The Lives of Benjamin James Kheelan, Part I: End of Term

The following short story is the first of four initial installments of the histories of Benjamin James Kheelan, one of the main characters in Amy's novel Panic Switch.

 Cambridge, 1663


Benjamin looked both ways before setting the toe of his shoe against the first hold in the stone wall. His dark cloak and the night’s shadows guarded him well, but the danger of discovery by a reveler meandering King’s Parade remained. Music and discord wafted from Market Hill, and whistles and drunken shouts rendered the typical quiet Cambridge night. Above, storm clouds threatened the merrymaking, but Benjamin felt confident the students would continue undeterred. This was end of term. End of exams. A break from the hefty burden of study.

For some. But not for Benjamin.

He held the copper netting in his teeth and climbed. Hand and foot, up the familiar trail, to the top of the chapel. The wind whipped his cloak behind him and his fingers gripped the stone block edgings. He felt no fear. He could climb the chapel blindfolded. They’d been up there most every night the last month. And still he’d garnered exemplary scores in his studies.

He’d make up for lost sleep in his grave.

Three more foot holds and he stopped to rest where the buttress met the cloisters’ roof. He released the cooper netting from his teeth and wiped spittle from the corner of his mouth. His hair flitted in the wind. He swept it from his eyes in vain as he looked up toward the rooftop, toward the angry clouds, toward his destination. A pale face framed in a mass of tangled blonde hair peered over the roofline at him, motioned for him to hurry, hurry. Isaac and his damned impatience.

Benjamin looked down over the front lawn, over King’s Parade, over the festivities. Was Susanna there, he wondered, among the rabble-rousers and drunkards? He thought of her gentle face, the way her lips formed the words he taught her from his lessons. No doubt on such a night the Pickerel Inn bustles. Surely her father worked her. Benjamin watched a disheveled student stagger along the low wall at college lawn. The fool tumbled over the wall and fell face first into the grass. There he lay with his feet still caught at the top of the wall and his hands limp at his sides. Benjamin grunted. Susanna was wise. She knew to retreat if necessary.

A hiss from above took Benjamin from his thoughts. He looked up. Not Isaac this time, but Gonnick. “Hurry,” he said, his dark curls shading his face. Benjamin placed the copper coil in his teeth and resumed his climb. The bell of St. Mary’s tolled eleven and the higher he climbed, the sharper the wind blew.

The first time he’d attempted the transition from buttress to rooftop, his hands slipped from the stone edging and he slid down the leaded windows. He would have crashed to the cloisters’ roof had he not caught the finial spire atop the first buttress instep. The lies he’d told to explain his bruises made his cohorts laugh.

Tonight was no night for mistakes.

He braced his feet against the top of the buttress and stretched toward the finger holds at the jagged roofline. As he pulled his weight up, he kicked his right leg out, catching the stone edging with his instep. He pressed his arms down until his elbows locked. Then he pressed his legs down, down, lifting his torso toward the roof, toward the sky, until at last he grasped both arms around the roof spire. He stepped over the edge onto secure footing and exhaled, holding the copper netting in his hand. His muscles twitched from the effort and his fingers ached with cold.

“Took you some time,” Gonnick said. “You’re like an old woman, fannying about.”

“Did I bring the goods?” Benjamin said, holding up the netting. “Did I?”

“Yes, yes, you’re the hero.” Gonnick took the netting and clapped Benjamin on the arm. “We’ll reward you later at the Pickerel.”

“If we succeed.” Benjamin tapped the cramping from his feet.

“You still doubt?”

“Doubt? No,” Benjamin said. “Prudently cautious? Yes.”

The northern sky flashed white at the horizon and thunder rumbled across the fens. Gonnick’s eyes opened wide.

“Haste,” he said, and Benjamin followed him along the spine to the center of the chapel’s roof where Isaac and Smithy waited.

“My goodly gentlemen,” Gonnick said with a dramatic bow, “our brave Kheelan has won the day. Or rather, night.” He handed the copper netting to Smithy who went to work, spreading it out in a square on the roof and attaching each corner to a steel rod. Isaac worked at the burner at the side of the machine. He held his notebook open with his knee as his fingers made quick work with the cylinder and switch. Benjamin knelt at the opposite corner from Smithy, helping to loop the netting in place.

“I can hardly keep my fingers still to work,” Smithy said.

“Excitement or cold?” asked Benjamin.

“Both, I think.”

“Mine as well, friend.” Benjamin held his hand out toward Smithy. His fingers shook. “Let us set the top.”

Smithy nodded and the two lifted the steel mantle atop the four rods. It rose like the skeleton of a pyramid, ending with a slender rod that pointed into the sky.

“Look at our lovely!” Gonnick yelled over the wind. He stood the quintain upright. They’d dressed the dummy in a kirtle, cloak and bonnet and named her Margaret. Gonnick fastened the wooden tube containing Isaac’s scroll around her neck with twine. The scroll detailing who she was and from whence she’d come. Earlier in the day they’d toasted Margaret journey with mead and made bets to where she’d land. Smithy placed his mark on Dublin. Gonnick on the Americas. Isaac refused to bet. And Benjamin wagered she’d catch flame and burn down the university.

A drop of rain pelted Benjamin’s face below his eye and a boom of lightning struck a tree downriver sending sparks into the night. He stumbled, falling back onto the roof.

“Blessed Mary!” Gonnick yelled, getting to his feet and dropping Margaret. “I nearly shat myself.” He helped Benjamin to his feet and the two joined Smithy at the machine, checking and double-checking the fittings.

“Hurry,” Isaac said. “We must hurry.” He pulled a cloth from his pocket and tenderly unfolded the corners. He poured the dark contents into the cylinder and tightened the top. Then he stood back.

They all stood back.

They looked at what they’d made.

Rain pattered the rooftop in an ever-steadying rhythm. Isaac peered from the machine to his notebook and then at each of them. He nodded. Good. “To the hold,” he yelled, wiping rain from his eyes. Benjamin turned and headed with the others for the wooden hovel they’d constructed the previous week. Merely four walls and a roof, attached to the front façade of the chapel. They would wait out the storm there, mindful of Margaret’s well being.

Margaret.

Benjamin and Isaac looked back at the same time. The quintain lay where Gonnick had left her after the lightning strike. Isaac knocked him upside the head.

“Easy on,” Gonnick said. “Simple mistake.”

“I’ll get her,” Smithy said, sprinting back to the machine, his cloak and hair blown. The three watched him pull Margaret against the wind across the copper netting.

“Get all of her in,” Isaac called, his hands cupped around his mouth, his words doused in the rain.

“I’ll go help.” Benjamin took three steps and the lightning struck. Brilliant white light and a deafening boom that rumbled the chapel to its stone foundation.



When Benjamin’s eyes adjusted again to the night, he found himself in the front corner of the chapel roof. He shielded his eyes from the rain. Above him a stone spire rose into the clouds. He’d flown yards from where he’d stood. He rubbed his neck and looked for the others.

He saw Gonnick crouched at the side of the hovel, his head tucked into his arms. Isaac stood motionless several feet beyond the hovel, the rain drenching his hair, the notebook in his hand open with its pages flapping in the wind. Benjamin peered through the rain to the machine.

Smithy was gone.

To be continued…