyards are too well guarded, especially on nights like this one, to make safe targets. The carriage driver follows Miss Cottingsly’s directions, and Asphodel finds herself outside an old churchyard at the end of time, looking unhappily out the carriage windows.

“This is a dead boneyard,” she complains, looking to Miss Cottingsly. “I need something with some meat on it, especially as I don’t have the luxury of taking the time to assemble my perfect corpse. That will come later, when I improve what I’ve Invented.”

“This is an old churchyard,” corrects Miss Cottingsly. “The people who live in this part of the city are neither wealthy nor inclined toward rapid change. They still bring their dead here, when they can’t afford the larger graveyards. Best of all, the city plans to relocate these dead within the next few years. If a few bodies aren’t there when they do, they’ll chalk it up to an error in the paperwork, not to graverobbing. This may not be a fancy place to find a corpse, but I promise you, it’s a viable one.”

“If you’re quite certain, it’s late enough that I’d prefer not to locate another cemetery. We can proceed.”

The rain has been falling long and hard enough that the ground is a churned-up mess, mud and pooling water rendering footing treacherous even before they’ve passed the bawn that separates the street and the boneyard. Miss Cottingsly leads the way, stepping with easy confidence that Asphodel can only envy, not quite desire, as she chases the auf into the dark. They each walk with shovel and sack over their shoulders, ready for the task ahead.

“At least the rain’s had time to soften the way,” says Miss Cottingsly with brutal cheer. She leads Asphodel to the very back corner of the graveyard. With the earth as battered as it is, it’s impossible to tell the fresh graves from the old … except by the headstones.

This grave is marked with the current year, and with a stone devoid of visible weathering. The letters stand out sharp and true.

“Eliza Dane,” reads the name above the grave, and for a moment—only a moment, no more—a thin worm of human sympathy unwinds in Asphodel’s heart. This was someone’s child, someone’s beloved sister or daughter. This was a person. What has she come here to do, that will so disturb the natural order, that deserves so much to be allowed to rest? How can she be forgiven?

She quashes the worm like she would any other parasite, smashing it flat under the force of her will. She doesn’t need to be forgiven. Whatever she does here tonight, she does in the pursuit of science. She does it because she must, and because if she doesn’t, someone else will.

She does it because it is her birthright, to pull life out of the storm and set it free to walk the world once more.

Her shovel bites deep into the earth on her very first strike, and she digs with all the ferocity of a seasoned graverobber. Miss Cottingsly is there to help her when she flags, and steps in to take over entirely the first time she hears Asphodel hiss in pain. “It does us no good if you tear up your hands until you can’t finish the job,” she says, practical and plain. “Stand aside, sparrow. This is dead woman’s work.”

Miss Cottingsly digs with a speed and accuracy that humbles Asphodel as she stands beside the grave, shuttered lantern held high. The storm still rages around them, pulling at their hair and drenching their clothes, but providing the cover they need to achieve their goals unseen and undisturbed. There is no sign of a night watchman, no indication that anyone cares for this place and its impoverished dead.

When Miss Cottingsly reaches the coffin, it is a plain wooden thing, unfinished, not even sanded down; nothing about this was intended to be seen. “Here we are,” she says, and tosses the shovel aside before she bends to wrench the lid open.

The body inside is of a girl barely into her twenties, hair like wheat, lips still rosebud red and not yet touched by the fingers of decay. She was clearly buried in her Sunday best, and her dress, before the rain soaks it against her skin, is white lace, as virginal and pristine as anyone could ask.

Miss Cottingsly hoists the body out and over her shoulder before Asphodel can order her to do so. “That’s our duty done,” she says, climbing out of the hole. “If you can close the lid and toss some of the mud back into the hole, I’ll be right back to help you fill it the rest of the way up. We’ll be out of here soon, and the people none the wiser.”