MyGlow and the Red Star Fern Flower: MYGLOW, #1

By Jeff Ebberts

Under the forested canopy of their home in Aspect Landing, Myglow’s family lives safe from the predators that roam above. But Myglow’s life will change forever when her family is invited to attend a rare celebration, facing more dangers than just birds of prey.

The Red Star Fern flower seems to bloom only once every hundred years or more, and only when the two moons become one. It is around this extraordinary occurrence that age-old stories hint of a forgotten power. When tragedy befalls all forest dwellers, Myglow, with the help of one strange old man, must begin her quest for a mysterious gift – a gift that legend says will save her people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeff Ebberts
• Release date: Feb 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386571032

Jeff Ebberts

Jeff and his wife, Rieta live in Oklahoma and have five children, four sons and a daughter. They also have fifteen (and counting!) grandchildren. Jeff has always had a desire to write and Myglow's "coming of age" story was inspired by his only daughter and her experiences. Recognizing that many young people transition through a period of extreme awkwardness before emerging as competent adults, he wrote Myglow as encouragment through an often discouraging time of life.

Book preview

MYGLOW

VOLUME I

THE RED STAR FERN FLOWER

CHAPTER ONE – THE LAST HOPE

Kizarr ran down the hall and burst through the double doors into the huge greenhouse complex staggering to a stop while trying to catch his breath. I may...pull this...off...yet! he wheezed.

Long bands of silver moonlight streamed in through the massive dome that covered the facility, streaking the debris-strewn floor with a strange array of shadows and false images.

Ahhhh, the things that we discovered here! He glanced around smiling, remembering...he shook his head. No time for this, old man! Stay on task! Kizarr forced himself to focus again. He wasn’t out of this yet. He still had to get clear of the complex and then, if he could make it back to his hovercraft, he could be free of the city. Once out of the city he could lose himself in the surrounding countryside, and only then would he be safe to consider other things.

The roof of the greenhouse was a circular dome completely comprised of large glass panes (most of them now broken or scavenged and sold in the black market), and with the first of the twin moons rising to the east there was more than enough light to see what he was doing. But there was a downside to that...if he could see, he could be seen.

The room was huge, as large as several auditoriums linked together and spaced intermittently along its exterior walls were hallways leading away to other parts of the complex. At the far side of the greenhouse, directly across from him, was the passage that would give him the most direct route to the outside world.

From behind him he heard the distinct crash of metal and the howling of the badjet as the sentry busted through the second door. Motivated, Kizarr checked one last time to make sure the packet was still secure within his cloak, and then he ran for the exit, scrambling over tables, stepping over benches, working around toppled trellises—there was so much clutter on the floor of the greenhouse there was no easy way to traverse it.

Halfway to the exit he stopped short when the dark silhouette of a bulky man with a tethered badjet stepped into the opening of the hallway. A frantic look around confirmed that every other passage was now blocked by a sentry, each holding a tight rein on their favorite weapon of choice, a four legged hybrid that Bastion had created specifically for its ability to kill. The nasty little animals with black fur and unblinking red eyes were jumping against their leashes trying to get free.

Whoa! Now what? JUMP! I have to jump!

No, I can’t jump!

I MUST jump or I’ll die!

His panic rising, his mind argued with itself for a solution that wasn’t there. Kizarr was screaming at himself to act—to act while he still could...Focus! Focus! Now jump!

The sentry with the badjet running up the hall behind him pushed through the double doors of the greenhouse and paused only long enough to survey the room. When he located Kizarr he knelt beside the animal; the other sentries followed suit as if on silent command.

It was then, in this most dire state, that Kizarr noticed the tall silhouette of an Obling come up behind the crouching sentry in the central doorway,

Bastion! he cried, Son, I— Kizarr’s plea was cut off by loud, insane, laughter that sent a chill down his spine, immediately followed by the terrifying command to "Kill him!"

"Jump now! Do it now! Jump!" Kizarr screamed at himself, not wanting to believe that he must.

All of the animals were released, and they charged into the shattered room intent on killing the tall Obling standing in front of them. They came in from all directions and even as the first badjet leapt, Kizarr resigned himself to his fate; he had no other choice. He closed his eyes, and he jumped.

Not like the badjet did, using its thick leg muscles to launch itself through the air, using the mass of their numbers to collide with their prey and force it to the ground; Kizarr jumped in a way that only a select group, a handful of especially gifted Oblings could jump...

Kizarr jumped forward through time.

Kizarr braced himself for what he knew was coming, for what he and all of the other Oblings that could jump, or skip through time, knew would happen if someone skipped time when he wasn’t properly prepared for it. He knew what was coming, and he steeled himself against it—for all the good it would do him.

Kizarr had jumped many times before and had found the experience to always be quick. Jumping minutes or jumping a month, it didn’t seem to matter much what the duration of the jump was, it was always nearly instantaneous. If an Obling took the time to prepare—and that was key—it was a safe and fascinating event. But if one were to jump without being prepared? Theoretically that was a different experience entirely. To his knowledge no one had ever done that, or at least no one had ever reappeared to talk about it, and preparation took time. It was definitely not something to be done on a whim or whenever he might happen to think of it, and certainly not while under a state of full panic like he was now!

Very little was known about skipping time, about the physics of it, or rather the laws of physics that it ignored. But there were some well-regarded, long-held assumptions, by that small percentage of Oblings that could jump, and the assumption that everyone held as hallowed and true was to never, never, never jump time without being mentally focused on the destination point. The extent to which that must be done took real effort. The worst thing imaginable was to just do it, to just jump.

Which was exactly what Kizarr had done. He had done the unthinkable and ignored everything he had ever learned about the subject and had acted solely on impulse, or in this case, out of desperation.

Still, there was one anomaly of which he was personally aware. Something had happened ages ago when he was making a short jump of a few hours—for what reason he had now long forgotten—and he was preoccupied with other things. He prepared well enough, or so he thought; he had rigorously done all of the things that he knew he must do in order to jump safely, but when he jumped, for the briefest of moments his mind wandered somewhere else.

Kizarr made that particular jump shortly after his extensive work with the Tigets had begun and when his great-great-great grandson, Bastion’s behavior had become alarming, so in spite of all his preparation, Bastion was at the forefront of his thoughts as he slipped out of time. During that jump there was a flash, not much more than an instant in time really, and as he phased out of linear time he saw something, something quite extraordinary, but something for which he had no explanation. He saw a picture of Bastion.

He saw Bastion, much older than he was in Kizarr’s present, and he was reaching to a young Tiget female that Kizarr had never met before.

The image was there and gone in an instant, but even at that he was left with the sense that Bastion was threatening the young girl. He pondered that singular experience over and over again, trying to pinpoint and catalogue every fragment of it, but eventually he had to relegate it to his need further information category and set it aside.

Kizarr was now standing, with his eyes mostly shut, cringing against what he was surely rushing into. The whirling kaleidoscope of lights and sounds streaming all around him reinforced his belief that everyone had been right, he was now in a jump that would carry him forward to the end of time, and when he reached it?

Oblivion.

But...this was taking much longer than he thought it should. He tried to look around, but the streaming, flickering lights and noises were so random that he couldn’t make sense of anything, and it finally got the best of him. He struggled to his knees; kneeling before he fell down...and then he threw up.

This is intolerable! I’ve got to do something! he exclaimed, gasping. His thoughts turned to a place that had always been refreshing to him, someplace where he could breathe fresh air and had always felt free and at peace: the dunes along the western coastal region. Kizarr was stunned when no sooner had he thought this than one of the images flickering around him stabilized and he could see the dunes clearly.

He wanted so much to be there instead of where he was, trapped in a headlong rush to certain death, and as he yearned for the coast, the image appeared larger and the whirling slowed as things became clear; with an uncharacteristic gasp Kizarr realized that he was there. He was physically there at the dunes!

Kizarr fell into real time on his hands and knees, with the sun overhead, amid the salt grass growing on the dunes overlooking the ocean.

Kizarr laughed, shaking his head and inhaling deeply the familiar salt air of the coast. His laugh was uproarious and sounded almost as crazy as his grandson, Bastion. He continued to laugh and tried to make sense of what had happened to him while struggling to sit upright in the sandy grass. He was alive! He should be dead! Nothing that was supposed to happen had happened. Things that weren’t supposed to happen did happen. Laughing until tears streaked his face and his sides ached, he felt for the package that was still there, safely tucked away inside his cloak. He had done it! He had retrieved the formulas he needed and was free of the city.

Whew! Haaa... It took a while for him to calm down, but even then he couldn’t keep the grin from his face. Now what? He didn’t care now what. Life! Joy! Wahoo!

His immediate and first thought was to share what had just happened...but with whom? Who was left? And then came the sudden realization—

"Oh no! Oh no! I did see it! That is what I saw! I am right, I’ve been right all this time, oh no! I’ve got to get back." He got to his feet and brushed the sand off his cloak.

Until now he considered the work he’d been doing as no more than a desperate hunch—the Old One, the packet he’d risked his life to retrieve, the tradition of young Tiget girls sparking and all of the effort to put them together. Until this very moment it was simply an old man’s desperate hope, but now he realized that he was absolutely right and he must finish it. He must!

I am right, he said flatly. The staggering implications of what that really meant were sinking in, and the frightful state that things were deteriorating to, would deteriorate to, he now saw as a certainty.

Fully motivated and still elated that he had survived, Kizarr made his way down the dunes to the seashore. It was easier walking along the shoreline where the sand was wet and compacted. He had an idea that there were Adairan refugees living not too far up the coast, he would seek assistance there because, as he now saw things, time was of the essence for all of them.

First, he would finish the prep work on his backup plan and relegate it to a must finish at all hazards plan. He would finish his prep work, get it all in place, and then he would go out and visit the Tigets and let them know what was coming.  As he marched along, still smiling, he mused, I wonder how long? How long was I out of time? Did I go forward or did I just float?

Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by a tingling sensation. His vision started to whir; his body became light and, "Wait...no!", inexplicably, Kizarr the Obling slipped out of time.

CHAPTER TWO – ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER

Myglow pushed open the shutters and climbed out through her bedroom window. She jumped to the large branch of the great tree that sheltered her family’s home and crouched there. It was evening, and the air was cool against her flushed cheeks; it was like a wave of relief washing over her entire body. She remained still a minute longer, trying to soak it in.

"This feels so good. Maybe this is what I need." She had her eyes closed, trying to let the day’s tensions ebb away from her, which seemed to be working. She took a moment, looking up through the layers of large branches overhead, and then started climbing.

At least I can still climb, she thought morosely, that’s something at least.

She continued upward, scrambling from branch to branch until she reached her favorite perch, shortly below the canopy, which allowed her to see nearly the whole expanse of Aspect Landing, and there she settled in. Myglow tried not to think about anything at all, rather she stared blankly across the village, letting the disappointment, the shame, and yes, even the anger, evaporate away. Only it wouldn’t quite go. She could still hear it faintly, in the not-so-distant past; yesterday as a matter of fact, those ever annoying twins, Hella and Pella, and their stupid little song as they followed her home from Studies.

Myglow, Myglow, the little girl that didn’t grow. And then they burst into laughter like it was the first time they’d ever heard it or something.

Not that she really cared what they thought about her anymore, although they used to be friends of hers—or at least Myglow had thought they were her friends—but that was before her sparking fiasco and her eleventh birthday and...everybody grows up! Boys grow up, girls grow up, even Hella and Pella were growing up...

She sighed heavily. Everybody but her. Even Dixel!

She suddenly realized, sitting up straight. Even Dixel was nearly as tall as she now. What is the matter with me? She looked down at her legs – she’d been absently rubbing them since she sat down. "What is the matter with you? Why won’t you grow?"

In frustration she brought