FRANK

The year is 2008. I am, as I have been for the past two hundred and fifty-one years, ninety-eight years old. What follows is meant to be the final step, the culmination of everything I dedicated my life to, everything I poured my heart and soul into. I am not at rest; I linger between this world and the next because my life’s work is not yet finished. Katherine, my heir and protégé, has persuaded me that The Lodestarre, the final product of all my efforts and sacrifices, would be greatly diminished if I did not carry out what she sees as my one remaining task, which is to end it with my own story.

Imagine: everything I have done and yet I remain unfulfilled, frustrated, witness to the agonies of the others—the countless tortured souls who fell victim to the standard medical practices, the fears and prejudices, the best of intentions, the beliefs and misconceptions of their times. It was, and still remains, my deepest and most profound wish that The Lodestarre will one day put an end to the needless suffering and pointless misery of all those whom, by choice or circumstance, fell into the hands of those who under­stood them the least, that is, those who sought to cure them of an affliction which they never had to begin with.

I am here with Sarah, my beautiful Sarah, who has no need to be here. She is satisfied; she is complete. She remains in this half-life, this netherworld, for my sake only. She will not leave me ever again and for that I am grateful. Ninety-eight years old and two hundred and fifty years gone and still I cher­ish every moment she spends with me. We have in death what we could not have in life and that is my only regret: that in my blindness and my foolish­ness, and perhaps even cowardice, I caused her pain beyond measure.

I am no longer flesh; I’m spirit, pure energy and although Katherine can perceive and experience me as I was when I lived because she is, as I also was, graced with the gift of Empathy, the physical act of putting pen to paper is now beyond my capabilities. So Katherine has become my voice – Katherine, who has learned much and overcome even more in order to become a bridge between her century and mine; Katherine, who was also forced to endure the horrors inflicted upon Empaths by a brotherhood of men who would prefer to force everyone to fit into tiny, definable spaces rather than explore the possibility of the existence of phenomena which simply cannot be explained away by science.
 
It’s an odd sort of experience: talking about oneself and asking someone else to put it to paper. Odder still is trying to express it as though it is happening in the here and now, without editing it, without speaking as though I’m viewing it from the perspective of ninety-eight years and two-and-a-half centuries hence.

***

Being my father’s firstborn and therefore the object of his most ardent expec­tations, I’ve no doubt I was his greatest disappointment. Papa had wanted a business mogul, an heir apparent, a miniature version of himself who would follow in his footsteps and fill his shoes when it came time for him to finally step aside. He did eventually get that and he should therefore, to my young mind at the time, have been mollified, but it came to him in the form of my youngest sibling, Dicken, who was twelve years my junior. And since, toddling about in nappies, Dicken had no way of communicating a preference for all things entrepreneurial, poor Papa was forced to continue waiting and worrying. In fact, Dicken would be ten years of age before he would express any interest in the family empire and by then Papa was quite gray, some­thing he attributed – audibly and often – to a combination of my traitorous behavior, Mama’s inability to produce a proper son, and Grandmother’s con­stant coddling of a delicate, sensitive boy who was more interested in baskets and weaving than bricks and mortar and would sooner read poetry than write purchase orders. Poor Papa.

But, in truth, it was actually “Rich Papa.” Privilege tends to beget privi­lege, and my family was no exception. Almost immediately upon arriving in the New World, Papa looked about and asked himself which commodities would be required once people started settling in. Bricks, he decided, and so came the birth of Duncaster Brickmakers, followed shortly thereafter by the birth of the son who was, despite every effort on both our parts, destined not to be the apple of his eye.
 
Business was good and as our family grew so did the size of our house. Like many a man who was the product of that time, Papa had wanted sons – lots of them. Instead, Mama disappointed him time after time by producing daughter after daughter. Finally, after bearing one very unsatisfactory boy followed by seven girls, Mama presented Papa with Dicken, his pride and joy. And then moved to her own quarters in a separate wing of the now-enormous greathouse. The message was clear: no more construction, no more offspring, no more anything. Poor Papa.

***

My first indication that I was anything but exceedingly ordinary came on the same day I realized that people considered Grandmother to be extraor­dinary. She was generally given a wide berth by the villagers who seemed to look upon her with a mixture of fear and awe. And although I accepted that as fact, I did not understand why until one particular afternoon when I was all alone and defenseless – or so I believed.

I was seven years old and on my way home from the kiln. The sun was high and the spring air was warm on my face; it was a fine day, warm and bright, one of my “good days.” I say that because there were many days which were not. There were days when, even at that tender age, I would find myself inexplicably grief-stricken or angered or frightened. Sometimes I’d just be extremely anxious, pacing about, then sitting down, but unable to remain in one spot for more than a few moments before rising and pacing again.

Those days were difficult and incomprehensible to my family – all except Grandmother, who knew just what to do and say, how to calm me and bring me back to myself. Everyone else seemed to give me that same wide berth, at least on those days. Mama christened them my “dark days” and on those occasions, if Mama or Grandmother noticed in time, I would be kept indoors ’til the melancholy passed, then put to bed, exhausted. They never seemed overly concerned with the times when I was disproportion­ately or inappropriately euphoric – I suppose good-humored children, even excessively good-humored children, are, like sleeping dogs, best left to their own devices.

The parade of physicians Papa called upon from Boston and from Eng­land to come round and examine me could offer no explanation for my dark tempers, at least none they were willing to share with my worried but well-paying father. They certainly were not going to suggest to the wealthi­est man in Duncaster that his son was either witch or demon or possessed. So they would poke and prod me, grunt intelligently, adjust their wigs and their coats, mumble something unintelligible about imbalances between blood and yellow bile, suggest some dietary adjustment, collect their coins, and go.

So there I was, walking down the road, just seven years old, a detail which never seemed to factor into William’s or James’ thinking when they and their ruffian friends would chase me down, beat me senseless, and appropriate whatever I happened to have with me: books, candy, money, or something Mama had asked me to purchase in town. Young as I was, I always managed to get in a few good punches and kicks, but that just served to make them angrier and the thrashing more severe.

I was the perfect target: rich, alone, younger by at least three years, and therefore less skilled at fighting and, by all accounts, an oddity.
 
Too far from the kiln to turn back and seek safety, but not even halfway home, William, James, and two others appeared seemingly out of nowhere. I heard one of them yell, “There he is: the Brickmaker’s Freak – catch him!” And the chase was on.

Being tall for my age, I could sometimes outrun them, but not always. And not this time. I ran as fast as I could, but I knew, even as I fled, that my only chance of escape was through the cornfield and into the barn where perhaps I could hide. I turned off the road and felt the vestiges of last season’s cornstalks tearing at my clothes and my skin. All I could hear was the sound of my ragged breathing, the crunching of the corn beneath my feet and the shouts of sadistic pleasure as my hunters followed my path.

The barn door was locked but one of the rear windows was open and I practically vaulted through. It was cool inside, hazy and devoid of color. As I scrambled about, searching for a place to hide, the disturbed dust motes gathered together to highlight the individual streams of sunlight shining through to the floor, illuminating my footprints, giving away my hiding places. My lungs ached but there was no time to recover. I looked left and right desperately and found nothing that might help me. My only option was up. I stumbled to the ladder which would take me to the hayloft and began to climb. I was part way up when I heard footsteps below me and then James calling to his compatriots that he had found me.

Something grasped at the torn fabric of my clothes but I managed to pull free – just for an instant. Then I felt a hand ’round my ankle and suddenly I was airborne.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself on the ground, dazed, filthy, and helpless because William was straddling my chest and two others had my arms and legs pinned whilst James was ransacking my clothes searching for treasure. They all cheered as James produced the few pennies Grand­mother had given me, and though it made me furious, there was nothing I could do beyond a futile struggle.

There was dust from the air and the remnants of hay and corn all over my face and in my eyes. It hurt to keep my eyes open but I was afraid to close them. I could not see my attackers clearly any more, but I could hear and feel every jeer, every punch, every kick, as they continued their assault. I thought it might never stop.

But suddenly James was holding up the finely carved wooden bear my grandfather had made for me shortly before he’d died a few months earlier. The four of them howled in delight, partly at the find, partly at my helplessness. James pushed it close to my face to be certain I was well aware of the prize he had every intention of keeping.

I believe it is important to note here that although I remember vividly what happened next – I can see it in my mind’s eye as though it happened yesterday – it was quite literally decades before I could explain it. I could certainly describe it, something I was made to do repeatedly: to my family, to the magistrate, even to our minister. But it would be decades before I’d have even a vague understanding of what it was.

As soon as I saw the bear, abruptly, I stopped struggling and became very still. My breathing slowed and I felt as though my entire being was fold­ing in on itself. I was only peripherally aware of my tormentors. I could hear them, but only from what seemed like a great distance. I suppose I could see them, but my attention was focused completely on the dust motes dancing madly in and out of the sunlight and shade. The roof of the barn seemed to dissolve and suddenly I was staring up at an impossibly bright blue sky. I experienced the strangest sensation of falling through the air. From some­where behind the blood and the dust, the sweat and the filth and the swell­ing bruises, the thought came to me that, if the boys chose that moment to jump off me and let me go, I would have fallen up, straight up into the sky, and would not have stopped until I disappeared from sight.

In due time, the boys must have realized I was no longer fighting, that my body had gone limp. For one fleeting moment, I feared they might esca­late their attack, but they did not. Rather, I believe that one of them, and then all of them, looked into my eyes. Whatever it was they saw there must have terrified them, for they screamed, almost in unison, released me, and ran, dropping the pennies and the carved bear as they went.

I lay there in the dirt, on my back, with no sense of time, trying to gather some strength and overcome the pain of moving. There wasn’t a part of me that didn’t hurt. After a while, I rolled onto my stomach, got my knees under me, and managed to get onto all fours. As I did so, my head turned to one side and I saw my bear lying on the ground, partially obscured by some rancid hay. I crawled over and retrieved it, still trying to clear the ringing in my head. Finally, I was on my feet. I kept my eyes down as I exited the barn, searching for the pennies – not that I honestly expected the loss of them to be of any concern to anyone once I reached home, but for some reason I simply had to find them. I tried, but it was difficult to see.