The Shepherd of the Brilliant Valley

By Michael Siemsen

Season after season, the clans of the Brilliant Valley rely upon nature's dependable bounty. From their river's ceaseless flow, to the berry patch's delectable fruit, none among the valley's inhabitants could ever conceive of drought, or deprivation of any kind—until the night a colossal entity fell from the stars…

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fantome Publishing
• Release date: Sep 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781940757810

Michael Siemsen

Michael Siemsen is the USA Today Bestselling author of 7 novels, including The Dig, A Warm Place to Call Home (A Demon's Story), The Many Lives of Samuel Beauchamp, and Exigency. He lives in Northern California with "the wife," "the kids," "the dogs," "that cat," and he occasionally wears pants. facebook.com/mcsiemsen twitter: @michaelsiemsen

Book preview

Also by Michael Siemsen

Novels

A Demon’s Story series

A Warm Place to Call Home (a demon’s story)

The Many Lives of Samuel Beauchamp (a demon’s story)

Matt Turner series

The Dig (Book 1 of the Matt Turner series)

The Opal (Book 2 of the Matt Turner series)

Return (Book 3 of the Matt Turner Series)

Exigency

Short Stories

Matty – A Matt Turner series short

The Smiths

FANTOME

This book is obviously a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locations are used factitiously. Other names, characters, incidents, and places are the products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2017 by Michael Siemsen

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof.

FANTOME and logo are trademarks of Fantome Publishing, LLC.

Editing services provided by Jessica West

Cover art by Andreas Raninger

ISBN 978-1-940757-81-0   (ePub)

Connect with the author:

facebook.com/mcsiemsen  *  michaelsiemsen.com

twitter: @michaelsiemsen  *  [e-mail]

The

Shepherd

of the

Brilliant Valley

a short story by

Michael Siemsen

˙

When the Da first arrived, my father was head of our clan. I wasn’t much older than a yearling, but I remember the night it fell, and most everything that happened over the following days.

I cannot say how much of those older memories are truly my own, or if the accounts others shared from back then planted themselves inside me, sprouting vines of images and sounds that took root in the gaps of my lifescape. For later times, though, the days when my father’s sister led us, to now, a time in which the clan considers me their leader, my recollections of the Da are quite clear, and certainly my own.

The Da came on a milk night, those rare evenings when Pink Moon draws close to another passing of White Moon, painting her slower sister with the soft pink of a mother’s freshest milk.

As though it lost its grip on the sky, the Da left behind all the other stars, falling between