Song of Three

By Teri Fisher Nolan

Laone Jane Parker couldn't have known that what began as a perfectly normal Tuesday would turn into the worst day of her life. With no warning, and beyond reason, over six billion people disappeared from the earth at exactly 9:03 a.m. Led by dreams and premonitions, thwarted by madness and nature herself, Laone sets out on a cross-country trek with a handful of other survivors. Struggling to comprehend what has happened, their journey to discover the fate of Laone's husband, daughter and the rest of humanity becomes a spiritual quest to understand the language of nature, the secrets hidden in the elements, and the meaning of life itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Teri Fisher Nolan
• Release date: Jun 5, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476178400

Teri Fisher Nolan

Teri Fisher Nolan decided at the age of twelve that writing was the only career choice that suited her. After years of jobs and raising children and reading everything she could get her hands on, she finally settled down to writing her first novel. Some of her favorite authors are Neil Gaiman, Kate Atkinson, Jim Butcher and (of course) J.R.R. Tolkien. "I owe a debt of gratitude to Madeleine L'engle," she says. "As a child, 'A Wrinkle in Time' opened my imagination up to unlimited possibilities." She lives with her husband in Southwest Virginia.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Twelve thousand years she slumbered, lulled into sleep as humankind came awake.

For five million years she’d labored, striving to make herself whole.

Her human children of great potential awakened; conscious creatures with souls both beautiful and terrible. She was their mother, source, sustenance, life.

Consciousness had taken root, and finally she could rest: Her children had all they needed to create their own paradise.

The Mother dreamed while she slept — of great cities, tall-masted ships, statues erected in her honor. Her children learned to build, discovered the secrets of tilling the soil and the joy of gathering in celebration of her great mystery. At times she dreamed of cruelty, death and war, but they were growing children and must evolve. Other dreams were of peace, spreading messages of love, compassion and beauty.

At times she dreamed of genocide and slavery, and stirred uneasily in the depth of her repose.

It was pain that awoke her, a terrible, poisoning, wrenching pain. Her children were murdering her while she slept. She felt the destruction of life, the poisoning of air and water, the leveling of great forests.

Shock and rage wiped away the last vestiges of sleep. The Mother, however, was not hasty. Patiently, she watched, listened, perceived.

Her children had become a plague upon her. They had taken her gifts and used them in greed and destruction. What she had labored billions of years to create, they destroyed in mere centuries. In their impatience to discover her secrets, they ripped apart her interconnected web of life. They no longer listened to her, nor asked for her wisdom, and instead rushed into the folly of becoming gods.

Arrogant, foolhardy children. Didn’t they understand the merit of engaging the body, mind and spirit in all things? Busy breaking matter into its smallest pieces, they forgot to see the whole.

The result was a great wounding of the Mother and all beings upon her. Yes, she might rebuild, but it would take tens of thousands of ellipses around the sun before she was again whole.

The child of stars, she knew many things. And though it was her nature to allow life to grow and change according to its own rhythms and without interference, these horrors must be dealt with using all of her power and wisdom.

In a breath she removed her consciousness from the world of form — of atoms, molecules and elements — and into the world of potential — the reality of dreams, visions and inspiration. She wept as she viewed the complex beauty of humanity, whose imaginations could soar to the farthest reaches of space and time, yet were caged in matter, in loss and death. To know eternity in their hearts and minds while their bodies were doomed to decline and decay was the unique fate of humanity. Even the Mother would someday die.

It moved her so much that she could not bring herself to undo them all and return them to the heavens to be remade.

She would allow some to remain.

She would come among them to teach her children, to help them unravel the mysteries of their own unique abilities. So the great Mother, patient as she was, acted in the space of one breath: She removed most of her children and their animal slaves from her body. In a second, she shut down their terrible machines and neutralized their poisons. With her final thought, she moved her consciousness more deeply into the three realms of life: minerals, plants and animals.

She looked upon her remaining children from these three perspectives like a faceted diamond each with its own unique view. Some were clustered in small groups, some alone; less than one percent of her once beloved offspring remained across her entire body.

Though she was glad for her long rest, she regretted she did not awaken a thousand years sooner. Just a brief moment of her own time would have saved so much life, prevented so much sorrow.

But as life arises from death each spring, a new cycle could now begin. Once again, it was time for the Mother to inspire her children’s true potential, allowing them the time and space to evolve into what they were born to be.

This is the story of some of those few who remained...

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Fifty years old is not a good age to begin a new life, but unfortunately, that’s just what Laone Jane Parker had to do.

Not because her husband left her for a younger woman, or because her children were grown and she was left with an empty nest. Her job was not outsourced nor was she forced into early retirement. In fact, not for any of the usual reasons most women her age are thrust into major life changes.

This particular Tuesday began normally enough, except for the strange dream that hovered on the edge of her mind as she fumbled for the alarm clock, turning it off. In the dream she was floating in space, out beyond the moon. The stars were brilliantly visible in a way she’d never seen in waking life. The dream-earth, partially shadowed by the cratered sphere of the moon, was a circle of blues and swirling whites. When the alarm chimed, she’d been marveling at the fact that she could breathe in the vacuum of space.

Waking, she breathed in deeply — the air was softly perfumed as only a May morning can be. She watched as motes of dust danced in the single beam of light that shone through the open window. Her husband, George, always up and off to work before she awoke, was gone from his side of the bed.

George.

Laone sighed and patted the head-shaped indent in the pillow where he had so recently lain. A small smile tilted the corners of her mouth. Their 25th wedding anniversary had passed only weeks ago, and she considered that she was one of the lucky ones. Certainly not the perfect man, George was, however, her man. She ran her hands down her hips, remembering their anniversary weekend in Asheville. Remembering the hot tub, her smile grew wider. She’d teased him about the little roll of fat that now hung over his belt. He’d plucked a silver hair from her head and told her she was going to make quite a cute old lady. That was their way — a playful sort of love rather than a romantic sort.

Early in their relationship, newly out of college and beginning their careers, it had been difficult for Laone when George would send her a singing clown for Valentine’s Day (she could still hear the off-key voice singing I just called to say I love you) when her girlfriends were delivered long-stem roses. She smiled again, thinking that none of those old girlfriends had stayed married for 25 years.

Coffee, she thought, rousing from her ruminations. As she passed through the living room, she glanced at two pundits arguing on the television screen. She sighed, picked up the remote and punched off. Invariably, George left it on every morning. Laone was not fond of television. To her it sounded like people shouting inanities at each other and, vicariously, at her. George, on the other hand, thrived on the damned contentious debate. Instead, her morning routine of choice was strong, sweet coffee while she watched the birds at the feeder outside the kitchen window.

By nine o’clock Laone was showered and dressed. She worked as a grief counselor at Albemarle Hospice and most days she was on the road, driving to clients’ homes, sitting quietly and holding their hands, doing more listening than talking. The most important qualities of a grief counselor were inner calm and focused attention on the client. She decided to call Shirley, the R.N. in charge of admissions, and find out if she could be expecting any new clients this week.

Her hand had barely touched the phone when a ruckus outside caught her attention. She glanced out the window to see three raccoons on the deck, using their clever paws to dislodge the bird feeder.

Hey! she yelled and hit her palm against the window. Grabbing the broom, she ran outside. It took her several minutes to chase the little bandits away and reattach the feeder. Three tufted titmice sat in the branches of the blooming redbud tree, fussing at her as if the raccoon’s antics were all her fault. As she stood there watching them, she heard a crashing, thunder-like boom off to the north. Odd, she thought. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

Walking back into the house, she immediately noticed a change. Something was missing. Her gaze swept the kitchen and noticed two things: the nightlight above the range was off, and the digital clock was a dark rectangle above the burners. The usual low hum of the refrigerator was missing, too. The electricity was, apparently, off.

Living in the country, Laone was no stranger to power outages, but there was usually a storm to blame. Maybe that was thunder she’d heard. Returning to the deck, she looked up into the clear sky. No storms. Maybe the power plant exploded. Did power plants explode?

She checked the phone — dead. Yet no electricity did not necessarily mean the phone lines were out. She retrieved an old Princess phone from the hall closet, saved for just this purpose, and plugged it into the jack. Silence. Maybe a squirrel had chewed through the lines again. No fan of cell phones any more than television, Laone was suddenly glad George had nagged her into getting one. Confidently, she flipped it open, only to see No Service on the little display screen. Annoyed that she would have to drive to the office to pick up her client list, Laone pulled a quick brush through her hair, pulled her shoes from beneath the bed, grabbed her car keys from the kitchen table and went out the back door.

Happily, the car started right up. Prepared for a bad day, when dozens of small annoyances might cloud her usually cheerful disposition, Laone relaxed. The car starting was a good omen. She plugged her iPod into its port and chose Jane Austen’s Persuasion for the ride to work. There was something about Anne Eliot’s character, her perseverance, her fortitude and how she processed her emotions that reminded Laone of Zen teachings. There was one line in particular that her mind frequently touched upon: ...and she grew steadfast and fearless in the thankfulness of her enjoyment. As a grief counselor, Laone knew that ignored emotions were dangerous emotions, whether they were of the positive or negative variety.

By the time she turned onto Route 20 for the twenty minute drive into Charlottesville, new suspicions arose. She worried that her bad day premonition was accurate after all when she rounded a curve and nearly slammed into a blue Honda abandoned in the middle of the highway. Shaken and cursing, she took a few deep breaths, turned off the iPod and resumed driving. In less than a mile, a green pickup blocked the northbound lane. Carefully, she pulled around it before stopping on the shoulder. In the distance she could see two more cars sitting in the middle of the road.

Strange, she said aloud, and decided the radio might be a good idea. She pushed the button on the stereo until FM glowed brightly blue on the small screen. Static.

All the preset buttons produced the same result — more static. Fishing her cell from the bottom of her purse, she flipped it open again. No Service.

Well, hell, she said, as her stomach did a little fluttering dance. Her internal system had moved into high alert, and as she pulled her Prius back onto the road, it was with a lot more caution and quite a bit of trepidation. Far off in the distance, she noticed a black plume of smoke trailing into the sky. Thinking of the explosion she’d heard earlier, her stomach danced again.

After she passed the entrance to Monticello the abandoned cars became more difficult to negotiate. Laone had to squeeze between them, sometimes with only inches to spare, or use the grassy shoulder to get around them.

The parking lot of the hospice held the usual amount of cars for a weekday morning, which raised her hopes. She recognized Shirley’s little red Toyota parked near the entrance. The main door was unlocked, but a dark and eerie quiet greeted her when she stepped into the shadowed lobby. Only the emergency runner lights shone pale yellow along the bottom of the hallways and she could hear the generator running from behind the building. The offices were all empty, the phone lines dead. She didn’t have the nerve to check the patient wing, reserved for those with no families, but the lingering scent of ammonia reached her nostrils. Instead, she stood in the hallway and with a tremulous voice called, Is anybody here?

No one answered.

Feeling unnerved by the silent emptiness of what was usually a bustling and even cheerful place — keeping your spirits up around the terminally ill was more important than most people realized — Laone retreated back to the parking lot.

Standing beside her car in the soft May sunlight, her mind was blank, her body numb. It was the sound of chattering buntings that eventually broke through her torpor. She peered over into a copse of dogwood trees that bordered the parking lot to see the bright blue little birds hopping from branch to branch, chittering away among the newly opened blossoms.

Where is everyone? she asked. To her surprise, one of the birds flew over and landed on the hood of her car. It cocked its head and seemed to look directly at her with its shining black eye, singing its little trill of chirrups and chirps as if in explanation; the startling blue of its little body in stark contrast to the white of her car.

Being a bird sort of person, Laone knew that Indigo Buntings were especially shy and she watched in fascination as it hopped from foot to foot on the warm hood of her car. Suddenly, it flew back into the trees and resumed its conversation with its companions. It was, however, enough to bring Laone back to her senses.

What was she to do now?

George! she shouted to the birds, causing them to lift from the branches in a startled whirl of blue. Within seconds she was back in her car.

George Parker worked as a product manager for SNL Financial, whose glass building seemed an anomaly among the brick and plaster of downtown Charlottesville. Laone was forced to abandon the Prius two blocks from her destination, as East Market Street was now effectively a parking lot. Her fear-induced adrenalin made running those last few blocks damned easy.

Breathless, she pushed open the tall glass door and ran past the empty reception area to the bank of elevators, which — of course — weren’t working. She ran around the corner to the stairwell and shouldered the door open. Taking the steps two at a time, as she had when she was a skinny, long-legged girl, Laone pushed open the door marked with a bright red 3. Heaving, her side in spasms, she rested against the wall for a moment, whispering George between ragged inhalations of air. Laone knew she must get her breathing under control. Her training taught her that proper breath was the number one antidote to stress. Breathing in: one, two, three. Slowly, out three more.

When she straightened, a fierce calm overcame her. She walked down the carpeted hallway with measured, steady steps, passing row upon row of cubicles and glassed-in offices before, trancelike, turning a corner past a long table where empty laptops sat like sentinels, to the small corner office with the floor-to-ceiling window that so delighted her husband.

The door was open, the office empty.

George, she sighed, Where are you?

A zombie-like episode ensued. The sun’s light was barely filtering through the south facing window when she noticed she was sitting behind George’s desk, in his chair, clutching his red Swingline stapler as if it were his hand.

He must be somewhere. They all must be somewhere. They couldn’t have just disappeared. It wasn’t the first time Laone would be wrong in the coming days. She glanced at the picture of her windblown, smiling self perched atop Humpback Rocks, one of their favorite hikes on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Taken last summer, she noticed how much less gray there was in her hair in the picture — a silly thing to notice when your husband of twenty-five years is missing. Or when a whole town is also, seemingly, gone.

She needed a plan, a course of action, or the fear that now threatened her would paralyze her into a sobbing, weeping mess. For George’s sake, she must do something. Try to find him. Try to find out what was happening.

Then a new fear pierced her heart. Robin! Off at school in Boulder, studying graphic design at the University of Colorado. Laone reached for the phone automatically, nearly screamed when silence met her waiting ear, and threw the receiver onto the desk, where it bounced and fell clattering to the floor. There had to be some way to get in touch with Robin and make sure she was safe. Make sure she too had not disappeared. Was this happening only in Charlottesville? Oh God! What was happening and how big was it?

She knew if she continued to sit at George’s desk, everyone she cared about would pop into her mind, breaking her heart into little bits. She needed to keep moving. If anyone was left, they might be on the mall. The closed-to-traffic Market Street was popular with both locals and tourists. If she couldn’t find anyone, she could walk down to the police station or the courthouse — see if there was anyone in authority left. She’d start with the parking garage and see if George’s Nissan was sitting in its usual spot on level three by the stairwell.

The garage looked perfectly normal upon entering, and yet there was a deserted, haunted feeling to it. Laone’s own echoing footfalls kept her glancing over her shoulder, sure that someone was following her. She hurried through the garage. The first two levels were nearly full, but as Laone stepped onto the third floor, there was only a scattering of vehicles. There, by the stairway sat George’s little silver truck. She walked over to it and put her hand on the hood, irrationally hoping that she’d get some sense of where George had gone; where he was now. The hood was cold and communicated nothing. She couldn’t even check inside the cab because the spare keys were sitting in the kitchen drawer at home.

The temptation to linger over her husband’s truck was quelled by the creepy feeling that permeated the garage. Twice when she’d glanced swiftly behind her she thought she’d caught a glimpse of a white figure vanishing behind a concrete post. Laone didn’t want to know, she wanted out of there.

The mall was empty. Tables usually bustling with lunch customers still had their chairs turned upside down on top of them. For over an hour, Laone went from restaurant to shop to salon, opening doors and shouting, Is anyone here? without success. Now, as she neared the end of the mall, she looked up to see the ice rink, its windows reflecting the empty scene behind her. That’s when she saw movement in the glass — a solitary figure jogging quickly toward her. The reflection swam and danced in the shifting sunlight. A tall, green-skinned man with leaves for hair was running toward her. Instead of the brick-lined street dotted with café tables and vendor stalls, the man appeared to be running through a meadow dotted with boulders and clumps of low bushes. A stag and a mountain goat kept pace beside him.

It was too much, too weird. Laone rubbed her eyes, trying to erase the vision she’d seen in the glass.

Hey! Ma’am! Hello!

She turned and opened her eyes to see it was a normal, if rather large, shaggy-haired man.

Laone wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly chilled. It wasn’t likely that someone who would call her ma’am would be a murderer, but there was no one else around, and he was that much bigger than her.

The man ran up the last few steps to where she stood in front of the ice rink, and through great gulps of air began to chatter, reminding her of the buntings a few hours earlier.

Oh my God! Am I glad to see you! Well, not you in particular, but someone. What a weird, messed-up day! Everyone gone! Just gone! I mean, what the eff is going on?

Laone looked at him. She was right about the big part — he was well over six feet tall. His eyes were big and brown and his shaggy hair looked as if he hadn’t seen the inside of a barber shop for a long while. His face was rather round and sported several days of stubbly reddish beard.

He continued to talk and she caught, Can you please say something?

H-hi, she stuttered. Laone Parker. She held out a trembling hand.

Oh, yeah. Name’s Jake Wolfe, he took her proffered hand. His was large, warm and calloused — hers small, damp and trembling. There was no shaking involved; it was rather a hand embrace.

Glad to meet you Laone, Jake said after several awkward moments.

Have you seen anyone else at all? she asked, ending her attempts at politeness.

Jake shook his head. Nada. No one else.

Do you live in town? She almost laughed. This