Rewinder by Brett Battles Read Free Book Online

so our physical training sessions always begin with a run. At first, it’s “only” a mile, but within a week we’re doing two and then three and then four. The rest of our time is spent building our strength. One day is chest and arms, and then abs, backs, and legs before the cycle starts over again.
    By the time I finish dinner each evening and drag myself to my room, all I want to do is sleep, but every day Marie gives me something I need to read before the next session, so it’s always several more hours before I can finally lay my head down.
    Marie and I work backward through the twentieth century as the British Empire continued its expansion, annexing the whole of Central America and much of South America after the victorious Spanish War of 1903. From there, we move into the nineteenth century and the rise of the industrial world, led by Britain and fed by the vast resources of its American territories.
    While much of what I learn touches on areas I’ve studied in the past, what Marie presents is a full version, what she calls raw history. It’s not long before I realize that the past I thought I knew, the one all regular students are taught, has been sanitized and dressed up to serve the interest of the realm.
    Case in point—the slave industry here in North America. I, and everyone I know, think that when King James III abolished slavery in 1841, those who had been in servitude were offered the choice of assimilation into British society here in America or a voyage back to Africa, where their ancestors were from. The truth, according to what Marie tells me, is quite different. The choice was offered only to a select few. Most were forced onto boats and shipped across the ocean, where they were dumped in a land they did not know with a language they did not speak. Localized wars broke out near many of these reintegration sites, and more than half of the former slaves were slaughtered. Of those who survived, another third died from hunger and disease.
    This is not the history we were taught.
    “What do you know of Queen Victoria?” Marie asks.
    “She became queen upon the death of her uncle, King William…” I pause, closing my eyes to remember. “…the Fourth, in the late 1830s.”
    “Eighteen thirty-seven,” she says.
    “She was queen for three years until her assassination by Edward Oxford.”
    “The date?”
    Every student knows this one. “June 4 th , 1840.”
    Oxford lay in wait for the queen and her husband, Prince Albert, to ride by in their open carriage. The first bullet took her life, while the second ripped through the prince’s shoulder, puncturing his lung. He lived, but only for a few more months. Officially his death was caused by infection from the wound, but the popular story was that he died from a broken heart.
    “And the succession?” she asks.
    “James the Third took the throne.”
    She cocks her head. “Surely you were taught more than that.”
    From a young age we’re expected to memorize the order of royalty. Any kid older than eight can recite it, up to at least the early eighteenth century: The four Georges (I, II, III, IV), William IV, Victoria, James III, James IV, John II, Catherine, James V, and, the current king, Phillip II. But she’s right. I do know more.
    “There was something about one of her uncles,” I say as I dig into my memory. “The king of…Hanover. Right?”
    “Correct. Ernest Augustus. The queen had produced an heir the year before she died, a daughter. But since she was still a baby, he claimed the throne should be his.”
    “But that didn’t happen,” I say. “He died before he could be crowned. So did the child.”
    “Correct, again. And how did they die?”
    “Some kind of disease.”
    “Pneumonia? Is that what you’re looking for?”
    “Yes. Right. Pneumonia.”
    “Then you’ll be surprised to learn the king of Hanover was poisoned.”
    “Is that true?”
    “It is.”
    “What about the girl?” I