Beyonder

By Bill Jones, Jr.

Praful is a fearless, little girl who only wants a good education. In order to get one, however, her father must disguise her as a boy, even going as far as having given her a boy's name. All is well until the day she meets a young elephant, Yanai, who regales her with tales of adventure and discovery. Now, her carefully constructed little world seems too small. Join Praful and Yanai as they set off into the world, seeking discoveries of their own and finding, perhaps, love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bill Jones, Jr.
• Release date: Dec 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370241156

Bill Jones, Jr.

Bill Jones, Jr. is an American novelist born in Washington D.C. Initially a published poet, in 2009, after years away from writing, working in the information technology sector, Bill penned his first novel and discovered his true vocation.His work is wide-ranging, including the dystopian future fiction tome Hard as Roxx; the contemporary fantasy fiction trilogy, The Stream; detective stories The Little Burgundy and The Brooklyn Trace; as well as a bit of African American alternate history in The Stubborn Life of Jesse Ed McKinney. Bill has also released three short fiction collections. He believes it’s important to understand that while heroes don’t always win in the end, they sometimes do. As such, his stories always offer some degree of hope.Now, having retired from his former career, Bill spends his time creating fictional worlds, reading, world building, smiling at grandsons, and exploring Earth with his cameras and his artist-photographer wife.

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BEYONDER

BILL JONES, JR.

Copyright © 2017 by William E. Jones, Jr.

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

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. Published in the United States and Worldwide by Panthera Press Company.

Panthera Press and the Dread Lion logo are trademarks of the Panthera Press Company.

Praful’s friendship with Yanai began on her second birthday when, upon their meeting, the young elephant, Yanai, decided not to kill the girl, Praful. It was a grand concession considering the toddler had escaped her nanny’s watch and encroached on the young giant’s favorite watering hole. Yanai trumpeted his displeasure, but being a reasonable creature, stopped short of trampling her into dust. Praful returned the favor with her most precious of offerings—a toothy smile that some would later claim had accompanied a pledge of lifelong adoration and fealty. In truth, Praful just thought Yanai was silly. Their meeting came on a dry June, the fourth consecutive year that the month had returned without bringing its promised rain. There was hardly enough moisture to dampen the dust that Yanai used to shield his delicate skin from the harsh sun. Like Praful, he had also wandered from his family, hoping to cool himself in the last, dewy drops of the mud-caked water hole. It was not to be, however. Instead of cool relief, he stumbled across a hairless jabber cat dancing and splashing the precious water from its gasping bed and into the thirsty soil that grasped at its banks. Trumpeting his indignation, Yanai raised his trunk, blinked a blurry eye in the jabber cat’s direction, and charged the little beast.

It giggled at him.

Yanai stopped, wondering at the sound, which to his elephantine ears sounded like the song of thunder from over the mountains that loomed in the distance. Surely a beast that laughs the promise of rain cannot be a demon. He paused, trunk still raised, and stared, blinking the bright sun from his weak eyes. The odd beast stood facing him. She was as naked as the sun was strong and bounced up and down while attempting to reach the tip of his long proboscis. The elephant realized the small creature was not a cat at all, but some sort of mud-tinged monkey that exuded the perfume of flowers and ripening fruit. Yanai took three careful steps backward, though the strange, babbling monkey’s smell made him hungry. He so yearned for the rains and greenery that had eluded him since the year of his birth. Now, ordinarily, a brave and strong beast such as Yanai would have taken the small child’s aggression as an affront and dealt with it swiftly. However, Yanai’s mother was nowhere around, and Praful’s full height was enough to intimidate the young elephant (though he would never have admitted it). Besides, the more she babbled, the more soothing her sounds proved to be.