Wouldn't you know it: another era, another Sorensen.

The exact details of Caleb's ancestry are lost to time (mostly because Emmet forgot to ask) but we can reconstruct a few broad strokes. The Sorensen-Buddenbrocks were a Scandinavian family of perhaps minor noble lineage that, somewhere along the way, fell out of wealth and prominence, prompting a branch of their tree to fork and migrate to the New World. There, they found newfound prosperity in the lucrative sugar and molasses trade.

It's a business that Caleb has nothing to do with.

As a fawn he contracted an illness (possibly yellow fever or malaria) that he was not expected to survive. Survive he did, and although dying from communicable diseases in early childhood was extremely common in his era, his status as his mother's last child (he has seven older siblings) set the course of the rest of his life. Caleb's mother was determined not to lose her "baby".

With every cough or sniffle, the doctors were brought in, and their treatments did more than anything else to worsen Caleb's condition (a kid can only take so much bloodletting!). Confined to bed much of the time and with few other children to interact with, books became Caleb's best friends.

However, none of the texts Caleb devoured had to do with farming sugarcane or accounting techniques. As the young reindeer grew older his interests steadily took on a... decidedly supernatural tone. For a youth forbidden to interact with this world, it was the world beyond that seized hold of his imagination.

After his mother died in his teens (and his constant bouts of illness, perhaps not coincidentally, died down with her) his relatives despaired at what to do with him. He had no constitution for physical labor and no head for business, and his odd, sheltered, eccentric mannerisms made him a poor marriage prospect. Not that the Sorensen-Buddenbrock lineage wasn't already secure through his siblings.

So he was gifted a respectable but not ostentatious house by the seaside, isolated enough that he could perform his incantations and summonings therein without embarrassing anyone.

"Today", Caleb is 26 years old, still unmarried and... fine with not looking. He's perfectly satisfied being left alone to pursue his research. He can sometimes be found in harbor towns, interviewing sailors about their encounters with the supernatural. Every old salt has a ghost story, and the tales Caleb is gathering—together with his findings from old tomes—point to a singularly intense concentration of spiritual energy centered somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic.

But alas, he is far too frail to tolerate the rigors of a sea voyage. If only he were made of sterner stuff, he might sail out there himself to investigate...

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One idea I'll probably go with is that the further back in time Emmet & Sully travel, the less the Bryce ancestors they encounter resemble him. This one is still near enough to the present to display some clear similarities.

In any event, this Sorensen is brought to you by  A-Kitsune

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I almost forgot! Remember Bob? Well, here he is again, freaking out about something he saw (I don't think it's Mina).