The big house had laid derelict for three generations, sitting atop the hill, battered by wind and rain. The furniture was still hastily covered from the owners’ original departure—they had hastened away in attempts to elude the Spanish flu. (They had hastened in vain.) Dust cluttered the floor, mildew the walls, cobwebs the air. She dropped his hand and strode across the parquet of the foyer, her fingers gently grazing the wall, leaving a trail of exposed paint behind her. She felt the light switch, and noted its looseness—rust and time had had their way with it. Leaning forward, she covered her face with her clean hand and blew, puckering her lips tight and forcing the air out quick and narrow. An explosion of dust followed. She lay her finger on the switch, turned, and, with a playful toss of her head, threw her hair out of her face, and shouted through her grin: “Well, are you ready?” For the wind was making an awful racket. He nodded. She threw the switch—nothing. And then a pop, and the copper in the walls roars to life, and the ghostly shape of the chandelier springs into relief above them, and the tungsten glows hotter and hotter and within a second or two the whole room is aglow. The coruscations bathe the room with half-finished rainbows as the crystals above shudder and tremble from the storm without.
The heart of the house was beating again.