Agynbite: The Story of Susanna Baker

This is a new blog I am creating. It is called Agynbite.

“Agynbite” is taken from a poem written in the 1400s, “Agynbite of Inwyt.” This means, in modern English, “the Again-Bite of In-Wit.” Back then, English speakers liked to make compounds by just jamming concepts together. The above phrase is translated. “The prick of conscience.” The conscience bites a person inwardly. Now, this was a devotional journal written by a monk and designed to make people more aware of the spiritual dimension of their lives. This one is nothing like that. It is not religious and not designed to prick anyone’s conscience but my own. I am a writer and often have stories in progress. I decided I might want to share them as I write, hoping to get some feedback or reaction from people. The conscience that is going to work on me with a few inward bites will be the one telling me, "Write!" The first story I am working on is the initial story of Susanna Baker.

Susanna has just finished medical school, practiced for a couple of years as a doctor, and quite due to a series of distressing incidents. Her disappointment at the disruption of her career, however, is mollified by an invitation to join a group of singers (three women, all older than she) who have taken the name of Virgin Congress. Susanna has sung in choirs all her life and has also been involved with the group, performing locally. They release an album, which becomes a best seller. Soon they are on tour, able to live quite comfortably from the money they are making as vocal artists, and touring the United States, Canada, and the UK.

So here is the story, in progress:



Susanna Baker smiled as the audience broke into wild applause. Her group had sung the Middle English hymn, “Edi Beo thu Heaven Queen” (“You Are the Queen of Heaven,” a hymn to the Virgin Mary) and received a standing ovation. This was their third encore. Susanna was tired, her throat hurt, and she had to go. Still, she felt happiness suffuse her body; and, with the happiness, peace and assurance. It was going to be all right. The new direction of her life would be a good one. Her singing group, Virgin Congress, took a final bow, waved, and left the stage.

She found a rest room. When she came back to the other members of her ensemble—Anna, Chelsea, and Jennifer—they told her what a marvelous job she of singing had done and how she was a valuable addition to the group.

The tour had been tiring, but not as tiring as her past career as a pediatrician—a career she had left behind for this musical venture. The other women in the group said they were going out for a drink. Susanna said she wanted to sleep. Back in her hotel room, she drew a bath, undressed, and, with a sigh of pleasure, sank into the hot water. As she soaked in the tub, she reflected on what a good choice she had made.

Susanna had graduated from college with a Bachelor’s in organic chemistry. She had gone to the Indiana University medical school, done an internship in Indianapolis, and begun to practice.

Things had not gone well. She was sued her first year when a woman broke her toe during a routine examination (because as nurse failed to put paper footies on her). She treated two children who were terminally ill and died. This had been through no fault or negligence of hers, and she had done all she could to keep them comfortable; but seeing their innocent suffering had been hard on her. Then, as if to top it all off, a few months back she had been dumped by the man she had loved and hoped to marry.

The only bright spot in those first years of her medical practice had been the singing group she belonged to. She got together with three other women once a week and sang the music of the early English composers. The group had begun to perform locally, singing in northern Indiana and southern Michigan, singing at churches and folk and renaissance festivals. Their popularity began to grow. During a concert at Notre Dame, someone asked them if they had ever considered producing a record, a thing for which they had in fact been planning. Their first album was an unexpected and phenomenal success, selling in the millions and putting them on the map as performers and interpreters of medieval and renaissance music. They caught the consumer appetite for chant, for Hildegard von Bingen, for ethereal religious music. Soon all were contemplating leaving their regular jobs to sing full time.

The water in the tub began to cool. Susanna washed, dried, threw on a bath robe, and walked into the main part of her hotel room. Someone stood in the center of the room.

She opened her mouth to scream, but the figure put a hand on her shoulder. She tried to cry out and speak but her tongue would not move.

The touch of the woman’s hand on her shoulder felt warm and, oddly, soothing.

“Be still,” she said. She had an odd accent that sounded like a mixture of Southern American English and Irish. “I mean you no harm. I am Megan. I’ve been sent here to fetch you.”

Susanna’s tongue came loose. “Fetch me? Fetch me where?”

The woman smiled. “To another time. You are a physician, are you not?”

“I am, yes.”

“Then you will come with me.”

“No. I won’t. Who are you?”

The woman looked slightly annoyed.

“You are being obdurate, girl. Do you have a satchel and medicines?"

It took Susanna a moment to understand what she meant.

“I do.”

“Get it, please.”

Her medical bag sat at the end of the bed. Hardly any doctors carried medical bags anymore, but Susanna had brought one along because one never knew when it might be needed. She was a doctor, and emergencies often arose. Also, it was a link with her past—a past she knew she had not entirely let go of.

Megan continued to look at Susanna, eyebrows slightly raised. Susanna found herself walking to the end of the bed. She picked up the bag and, feeling oddly submissive, returned to the place where the woman—Megan—stood.

“Are you ready, child?”

“Who are you?” Susanna demanded.

Megan’s lips trembled slightly. “I’m sorry. I’ve been imperious. I have commanded you as if you were a servant. And I will tell you about myself later. Will you please come with me? A life depends on it, and the lives of many will be adversely affected if you refuse. Please, daughter. It is very important. I promise I will explain more to you later.”

Her brain ran through a frantic checklist. It might be a dream, but it seemed too realistic for that. This woman might be insane and had somehow gotten into her hotel room. If this were the case, it would be better to go along with her and consent to whatever delusional ideas she pronounced. But Susana had treated delusional people. This woman did not express the usual symptoms those had who broken with reality. She looked pale; so much that Susanna fancied she could see through her.

“Megan, I want to help, but”—she stammered. Her mind made her say (without her consent) the questions it wanted it ask. “Are you a ghost?”

“As I told you, no.”

“But you’re”—

“Unsubstantial? Yes. I am a phantom. Now and then, I am sent to the future—don’t ask me why or how because I don’t know. When I go to the future, I become a phantom. Otherwise, I am a woman and live in the body of my flesh.” She hesitated and then added, “Susanna, I cannot force you to go with me. I can only plead with you to help.”

Susanna wanted to rest in the hope she was dreaming. Somehow, she knew she was not. She had her medical bag and could feel its weight in her grip. The red and blue lights of the neon sign that advertised a Korean restaurant across the street shone in her room. She heard the heater come on and felt warm air on her shins. Megan stood before her, slightly transparent, but she seemed to take on more substance the longer she stood there, waited.

“All right, but”—she did not finish.

“I will return you here once your task is finished. It will be as no time has passed.”

She said no more, but her quiet conveyed the seriousness of the matter as well as Megan’s anxiety. Susanna sighed and nodded.

“Very well. I’ll go with you. But shouldn’t I get dressed first?”

“We will go to my home. I’ll clothe you so will not look out of place in my time. What you are wearing now will until then.”

If this is a dream, she thought, I’ll ride it out. If it isn’t—but she didn’t want to think about this.

Megan stretched out her hand and touched Susanna’s shoulder. Susanna experienced none of the things that TV and movies used to illustrate time travel. Things did not spin out of focus then refocus. There was no going down a tunnel or standing in a suddenly bright field of light that then diminished. In an instant she and Megan were standing outside in the snow.

The cold stung her bare feet, but what she saw in the sky above so astonished her the discomfort she felt hardly registered in her mind. Bright, glittering stars filled the sky. Planets blazed in their unblinking magnificence. Rivers of color wove through the heavens—more color and light than she had ever seen.

Megan came to her side.

“The sky is magnificent,” she said. Then she quoted a familiar bible verse:  “‘The heavens declare the glory of God.’ In your time, one hardly sees the stars.”

Susanna gazed until the cold smarted too badly for her to linger. She turned to Megan. Something had changed. She was no longer a spectral silver. They were standing close and she could feel the woman’s warmth.

“You’re”—she could not think of the proper word.

“Substantial?”

“Yes.”

“Because this is my time—the period in which I was alive.” Susanna shivered. Megan put her arm around her. “Let’s go inside before you catch your death.”

They walked through a heavy oak door into a warm, small room. Susanna saw a fireplace blazing. Brass pots were stacked about it. A table sat in the center of the room with four chairs. The workmanship, even though rough and plain, delighted her. She saw Megan in the full light for the first time. She had light brown hair, shapely shoulders, and a well-formed face. Her large eyes and sensitive mouth suggested gentleness. Megan pulled out a chair and dragged it toward the fireplace.

“Sit,” she said, “and warm yourself. I’ll fetch you wine. Poor child.”

Susanna breathed a sign of relief as the fire warmed her feet and legs. Megan gave her mulled wine—some of the best she had ever tasted. She rummaged around in another room and returned with garments.

“These will fit you, I think.” She gave her knickers, a slip (she called it a smock), a long dress, stockings, shoes, and a cloak. She pointed.

“Change in this closet.”

Susanna took up the clothes and opened the door Megan had indicated. She expected to see a clothes closet but instead walked into a small room with a chair and a desk in it. She remember that closet meant more like office or reception room in earlier days. She threw off her room and put on the garments Megan had given her. She came back into the kitchen.

“We need to go to where the young man you must treat is staying,” Megan said. “Come.”

With that, she led her out the door into the cold and in view of the resplendent sky.

They walked hurried until they came to a large house with lights shining the windows. They hurried through the snow and came to the main door. Megan entered without knocking and told a young girl (very young, maybe ten or eleven) to tell the mistress that the physician had arrived. They waited a few minutes. The young girl appeared and led them up a flight of stairs and into a room.

Four people stood around a bed where a young man lay. He looked pale, breathed rapidly and, from the sweat on his face, seemed to be in the grip of a fever. Susanna saw a long cut on his right shoulder and three smaller lesions on his chest. She could tell at  aglance he had some degree of blood poisoning.

“My friends,” Megan said, “this is Susanna. She knows the healing arts. I’ve brought her here to minister to Robert.”

Silence, then one of the men said, “A woman?”

Megan opened her mouth to explain. Lugging her bag, Susanna pushed past her and made her way to the side of the bed. She touched the man’s face. Fever. She noted his breathing and took his pulse. He winced and trembled, indicating chills. A text-book case of sepsis, she thought, though it did not appear to have progress to the point of danger.

“Someone boil some water and get me some cloths,” he said.

No one moved. Megan clapped her hands.

“Brothers and sister, I have brought her here. It is a miracle we have the services of such a skillful healer. Nothing we’ve done has benefited him. Perhaps her knowledge can bring him once more to health. He and his friend do not deserve to endure what happened to the others.”

They did not look convinced. Susanna wondered exactly what Megan meant but then noticed the man’s wounds were covered with some sort of clear material. She racked her brain and remembered reading, in pre-med, that in the 1600s wounds were spread over with a Vaseline-type covering. Wounds needed to be cleaned and opened to the air so they could dry out and begin to heal. Her training as a physician took over and she began to disregarding everything around her and concentrating on the patient. She turned about.

“Where is the water I asked for?”

When no one said anything, she got out a vial of alcohol, poured it on a wad of gauze and dabbed the sealed-over wounds. The covering dissolved. The young man reacted, wincing. Someone brought her cloths.

“These are dirty,” she said. “Get me some clean ones.”

The woman looked nonplussed but hurried away and returned with clean material.

“This young man—Robert, was it?—needs to be bathed with warm water. After you’ve washed him, clean his bed linen. Cleanliness is the key to healing. If some of you can undertake this, it will greatly speed his recovery.”

They stared a moment and then pulled the covers aside and began to pull of the nightshirt he was wearing. Susanna watched a moment and turned to Megan.

“I think I’d like to rest a moment. I would like some wine.”

“Of course,” she said. “This way.”