A little in love with him myself You might think saving someone’s life would bind you ever after That is not what happened with Mary and me I am not blaming her, but digging her out of the landslip that day, using Captain Cury’s spade and racing against the tide and the rocks that rained down on either side of us, seemed to drive us apart rather than bring us closer It was a miracle Mary survived, and intact as well, especially given Captain Cury’s terrible suffocating death just a few feet from her She had bad bruising up and down her body, but only a few broken bones—some ribs and her collarbone This kept her in bed a few weeks—not long enough to satisfy Doctor Carpenter, but she refused to convalesce any longer, and soon reappeared on the beach, bound up tightly to keep the bones in place I was amazed she was willing to go out hunting again after what she’d been through Not only that—she did not change her habits, but went back to pacing along the base of the cliffs, where landslips could come down When I suggested that Molly and Joseph Anning would understand if she did not want to go back to hunting, Mary declared, “I been struck by lightning and buried in a landslip and survived both God must have other plans for me Besides,” she added, “I can’t afford to stop.” On top of her father’s debts, which years later the family was still struggling to clear, they now owed Doctor Carpenter He was fond of Mary because of their shared interest in fossils, as well as for the pleasure he took from knowing his advice had saved her from the lightning strike However, he still had to be paid for his care of Mary, and of Fanny Miller as well, as insisted on by her family The Annings did not challenge this demand More surprising, they did not expect William Buckland to pay for Fanny’s care; nor would Molly Anning let me write to him about it on their behalf “He can afford it more than you,” I reasoned when I was visiting Mary to lend her a Bible she wanted to read while she was still in bed “And it is because of him that Fanny was out on the beach at all.” Molly Anning did not pause while she counted a pile of pennies from the fossil table sales “If Mr Buckland felt he ought to pay, he would have offered to