Evening of the Next Day -Edinburg, Scotland 1940, WW II
In the evening, after the children had gone to bed, the neighbors downstairs had finished arguing, and the young couple upstairs had finished making love, Katherine settled into the quiet of the apartment. Rain began to fall, gently tapping on the covered windows. A waning moon shown through cracks in the window coverings. The iron hearth, with its red coals, glowed in the dim living room. Katherine had gotten paid that day and was able to make rent, so she felt that for now, she and her children had a home.
The calm and quiet seemed to soothe Katherine’s tired soul. She wrapped herself up in a thin shawl and sat down at her desk. Most of her writing was done in the evenings after she returned from work and the children were in bed. Several articles in the process of being finished lay on her desk. With no typewriter, everything was in her elegant handwriting. She mourned the loss of her favorite pen and wondered if the one she had found at the antiques store would have the same satisfying feel.
Katherine raised her head and sat back in the chair. The candle she had lit earlier had gone out. She reached for the desk lamp and turned it on just to see if it was working yet. No light.
“Of course, the electricity is still out. Wonder when they will get that fixed?”
Katherine got up and shuffled into the kitchen where she fumbled with a drawer, pulled it open, and found some matches. Then she opened a cabinet door and brought out another candle. She struck a match and it flamed to life. The bright burst of light made her wince. She lit the candle and dripped some wax onto a saucer. She stuck the candle into the melted wax and held it until it stood up on its own.
Taking the candle, Katherine surveyed the kitchen, started to open the icebox, and thought better of it.
She instead she found some bread and butter, sat down in a chair at the kitchen table, and began to eat.
“Tea, that is what I need!” she said out loud to no one in particular. She got up from the table, grabbed the tea kettle, put it under the tap, and filled it with water.
“Well, at least that is working.”
Katherine set it on the stove. Striking a match, she brought it over to the burner and turned on the knob. She heard the hiss and then a flame burst from the burner.
“Yes!” she smiled. And then as she watched, the flame of the burner slowly diminished and went out.
“Damn.” She put her hands on her hips and a frown flew across her face.
Disappointed, Katherine turned off the burner and sat back down on the kitchen chair. She put her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. She looked over at her desk.
“Well, might as well try writing by candlelight.”
Katherine got up, picked up the candle, went over to her desk, and sat down.
“Oh, just a moment. Where is the new pen?”
In all the excitement the night before, Katherine hadn’t even taken the pen out of her purse. She quickly found her purse and returned to her desk to sit down. She reached into her purse for the pen.
As her hand touched the pen’s case, a warmth spread up her arm. It was soothing—not frightening, but comforting. Startled, Katherine let go of the box and it dropped back into her purse.
The warmth ceased.
No, this is silly, she thought. There is nothing wrong; the pen was already warm from being near the hearth, that’s all.
Katherine reached down into the purse once more and picked up the pen case. The warmth again flowed through her hand and up her arm, gently. She placed the pen case on top of several unfinished pages. She looked at the case. She felt delighted and smiled.
“It’s a beautiful blue case,” she said out loud to chase away the uneasy, if pleasant feeling.
She opened the case and picked up the pen. She felt light-hearted immediately. Her fatigue vanished. She felt compelled to immediately begin writing. Not on the unfinished pages, but a whole new story. She pushed aside the unfinished pages and brought out a brand new, clean white sheet of paper, one of the few she had. They were so expensive.
As Katherine dipped the pen into the inkwell, she noticed it did not take up any ink at all. Her eyebrows went up, but she shrugged, thinking it was already full of ink.
She touched the pen tip to the clean paper and began to write.
In her mind, the words flowed smoothly onto the page in perfect English, forming the opening sentence of a paragraph, the beginning of a story she had thought about writing for some time. As Katherine concentrated on writing, she periodically stopped and raise her head to gather another thought.
However, the pen did not stop.
It kept writing.
Finally roused from her deep thoughts, Katherine quickly looked down at her hand being dragged across the page by the pen. Her eyes widened. The words were unrecognizable.
She tried to make the pen stop writing, but it refused.
“No, no, stop. Write in English! What are you doing?” she asked out loud, a little frightened and somewhat annoyed.
Knocking the other pages and the inkwell on the floor, she took her left hand and grabbed the right, the one the pen held. She pulled on it, trying to hold it still, but it kept on writing until it reached the end of the paper.
Then it stopped.
Katherine lifted her right hand off the paper. She saw the pen’s long stem had cautiously wrapped itself around her wrist and forearm.
“Haaa, aah, aah!” she yelled as she stood up. She shook her hand until the pen unwrapped and fell to the floor. It lay there and straightened out on its own.
She stared at it.
“Mommy, what’s wrong?” Mitsy asked as she sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes.
Katherine went over to the child, sat down on the edge of the bed, and wrapped her arms around her.
“Nothing, honey. It’s all right. Mommy just had a fright. Go back to sleep, darling. Mommy’s all right. Shush now. Lay back down.”
Mitsy nodded and lay back down. She was soon asleep.
Katherine sat on the bed’s edge and stared at the pen laying in the shadows on the floor.
She carefully rose from the bed and quietly cleaned up the spilled ink and strewn papers. She looked at the pen, and with two fingers, gingerly picked it up and placed it in its box. She shut the box quickly so it would not jump out and grab her wrist again.
“This is silly. Maybe it was just my imagination. After all, it has been a dramatic couple of days!”
She sat back down in her chair in front of the desk and opened a drawer. She pulled out a new sheet of paper and placed it on the desktop. Her eyes caught the dull blue of the pen case sitting on the desk. She reached over and picked up the case. It felt warm and inviting to her touch. She relaxed, smiled, and opened the box.
Katherine reached inside the box, took the pen out with her right hand, and closed the box with her left. She set the closed box carefully down on the desk and brought her right hand over to the paper. As she touched the paper with the pen tip, it gently began to wrap itself around her wrist and forearm. Her eyes widened in wonder—not in fright, but in curiosity—knowing this same thing had just happened minutes ago.
The pen began to write.
“I must be asleep,” Katherine said to herself as she watched it write. “I sat down at the desk after a long day and fell fast asleep. That’s what it is.”
“A deep, persistent sleep,” she said to herself.
Katherine let the words flow out of the pen hour after hour, on sheet after sheet of paper. The candle burned low, and her eyes began to get heavy. Her head nodded forward, and her chin touched her chest. She fell asleep. The pen continued to write.
When the clock struck midnight, the candle went out.
The pen stopped.
The words began to lift off the paper, to swirl in the air.
Then they entered Katherine’s head through her right temple like a train disappearing into a tunnel.
She began to dream.
Katherine was standing in a thick, white fog. When it began to clear, she found herself in a small room with stone walls and a timbered ceiling. The walls were hung with paintings and tapestries. One tapestry depicted rolling green hills with some sheep. Another had Jesus Christ holding a staff, looking down upon some kneeling shepherds. The room was lit here and there with tall wooden columns holding large candles. In one wall, a big stone fireplace burned brightly. The fireplace threw light that danced against the walls, sending shadows up to the high ceiling. The room felt cold despite the fire. The floor was stone as well, with small, woven carpets scattered about.
Katherine noticed a man dressed in a heavy robe seated before a wide desk. She could just see his right arm and long gray hair draping down his back from her angle, slightly to his right and behind him. Katherine saw him writing, with his thin, bony hand holding a pen that looked familiar.
In fact, it looked exactly like the pen she had found at the antiques store.
How odd, she thought.
As Katherine watched the man write, a grave male voice began to speak in her head. She looked around the room to see if someone was speaking to her, but she only saw the old man. The words seemed somehow to be a language she had once known, but they were pronounced differently and did not readily translate until she started concentrating on what was being said.
I am Francois Jacques LaMar, a Grand Master of the Knights Templar Order, writing in the year of our Lord 1347. I am writing with an instrument of unusual properties given to me as a gift by a fellow knight who acquired it in a bazaar in Marmaris, Turkey. It never seems to need more ink to write with. As I am of advanced age and know not how much longer the Lord will permit me to stay here on earth, I will lay down on these pages an account of the discharge of my last duties for others to know. I was given a great responsibility—that of keeping the heart, wisdom, and treasures of the Knights Templar out of the reach of the greedy King Philip. His unprovoked attack on Friday, October 13th in the year of our Lord 1307 slew many of my fellows in search of our treasures.
I had dispatched many to scatter some of our treasures among the Priory so the king might be satisfied in his plan. I will relate herein as to the entrusting to God of the remaining treasure and hold to the hope that other brethren who will be guided by his Holy Eye to retrieve it will use it to serve the people of Christ….
We hold a much greater treasure in our hearts and our heads, and the king cannot take them, or suck them dry with taxes. In our hearts, we hold God and God’s great love of all creation, including our meager selves. In our heads, we hold the wisdom of the Knights Templar. I will relate this wisdom as I learned it on my journey to the honored station of Grand Master.
I was born to Artois LaMar and Elione Disimer, Duke and Duchess of Cluny, in Burgundy that my father governed in the year of our Lord 1257. I did not want for anything. I was handsome, wealthy, and spoiled.
Katherine’s vision clouded over, then became clear again. She found herself standing in the courtyard of a small castle. She watched as a young Francois wielded a sword against a much larger and fiercer-looking man. She felt, rather than knew, it was the narrator as a boy.
The sun beat down on Katherine’s head, causing her to wince at its brightness. She did not notice she was standing among others who were watching the battle. She tried to get into the shade of the courtyard wall and stepped back onto the foot of a man who was watching.
“Ouch!” he yelled.
“Oh, sorry,” Katherine said.
The man looked about, and not seeing Katherine, punched the shoulder of another man nearby.
The man he punched shoved him in return and rubbed his shoulder. They both turned their attention back to the fight.
How odd, Katherine thought. He didn’t see me? Of course not! This is just a dream.
The air was thick and she smelled the summer grass and flower blossoms. She could hear the clang of the swords as they met in the battle. The narration in her mind continued.
My father, being of a military rank, had the best swordsmen teach me how to use the sword in single combat and with several men at once. I also learned the bow, horseback riding, care of the horse, and the equipment of battle such as armor, shield, lance, battle axe, sword, and more. Father fully intended that I follow in his footsteps.
The scene shifted again and Katherine saw Francois being cruel to other boys of about the same age and younger.
I would bully younger boys and others my age, dominating them with my will.
My friends were few and disingenuous, following me around to pick up any crumbs of a favor I could possibly dispense. Which I did not oft do. I was better than they and did not need to give favor to anyone. I thought the world was mine, and I owned it by virtue of my family’s wealth. All others were of lesser value, and I treated them so. That is what I truly believed at that time in my life.
Katherine’s vision blurred white as she heard the narrative renew.
The king was determined to unite all of France under his banner and thus began to assert central authority. My father bent a knee to the king’s wishes, as was right and proper, but conflict arose when the king’s taxes, levied to support his military ventures, became too much to bear for the people he governed. My father protested and was removed from the governorship of his province. My family lost their titles and lands almost overnight.
The scene shifted again, Francois continued his narration. Katherine saw the young Francois and his family riding in a carriage, leaving his home with a few wagons full of goods and a few armed men on horseback. She saw them ride away as she stood there outside of their home.
We had to flee the province with what belongings we could carry because we knew the next step was to have my father cast into the king’s dungeon.
The vision blurred and cleared again as Katherine saw Francois, with his mother and father living in a small, dirty cottage with broken shutters and rags for curtains. She could smell the dust and the filth. She moved through the cottage and stumbled over some broken crockery strewn on the floor.
Katherine saw the young Francois’ father in a chair at an old, worn table, with his dirty hair falling down over his face, as he drank from a pottery mug. The drink would drizzle down the sides of his mouth as he gulped it down. By his demeanor, he looked as if he were in a drunken stupor.
Francois continued.
My father sank into depression and turned to mead for solace. He beat me often and treated my mother with malice when she confronted him with his indulgence in drink. I hated him for doing so.
One night, my father, in a drunken rage, set fire to the small cottage we were in, then stood in the doorway, blocking our exit. My mother pleaded with him on her knees to let us flee. He laughed and slapped her down to the floor. I leaped at his throat and squeezed with all the strength my twelve years could muster. He grabbed me and tossed me outside like a rag as the fire raged.The roof collapsed upon him and my mother.
Several times, I attempted to run into the flames to rescue my mother, but the neighbors, the heat, and the smoke held me back. All I could do was watch my life burn to the ground.
Katherine found herself standing outside the burning cottage next to Francois. She could feel the heat of the roaring fire and smell the smoke. She saw him drop to his knees, bow his head, and weep.
My parents were gone. My family’s wealth was gone. My inheritance and future title were gone. I had nothing. Those I had bullied and wronged in my youth held no sympathy for my plight. I was alone. Totally alone. I sat down on the ground and wept.
Francois’ narration trailed off. The scene before her grew dark and then black.
Words emerged from Katherine’s head and glided down onto the page where they had come from, silently settling down, perfectly, just as they had been written. The pen unwrapped itself from her forearm and lay on the desktop.
Katherine woke with a start and saw she was still sitting at her desk.
Wow, what a dream! she thought with a puzzled look on her face.
