Though her parents had died years before, her father’s legacy of quirky outlandishness and her mother’s reputation for condescending snobbishness had relegated her to outsider status with the townspeople, leaving her friendless and alone. She spent her days reading and dreaming of escape. What she wanted most was to leave her prison and explore the wide world, visiting all the places that had captured her imagination in books and meeting people who knew nothing of her family, their ridiculous house and bizarre behavior.
The night of her 20th birthday, like so many nights before, she sat in a chair by the fire reading and slowly, listlessly falling to sleep, when a flash and sound awoke her. When she opened her eyes, and focused her thought, she could not pin-point where the awakening sound had originated.
She settled back into her chair to read and soon her eyes began again to close, but again she was shocked awake by a sense unknown. Sitting up, she saw, heard, smelt and felt nothing but lingering shock and the fear of dark insecurity. She looked cautiously about her at walls covered in fire lit books; her father’s books, taken from his immense library in the back of the house where he had been consigned by her mother. Her eyes fell on a favorite title, one her father read to her as a girl, his voice affectionate, full of the wonder he felt and wanted her to feel. But that was before he fell completely into eccentric madness. She did then. She did still. She reached on tip toes for the book, toppling the ones above it all around her. It didn’t matter; there was no one to be awakened by the sound.
Taking the book, she got into her bed. She propped pillows behind her back and opened to the table of contents. The chapters were titled, Egypt – Ramses II, China – Han Dynasty, Tenochtitlan – Moctezuma, and the like. She turned to the first chapter; Chapter 1: Mesopotamia – Hammurabi and began to read, imagining her father’s arm around her back. Her fear beginning to subside, sleep again took her. Her arms released their hold on the book and fell to her sides. Her head lolled, bent forward and touched the page.
Suddenly, she was falling. Her eyes wide, air whipped around her as she fell downward, landing in an instant on her feet in a long hallway lit by oil lamps which stood on stools at perfect intervals. In the shimmering darkness, she recognized, with more acceptance than she expected, that she had finally fallen into the insanity that ran in her family. She had not expected it to come on so quickly, but any change was preferable to the Groundhog Day she was living.She heard a sound behind her and turned to see two bearded men in linen robes approaching. When they noticed her, they stopped in their tracks and stared. They clearly couldn’t account for her presence. She looked down at herself and saw that she was still clothed in her white nightgown, barefoot and braless. Bewildered, the men began shouting in a language she could not understand. Soon men with spears were running at her with speed and she, as any chased animal would, ran from them. Though terrified, she was also exhilarated beyond any previous experience. This strange danger was the freest she had ever felt.
The tight corridor opened into a wide courtyard with a trickling fountain in the middle, surrounded by four massive inscribed stele. The stars that shown overhead were so bright and so numerous that it took her breath away and stopped her in her tracks. The night air was cool on her skin and aside from the smell of wood smoke, sweet and clear like none she’d ever breathed.The sharp point of a spear in her belly drew her attention down to the angry and confused faces of the sentries men. She took a step back, touching a stone stele with her heel and then pressing her back against its inscribed length. Suddenly, she was again falling. In an instant she was sitting in her bed, her father’s book in her lap. She stared at the words on the page, Chapter 1: Mesopotamia – Hammurabi. Impossible! She could not deny that she had been in a courtyard with stele inscribed with the same characters she saw in the book before her. Could she have invented such an experience?
She turned to the next chapter, Chapter 2: Egypt – Ramses II. She let her eyes lose focus and she bent to touch her forehead to the book. Just before her head reached the page she threw the book aside and jumped out of bed, running to her wardrobe. She grabbed a wooly robe and pulled on some boots, then ran back to her bed. She sat as before and bent her head to the page. The moment her forehead touched the words she was falling. In an instant she stood on the bank on a wide river. The night sky again was filled with luminous stars and a moon so big it looked to be almost in contact with the earth. She was totally alone but she could see the houses of people around her. She stepped back some yards to move away from where the earth was wettest and lay down in the reeds, her arms behind her head. Hours passed and she watched the sky, breathing in the smell of the Nile.
At length, the horizon colored red and she began to hear the voices of people. She sat up in her bower of reeds and watched as mocha-skinned men, woman and children, dressed in linen cloth and rope sandals moved about their houses, readying themselves for the day. Soon, the men began to depart and she followed their path with her eyes to discern their destination.
Astonished, she recognized the form of an enormous temple, half-formed and skeletal in blindingly white limestone. The men were most certainly laborers. She had to get a closer look. She took off her robe and boots, rubbed Nile river mud onto her gown, face, arms, legs and feet to disguise herself and set off along the river toward the temple.
When people saw her pass, they quickly looked away, the mud having the desired effect. Revealing her lunacy to these ancient people, made her as much of an outcast as it would have in 2009. Free of any worry now, she began to jog toward the temple. She stopped short of the construction effort and watched the ant-like laborers crawl on and around the building, lifting stones with levers and pulleys, carving blocks and statues. Her amazement was absolute; her joy filled her whole body and made her want to giggle and shiver.
Her gaze, devouring incredible scene before her, fell at length on a man closer to her than the rest, who was standing up at his full height and looking directly at her. She realized in an instant that though arriving had been simple to replicate, she had no idea what had caused her to return to the safety of her room.
The man approached her and she stood still, knowing that to run would be fruitless. He reached her swiftly and questioned her. She could not understand his words and knew that to speak would raise further alarm so she remained quiet. His tone grew more heated and finally, in exasperation, he grabbed her arm and tugged her behind him toward the temple. She did not resist, choosing to fallback on her feigned (or more possibly real) insanity for safety. To her great joy, he pulled her through the grand columned entrance and into the temple building. The walls towered above her covered to the ceiling in brightly colored pictographs and hieroglyphs. She was astonished by the colors. She had only seen pictures of such stone carvings, unpainted and monochrome. These were exquisite in their tints and the sharpness of the lines. The shapes seemed to step off the wall into her mind. She broke from her captor and ran to the wall. He exclaimed and moved to re-capture her arm. However, before he could touch her, she lifted her fingers to trace a hieroglyph on the wall and she was falling.
The mid-day sun shone through her bedroom window and she ran to it, opening the curtains with a fervor that almost ripped them from their long-still rings. She could not believe her fortune. Deep in her desolation, she had inexplicably found an escape. She grabbed the next volume she could reach, Jane Eyre. She opened it at random and bent to touch the page with her forehead.
She fell instantly onto the English moor. The sky was dark with rain-heavy clouds, the wind whipped about her with force and she realized she had been hasty. She was still wearing only a thin nightgown covered in the mud of the Nile. Fear curled around her heart. If her supposition was correct that she had to touch the written word in order to get back home, she was in grave danger. She would very likely die of exposure before any volume could be found in this landscape.
She was suddenly achingly aware of her thirst, her hunger and her exhaustion. She had neither slept nor eaten since going to bed the night before and in the interim she had been chased through the corridors of Hammurabi’s temple and tugged by force into a gargantuan construction of Ramses II. She saw no sign of a road, no sign of a residence, nothing at all that would lead her in one direction rather than another to find society. She chose what seemed to be the easiest of the infinite possible paths before her and began to walk.
Horror growing in the pit of her stomach, she remembered this passage in the story of Jane Eyre. Jane endlessly wandered alone across the moors, broken-hearted, cold and starving, until a moment before death she was saved by Rev. St. John Rivers.
She realized with a pang that had been hasty in her enthusiasm and careless. She not considered the difference it might make to travel through a fiction book, if the character suffered, apparently so must she. But would she also be saved by St. John?
As her strength and spirit waned, she knelt on the rocky ground. The sun set and she lay, curled on her side, staring at the stars rising on the horizon. By now, the cold had invaded her skin and bone and she slowly fell deeply to sleep.
She awoke to find herself in bed. Relief washed over her until her eyes focused and she realized that she was not, in fact, in her own room, but in another. Two chattering girls in long dresses and white lace scarves entered the room carrying water and bread. They were overjoyed to see her awake and squawked with glee that she had been near death when their brother had found her on the moor and that they would happily care for her.
She smiled bewildered appreciation as they filled her mouth with bread and tilted her head to the water glass, but said nothing. Their thick northern accent was not something she could easily mimic. She laid her head back on the pillow and pretended to fall to sleep. Soon, just as she had hoped, the girls left quietly.
As soon as the door shut, she jumped out of bed and scoured the room for a book. She found one in the drawer next to the bed. It was the Bible. She was momentarily afraid that this book might be immune to her magic. But she quickly opened to the middle and touched the words with her fingers. Bare feet on bare wood in the light of her bedroom window, she found herself home.
As she ran down her stairs toward the kitchen, she marveled at her incredible gift. She finally had found a way to escape her confinement and explore the wide world. Perhaps this was the eccentricity that her father had displayed? Perhaps he, like her, had spent his nights running from guards, marveling at temples and walking the moors? Maybe it had slowly stolen his mind. But none of that mattered now. She knew how the enchantment worked; she would not concern herself with the origin or the consequences. She would gladly throw herself into the mercy of the written word.
She turned to the next chapter, Chapter 2: Egypt – Ramses II. She let her eyes lose focus and she bent to touch her forehead to the book. Just before her head reached the page she threw the book aside and jumped out of bed, running to her wardrobe. She grabbed a wooly robe and pulled on some boots, then ran back to her bed. She sat as before and bent her head to the page. The moment her forehead touched the words she was falling. In an instant she stood on the bank on a wide river. The night sky again was filled with luminous stars and a moon so big it looked to be almost in contact with the earth. She was totally alone but she could see the houses of people around her. She stepped back some yards to move away from where the earth was wettest and lay down in the reeds, her arms behind her head. Hours passed and she watched the sky, breathing in the smell of the Nile.
At length, the horizon colored red and she began to hear the voices of people. She sat up in her bower of reeds and watched as mocha-skinned men, woman and children, dressed in linen cloth and rope sandals moved about their houses, readying themselves for the day. Soon, the men began to depart and she followed their path with her eyes to discern their destination.
Astonished, she recognized the form of an enormous temple, half-formed and skeletal in blindingly white limestone. The men were most certainly laborers. She had to get a closer look. She took off her robe and boots, rubbed Nile river mud onto her gown, face, arms, legs and feet to disguise herself and set off along the river toward the temple.When people saw her pass, they quickly looked away, the mud having the desired effect. Revealing her lunacy to these ancient people, made her as much of an outcast as it would have in 2009. Free of any worry now, she began to jog toward the temple. She stopped short of the construction effort and watched the ant-like laborers crawl on and around the building, lifting stones with levers and pulleys, carving blocks and statues. Her amazement was absolute; her joy filled her whole body and made her want to giggle and shiver.
Her gaze, devouring incredible scene before her, fell at length on a man closer to her than the rest, who was standing up at his full height and looking directly at her. She realized in an instant that though arriving had been simple to replicate, she had no idea what had caused her to return to the safety of her room.
The man approached her and she stood still, knowing that to run would be fruitless. He reached her swiftly and questioned her. She could not understand his words and knew that to speak would raise further alarm so she remained quiet. His tone grew more heated and finally, in exasperation, he grabbed her arm and tugged her behind him toward the temple. She did not resist, choosing to fallback on her feigned (or more possibly real) insanity for safety. To her great joy, he pulled her through the grand columned entrance and into the temple building. The walls towered above her covered to the ceiling in brightly colored pictographs and hieroglyphs. She was astonished by the colors. She had only seen pictures of such stone carvings, unpainted and monochrome. These were exquisite in their tints and the sharpness of the lines. The shapes seemed to step off the wall into her mind. She broke from her captor and ran to the wall. He exclaimed and moved to re-capture her arm. However, before he could touch her, she lifted her fingers to trace a hieroglyph on the wall and she was falling.The mid-day sun shone through her bedroom window and she ran to it, opening the curtains with a fervor that almost ripped them from their long-still rings. She could not believe her fortune. Deep in her desolation, she had inexplicably found an escape. She grabbed the next volume she could reach, Jane Eyre. She opened it at random and bent to touch the page with her forehead.
She fell instantly onto the English moor. The sky was dark with rain-heavy clouds, the wind whipped about her with force and she realized she had been hasty. She was still wearing only a thin nightgown covered in the mud of the Nile. Fear curled around her heart. If her supposition was correct that she had to touch the written word in order to get back home, she was in grave danger. She would very likely die of exposure before any volume could be found in this landscape.
She was suddenly achingly aware of her thirst, her hunger and her exhaustion. She had neither slept nor eaten since going to bed the night before and in the interim she had been chased through the corridors of Hammurabi’s temple and tugged by force into a gargantuan construction of Ramses II. She saw no sign of a road, no sign of a residence, nothing at all that would lead her in one direction rather than another to find society. She chose what seemed to be the easiest of the infinite possible paths before her and began to walk.She realized with a pang that had been hasty in her enthusiasm and careless. She not considered the difference it might make to travel through a fiction book, if the character suffered, apparently so must she. But would she also be saved by St. John?
As her strength and spirit waned, she knelt on the rocky ground. The sun set and she lay, curled on her side, staring at the stars rising on the horizon. By now, the cold had invaded her skin and bone and she slowly fell deeply to sleep.
She awoke to find herself in bed. Relief washed over her until her eyes focused and she realized that she was not, in fact, in her own room, but in another. Two chattering girls in long dresses and white lace scarves entered the room carrying water and bread. They were overjoyed to see her awake and squawked with glee that she had been near death when their brother had found her on the moor and that they would happily care for her.
She smiled bewildered appreciation as they filled her mouth with bread and tilted her head to the water glass, but said nothing. Their thick northern accent was not something she could easily mimic. She laid her head back on the pillow and pretended to fall to sleep. Soon, just as she had hoped, the girls left quietly.
As soon as the door shut, she jumped out of bed and scoured the room for a book. She found one in the drawer next to the bed. It was the Bible. She was momentarily afraid that this book might be immune to her magic. But she quickly opened to the middle and touched the words with her fingers. Bare feet on bare wood in the light of her bedroom window, she found herself home.
As she ran down her stairs toward the kitchen, she marveled at her incredible gift. She finally had found a way to escape her confinement and explore the wide world. Perhaps this was the eccentricity that her father had displayed? Perhaps he, like her, had spent his nights running from guards, marveling at temples and walking the moors? Maybe it had slowly stolen his mind. But none of that mattered now. She knew how the enchantment worked; she would not concern herself with the origin or the consequences. She would gladly throw herself into the mercy of the written word.
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