Shadow in Orange: A Rucksack Universe Story

By Anthony St. Clair

Horrible birthday present. 

Aisling's sixth birthday began on a ride in a rowboat with her mum and dad, complete with honey cakes, songs, and stories. That was the last time anything in her life would be normal again, complete with the strange present clutched in her hand.

The Rucksack Universe series combines alternate history, speculative fiction, myth, adventure, globetrotting, and intrigue—all with well-poured pints of beer. Library Journal says Anthony St. Clair's storytelling has "universe building reminiscent of Terry Pratchett," and readers say they love the Rucksack Universe's unique combination of "quirk, wit, travel, and magic."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rucksack Press
• Release date: Apr 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781940119373

Anthony St. Clair

Anthony St. Clair creates compelling fiction and non-fiction for a curious world full of everyday discoveries, endeavors, and surprises. He is the author of the ongoing Rucksack Universe series; covers craft beer, food, business, and more for various publications; and is a copywriter and content manager for select clients. When not at his desk or in his kitchen in Oregon, Anthony is on an adventure with his wife, son, and daughter.

Book preview

Shadow in Orange

Shadow in Orange

A Rucksack Universe Story

Anthony St. Clair

Rucksack Press

Contents

1. Toward a Darkness

2. Stories

3. The Irony of Drowning

4. At the Edge

5. Death and Light

Thank You for Reading

Become a Wanderer

Also by Anthony St. Clair

Acknowledgments

Special Features

Sneak Peek

About the Author

The largest lake in Killarney, Lough Leane, provides a lovely opportunity to paddle the water or wander the low surrounding hills. Do be careful in and around the lake, though. Like all waters, the lough’s dark surface hides the darker truth of accidents past.

—Guru Deep, Ireland Through the Third Eye

1

Toward a Darkness

The bright sun rippled orange and gold on the green water. And kept rippling, until Lough Leane’s waters grew still again, as they closed over what had happened. The lake hid the horror while the world kept a lookout, as if out of shame water and world had resorted to conspiracy.

Aisling reached toward the sun, but the light was wavy and hazy, distorted by green ripples. Had the sun come to shine over the lake for her, to celebrate this day, her sixth birthday, March 21, 123 AB? She and Ireland usually celebrated together; she had been born on the anniversary of Ireland’s post-Blast (mostly) bloodless bid for independence. Ireland was still independent, and a birthday was about celebrating life, but the warm spring day had stopped at the water’s surface and would not go into the depths.

Would the sun sing? Was it reaching out to dance with her? But hadn’t it been cloudy before, the sun hidden by the clouds visiting Killarney on her birthday?

Aisling tried to remember, but even a few minutes ago now felt further away than the sun.

There had been a rowboat.

There had been a basket full of honey cakes.

There had been her mum and dad.

Aisling turned round and round, but turning around here in the depths of the cold dark water was so much slower than spinning circles on land. Even Aisling’s hair, usually curly and bright red, was slack and dull. One hand Aisling opened below and beyond, toward the unseen world beneath her. The other she clenched, closed and tight. She didn’t know what was there, what it meant, but all she had left was clenched in her hand. A shadow in orange. There’d been a sound, ripping and loud. There’d been another, so much louder, so much—

She wanted to gasp. But stopped herself. There was no gasping here. Not in the cold lake, where the downpushing wet green darkness was filling with shadows, becoming a chill black darkness she did not want to see yet could not escape.

2

Stories

T ell me about the gray lady of light!

Aisling’s voice had risen out over the water. In the boat, out near the middle of