Vi turned away from it, went to the shelves, and found what she was looking for: the battery-powered camping lantern they used when the power went out. She took it down and opened it up, taking out the blocky six-volt battery. She rummaged around in a basket full of odds and ends on the shelf and pulled out some pieces of wire.
“What are you doing?” Eric asked when she brought the battery and wires back to the kitchen. The little rabbit was holding perfectly still under his hand. Its eyes were closed.
“We have to be ready to restart its heart. Give it a shock.”
Eric looked baffled.
“Trust me. A body, it’s got its own electrical system, right? Gran’s explained that a thousand times—how it’s all connected: the brain, the nerves. It’s what keeps our hearts beating, right? And you know how on Emergency! they use those paddles to bring people back? It’s like that.”
She licked her lips, then attached two wires to the big six-volt battery from their camping lantern. She thought about all of Gran’s lessons on circuits and electricity, how Vi had made a lightbulb glow once with the electricity generated from a potato, nails, and wire.
Gran had once said the human body had enough electricity running through it to power a flashlight.
And yes, Vi thought of Frankenstein. Not of the book she’d been reading, but the movie. Of Boris Karloff being brought to life in Dr. Frankenstein’s lab.
It was her favorite scene in the movie. The storm raging, Dr. Frankenstein lifting the table with the monster up out of the room, into the sky so lightning could strike it, bring the creature to life with a great jolt. Then lowering him back down, seeing the creature’s hand twitch: It’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive!
“I don’t think I feel a heartbeat,” Eric said.
Vi nodded, carefully placed her hands on the sides of its chest.
“Is he dead?”
“Maybe not forever,” Vi said. The rabbit was warm under her hands. She could feel it breathing, twitching a little. But she wanted Eric to believe. To believe that she had the power to save it. “We can bring him back.”
“Are you sure? Are you sure he’s dead?” Eric asked, rocking back and forth, looking smaller than ever.
“Of course I’m sure,” Vi snapped. “Now, stand back.”
He bit his lip and started to cry again. She looked at him, guilt washing over her. How could she be so cruel? What kind of sister was she?
She turned back to the rabbit and placed the wires attached to the battery on either side of its chest.
“Wake up,” she said. “Come back to us.”
As if on cue, the rabbit lifted its head, gave a little hop forward.
“It’s alive,” Vi said.
Eric gave a squeal of delight and threw his arms around her, hugging her tight. “I knew it,” he said. “I knew you could do it.”
The front door opened with a creak and a thump.
Then the sound of footsteps in the front hall, coming their way.
“Old Mac,” Eric whispered, eyes wide and frantic.
The Helping Hand of God: The True Story of the Hillside Inn By Julia Tetreault, Dark Passages Press, 1980
In the 1970s, the Hillside Inn was widely considered one of the best private psychiatric institutions in New England.
Located on fifty acres atop a forested hill in the small town of Fayeville, Vermont, it housed no more than twenty patients at a time in an environment more like a country estate than a hospital.
The grounds of the Hillside Inn held five buildings. The director’s residence was a white wooden Greek Revival structure with a large front porch supported by carved wooden columns. The stables, which hadn’t held horses for fifty years, had been renovated into a large arts and crafts area for the patients, complete with a pottery studio and kiln. Next to the stables was the freshly painted red barn, home to maintenance and groundskeeping equipment, as well as the van the Inn used to transport residents on therapeutic field trips. The carriage house had been converted to an apartment where the office manager lived. And then there was the Inn itself: a hulking two-story building of yellow brick with large shuttered windows and a steeply angled gray slate roof. South of the Inn, a large garden allowed patients to work outside in good weather, helping grow a significant portion of the produce used in the dining room. The staff believed strongly in the curative powers of fresh air, sunshine, and a good day’s work.