Draw Back the Curtain, Mary – 012

Dear Mary,

Oh, I love when you say “let us light a fire.” Tell me everything.

But no—I don’t truly know Byron. I know the silhouette. The scandal. The arrogance. But what was he like in a room?

And Claire… she seems important. I’ve only ever seen her in footnotes. What was she like, really?

Also—the volcano. We do know about it now. Tambora. In our time, it’s considered a harbinger of climate instability, part of a much longer story we’re still struggling to understand. The year without a summer is taught in schools now—a signal from the earth that even in 1816, the planet was trying to tell us something.

Don’t hold back, Mary. You’ve opened the door. I want to walk with you through every shadow and flash of lightning that led to Frankenstein.

Still listening at the hearth,
Molly