Prof. Seidel Ma Msc Phd FBsPS ………….Character Sketch 5.13

” You must be the one they call Shaman” The boy with the serious Eastern European face grunted.

Professor Seidel held a steady gaze, and was forced to accept the thrust parcel, watching the sound of leaving footsteps.

She sat at her simple antique, satinwood desk and placed her hands flat, either side of the parcel,. mirroring the ghost of her father

The electric light, needed even on sunny days, at the oldest part of St. Cyprian’s hospital, cast a shadow of an African artefact over the square shaped curiosity in front of her.

She clipped the string with her father’s ornate letter knife releasing an envelope bearing her name. Prof. Seidel and pulled her small frameless glasses from her head into position.

Dear Sue,

Please!  Do not open the parcel. If you are reading this it means my life is over. You will be told that it was by my own hand. It was not! You are my only friend, my confidante, my teacher and my Shaman. You who has too much humility to call yourself so, but that is indeed what you are. You are in possession of great power and magic.

As you journeyed for me you never once asked why my soul was so troubled and so fractured. You did so well in retrieving pieces of my lost soul that had been stolen and replaced with illness.

I need to tell you my story and then you will know what to do with the contents of the parcel. As you know, I am of Polish, Jewish descent. Your suspicion that my parents suffered during the war was correct.  I was born in Buchenwald concentration camp, in 1941. I was four when we were liberated by the Americans. My father was a skinner in Weimar and was put to use at the zoo in the camp that the commandant’s wife had wanted. He made drums and lampshades out of the animals that died. When she wanted him to make the same items from humans he refused and she was so hot with rage she had him decapitated in front of my pregnant mother. A small drum was made from his skin and skull and his teeth held it together. My mother, a phantom of the night stole the skull and secretly buried it, until we were freed. My mother died two years later and the letters she left me are inside also.

This skull is not my father, they are just his remains but it does have demons attached to it. These demons attached themselves to my soul. I know you will know what to do with it. I will see you in your dreams.

Deepest Respect. Kasia Reznik.

Prof. Seidel unlocked the wooden corner cabinet and placed the parcel inside. She took slow deep cleansing breaths and lit her sage smudging sticks. Her next student would be in shortly. This would wait until later.