Michaelmas (Illustrated)

By Aaron Pitters

On an autumn evening in 1727, Thomas Edward Downs sits down with his family to celebrate Michaelmas, in memory of the archangel casting Lucifer out of heaven. Their goose dinner is interrupted by the thunderous sound of a large horse-drawn carriage charging up the lane.

Doctor Rathbone, a colleague from the local apothecary, implores Thomas to leave with him at once. His assistance is needed with an urgent situation out at the childhood home of the recently-deceased Sir Isaac Newton.

Drawn by duty and curiosity, Thomas kisses his wife and children goodbye and heads out the door and into the rainy night.

Upon arriving at Woolsthorpe Manor, the men are ushered inside. Knowing Newton only as the father of modern science, they are unprepared for what they discover in the basement. The events that unfold will change their lives forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aaron Pitters
• Release date: Jan 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9798215854693

Aaron Pitters

Aaron resides in Atlanta, Georgia.He is a fiction writer of literary works of all shapes and sizes. His debut Monarch is a unique four-part series that follows an unsettled housewife who fears the world will end in less than a month. His subsequent follow-ups delve even further down a dark psychological tunnel of uncertainty.Psykosis tells the tale of a lawyer who visits a hypnotist that uses his patients to commit heinous crimes.While Michaelmas ventures back to 18th-century England where the end of the age of magic and the dawn of science collide.House Fly lands a recent divorcee a lucrative position in a new town without realizing the true extent of his new commitment.Aaron is also a writer of a wide variety of film and television screenplays. His unique voice blends the mundane with the sublime as he tackles difficult subject matters using tone and inflection to accentuate the light and dark in all of us.

Book preview

Michaelmas

(A Novella)

Aaron Pitters

Copyright © 2018, 2021, 2024 by Aaron Pitters

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

To keep up with Aaron Pitters go to aaronpitters.com or twitter.com/aaronpitters

This is a work of fiction. Other than the names of Isaac Newton and John Newton the names, characters, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

The images in this book were created using the generative artificial intelligence tool Dall-E 3, and were edited using Adobe Photoshop as well as Adobe Lightroom.

"Newton was not the first of the age of reason.

He was the last of the magicians."

-John Maynard Keynes

1

Goose Day

Thomas Edward Downs on his way home from the Apothecary.

It was a mild autumn afternoon on the tenth day of November in the year seventeen twenty-seven. Thirty-two-year-old Thomas Edward Downs, a good-natured physician's assistant, was walking home from a brief visit to the office.

Thomas had decided to get some paperwork done since most of the town's residents were home celebrating. This meant he was able to work undisturbed for several hours, something he hadn't done for months. He and Doctor Rathbone spent most of their time during the week at the apothecary seeing to patients or making visits to those who were too infirmed to travel. The Apothecary had been so quiet that he was able to sort through ten months of paperwork before his pocket watch informed him that he had to head home for the holiday.

Michaelmas was one of Thomas's favorite holidays. The missus always went to such great lengths to prepare the day's feast. She liked having the kitchen to herself when she cooked.

During seven years of marriage, Thomas had learned to give her the space she needed to work her culinary magic. She had gotten up well before sunrise on that day, a full hour before Thomas.

As he walked up the lane towards his two-story Tudor home with its thatched roof, Thomas heard crickets off in the fields. The barley had been reaped weeks ago and they were due to begin turning the soil on Saturday. He hired several hands in years past, which freed him from doing the work himself. This year his neighbor's son, Mandrake, who had just turned fourteen, was wanting to help so he could earn a little extra money before Christmas. Thomas could hardly refuse as it would mean Mandrake's father, a local farmer, would also be there and the three of them could complete the work in a few days.

The rays from the setting sun warmed his cheeks and eyelids. In the middle of the lane, Thomas came to a stop and closed his eyes. He stood there for a moment to bask in the golden rays of the setting sun. At that moment, he felt a sense of contentment and began to reflect.

After a tough first year in the new village, he and his family, who were waiting inside just a few yards away, had finally settled into their new home. There were times he wished he lived closer to the village; his walk to the Apothecary was less than a kilometer. When the mood struck and time allowed, which was usually once a week, as Thomas had a deep curiosity for all living things—especially those under his care, he would embark on longer routes to stretch his legs and to explore the area.

It was an honor to work at the apothecary and he took great pride in the work, felt he owed the residents of Buckminster and the doctor a great deal of gratitude. While he was not out working in the fields breaking his back like many of the village's residents, Thomas worked hard.

Late-night visits to help those too bad-off to travel to Grantham were infrequent but necessary. Rain or shine Thomas had vowed to answer any call for help. There had been four times in the past nine months alone when Doctor Rathbone, who lived above the Apothecary, had come calling on his assistant.

It took Thomas and his family a few times to get adjusted to