Chapters (86)
Ada pulled her back out of view. ‘It’s fashion. Or it was about ten years ago.’
A new act started. The audience drew in closer, hushed and waiting. A gust of wind made the candles gutter. A Leyden jar for storing electricity had been brought onstage and volunteers were being summoned to take part in the demonstration. Olympe fell silent, watching intently as they were arranged in a circle, each end of the chain touching the jar.
‘Is that electricity? How do they do that?’
Ada explained about the static charge. Onstage a woman near to the jar yelped, loose strands of hair around her face rising.
‘You mean it’s artificial? There’s no one like … like me involved?’
Ada shook her head. ‘No. No one can do what you can do.’
Olympe looked down at her hands. The silk gloves smothered any charge so it couldn’t be conducted to anything else. Anyone else.
A hum grew, along with a prickling in Ada’s palms. She thought about what Camille had told her about Olympe stretching out her mottled hand and pressing it against the guard’s neck. She could feel her own hair begin to stand on end, lifting up against its pins.
More shrieks were coming from the act onstage. Arcing blue light leaped between people’s hands before they joined them. Then all at once, the woman at the end of the chain who’d yelped first jerked away, a streak of red coming from her nose. The rest of the chain shattered, and a thrum of concern rippled through the auditorium. Several participants were shaking uncontrollably. Some were crying.
A smattering of applause sent the jar and its scientist offstage.
Olympe watched, eyes wide and shoulders tense.
‘People let themselves get shocked on purpose?’
‘Yes … it’s entertainment,’ said Ada carefully. ‘It’s a popular scientific display.’
‘You mean other people study electricity too? Not just Comtois and the rest?’
‘Yes. All of Europe – all the world wants to know what it is.’
‘And do they know?’
Ada opened her mouth, then shut it again. None of the theories she’d read seemed worth talking about. Because whatever Olympe was, she wasn’t anything the world had seen before.
‘No. No one knows.’
Olympe looked down at her hands again, and Ada thought she saw a spark of excitement in Olympe’s fathomless eyes.
‘I am unique.’
‘Yes. You are.’