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Monday morning. Evie rolled over and buried her puffy eyes in her pillow. How could she possibly go through a normal workday after what had happened? Could she call in sick for smothering grief and violent waves of self-loathing?
She stood in the hot water of the shower for a long time trying to get control of her emotions. She rationalized that she wasn’t the one who chose the charges. She wasn’t responsible for those God chose not to save.
She made her way to work in a sorrowful daze. She stepped on her favorite red scarf at the top of the Metro escalator. It fell into the mud. She walked on.
Sitting at her desk, she sobbed. She rested her head on her tissue box as her computer hummed to life. She cried for the dead girl and she cried for herself. She’d never know if what she had done had added to the “greater good” she was supposedly working for. She questioned whether God was behind the stone’s power and whether he/she/it was “good” at all.
She looked up from the tissue box and wiped her eyes. In the corner of her desk, in the place where the tissue box had been, she saw a folded piece of paper with her name written on it in elegant script. Hastily, she grabbed and unfolded the page and read:
Evie, you will not be surprised, I think, to find my letter now, in your moment of need. I must say that my hiding place is enlightened. I am certain that it will not be long before you return from a journey in crisis, as I did. In my estimation one doesn’t move the box of tissue until they are shedding true and continuous tears. (I, of course, use a linen handkerchief, so am no expert, but I feel certain it is so).
I’m sorry to boast as you sit on the brink, but please believe me when I say that every Intercessor has been where you are. Here, my dear, in this letter, I must reveal what I can not tell in person today, at our first meeting. Only now, as you cry, will you be able to understand. (Won’t I feel silly if you are simply suffering from hayfever.)
My crisis occurred after my fourth journey. I saved a girl from her abusive relations but had been forced to leave her younger brothers and sisters to suffer. I returned with the knowledge that I had condemned innocent children to a life of brutality, and worse because their eldest sister, who had taken the brunt of the ill treatment, would be gone. It was insupportable that she merited saving while the others were left to their cruel fates. I was determined that I could no longer be a party to such things. I doubted God, his goodness, the stone and its real purpose.
The next morning, June 30, 1806, I picked up a newspaper, as usual during my morning constitutional, and read that many British lives had been lost in a battle against French troops in Calabria, Italy. The headlines explained that they had been caught in a surprise attack.
In those days, news of death tolls numbering in the thousands was sadly not uncommon. In my own state of crisis, I took little notice. Returning to my rooms, I saw that the stone was again glowing. I decided to travel one last time to test my resolve to give up my role as the Intercessor.
I was transported to the center of a dense forest. I barely had my bearings before a horse and rider appeared out of the brush; the rider bouncing in the aura of turquoise blue. I jumped out of the trees before his horse, which reared in fright, throwing him to the ground. He rolled pathetically on the ground shouting profanities in French and pulled a knife as I approached him. His leg was clearly broken, but he would not let me aid him. Puzzled and threatened very pointedly with the knife, I backed away into the brush and was instantly brought back to my rooms.
It was the strangest journey I had yet been on. I had not helped my charge in any obvious way. In fact, I had caused him injury. The experience was, to me, proof, that God was simply playing a cruel game with the stone.
I looked down at the stone on my desk, ready to speak the words that would free me of its burden, when I saw the front page of the newspaper. There was no longer a headline about the battle in Italy, but instead it read of Napoleon’s continued attempts to cut Britain out of European trade channels.
I puzzled over the paper for days. I asked friends about news of any battles in Italy but there seemed to have been none. Then on July 11, I found, to my utter astonishment, that a British force had landed in Italy on the 27th of June, marched to meet the French in Maida and on July 4th (your Independence Day, I believe) had defeated the French force in fifteen minutes with less than fifty casualties on the British side.
I realized then that my charge was taking a message the French to tell them of the British progress toward Maida. This would have readied them for a surprise attack in Calabria. My small jump in front of the Frenchman’s horse had saved thousands of lives.
That was my Independence Day; the day God showed me that my work was not in vain. Many times after I wished I could have proof of the good my work accomplished, but I never again questioned whether I was willing to do it.
Finally, before I release you from this letter, I want to tell you to keep a journal, in a safe place, but keep one. I had been a journal keeper for many years before I discovered the stone. As you will imagine, my journal entries became much more exciting after the fact.
I want you to have my journal. I hope that my entries will help you through the trials, adventures and triumphs that you will and must face. Be sure to go alone, let no one see you retrieve the book. It can be found behind red bricks in the 3rd floor fireplace of my final residence in this life. As you will remember, I will no longer journey after our meeting today and soon I will be released from this corporeal existence. Before that time, I will try to fill the last pages of the journal with words that will be of particular help to you.
Faithfully yours,
Alistair Burroughs
I’m sorry to boast as you sit on the brink, but please believe me when I say that every Intercessor has been where you are. Here, my dear, in this letter, I must reveal what I can not tell in person today, at our first meeting. Only now, as you cry, will you be able to understand. (Won’t I feel silly if you are simply suffering from hayfever.)
My crisis occurred after my fourth journey. I saved a girl from her abusive relations but had been forced to leave her younger brothers and sisters to suffer. I returned with the knowledge that I had condemned innocent children to a life of brutality, and worse because their eldest sister, who had taken the brunt of the ill treatment, would be gone. It was insupportable that she merited saving while the others were left to their cruel fates. I was determined that I could no longer be a party to such things. I doubted God, his goodness, the stone and its real purpose.
The next morning, June 30, 1806, I picked up a newspaper, as usual during my morning constitutional, and read that many British lives had been lost in a battle against French troops in Calabria, Italy. The headlines explained that they had been caught in a surprise attack.
In those days, news of death tolls numbering in the thousands was sadly not uncommon. In my own state of crisis, I took little notice. Returning to my rooms, I saw that the stone was again glowing. I decided to travel one last time to test my resolve to give up my role as the Intercessor.
I was transported to the center of a dense forest. I barely had my bearings before a horse and rider appeared out of the brush; the rider bouncing in the aura of turquoise blue. I jumped out of the trees before his horse, which reared in fright, throwing him to the ground. He rolled pathetically on the ground shouting profanities in French and pulled a knife as I approached him. His leg was clearly broken, but he would not let me aid him. Puzzled and threatened very pointedly with the knife, I backed away into the brush and was instantly brought back to my rooms.
It was the strangest journey I had yet been on. I had not helped my charge in any obvious way. In fact, I had caused him injury. The experience was, to me, proof, that God was simply playing a cruel game with the stone.
I looked down at the stone on my desk, ready to speak the words that would free me of its burden, when I saw the front page of the newspaper. There was no longer a headline about the battle in Italy, but instead it read of Napoleon’s continued attempts to cut Britain out of European trade channels.
I puzzled over the paper for days. I asked friends about news of any battles in Italy but there seemed to have been none. Then on July 11, I found, to my utter astonishment, that a British force had landed in Italy on the 27th of June, marched to meet the French in Maida and on July 4th (your Independence Day, I believe) had defeated the French force in fifteen minutes with less than fifty casualties on the British side.
I realized then that my charge was taking a message the French to tell them of the British progress toward Maida. This would have readied them for a surprise attack in Calabria. My small jump in front of the Frenchman’s horse had saved thousands of lives.
That was my Independence Day; the day God showed me that my work was not in vain. Many times after I wished I could have proof of the good my work accomplished, but I never again questioned whether I was willing to do it.
Finally, before I release you from this letter, I want to tell you to keep a journal, in a safe place, but keep one. I had been a journal keeper for many years before I discovered the stone. As you will imagine, my journal entries became much more exciting after the fact.
I want you to have my journal. I hope that my entries will help you through the trials, adventures and triumphs that you will and must face. Be sure to go alone, let no one see you retrieve the book. It can be found behind red bricks in the 3rd floor fireplace of my final residence in this life. As you will remember, I will no longer journey after our meeting today and soon I will be released from this corporeal existence. Before that time, I will try to fill the last pages of the journal with words that will be of particular help to you.
Faithfully yours,
Alistair Burroughs
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