Chapter Samples:
Soul’s Little Lie 1: Echoes of the Lost
By: Tara B. Dobbs
Chapter One
Heavily on his mind, Ambros Hayemore came to realize through years of study on the Isle of Sperotus, that the time was right to find out what went so terribly wrong in the kingdom. Ambros was not exactly banished to the holy isle, nor was he not allowed to venture back to the mainland either, especially into the kingdom itself, as ordered by his father Lord Ynycornus. As to what brought on this royal decree, Ambros wanted to find out.
In the warm tropical surroundings on the Isle of Sperotus Ambros could watch by viewing pools in the crystal caverns as to what was going on in his homeland.
On the eighteenth month, of the year 5846 AE (After Exodus), the rouge priest Elrad, rallied his followers of simple folk, soldiers, merchants and others of the like to arms, (even rich and poor alike), in the middle of a blustery cold autumn season. The Mythian kingdom barely found itself in the midst of a religious war. Two sides fought for control over who believed in what and how to believe. The newly founded heavily evangelical religious Noukadian Order verses the original spiritual founding of the Temple itself.
Priest against priest.
Mythian against Mythian.
A kingdom divided is a kingdom laid to ruin and no more.
A warm night breeze breathed through the open balcony doors into his bed chamber inside a much smaller version of the Hayemore Castle replicated for his amusement on the solitary island. A set of soft pale blue linen curtains danced rustling the ornate potted plants nearby. Brushing lose strains of his long pale blonde hair from his face, Ambros attentively reviewed his notes, comparing them to a few pages in The Book of Anora, a copy he made for himself unbeknownst to his father, as he held the flapping pages down with his elbow. Ambros had been a long term student of the forbidden arts of conscious time travel studying for the past hundred years her on the island alone.
Reading quietly to himself aloud, “Time does not stand still for anyone. No matter how hard they try to convince themselves otherwise. Time is fluid. Easy to travel through but is best not to interfere with the physical world of time. Consciousness between minds is the most fluid of time there ever is or ever will be.” Ambros called this form of time – between the spaces. He understood this basic law of time far too well up to this point, though there was much work to be done.
Now that he had enough experience under his belt, traveling to a few hundred worlds though the guided consciousness of unsuspecting peoples, he thought it a good time as any to begin the arduous task of cleaning up his father’s mistake. Turning the heavy wooden cover of the Anora closed on his desk, he strolled over to the center of the room; sat cross legged in a meditative position. Pushed his long straight hair behind him, closed his blue eyes and breathed slowly. Within a short amount of time Ambros’ soul escaped the confines of his body with ease.
There the soul of him, his true energy self, fully dressed as he so wanted to see himself in simple silver white robes with hints of blue accent, floated a few inches off the ground waiting. A silver slit in the air formed in an instant before him. Stepping through the slit a flash of light whisked him away from the physical domain of time into between the spaces.
Consciousness was all around him. Universe, not being a thing but an awakened place of energy that breathed and moved; that was aware of itself, was out stretched with its fantastical vastness of darkness and light. This visual of Universe was not the physical form you would see in the night sky of dusted starry arms of the galaxy draped across a black velvet sky. It was the same visual form, but hyper expressed with more vivid color of as many galaxies, stars, planets and other cosmic bodies you could ever see in a hundred lifetimes all condensed closer for easier travel from galaxy to galaxy.
Tonight, Ambros had one location set on his mind. Not a direct place like a planet per say, but a location in one person’s mind. He had scanned through millions, and billions of people’s minds over the decades on countless worlds, but it was this one location that had the most consciously awakened beings in one grouping, save for his own peoples – the Mythians. He only had to contact seven, but with great delicacy. Thinking of one gentleman in particular, Ambros set his thoughts in guiding him into Frankie Bellington’s dream. There he would begin telling his story to him in the safe confines of the dreaming. The one place that was a step away from walking into the portal that lead to the Isle of Sperotus. Ambros had granted this portal into these seven individuals after years of studying their minds and life experiences. There was a catch though, of course –
For those he contacted in their dreaming, if they did not confess to a loved one or confront their demons here in the dreaming, they would surely be lost in between the spaces forever. No way out. Not even by his own power or his father’s could set these people free. Their own actions to face their demons in the dreaming would save them for a better future or damn themselves to a haunting conscious state out of the reaches of all other consciousness that made up Universe.
How haunted are you, that you refuse to listen to your inner heart’s truth?
Detective Jacob Umari was not about to spend another late night going through case files of missing person reports, his expertise. He was ordered by his superior officer that a total clean out of the old room had to be done. This was asked of him and a team of twelve other officers and case workers five weeks ago. The task was daunting, but worth the dusty shelves causing hay fever in some of the crew. A whole host of files dating back to the early 1800s had been unearthed in countless old boxes, some made of wood laden with dents, scratches and some covered in old spider nests with dried up, but still sticky egg sacks. It was quite serious work, but everyone had to pitch in. Even if that meant some had to work alone at late night like Jacob.
Picking through one of the old boxes at his desk, a fellow officer knocked on the desk top startling him. “Sorry about that,” the man chuckled, Jacob giving him a half forced smirk, “Just wanted to let you know you can head home early.” Looking at his cell phone for the time, “In about ten minutes actually. Tell Abby I said hi.”
Wide eyed at the unexpected news, Jacob rushed through the last few files and placed them in the proper new filing box labeled – 1850 to 1860 Missing Adult Females. Rushing back over to his desk, he gathered his dark blue coat swinging it around to slip his arms through. Behind the closed doors of the office, down the hall, Jacob could hear foot steps and conversation coming down the way. The night shift was about ready to start.
Slipping into the old file room, where he and the other twelve officers and clerks had been working for five weeks, he looked around back at the shelves he was stationed to work through. There were three boxes left. Signing his name on a clip board to sign out from this room of his work, he turned back to the three boxes for a moment. Stepped forward and from the corner of his eye to the right he caught a glimise of a long pale blond haired man wearing a trench coat step into the file room.
Startled, Jacob acknowledged the man, “You’re not supposed to be here. How did you get in here?” he had never seen the man before in any of the offices or halls of the Boston FBI agency.
“That box you put your hand on, go through that one last time,” the man asked, directing his gaze to the box and nodding slightly.
“I’m leaving for the night. I’ll work on this tomorrow,” a sense of unease crept up around Jacob as he found his fingers searching in the box of files for him. The urge to go through the pages for just a moment began to excite Jacob.
Slipping out a few pages of old heavy parchment and a few old photos, Jacob’s eyes widened at the image of a long pale blond haired young man on the black and white photograph. “Is this what you wanted me to find?” Reading what was written in cursive on the file: Lowell, Massachusetts. A tingle drifted through his fingers and down his spine as he lifted the file from the box. “This case is closed. Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked calmly, lifting the heavy parchment out a little trying to read the words written in oxidized ink. Upon closer inspection he saw the words were in ancient Gaelic and Latin. Looking up from the folder toward the tall man again, the only response was a slow nod before he turned away, his black trench coat trailing behind. Running after him out the room, he saw the current night shift crew settling in for the night and the mysterious trench coat man had disappeared. Swiftly looking down the hall both directions, Jacob concluded the man had most certainly disappeared. Taking out his cell phone, Jacob speed dialed his friend Frankie.
“I think I’m going to need your help on this,” slipping the file folder under his coat, Jacob made his way to the elevator. “Could you meet me at the Commons in three days? I know it’s short notice, but I really need your help. This whole mess just got a lot more complicated. I feel her presence. She’s near.” Jacob spoke with nervous speed.
Pulling into the drive way of his house, the car lights illuminating the closed garage door, the porch light clicked on the moment his wife Abby stepped outside. She was keeping their three year old daughter from running toward him afraid she may run out into the neighborhood street. Smiling to his wife, he shuffled the collection of folders and heavy papers under his coat making sure none of them fell out onto the damp pathway to the front door.
Abby giving Jacob a quick kiss on the lips in greeting, their daughter Amanda ran back inside giggling as she went, throwing herself onto the tan carpeted floor in front of her brightly colored plastic building blocks and other toys. Closing the front door after he stepped in, Abby eyed the buldging bundle under his coat.
“What’d you have there, sweetie?”
Not taking off his coat, Jacob remembered the strict rule his wife of six years, so far, had drilled into his mind since he began working at the beau in Boston – No work related material is allowed in this house, not even if your superior says you can. While at the same time, he could not lie to her at any cost since this was the first time he broke that house rule that was so strictly enforced by his loving wife.
Swallowing his nerves, he motioned for Abby to the dinning table. Placing the tan folder, which looked to be falling apart, onto the table before he took off his coat. “I had to bring these home because…” he trailed off knowing what she’d say next.
“You had another one of those feelings and dreams again, didn’t you?” Abby expressed worry toward him, rubbing his arm reassuringly. Jacob nodded, “The last time you had one of these moments was a few days after I told you I was pregnant with Amanda.”
Jacob didn’t answer. He just stood there staring at the pile of old papers and the few pages of heavy parchment and photos. Something about the photo made his body shiver. Gently sliding out the black and white photo, his hand shaking, he realized the man he saw in the filing room looked a whole lot like the man in this photo. ‘Could it be a relative?’ he thought just as Abby broke his concentration and silence with coffee being poured into a cup.
Since Jacob was very young he had a sense about him that he could feel the presence of the dead. Not exactly like clairvoyance, but something different. This ability to sense a missing person was not just a trait he alone possessed. This trait had been passed down from mother to child for fifteen generations since the 1400s in Futal era Japan. If this ability went further back than this, family records were probably lost.
Handing him the cup of coffee, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not sure. I don’t know what’s going on here. Something’s different unlike the other times dealing with a missing person,” taking a gentle sip from his cup, he held one of the three heavy parchments.
“That looks like Gaelic and Latin,” Abby commented looking closer.
“It is and something else, too. Some kind of runes, but they don’t look anything like Norse to me.” As part of his minor studies at Boston University, Jacob took up ancient written languages of Norwegian, Gaelic and Latin. It was only for some extra class credits, something that interested him, but never did he think it would come of any use now days. “I don’t understand. How could an ancient parchment be mixed in with these 19th century photos and hospital papers?”
“Maybe you should take it to a professional to get them tested to be sure they are as old as you think they are,” Abby suggested, as she checked in on little Amanda who was still playing with her toys in the living room.
Looking across the living room at the clock on the wall, “It’s nearly eight o’clock, maybe I could give the professor a quick call.”
Jacob called up the professor on Skype right away.
“What brings you this late to call me, Mr. Umari?” the man asked, pleased to be talking with one of his past students.
“I have this old parchment I found at work,” lifting it up and showing to the camera, making sure the document was in focus. “Can you see it?”
“Yes. I can also see the Gaelic and Latin, but I don’t recognize those rune like scripts. Why don’t I come over to your house tomorrow to take a closer look. Is that okay with you and the misses?”
“Sure, professor,” Abby chimed from the living room as she got up to join the conversation in Jacob’s study. “Jacob has tomorrow off for a friend’s birthday party in the late afternoon. You can come over in the morning, say around eleven sound good?” Jacob smiled at his wife, seeing the excitement in her eyes to be part of this possible discovery if anything unique came about these three parchments.
© Tara B. Dobbs and tarabdobbs.com, 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Tara B. Dobbs and tarabdobbs.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
