Excerpt from Enlightenment by Sarah Perry, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"What comet?"

"Thomas! Do you never look up? They call it Hale-Bopp. It's been on the news."

"Hale-Bopp," said Thomas. "I see. I never watch the news." He raised the planisphere toward the editor. "I have no interest in astronomy. This comet could crash through the window and land on the carpet and I'd have nothing to say about it."

Carleton refused the planisphere with a gesture. "Keep it. Give it a try. We have to think of something, Thomas: circulation is down. Do you want to write about this sheep they've cloned in Scotland, or about the general election? Celebrity gossip, perhaps, or the sexual intrigues of the Tory cabinet?" He received a look of admonition, as if he'd stained one of those pristine white cuffs.

"I am too old," said Thomas, "for new tricks."

"These days," said Carleton, hardening his heart, and further depleting the store of his inheritance, "a good pair of binoculars offers more or less the same magnitude as Galileo's telescope. Five hundred words, please. Why don't you start with the moon?"

"Is there a moon tonight?"

"How should I know?" Carleton was at the door; Carleton was almost free. "I've always found it unreliable. Five hundred words, please, and six if the night is clear."

"These days," said Thomas, "the nights are never clear." With bad grace he lifted the planisphere to the weak light seeping in and turned the upper part. The perforation slid over the painted leather, and half-familiar names appeared on the ground of blue: Aldebaran. Bellatrix. Hyades. Well, then. Five hundred words, and six if the night was clear; and meanwhile he was behind on his correspondence. A solitary letter in the steel tray, the flap lifting and the stamp not straight, the letter signed boldly in blue ink:

James Bower
Essex Museum Services

17 February 1997

Dear Mr. Hart,
I think I have some information that might interest you.

As I'm sure you know, we're doing renovation work at Lowlands House, and it has turned up some interesting documents. We think they may relate to a woman who lived at Lowlands in the nineteenth century, who disappeared and was never discovered. I've always enjoyed your column and remember especially your account of going in search of the Lowlands ghost—and it occurred to me the legend might even be connected with this disappearance! Could you be persuaded to come and visit me at the museum? We are open daily from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. I'm always at my desk.

Yours sincerely,

James Bower

Thomas put down the letter. Was it possible the strip light briefly dimmed, and summoned out of shadow the figure of a vanished woman, now returned? It was not. Thomas smiled and turned again toward the window. The stunned pigeon had left its greasy imprint on the glass, and it rose like the Holy Ghost behind the venetian blinds.

Excerpted from Enlightenment by Sarah Perry. Copyright © 2024 by Sarah Perry. Excerpted by permission of Mariner Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.