By some accounts, the girl would have been called flighty, by others they would have tagged her most certainly as a hugger-mugger at such a young age. Her mother Rylie was the complete contrapositive at that age and certainly now at her advanced age. Rylie was born near a rye field to a tenant farmer and a coster wife (fruit seller), she was quite conservative and became a hand woman to the wife of a notable physician in London. 

As the myth goes, Rylie had seen an early performance of Shakespeare’s play ‘The Merchant of Venice’ where the name Jessica belongs to the daughter of Shylock. Rylie fell in love with the name of the character and convinced her husband in 1596 to bestow it on their second daughter, Jessica Knight. She was a diminutive little lass with blonde locks and hazel eyes. She was the most adored of her siblings by her much older cousins and her entire family were smiling whenever they were around her. 

By her fourth birthday, Jessica had become a bit of a fixture at Gilbert House and quite familiar with every nook and cranny. While Rylie tended to the daily needs of Lady Gilbert, Jessica could expand her idiosyncratic curiosities and capacious imagination throughout the home. She was not allowed to play outside and could not disturb the Gilbert’s three English Water Spaniels while they were sleeping. The dogs were older with a touch of rheumatism setting in. The trio had seen their fair share of days swimming and diving after ducks during the many hunting excursions by the good doctor.

Recently, Dr. Gilbert had published his master work “De Magnete” where he presented a large volume of the results of his research into magnetism and electricity. Serving now as the court physician to Queen Elizabeth I (and previously to King James I), he emerged as one of the most respected and successful physicians in all of England. While “De Magnete” debunked many popular scientific theories at the time, Dr. Gilbert had also become the first person to fully explain the workings of a magnetic compass.

It was an extraordinarily early morning for Rylie and Jessica as the two made their journey across a foggy London town to Gilbert House. The lady of the house was already performing her usual rawgabbit and her husband was at work in his study. Dr. Gilbert was carefully reviewing lecture notes on electricity. He was set to give a lecture at the Royal College of Physicians when the mother-daughter duo arrived. 

Jessica was all-too familiar with the protocol of Gilbert House, especially at that time of the morning. While she did have the unchecked use of the entire home throughout the day, when Dr. Gilbert was at home, or in his study, she could not disturb him. She waiting patiently for him to leave. She sat quietly on the bottom landing step of the staircase playing with her small doll and humming to herself. 

Dr. Gilbert always loved having Jessica around but in his haste this morning he didn’t acknowledge her on his way out the door. Jessica heard the door open to his study and seconds later, the front door of Gilbert House slam close. She got up off the stair and slowly crept her way towards his study. As she peeked through the opening she thought the room was erstwhile, filled with books and rare oddities. It was similar to a layout of wizard’s tower room filled with magic and books that she imagined in the bedtime stories her father had shared. 

As she entered the room, she saw that all of Dr. Gilbert’s papers and various vessels were strewn across the room as if he didn’t know how or where to best place them back in order. Jessica was too young to recognize the Latin names written out for the contents of the larger vessels – iron, cobalt, and nickel on some and rare earth elements of cerium, neodymium, samarium, and europium on the others. In addition to the various metals and alloys of transition and rare earth elements, he had an arrangement of calculations, descriptions, and diagrams of metal oxides. As it was her mother’s responsibility to help Lady Gilbert, Jessica initially played the role of a fudgel, mimicking the gestures of the way her mother would go about her work but in this case not really doing much of anything. 

Her curiosity then turned into alacrity. Jessica began to organize, or what she thought was organizing, in her juvenile mind. She was resolved to help get this desk clear and the room clean for Dr. Gilbert so that she and her mother may sleep in on the morrow and not set out so early again. As she began to touch each leather-bound book and move around the vessels she noticed her hand becoming more and more attached to them. She was able to pry her hand off but the sensation of sticking to each was growing stronger in each of her handling of the various containers. 

Jessica became distraught as she could not remove her hand from one of the smaller containers of metal oxide. She thought less about crying out since to cry out would reveal her trespass. Despite her best effort, the magnetism continued to grow stronger in her hands, arms and even her feet. Jessica had somehow attained superhuman abilities and was quickly uncovering how she was able to move some of the vessels towards her and others away from her. It appeared the more she thought about the simple task at hand, the more this newfound ability manifested itself. 

After organizing the last bit of papers, Jessica moved towards the door, grabbed the handle and opened the door to the study to walk out. As she grabbed the venerable handle, she pulled it completely through the door. Now holding the door handle in her left hand and staring mesmerized at the gaping hole in the door, Jessica was first fascinated at the feat of strength. Her mesmeric state quickly turned to trepidation as she thought of how she would explain this all to her mother, Lady Gilbert and Dr. Gilbert when he arrived back home. This was all very confusing and her mood quickly became somber considering the irreparable damage she had done. This wouldn’t be an easy explanation of what had happened to her or the door.