Deep in the half-forgotten dregs of Boston stood a building of brick and wrought Iron that many never knew existed and many more liked to pretend never existed. This building was known as the Newport Sanitarium of Boston.
The building itself was a monstrosity consisting of several wings off a large central rectangle sprawling over the space of several acres of prime real estate in the slums of Boston. Two entire floors of nothing but barred windows stood over a third that differed only by the presence of sporadic sets of double doors framed in by narrow, columned porches that opened out into grounds filled patches of overgrown trees, half-dead wee-filled lawns, and overgrown gardens. A half circle driveway connected the center entrance to two elaborately decorated sets of gates in the ten foot tall wrought iron fence that separated the dreary landscape within from the equally depressing landscape without.
The interior of the building, at first glance was not much better. Colossal, yet simple marble staircases wound down from either side of the main hall to the entrance. To either side were located massive gathering rooms with rows of tables where residents would gather to play simple games or to greet the occasional visitor. The entire top two floors and much of the first floor consisted of nothing but tiny little nearly cubical sized bedrooms.
Some had a single bed while others had a pair of bunk beds stacked on top of each other. Some of the rooms had locks on the doors from the outside, some on the inside, and others not at all. Some bedrooms had drawings, small stacks of books, ragged dolls, old music boxes or other such trinkets. Others had only IV stands, sinks, and straps. Each bedroom the home of at least one of the building's residents, the lost, the broken, the mute, the mentally ill, and the most bizarrely queer of the children of Boston.
In addition to bedrooms, the bottom floor of each wing held a unique feature. In one wing, a dining hall was the propionate feature. In another a library was the main feature along with a number of offices. In still another was a workshop. But it was the final wing where IT happened.
This wing held a room different than so many others. This is where the Special Cases gathered. The room started out almost as drearily as the others to the undiscerning eye. A more observant look, however, would reveal the presence of a harpsichord just slightly to the side of the middle; a large picture window and seat along one wall beside which was set up many painting easels and tables; a long bench with several half-carved pieces of wood along another wall; a scattering of faded lush chairs and coffee tables; and finally a long library table with a number of small springs, pieces of brass and tin, and assorted gears spread out across it.
Every day like clockwork the Special Cases would file into this room after breakfast and stay until bedtime, pausing only for lunch and dinner and sometimes not even then.
Thomas, also called Tommy, would sit down at the harpsichord all day. Sometimes he would pick at the keys slowly. Other times, his keys would almost fly over the keys playing elaborate pieces both pieces that were well known and pieces that seemed to just flow out of him at an intensity that would cause his hands to seem to fly across the keys and his hair to swirl around his face as he bobbed his head emphatically to the beat.
Kyle would often sit in a chair, a small crystal radio set on the table next to him as he would make seemingly random marks on tablets that he kept with him at all times and guarded like closely hoarded treasures.
Kaitlynn would plop herself down at the library table her blue eyes focused intently on the scraps of metal and clockworks in front of her. She would spend hours building small clockwork trinkets that she would amuse herself and others with for hours, occasionally stopping long enough to brush an unruly strand of her golden-blonde hair out of the way or to lift up a particularly delicate piece for a better look. Some she would give away to other children, others she hoarded for herself or kept for use in other more complicated pieces later.
Maureen would sit on or near the window seat, absorbing whatever light the sun would grant that day while sketching or painting designs on paper, canvas, wood, or whatever else she could find. Her face and hair were almost always smeared from where she would absentmindedly brush her jet-black hair out of her face.
Michael would focus on the wood. One of the only residents allowed to have a knife upon them at all times, one never quite knew that his deft hands would carve next. Like Kaitlynn, he would often share his creations, giving them out to other children or staff members during meal times. In fact, the sanitarium proudly displayed many of his pieces in cases in the library and office waiting rooms.
Wire, paper, and cloth were more Kirstin's forte. A scrap of cloth and a bit of wire in her hands could quickly become a clothes hanger, a lampshade, a sculpture of a bird, or almost anything else. Unlike the other girls, she kept her hair in a perpetual ponytail so that it stayed out of her way.
Violet would jump back and forth between many things. Sometimes she would play the flute or violin, other times she would make the flute. Occasionally she would paint with Maureen or care with Michael. The only thing constant with Violet was that she was always doing.
Watching them work, one would almost think they were like other kids except for two things. Firstly, instead of playing games or attending classes, these children were always creating. Secondly, these particular children never talked. Never as in not even once during their entire stay at the sanitarium. Not amongst themselves, not to teachers, not even when giving one of their creations away.
None of the staff knew why. None of the orderlies, nurses, doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, janitors, tutors, or even the cooks could offer a theory on why these particular children never talked. They all agreed that the children were certainly bright enough. The creations they made were proof of that. It was almost as if by tacit agreement, these particular children had decided not to speak. This is what made them Special Cases.
Nor could the staff get these kids to stop creating and do other things. There was a time when they had tried. Every time, they would try to drag one of the Special Cases away from their projects to try and entice them to play games, to go outside, to do something more childlike. Each time the child in question had become violent to the point where the staff was afraid the children would hurt them or they themselves would accidentally hurt the children.
So they stopped trying because despite the run-down dreariness of the place, and the reputation of sanitariums in general, no one wanted to hurt the children. Even the truly violent or self-harming children in the other parts of the sanitarium that had to be physically restrained were only done so with reluctance and all the care that the staff could reasonably give.
No one worked here that did not love children. The head of the Newport Sanitarium, Doctor Rheinhelm made sure of that. A father and grandfather himself, Doctor Rheinhelm treated every resident like they were his own and ensured each member of the staff did too. Even though funding was tight and he might not be able to maintain the grounds the way he would have liked, or repaint the aging rooms, he did have full control over the staff and he would be damned if he let someone work even for a day who did not share his love of children and who did not meet his high expectations for their care.
So it was by his command the Special Cases were not forced outside to play or forced to attend lessons like the other kids. He spent part of his own time to solicit donations for materials and if the donations were too sparse, he would use money out of his own pocket to secure materials so that the Special Cases always had materials to work with.
Such was life at the sanitarium until the day IT happened. No one who was there at the time could really describe why what started out as any other ordinary day suddenly became something so extraordinary but everyone who was there all agreed they knew IT when IT happened and that they could feel the difference in the very atmosphere.
IT happened on a Tuesday afternoon at precisely two-eleven. At that moment, Tommy stopped mid-note and looked up and around the room.
At exactly the same moment all of the other Special Cases also stopped what they were doing. Maureen set down her paintbrush mid-stroke. Michael set down his knife. Kirstin set down the paper and wire bird she was working on. Violet jumped up from the table where she and Kaitlynn had just sat down a clockwork contraption they were working on. Kyle clicked off the radio, and looked up from the latest notebook he was working on.
As if some sort of unseen signal had passed between them, the Special Cases looked around at each other. A new intensity showed in their eyes. A new kind of unexplainable energy seemed to flash into being in the room filling it all at once. Every staff member present could feel it though they were never able to find the right words to describe IT. Some of the witnesses to that moment said the closest they could come to describing IT was to say it was like an anticipation, an idea, and a birth all rolled into one split second and that one split second exploded into being everywhere at once.
In that moment everything changed. Violet shot across the room scooping up a violin and a nurse ran to get the head of the sanitarium even as Tommy started playing a new piece on the harpsichord. Somehow the piece Tommy played, which started as a few simple, almost hesitant keystrokes, picked up momentum and sprouted into something that contained both a melody and harmony at once. As soon as Violet reached the violin and brought it to her chin, she wove in a secondary harmony so perfectly that anyone that hadn't known better would have sworn the two had composed and practiced this piece together for years.
Kyle began running around the room moving chairs, tables, even people and marking on floors and walls. Maureen followed along behind him with colored pencils and paints in hand.
Michael picked up his knife again, quickly carving little bits with a speed and intensity unlike anything the staff had ever seen, sometimes setting them on the table, other times tossing them to Kaitlynn or Kirstin who would reach up and catch them almost as if on instinct, working them into whatever creations they had just started.
This was the scene that greeted Doctor Rheinhelm when he arrived in the room. Years later he would describe the scene as being almost a choreographed creation of creation. By three o'clock, IT was well underway. Bits and pieces, mere hints of things still coming into being, now dotted the room as the Special Cases worked. By four o'clock unused furniture was being pushed out of the room into the hallway as Kyle darted across the room this way and that, rearranging as he went.
By five o'clock word had spread to other staff members and residents who all craned to peek in though doors or windows to glimpse what was going on. When dinner time came, and it was apparent that the Special Cases were going to work through dinner, Doctor Rheinhelm ordered that meals be brought for himself, the Special Cases, and any of the staff assigned to the Special Cases that volunteered to stay and help observe. Most of them did, with those that left doing so reluctantly so they could get home to their families.
By ten o'clock, long past the time he would normally be on his way home Rheinhelm, called his wife to let her know he would not be home, that something remarkable was happening that he had to stay overnight and observe. Still the children were going strong.
At midnight, they began to take turns sleeping, napping in sort shifts. Even then, it seemed choreographed or at least preplanned. Michael would sleep while Kaitlynn and Kirstin would slowly wear down his stockpile. Kyle would sleep while Maureen would break off coloring the floors and ceilings to paint random bits and pieces of the various projects and contraptions that Michael, Kaitlynn, and Kristin would hand her. Tommy and Violet would take turns gradually extracting themselves out of the music to curl up for an hour or two on a chair or occasionally Violet would instead take over for Kaitlynn or Kirstin for a while.
All the while, this indefinable energy still permeated the room. If anything it grew more potent. Hours turned into days, and several of the staff including Doctor Rheinhelm would start sleeping in shifts either in unused bedrooms or even in cots in the hallway or other great rooms. Occasionally their spouses would visit to see for themselves this indescribable event that had so taken over the staff's lives, sometimes even sleeping over themselves.
As supplies started running out the Special Case Children would start getting frantic, and frustrated if they couldn't find the right piece or the materials to make the right piece. When this would happen all of the Special Cases would falter and become agitated, sometimes crying or becoming violently ill. This would last until the needed part or materials would be found and brought to the children. The energy during these times would almost take on a frantic, desperate feel to it. Even the staff wasn't immune to this agitated feeling.
Doctor Rheinhelm began sending staff out to find materials, with orders to scavenge, buy, or even beg if that was what it took to keep the materials flowing. Word began to spread that something was happening at the sanitarium. People started wandering by attempting to glimpse a hint of whatever that something might be, but the staff was careful to keep the general community out. There were exceptions for the occasional king's officer, government official, or master guildsman that either could not be shut out or who was thought to possibly be able to provide some slight insight as to what was going on or at least what was being created.
As the days turned into weeks, something began to change for the staff. Some of them, Doctor Rheinhelm included, swore that at times they could almost feel that the energy or the music was trying to tell them something and that at times they could almost see what the Special Cases were going to create before they created it. For example, while preparing breakfast in the kitchen one of the cooks described to other kitchen staff seeing a pattern on a blank sculpture-like piece of wood, fabric, and wire that eerily matched what Maureen painted almost hours later.
While looking over Kaitlynn's shoulder during a piece of particularly intricate music provided by Tommy and Violet, Doctor Rheinhelm noticed Kaitlynn looking up into a space in the room. When he looked into the same space, he swore he saw a set of brass filigree wings taking shape in the air before fading away. When he looked down, he was stunned to see Kaitlynn starting to cut out a pattern that matched exactly what he just saw.
The pieces that the children worked on grew increasingly elaborate and complex. Wires became intricately woven baskets, cages, and clasps. Gears and springs turned into fist and head sized mechanisms, the purpose of which was known only to the children. Various items painted in different patters seemed to flow into one another and form hints of something larger even when some of the items were moved around slightly.
Even more interesting and a little unsettling for the good doctor and his staff was the ability for one child to take something they just finished working on and then run over and pick up something else that had been seemingly discarded weeks ago by one of the other children and integrate the two very separate items together seamlessly in one single try. Kaitlynn's clockwork pieces fit with Violet's or Kirstin's contraptions and Michael's carved bits.
But perhaps the most alarming developments in Doctor Rheinhelm's estimation happened nearly three months after IT started. The fact they happened almost simultaneously was not lost on the poor doctor. The first development was the realization that not only other staff, but other patients of the sanitarium were starting to be pulled into IT to the point where not only were staff neglecting duties and patients watching in what could only be described as a state of memorization. Not only that, but these same staff and patients were also starting to bring items with them completely unbidden to leave in the room where the Special Cases were working. A small pile consisting of entire bolts of cloth, lamp shades, tools, even pieces of machinery started appearing in the room as staff, patients, and even the occasional visitor would drop them off.
The other alarming development was that someone noticed Kyle slipping into the room with a rather large portion of a filthy and battered steam engine. It wasn't so much the steam engine that frightened Doctor Rheinhelm as what the steam engine represented. In order to get the steam engine Kyle had to have walked out of the Special Cases room, out the door of the building, and left the grounds of the sanitarium entirely right past several staff members and no one had even noticed.
After that Doctor Rheinhelm instituted new rules that forbid any staff member or patient other than the special cases being in the room for more than an hour a day. Patients that broke this rule were confined to their rooms for several days except for meals, and staff that violated it were fired. There was a lot of anger and resentment at first, but the doctor held firm and over time people began to realize the necessity of this rule as they realized just how badly the sanitarium and even their own health had been neglected.
Doctor Rheinhelm even went so far as to try and interfere with IT. He and a couple of orderlies tried to pick up Kirstin, Kaitlynn, and Michael to remove them from the room while they were working. There was no resistance from the kids, but as soon as the children were set down, they immediately went back to the room. The staff that remained in the room reported feeling a crushing sense of panic and discord until the kids came back. Rheinhelm decided not to try to interfere again but ensured that he kept a close eye on everyone at the sanitarium, especially the special cases.
Weeks become months. During that time the children continued to create, and create, and create some more. In that time, Kyle managed to slip out twice more to find pieces. The second time Doctor Rheinhelm saw him slipping out the door and followed. Rather than slip out the front gate as Rheinhelm expected, Kyle slipped through a gap in a side gate that was held shut with a padlock and chain and walked around the grounds to the main street.
It took a few moments for the doctor to open the gate and follow. Kyle was already to an intersection by the time the doctor reached the street. Once at the intersection, Kyle stepped out into that intersection heedless of horses, carriages, and steam carriages and turned in circles until finally settling on a direction and heading down the street. He repeated this twice more at other intersections and then again a few times at various alleyways.
At last, Kyle came to a rubbish pile behind an abandoned factory. Crouching down, he sorted through the heap until he found whatever treasures he was looking for. Using one hand to brush away dirt and grime, he pulled out a flywheel easily as large as a carriage wheel. This he carefully set aside while he examined a huge gear box the size of a milk crate. After turning each of the gears a few times he then looked right up to the Doctor. Without a word, he marched to where the doctor was hiding and thrust the wheel into the Doctor's arms before picking up the gear box and walking back to the sanitarium, with a bewildered Doctor Rheinhelm following behind.
As the months past the room became less and less recognizable. The tables and chairs slowly disappeared from the room entirely replaced by moving and rotating columns, whirling wheels, and spinning gears. Even the harpsichord seemed to disappear somehow being merged into the growing creation until it was but an almost hidden keyboard that increasingly seemed to play itself even if Tommy's fingers were still often on it. Likewise, Violet's violin seemed to likewise disappear or be absorbed and yet violin music or some approximation so close as to be indistinguishable from the real thing still emulated from the room even as she assisted Kaitlynn, Kirstin, and Michael with other pieces. Even more oddly, chimes, drums, even the occasional flute or horn seemed to occasionally sound in the room as well despite the fact none of these were evident.
But if those items were seemingly absent, any number of other things were not. From the ceiling, the walls, various columns, boxes, balls, wheels, and gears sprung any manner of wires, hooks, springs, hinges, and clasps; some thick and sturdy, others so delicate they were almost invisible to the eye from any distance.
Exactly one year and five minutes after IT began, IT ended. As IT drew to an end Doctor Rheinhelm was present in the room. He witnessed what he described in the more lucid moments at the end of his life as a kind of blooming. To paraphrase the good doctor's analogy, it was as if the entire years worth labor of the children had been some sort of mechanical flower that was growing, nurturing, feeding upon the children's labor and that at exactly two-sixteen in the afternoon that flower bloomed.
And what a flower it was. As the creation seemed to unfold and spread, it revealed a scene that is very nearly indescribable. Imagine for a moment, that you walk into a room, and the entire room is a painting, but this room is not just a painting because pieces of the painting are moving, and then you realize they aren't parts of the painting at all but columns, axils, wheels, and gears that all blend into the painting and that from many of these wheels, axils, columns spring delicate creations. Some are purely wood or wire, and others are combinations of all of these things. These creations are birds, bees, horses, cats, dogs, carriages, ships, and airships that are spinning and twirling around the room. And each of these creations throws light gathered from now hidden windows around the room in dazzling and confusing ways.
Then imagine that as the light dances and dazzles around the room it seems to interact with each spinning, buzzing, whirling, and twirling creation in such a way as there are a dozen, dozen different scenes playing out in this room that is both a painting and not a painting. Each scene appearing different based upon where you are in the room and each scene part of the larger whole so that the entire thing becomes almost like a window into another world.
Finally, imagine that this world is singing to you, oh yes, for not only are the various pieces buzzing and flapping, and humming, and twirling, but there is a kind of music coming from the this scene too; music that comes from hidden strings plucked, drawn, and struck, from chimes both hidden and not, from drums, from horns and nearly hidden bellows, and from the machinery itself.
A man could spend his entire life in that room and still never see or hear the same exact scene twice. Men with more mechanical knowledge than Doctor Rheinhelm would come to call this creation one of the most intricate and remarkable perpetual motion machines ever created before or since, but to Doctor Rheinhelm it was simply called the Imaginarium and he considered it both his greatest source of wonder and the symbol of his greatest failure.
For at two-seventeen pm he lost all seven of his Special Case patients. As the creation bloomed to life they spun happily and then did something that Doctor Rheinhelm had never seen or heard them do before; they laughed. They laughed and spun around through the creation then they all stopped and looked right at the doctor and waved.
One moment they were there, the next moment, they were gone.
What exactly happened is still a mystery to this day. No one knows exactly what happened or how the children disappeared. Even those that witnessed the event cannot agree.
Some that were present swear the kids faded away into nothingness. Others claim they simply collapsed and died. A third group states the children simply walked out of the room never to return. Yet others maintain they all just slipped peacefully into a coma they never woke from until one by one they passed from this world into the next.
Whatever the truth, Doctor Rheinhelm never recovered from that loss. He loved each of his patients in his own way, and the special cases were particularly close to his heart. Their loss was devastating and he never forgave himself for what he considered his failure to realize they were working themselves to death. Later that year he retired, though he still came to visit the Imaginarium nearly every day. Over the years he became increasingly withdrawn and his guilt over his perceived failure caused him to lose his grip on his sanity and in time he became the Newport Sanitarium's only adult patient.
At the very end of his life, as he lay on his deathbed, his wife at his side, he asked to have a final look at the Imaginarium. The doctors and nurses bundled him up and allowed his wife to accompany them as they moved him to a wheelchair and took him down the lift and into the Sanitarium.
He asked his wife to push him into a spot almost to a corner where airships flew over around and over his head. With his wife by his side, he watched them for several minutes and as one came down, he held out his hand and examined it closely. To his surprise the little ship of brass and cloth had a little flag off the stern castle. On that flag were thirteen red and white stripes and a Jolly Roger in the corner.
He smiled softly, released the ship, and made a remark about finallyseeing the brass skies. Then he closedhis eyes and was gone. The Imaginariumgrew completely silent for a long moment, with only the quietest pieces of theImaginarium continuing to move. Thenafter a few soft sad notes, the Imaginarium resumed its usual motion andsound. As it did so the sound ofchildren's laughter—laughter that was soon answered by that of an old man—couldbe heard echoing quietly throughout the room