The Empath Cycle: 2010 Carpe Diem - Book 1

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Two very different women go through a crucible.
64.4k words
4.77
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Part 4 of the 7 part series

Updated 08/30/2017
Created 06/12/2016
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Carpe diem - Book 1

Prologue -- Annabelle's story

Sept-Iles is a mining community in the North of Quebec. Because of its relative isolation, it's a tight-knit community where friendships, once formed, are a strong long lasting bond.

Angéline Taylor loved her five boys dearly. Last of a long line of farmers' wives, she knew the value of having extra hands to help around the farm. However, she secretly longed for a daughter she could cuddle and to whom she could pass the knowledge of her ancestresses.

Annabelle's birth was cause for great celebration in the Taylor family. As much as her mother loved her, she was the darling of her father and brothers who spoiled her outrageously.

She could easily have become a brat in such a protected environment, but Ann was a loving, vivacious little girl, an inexhaustible bundle of energy and a sponge for knowledge, to the fascination of all.

Angéline was delighted with her little helper. Far from being underfoot and a nuisance, Ann was a serious young girl eager to learn and always ready to help. Where other girls would play with toy household tools, she insisted on using the real ones. Her father resized some for her until she could use her mother's.

When she was five, she asked him to build her a stand so she could reach the kitchen sink. From that day, her mother never touched dirty dishes. Little Ann's brothers took to helping their baby sister by drying the dishes while she washed them. If here was more splashing than washing at first, everyone took it in stride and with much laughter.

As soon as she was big enough to be safe, she took to following her father around.

Up at the cock's crow, she helped him and her brothers milk the cows. It was her sacred responsibility to pick the fresh eggs, feed and water the hens, and keep the chicken coop clean. Ann's proudest moment was the day the veterinary visited and commented to her father that he had never seen a hennery in such great shape.

Out on the farm, the days were filled with chores. This didn't mean it was a harsh life. Angéline and her husband, Robert, went out of their way to make sure their children had a happy childhood by creating as many occasions as they could for them to play and expand their young minds.

In the summer, every occasion was reason to celebrate. The farming families would get together often. The women shared the cooking, each trying to outdo the others. Thanks to the proliferation of cook books and then the internet, there were always new and exotic recipes to be tried. The men exchanged the latest farming information and shared the results of their experimentations with the various plants they tried to adapt to the northern climate. But all the adults took turns organizing games for the kids.

In the winter, Robert maintained an ice rink complete with wooden boards the other fathers had all chipped in to build. He used the snow he pushed when clearing the private road leading to the house to make mounds for the youngest ones to slide on.

Robert had been a young mining engineer at the Arnaud Mine before he fell in love with Angéline and farm life. Unsatisfied with the simple life of a farm girl, Angéline, for her part, had earned degrees in Agronomy and Botany. She was sought out for her wide knowledge and innovative solutions to farmers' problems.

They encouraged their children to read and learn, to develop their full potentials.

Annabelle couldn't wait to go to school. Helping her mother around the house and her father on the farm kept her busy enough, but she missed her brothers during the school year.

Annabelle was proud as a peacock the morning she boarded the yellow school bus for the first time. She was a big girl. Her brothers cleared a place for her in the older kids' section. There were some who didn't want her there but the argument was short, if intense. The Taylor boys were cut from their father's oversized mold, so, when the five of them put their foot down, dissention quieted rapidly.

The excitement at the prospect of learning new things soon paled for Ann.

She didn't understand why the other children couldn't read and write. At first, she did the exercises the teacher insisted she do, finishing them in a fraction of the time it took the rest of the class. She would then take out her books and read.

Very soon, she became bored and grew sullen. She started acting out, disrupting the class by her resistance to the slow rhythm of learning. She couldn't wait for recreation and lunch time when she could run out to play with her brothers. She even took to borrowing their school books to take with her in class.

By then she had gradually moved from the front of the class where she wouldn't miss anything the teacher would impart to the back where she could tune her out and read in peace.

Ann dreaded her parent's return from the first parent-teacher meeting. She knew she had a poor reputation with her first grade teacher. The only reason they hadn't taken disciplinary action yet was her near perfect grades.

Angéline insisted she drive back home. She had never seen her husband so angry. She was afraid he would vent his rage by driving too fast and they would get in an accident. She could well understand him though. She herself had to resort to an old mantra to hold on to her temper when the teacher told them that their daughter had a bad attitude and kept the others from learning properly. When the teacher told them Ann would need to see the psychologist and would probably be prescribed Ritalin for her ADD, Annabelle followed her husband who had already left.

She had suspected what her daughter's problem was long before the meeting. For weeks, when asked how her day at school had gone, Ann's answers were vague, often mono-syllabic. Angéline had already investigated alternatives in case she was proven right. Unfortunately, the options offered gifted students in the region were very limited.

Ann saw his father storm out of the family car and walk around to the back. It was a bad sign. She didn't go check if he had gone to the wood pile where he usually took out his anger. She stayed at the window and watched her mother sit with her head pillowed on her arms on the steering wheel. Another bad sign.

She had been taught to face difficulties because they only grew worse when you put them aside unresolved. She went to sit at the kitchen table to wait for whatever punishment would befall her.

What Ann hadn't expected was for her mother to sit beside her and pull her in her lap.

"Everything will be all right, baby." Angéline told her daughter. "Don't cry. You did nothing wrong. Nobody is angry with you."

"Daddy..." She sniffed.

"Daddy is not angry with you. Only with your teacher. You should have told us you were unhappy in school."

"But you said I had to listen to the teacher and do what she says, mommy."

"I know and you did well. You're a perfect little girl. In a way, it's my fault. I should have expected this and prepared you better."

"Prepared me for what, mommy?"

"We had some of the same problem when your brothers started school, only they adjusted better. I didn't make allowances for how advanced you really are compared to them when they were your age."

Ann didn't understand. Sure she could read and write and do arithmetic, but she didn't feel different from her friends.

The next morning, Ann watched her brothers board the bus with a heavy heart. She had to stay at home until her mother found a solution. She didn't understand what the problem was. One minute she was in school, bored and unhappy for sure, but with her friends. The next she was confined to the farm for no good reason.

With a deep sigh, Ann turned and walked to the barn where her father was looking over the milking machine pump. It had been acting up lately and he was worried he would have to replace it which would mean spending more money than he could easily afford at the moment.

She sat so she could watch what he was doing. He grumbled indistinctly -- his way to swear when the children were around -- as he tried to find the problem. All of a sudden, she asked if he had checked the piston rings.

"What did you say, pumpkin?"

"I asked if you had checked the piston rings, daddy."

"You know something? I didn't." He said, looking back at the machine. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

"Mr. Jacobin always asks that." She answered. "I hear him every time we go to the tractor store.

Arthur Jacobin was the head mechanic at the local John Deer dealer. A mean, foul mouthed, tobacco chewing old sourpuss, he was the reason the company was so firmly implanted in the region.

"You know, darling, you may be right. Can you get the blue toolbox for me, please?"

"Sure thing, daddy"

Robert watched her race to the garage where he worked on the farm equipment when the repair needed wasn't beyond his abilities. Scratching his head he thought back to her teacher. 'Can't she even recognize a bright kid when she sees one?' He thought. He knew the teacher was overworked and had too many children in her class, but suggesting Ann should be put on Ritalin... There was no way he could accept that. If she couldn't hack it at her job, maybe she had chosen the wrong career.

From that day on, Ann got up to do her chores as usual. After waving to the departing school bus taking her brothers away, she spent the morning with her mother reading the books she had brought back from her meeting the school director the day after the disastrous parent-teacher conference.

She recognized them from her class, so she was happy she wouldn't be left behind. She had heard stories about kids who were and none of them were good.

They talked about what she had read so Angéline could be sure she understood the material correctly. Mother and daughter laughed a lot as they went through the books. Learning was fun again for Annabelle.

After lunch she accompanied her father again as she had done before school. This time, though, he patiently explained the things he was doing around the farm. He welded a seat beside his on the tractor so she could be with him during harvest. Again he answered all her questions as much as he could.

When her brothers came back from school, she went to help with the milking and the other chores.

After supper, it was homework time in the Taylor house. No exceptions, to Ann's delight. She worked seriously beside her brothers on homework from the material she had learned that morning. Once she was done she would often go on the internet and research her father's answers when she didn't understand them fully. The next day, she would proudly explain to him what she had learned.

After a few weeks, a lady arrived at the house just as Ann was getting ready to begin the new books her mother had given her after she finished the first set. Her mother had told her she would be stopping by and why. Ann had to take some tests for the school board. It was part of a research. Ann knew about research from watching PBS with her mother in her parents' bedroom while the 'men' watched the Montreal Canadian get beat again. It was the 'women's' inside joke, not to be repeated within male hearing. It was their very own private secret.

She had just finished the second set of books and was starting on another when the lady came back again with more tests. After she was done, she asked, unconsciously imitating the TV professor's academic tone of voice, how the research was coming along.

"It's coming along fine, young lady." She answered, startled into answering seriously. "The results are very promising."

"Well, that's fine and dandy."

The woman looked behind Ann at her mother who was smiling triumphantly.

"Once we've corrected these latest tests and compiled those of the other test subjects', the project should move along satisfactorily in an expedited manner." She told both of them.

Progress on the third set of books was slower. Ann needed more time to make sense of what she was learning and Angéline had to give more detailed explanations. It began to resemble a real class.

Annabelle was no dummy. She knew she had gone through the first and second grade books. Her brother Bernard had the very same books she was reading at the time. She asked him if minded her doing the same thing he did. Her answer was a big hug and high-low five.

"Of course I don't, sis. I'm proud of you. We're all proud of you." He said looking at their other brothers for confirmation. The resulting celebration drew their mother's attention. She stepped in to restore order and get them back to work. Before she left, she gave them all a big kiss on the cheek, drawing an 'aw, mom' from the two oldest and the two next felt obligated to follow suit. The two youngest children just grinned and kissed her back.

"I am so proud of all of you. There will be a special treat for dessert tomorrow." She announced.

"Hooray! Double chocolate cake!" Angéline could hear Robert join the cheer from the living room.

In November, Angéline often would leave for some hours in the afternoon. Ann thought nothing of it. She had heard her parents discussing her mother going back to work as a roving agronomist, resuming the business she had set aside until the children were in school.

One day, she asked Ann to join her. To her surprise, the drove to Ann's school. They went to a class where there were shelves of books, computers, posters of famous scientists and music instruments on stands. There were even a few exercise machines in the back and a stack of games.

Parents and children were milling around the room, taking in the wonderful learning environment. Ann squealed when she saw some of friends. They hugged and kissed, happy to be reunited. Together, they ran from one item to the next. Exclaiming in delight.

A young woman called them around her. She said her name was Miss Nathalie and she was be their new teacher. She told them that others would join her regularly to teach them different subjects in which they were more qualified.

The children looked at her quizzically. She certainly did not look like the other teachers. She wore faded ripped jeans and a t-shirt with a picture of Einstein winking. Her hair was dyed in a rainbow of colors and her fingernails painted a bright metallic blue.

Miss Nathalie explained that they had been selected from all over the school board to be part of a project aimed at gifted children. It would be a pilot project since there was no school to nurture their talents like there was in the big city. If it worked, some wealthy people had pledged to fund it on a permanent basis. She said she was a Psychology doctorate candidate at McGill University. The other teachers who would join her were also students at the Masters or Doctorate level in various universities in Montreal or from Laval University in Quebec.

Miss Nathalie thanked Ann's mother for having initiated the project and praised her efforts in bringing the people and resources together. She also thanked Mrs. Sinclair, the school board President, -- she was also the mother of one of the children there -- for her vision and help in pushing the board into accepting the challenge.

She beamed at the children, eyes moist with pleasure as she contemplated the coming months and years, she hoped, in their company.

"So, I will see you all tomorrow morning. We will begin this new adventure together and see where it will take us."

The announcement was cheered by the children and applauded by the parents.

Annabelle's older brother, René, carried her on his shoulders all the way down the dirt road leading from the house to the road where they waited for the school bus.

Her brothers cleared some seats in the middle of the bus for those who would be in their sister's class. The trip was a raucous affair with cheers when a new classmate joined Ann in their reserved seats.

The class was a happy place for all. Children worked at their own rhythm singly or in small groups and some activities included them all. Progress was difficult to measure in the traditional way. They still took the provincial exams as required by law. Only at their individual pace.

Since it was the policy of the Ministry of Education at the time that children couldn't graduate to high school until they were a certain age, they were far more advanced academically than their peers when they were allowed to move forward.

To prepare the children for the transition, their curriculum was varied to keep their interest while they waited. To shield them from being branded in an unfavorable way and to help them develop their social skills, they had as much interaction as possible with the children in the regular classes.

That included gym.

As the youngest of six and the only girl, Annabelle was extremely lucky to have such exceptional brothers. They were always there for her any way they could. Needless to say she was never overtly bullied in school.

Another thing about her brothers is that they never complained about Ann following them around in their various activities. In fact, there had been broken noses and black eyes when other boys were too vocal about her presence and made disparaging comments or called her names.

As a result that she became a bit of a tom boy. Over the years, she was never afraid to get her hands dirty working on an engine, cleaning fishes or gutting a deer she'd brought down and helping around the family farm, mucking the milking barn and the chicken coop, pitching hay or tilling the garden.

She became a well-rounded, self-sufficient, independent young country woman with an intellectual advantage she never flaunted.

Being surrounded by growing boys also gave Annabelle a special perspective on certain aspects of teenage life.

Early on, she discovered she was gay. A flaming lesbian as she laughingly described herself to shock the squares.

This was not the big deal it could have been in another family or if her oldest brother, René, had not come out when she was barely eight.

Both her parents were late hippies who never outgrew the peace and love way of thinking. They were pretty open minded in the first place and raised all their children to be free of prejudices of any kind.

Growing up listening to four brothers extolling the virtues of various types of women may have influenced her point of view, but Ann was never attracted to boys. When she went through her hormonal surges, she fantasized about women she had seen in her brothers' magazines and porn tapes after she first heard about masturbating when her mother gave her 'The Talk'.

A 'tits and ass' girl by inclination, it took a while after she became sexually aware before her group of friends grew into their bodies. Soon enough, she started sneaking peeks around the shower after gym in an interested way.

At first, Ann thought she was the only one, but she caught a few other girls doing it. By unspoken agreement, it became a game of teasing each other without being obvious to the straight laced ones who washed up quickly and got dressed as fast as they could.

Pretty soon, they gravitated together and became fast friends. They were of different backgrounds, daughters of farmers, mine workers, truck drivers, accountants, CEOs, which made for quite an eclectic bunch. Despise this, or maybe because of it, they became a tight-knit group.

Aside from their interest in their burgeoning bodies, the girls were all kinds of geeky and if some shared extra-curricular interests such as the mechanics workshop, the drama club or the creative writing group, they were all into sports of one kind or another, depending on the season.

Needless to say their sleepovers were raucous affairs and the families were, for the most part, glad when they were held at a different house from theirs. Not that they were obnoxious, quite the opposite, but eight rambunctious teenage girls full of energy did make for noisy sleeping arrangements.