The Mandrakes, Volume III: Call of the Loon

Prodigy. The last word young Jacob Winslow Marshall would conjure were he to apply description of himself. Prescience. Now, that was a concept which he understood, though he couldn’t have picked the alien word out of a perp lineup. Until he could.
Elkin Pond epitomized the beauty that was southern Vermont, but in Jake’s case, the body of water provided separation between divergent worlds the boy inhabited. Finding succor in the warmth of an elderly couple’s sphere on one side enabled ultimate divestiture from the ignorance, negativism and narrow-mindedness rampant at the boy’s birthplace on the opposite edge of the pond. Though integrally important to him, the reasons for the tie to the hand-hewn home had dissolved the day his real Daddy left.
From earliest years of Jake’s life, he recognized a destiny of dramatic import in the dimness of a Texas horizon yet to be explored. The state remained as nameless as the inherent trait--- prescience--- by which he drew the certainty. Until he learned it.
He knew it to be where he must make way in order to fulfill purposes. Emphasis on the plural. There was a promise to be kept… and…
Someone awaited.