Escape from Nantucket
It all started on a dark, stormy autumn night, like many others on the outer islands of New England's southern coastline.
In theory, my life should've been at least okay. We were well-off financially, as my dad was the co-owner of a fleet of lobster boats and a distributor of live lobster. We owned a beachside Victorian manor on Nantucket Island, a popular tourist spot for the wealthy and former whaling colony. Even though he was drunk all the time, he still managed to provide for my mother and myself. But my mother had died when I was only 7 years old, leaving me at the mercy of my increasingly violent alcoholic father. While he was somewhat okay when he was sober, that wasn't the norm for him. He was almost always three dozen sheets in the wind.
That night in 1999, however, was even worse than usual. When I got home from the small homeschool I spent my school days learning at around 3:45 in the afternoon, I climbed the stairs to my room to study a book known as the Tome of Nantucket, a book on magical spells that I had bought from a bookstore a while before when I had some money from watering a vacationing neighbor's plants. It was interesting stuff, but I didn't know what to make of Chapter 11, which talked about a being known as "The Groundskeeper," who according to the book was a being who took children to a place called "The Grounds".
So I went and asked my father about it.
"The Groundskeeper," he said, as he downed yet another glass of port wine, "is a demon being who stalks Nantucket. He kidnaps children, mostly boys but some girls too, and takes them to an underground cave complex known as The Grounds. He then tortures them, kills them, and eats their souls, and then vomits them into a shaft towards a fiery prison known as Tenebraeum. That is why Nantucket has a nightly curfew; going out at night as a child on Nantucket is a death wish."
I shuddered at the thought.
My dad then asked me, "Son, can you grab that bottle of Chardonnay from the top shelf?"
I wasn't about to further enable his drinking, of course, because after the "Professor Dad" stage of his drinking comes "Violent Dad." so I told him, "Dad, with all due respect, I think you've had enough!"
"NOW, Emiel!" he shouted, banging his hands on the table.
"Get it yourself, you lazy, drunken pig!" I shouted.
"That's it young man!" said my father, raging, "You're getting a spanking!"
I ran upstairs as fast as my legs would carry me, and locked my door. This time, however, no lock was keeping him out, and he smashed my door down with a broken table leg which he kept in his room for this sort of situation.
I tried to squirm and kick and fight him off, but there was no way my four foot eight inch tall body (and my sort of weak, slightly shorter right arm, which I'd had since birth) could fight off my six foot tall drunken father, and he grabbed me, sat down on my bed, put me over his knee, and began beating my behind and my upper legs with the table leg. I squirmed, screamed as loud as I could, hoping to somehow escape the burning, painful hell under his giant arm, and cried for help, a flood of tears streaming down my face, not really expecting any to come.
But come it did.
A dark, gruesome fog streamed violently through my open window, and formed into a tall, Grim Reaper-like being with a wooden cane.
"George Macron!" said the ghostly being, "Let go of the boy at once!"
Fearing for his life, my father released his grip on me.
The being then gave me an order: "Emiel, run downstairs and out the front door now! I will meet you there when I have sufficiently punished your father!"
I knew in my heart that I had just encountered the Groundskeeper, and that I was going to die that night. But at that point, I didn't even care. Whatever the Groundskeeper had in store for me in Tenebraeum, it couldn't be that much worse than the "Tenebraeum" I currently lived in. At least then my suffering would be over.
I ran as fast as I could towards Nantucket Town, hoping someone there would do something to protect me from both my father and the ghastly being that was the Groundskeeper.
As fast as I could run, however (which wasn't that fast for my age), I couldn't escape the Groundskeeper.
"Emiel, my son..." he said, "Come with me, and I'll protect you from your father. He won't be able to hurt you again!"
"No!" I shouted, "I know all about you! You're a liar and a murderer of kids!"
"Calming spell!" the Groundskeeper shouted, as he stretched his hand out. I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of peace, like nothing I'd ever felt, "My son, I am not a murderer of children. I am the Keeper of The Grounds, a magical realm underground where I take children from all over the world who are in situations not unlike your own, or who possess budding magical abilities, or in your case, both. It's right underneath Nantucket behind a waterfall."
"But I thought The Grounds were a torture cave?" I asked.
"That's just a rumor, my son!" he said, in a comforting tone, "I know where people get the idea from. I do look like a demon... but I'm not. I am a benevolent being, through and through!"
"How do I know I can trust you?" I asked, still sniffling from the beating I'd received moments before.
"I cannot make you trust me on this level of reality," said the Groundskeeper, "I can only show you the truth in person. But you have a decision to make. If you refuse to come with me, your father will likely kill you. If you come with me, you remain alive, and I take you to a realm where you'll be safe, well cared for, and learn the magical arts you've been privately studying in the Tome, and more."
"So you'll teach me magic?" I asked.
"Magic that will protect you, and may even be able to help your father heal from his troubles!" said the Groundskeeper.
Decisions were not easy for me, being only ten years old. It took me a moment, but ultimately I decided to take my chances with the Groundskeeper. "Fine!" I said, "At least if the story is true, I die and my suffering is over!"
"A wise decision!" he said, "Hop on my back!"
I did as instructed, and he began to fly, with me on his back, towards a large waterfall on a cliff on the north side of Nantucket.
"See?" said the Groundskeeper, "I mean you no harm! But you are about to get wet, so be ready!"
He was right, of course; we flew through the waterfall into a small, dark cave.
"Come!" he said, as he put me down, "Behind that door, find gardens green, and magical spells to fill your dreams!
I walked towards the door, and he opened it. The cavern inside was dark, and I began having second thoughts.
"It's kinda dark in there!" I said.
The Groundskeeper turned from his usual dark color to a white, glowing being of light. We made our way down the cavern to another wooden door, which he also opened for me.
