My name is Victoria and I am nineteen years old. I have an IQ of 199, which is high, high enough to make me a genius. But what is a genius? What is it that makes my brain work in a way that is seen to be superior to the average? Well I don’t know the answer to that exactly, but I can try and describe to you what it is like to be me.
When I was at school everything was easy, maths, science, literature and art, all of it, at each and every level of academic study, and that was not good for it meant that everything was dull. There was no excitement for me in the arts or the sciences and I think that is why my mind began to develop in a different way. It took a different path, one that is not often seen because more often than not, when the human brain develops from foetus to death, other more commonplace things get in the way of thought and sense.
I see things. I mean it. I see things that others can’t see. I see shapes behind windows, shapes of people, children, old men and women, young adults. Always they scare me, because even if they smile and they wave, I wonder why they are there, why they cannot leave the confines behind the window and come out into the sunshine and talk to me. And I know how they feel, those shapes in the window, and that is the worst part of all, because I can feel their pain. But there is another more profound thing that I, with my strange sixth sense, made up from that extra portion of IQ, can see. I see the lives that people had before they were reborn. I see the person they were in another time and place.
There is a woman in the town where I live. I have seen in her eyes that she has lived through two past lives, and in all of her lives she has been given the name Caroline. And there is someone else who has travelled through time with her, who, in each life has tried to claim her as his own and failed. He is here again, watching her, waiting for her.
In her first life Caroline was a farmer’s daughter. This is her story of that time.
The air is thick with cold. My fingers are so freezing with these thin, ripped gloves it’s pointless to even wear them at all. And I wish women were allowed to wear trousers like the men can. It would make life so much easier, especially when we have to trudge over this sodden, mushy soil and pick the crops from the season’s harvest. Gosh I hate this time of year. The only good things are the silence and the fresh air. It’s an escape from the fights and the bickering in the cottage at home. Mum and Dad are always fighting especially when dad comes home drunk, which happens a lot. I have five brothers as well. I am the only girl. So I end up doing all the cooking and cleaning with mum. My brothers are so lazy, only Daniel lifts a hand to help, but I’m sure that one day soon he will be gone, off to America on a ship. I have begged him to let me go with him. He says he can’t afford another ticket. But I’ll find the money; somehow I’ll find the money.
I stop in the middle of the field, put my basket down and begin the pick potatoes from the dark, sludgy soil. I hum to myself, lost in my thoughts, when suddenly I feel something strong grabbing my ankle. It pulls me to the ground and I yell out in fear and fright. I look down. I can’t quite believe what is happening. A hand has grabbed me. It is black with dirt, large and strong, much larger than a man’s hand, but human none the less. And, as if from some hellish underworld, it has appeared from under the soil to pull me down with it.
I find myself underground, in utter darkness, but I can breathe and I can move. I am frightened, so, so frightened. I hear deep breathing sounds and a low guttural growl. My body whips round but it is grabbed at the waist by two hands, as strong as steel.
“Who are you? Where am I? Please let me go. If you are an escaped
prisoner I will not tell, I promise. Just let me go,” I plead. I cannot see its face; all I can sense is thick warm breath and being in the presence of something, or someone ,far, far larger than me.
“Are, are you…. a man?” I ask.
It does not answer. I can feel its face come cIoser to mine. I try not to show my fear.
“Are you…..a….monster?” I ask. It is a silly question, I know that. I don’t believe in monsters, not normally. But this is different. This is not normal.
Then I feel its hand lift my chin, roughly, but not so bad that it hurts. His face is close to me now, and I think, yes, I think he is smelling my skin. I recoil but he grabs me tighter and growls.
Then I scream. I can’t hold it in any more. I scream and I scream and I scream. But the monster ignores my screams; he lets them happen until my throat is too sore to carry on. When I stop a tear has formed in my eye. It trickles down my cheek. He wipes it with his finger then puts it to his lips. I find myself feeling strangely calm now, and powerfully drawn to this mute and monstrous thing that has imprisoned me. I lift my hand up to its face to feel what I cannot see. His skin is coarse, rough and ridged. I pull my hand away, but he grabs it in his and places it back on his cheek. I continue, travelling over the contours of his face with my fingers. He has the face of a man, but his skin feels so rough and so unhuman.
“You are a monster,” I quietly say.
He growls again.
“What do you want?” I ask.
Then he places my hand over his mouth. My fingers find his lips. They are soft.
“Food?” I say. “You are hungry?”
He nods.
“I will go get you food. Human food? Meat? Bread?”
He nods again, more vigorously this time. I smile. “I will go right now,”
I say. “But I don’t know how to get out.”
The monster grabs my arm.
“It’s OK. I’ll be back. I promise.”
I hear him growl again, and the next moment I am above land. The sun is in the same place in the sky and my basket is where I left it. In my mind I wonder if that was all just a dream? No, I tell myself. It was not a dream.
Because in my heart I know he was real.
Over the next few months I bring him food and water. It becomes a ritual and something that I look forward to every day. He eats his food with relish. Sometimes he touches me, but never for long, and only on my face or my hand. He never hurts me and I never fear him. The darkness of his home never scares me, or the fact that he only grunts and growls, nor that I cannot really see his face. I want to see his face, more desperately every day. I speak to him a lot, tell him stuff, everything really. I don’t know if he listens, but I don’t mind. I love being with him. He is my monster and every day I love him more.
But it could never last, and, on one glorious Tuesday in summer, I walk into the field in the usual way and wait for his hand to appear and pull me down to him. It never comes. I wait until sunset, but it never comes. I dig into the soil with my bare hands, but I cannot find him. I cry until dawn but still he never comes. Never again do I see, or hear or touch my monster. And never in that lifetime did my heart ever heal.
After the monster disappeared Caroline stayed heartbroken. A few years later the field where her monster had lived was sold. Houses were built on it and Caroline’s family moved away. Her brother Daniel left for America. Caroline never found enough money for another ticket. She stayed, married and had children, but she was never truly happy.
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Hi there :) Thanks for reading the First Chapter. This chapter is dedicated to my best best best friend :)
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