being a Fictionalization of Reported and Corroborated Mysterious Phenomena
by Dr. Barnabus Milligan, physician
Chapter Three
The paper Dr. Palmer submitted to the College of Physicians on the luminescence he had observed was met mostly with silence. Though he was frustrated, he was not surprised. He’d filled the submission with details and theories but no data, no scientifically sound information. His next paper, he vowed, would be overrun with both.
It was in pursuit of this that he returned to Ireland, returned to the peat bogs where he’d first observed the cones of fire. He sat in the dark and the cold, watching and waiting for a return of that most extraordinary sight.
It did not return.
He did, however, experience something not entirely unrelated. The peat of those bogs, when cut, emitted an unmistakable, albeit brief, glow. It occurred when the peat was disturbed, and the light disappeared almost on the instant. Could this, he wondered, be related to what he’d seen more than nine months earlier? Could there be a connection?
Determined to know more and return to London with answers, he made an examination of the peat himself. He cut a bit, causing the momentary glow to continue. As itdisappeared, he immediately sliced off a bit more, and the glow to returned.
He guarded the slice of peat fiercely as he returned to the cottage he had let for a few weeks in pursuit of the answers he required. No one else was present; he could not permit the distraction. Palmer laid out his medical tools, quite as if he was about to undertake an examination of a patient or a dissection in a lab. He set his large cutting of peat on the table amidst his instruments. He lit a lamp and brought it near. Palmer set magnifying spectacles on his nose and bent over the peat block.
A bit of careful cutting and breaking revealed the presence of tiny white worms no more than half an inch in length. Palmer poked at them and nudged them and, in whatever way he could, caused the animals a bit of irritation, hoping to discover that they were the source of the soft glow he’d seen in the bog peat.
It did not seem to be enough.
Palmer refused to believe he was wrong yet again. The College of Physicians had dismissed his discoveries and hypotheses because he could not provide any evidence. He would have it this time. He swore he would. He would not rest without answers.Couldnot.
What else could irritate or cause excitation in the worms without causing them any harm? He looked around his cottage, searching for something, anything. His eyes fell upon a bottle of strong spirits. He could not place the worms in the alcohol as that might drown the creatures. The vapors, though, might prove sufficient.
He took careful hold of one worm with his smallest pair of tissue forceps. He filled a small, shallow dish with the alcohol, then held the worm over it, near enough for thevapors to envelop the creature. Mere moments later, it began to glow.
At last! At last he had succeeded in forcing a naturally occurring glow to appear!
The phosphorescence was a brilliant, beautiful, clear green that illuminated the entirety of the worm’s body. But it lasted a mere instant.
He subjected several of the worms to the same treatment and achieved the same result. With enough of these tiny creatures in peat, agitation of that peat would cause dozens upon dozens to produce the green light at once, creating the twinkling glow he’d seen.
It did not, though, explain the columns of fiery light he’d seen at the beginning of the year.
It did not explain the lights that had illuminated Miss Lavinia’s face.
And it did not explain the further phenomena of light he observed as the weeks and months continued to pass. For he’d committed himself to searching them out. Dedicated himself to the pursuit.
Palmer had attended the bedside of a woman dying of a pulmonary consumption not unlike that which had claimed Miss Lavinia Abbott. He had not tended to many patients since Miss Lavinia’s passing. One could not pursue elusive answers and doctor at the same time. At least not often.
As he had in Miss Lavinia’s home, he observed in this new location a moon-like light dancing upon the woman’s face, with something of the look of lightning, something of the look of the glowing peat, but not precisely like either one.
He was not alone in observing the phosphorescentillumination of this particular patient’s features. The unfortunate soul was attended also by her sisters and mother. The word of women was not generally considered by the medical establishment to be authoritative, but their corroboration of his observations might still have proven useful despite that prejudicial opinion—if only their recounting of the experience had matched his.
The light they had observed, the women insisted, had not beenuponher face but hoveringaboveit in the air she breathed out. It danced in diagonal glimmers, shimmering about near the head of the bed.
He did not think he had misjudged what he’d observed. He was too meticulous an observer. That this mystery held such weight in his mind made him even more aware of the details.
A fellow doctor in Ireland wrote to tell him of a similar experience occurring in a neighboring village. A man suffering with pulmonary tuberculosis was known to emit a glow as well. It was said, in fact, that these periods of body-produced light appeared nightly. It was described by the local people as a luminous fog or a sparkle of phosphorescence, but Palmer’s colleague could not confirm this. He further indicated that all he had heard pointed toward the odd light existing, as the sisters previously mentioned had insisted, in the air rather than upon the person of the patient.
That, while intriguing, was not the phenomenon Palmer was chasing. It was not the mystery he grew more and more determined to solve. He would not—couldnot—rest until he did! It was no longer a matter of mere curiosity but of necessity.
Back in his own home once more, Palmer became allbut consumed by the pursuit of answers. He attempted to coax a glow from every living thing he could get his hands on. None cooperated.
The question rested heavily on his thoughts as he went about his days and even as he attempted to sleep. He thought upon it as he ate his meals and as he dressed for the day and undressed for the night.
Early one morning as he brushed through his hair, now a bit overgrown and less well-kept than it had once been, a spark of light emitted, jumping about between the strands of hair. He’d seen such a thing happen before but had paid it little heed. Until now.