I didn’t remember the pain beginning. I wondered if that was an effect of the ritual. But I became aware of the red-hot agony sometime around the recreation of the mid-nineteenth century, when my nomadic existence was more literal than metaphoric. Most of my time had been traveling through the Midwest, finding towns to use to bend space and cut some journeys short whenever the need arose. I didn’t have an address, and in most places, never offered a last name. I was just Caleb, itinerant worker for hire, shoulder to cry on, body without identity.
I rarely thought of that time of my life, though truth be told, I rarely thought about much of my past once it was done. That particular period, however, held little allure for revisiting. Little set it apart. I was as much a part of the scenery
