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A disheartened girl finds renewed hope in a gifted boy and a mystic mountain. When 16-year-old Julissa Grant, broken hearted by the loss of her father and a close friend, is uprooted and moved cross-country by her distraught mother, she throws caution to
Copyright © 2012 JOHN J BLENKUSH All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the author www.jblenkush.com ISBN: 1469902958 ISBN-13: 978-1469902951 To my wife, NJ, whose “touch” rejuvenates my life-force A special thank-you to my wife and family, who are forever the wind beneath my wings, for their understanding when I disappear into my fictional world, and for their ongoing continued support “I feel my heart stand still, as if in waiting to reverse direction.” Julissa Grant Legend has it the ancient Lemurian city of Telos lies beneath the great northern Californian volcano of Mount Shasta Lemurians live on, so the storytellers say We’ve seen them, they say, tall, handsome, beautiful, gentle giants with blue eyes and flowing manes of blonde hair Small people too, miniature, darting from here to there, so fast the eye cannot follow Living in hollow earth, where light ends darkness, where walls are tinted gold, the ceilings cast in jewel, the floors copper laid Animals abound, the fish and the fowl too, living in harmony, nary a bone left to the rot And here you will find the flower, foliage, and fruit, sweet nectar, all, next to none, snatched away only to reappear, to nourish in the morrow And what shall we say of the mountain dwellers? Those who reap the essence of the mountain, who practice the ancient art of vampirism, transferring and manipulating life-force energy, for neither is it created or lost, only shifted from crucible to crucible Should we say they are worthy? Should we say they are wicked? Surface dwellers bite their tongues, fearful their whispers of tittletattle will be heard, their destinies forever lay to waste by the masters of vampirism Only the story-tellers, old men and women, a foot set in the grave, dare discharge the secrets they hold, for death is the enemy of misery and a fond friend to those who wish to live no more Learned men will tell you life-force knows no evil, knows no good And so too, the vessel which holds the soul, it must be chosen with care and due diligence, for what good is it to cast a net only to catch a tailless fish, a wingless bird, a bull without heart, or one who casts aside The Law of One, for herein lays the crux The storytellers say, foretelling is written in the Record of Ancient Matters The Lemurians will a day ascend, lift their superlatives to the surface, and pledge them to wage war, not with blunt force, but with imprint The chosen few will learn the ways of surface dwellers, liberate their hearts and minds, turn them from destruction to salvation One, they say, will lead the coming, going forth to choose a surface equal, to unite with her as one, as is inscribed by The Laws of One, to procreate a newborn, so all will come to see the infant as, HeIS For the time will come, when all things old must end, when the world will replicate the obliteration of Mu and, for those who survive, only one choice will remain; HeIS To this end, a bride, pure in heart, virtuous in body, soul of perfect love, must be mated And on the day of her bequest, the sun will stop, reverse, and start again Solstice will pass A new world will seek restoration through rebirth New will replace old, scraping clean what is, so what must come will be, good triumphing over evil And so the Solstice Saga begins, a story to be told and handed down through the ages, so all will know; a new world is yet to come, for it has been written in the Record of Ancient Matters In the overall events of the world, skipping a class on history to lark around on such a grand autumn day isn’t such a big deal Or at least it shouldn’t be Turns out it’s a life changer for me My first week as a sophomore in a new high school and here I am ditching my last period class Why I need to know what happened four-hundred years ago? What sixteen year old girl is going to care who fought who in what war and for what reason? Was there ever a good enough reason to cause harm? I didn’t think so Mr Mattingly, my history teacher, said, “If you don’t like my class, the door swings both ways Don’t let it hit you on your backside on the way out.” I took him up on his offer I look across at Cherrie who has her left leg tucked up under her on the driver’s seat of her grandfather’s Lincoln Continental I suppose I can blame her for my infraction After all, she’s two years older than me She started school a year late—something about Attention Disorder—and managed to flunk a class in grade school But I know she’s not dumb As far as I can tell, she’s the smartest student at Shasta High School (SHS), clever enough to find a shortcut around six hours of classes a day It’s a no brainer If you are a student at Jefferson High, SHS’s continuation school, you have issues Cherrie’s issue was boredom She made the choice to attend the alternative school Decisions of that sort make her the adult of our pair in my eyes and a promising leader Of course it doesn’t hurt she has a driver’s license and, more important, access to a car As we drive out of Shasta City, California, and enter I-5 heading south, I can’t help but feel like Louise in one of my mom’s favorite movies, Thelma and Louise Only I haven’t been raped and Cherrie hasn’t killed anyone, or at least she hasn’t in the two short months I’ve known her I’m exhilarated for having escaped school, frightened at what may take place when I return, and jacked up for the boy hunt Thinking back over the last several months, I expected the worse when Dierdra, my mother, informed me we were moving from White Bear Lake, Minnesota, to a small town in northern California called Shasta City I had been to Shasta once when I was five I didn’t remember much about the town I did remember Uncle Mickey and his overgrown mustache and the way he liked to grab me, lie down on the floor, and while hoisting me up in the air, recite the I’ll give you a pickle for a nickel rhyme I also had vivid memories of Uncle Mickey’s small log cabin, mostly because of the enormous amount of snow blanketing the house, the Christmas lights, and sledding down the snow caked driveway I still remembered Uncle Mickey showing me how to make angels in the snow and I still remembered Big Carrot, the snowman we made For a while, those cherished memories lay within me, tarnished by the hate I felt for Uncle Mickey’s role in the death of my father, Simon Grant Uncle Mickey and my father perished in a white out—as the newspaper headlines described it—on Mount Hood Their bodies were never found It took me a few years to accept the fact father died doing something he loved to and it wasn’t Uncle Mickey’s fault, even if he was the one who enticed his brother to go mountaineering I found peace with Dad’s passing Mom didn’t Uncle Mickey, in his will, left his log cabin to Simon Naturally, Dierdra inherited it upon Simon’s death I suppose it was because of me it took three years before mother closed on the idea of relocating to California I just didn’t expect it to happen after I had already completed my freshman year at White Bear Lake High School and made new friends, not to mention being forced to give up my childhood buddies I felt for Dierdra, so I didn’t complain much about the move She’s a psychotherapist She’s good at helping others with their anxieties, depression, and phobias, but it was becoming increasing apparent she wasn’t good at helping herself I could feel her slipping away; the mood shifts, the staring out the window at nothing, weight loss, drinking to excess, that sort of thing Moving to the town of Shasta City, which rests on the flank of the mountain, Mount Shasta, would allow her to find closure in Simon’s passing Or at least that was what she told me It didn’t seem to matter to her Mount Shasta wasn’t where father had died and now laid entombed in ice He and Uncle Mickey had summited Shasta a half dozen times, two of those from the north side This is where Simon had chosen to set his spirit free It is where, I imagined, Dierdra believed his spirit lived on How, I wondered, would she find closure by chasing ghosts on a mountain? And maybe I didn’t complain because I knew I could use a change in scenery too After having lost a friend and my father to death within a year’s time, I felt my life had forever lost its purpose At one point I found myself asking the question: What’s the point of struggling on if sorrow scarifies everything worth living for? As Cherrie’s life did for her, the cruelty of my life ate away at my soul and carved inroads into my will to live So why should I care? I lost my passion I grew apathetic Joy eluded me It was time for a change Some would say a drastic change So I didn’t complain, not too loudly anyway, when Dierdra approached me and asked if I wouldn’t mind moving to California I met Cherrie, who lives across the street from Uncle Mickey’s cabin with her grandfather, Garl, the same day we moved in She wore blue jeans and a flannel shirt With her short cropped hair and the ever present unlit cigarette hanging from her mouth, I—at first and from a distance—mistook her for a boy Within days we were inseparable She seemed to need a friend More so, I understood, she needed someone to follow her on her adventures I needed a lifeline and a bridge to my new life, so I unwittingly became her accomplice Or at least that’s what I like to tell myself Fact is I know exactly what I am doing Skipping a class from school would come at a price, but at the moment I don’t care, as long as my punishment doesn’t mean the loss of life or limb As far as I know, Cherrie and I, unlike Thelma and Louise, aren’t planning on driving over a cliff, which seems to be my mom’s favorite scene in the movie I give Cherrie the once over in attempt to gauge her mood She did say we were going rock climbing in the Castle Crag State Forest She wasn’t planning on jumping off a cliff, I could only hope With Cherrie, you never know I heard Cherrie once punched a guy who outweighed her by twohundred pounds in the gut for insisting the pronunciation of her name was Cherry (emphasis on the Ch) and not Cherrie, as in Sherrie She could be unpredictable and, of course, temperamental “What’re you thinking?” Cherrie asks, as her lips clamp down on the unlit cigarette “Why are we going rock climbing? You know us Minnesotans have flat feet.” “Julis” (my name is Julissa Grant but I’m not about to punch Cherrie in the gut for not pronouncing it correct) “take a look out there.” Cherrie points out past the road, her finger stretching long in a south west direction “What you see?” I stare out beyond the road and the pine studded forest Castle Crags State Park is well known throughout Northern California for its towering crags and spires and convex slabs of granite, one of which makes up Castle Dome “Rock,” I say “And lots of it.” “And we have to climb it, why?” Cherrie smiles I think I know what she is going to say I rush to beat her to the answer “Because, like the mountain, it’s there? Right?” “Course not, dweeb Not taking you to climb rock.” “Then what?” “Because that’s where the boys are.” “You’ve got to be kidding me! Didn’t we just leave a school full of boys? Over two-hundred by my count.” “None like these.” “And these are?” “Rock climbers Spidermen.” “Cough Sputter For real? I’m risking detention at school and grounding at home to see Toby Maguire in tights?” “You haven’t seen these hunks climb the wall Pretty impressive stuff Muscle against mass Sweat against stone.” “Only walls we have in Minnesota are mounds of snow No one climbs them but little kids.” “Reason enough to take you along To broaden your horizons.” Thank You for previewing this eBook You can read the full version of this eBook in different formats: HTML (Free /Available to everyone) PDF / TXT (Available to V.I.P members Free Standard members can access up to PDF/TXT eBooks per month each month) Epub & Mobipocket (Exclusive to V.I.P members) To download this full book, simply select the format you desire below ... nourish in the morrow And what shall we say of the mountain dwellers? Those who reap the essence of the mountain, who practice the ancient art of vampirism, transferring and manipulating life-force... heard, their destinies forever lay to waste by the masters of vampirism Only the story-tellers, old men and women, a foot set in the grave, dare discharge the secrets they hold, for death is the. .. without heart, or one who casts aside The Law of One, for herein lays the crux The storytellers say, foretelling is written in the Record of Ancient Matters The Lemurians will a day ascend, lift their