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 phosphorescent illumination 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 been upon her face but hovering above it 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—could not—rest until he did! It was no longer a matter of mere curiosity but of necessity.