Fractures

By Nance Newman

Ela has come to accept the role life has dealt her as the true Xylem—a descendant of an ancient race of women whose legend says only one progeny every hundred years or more will have the powers needed to face nature’s magical enemies.
This second book in the Heartwood series continues to weave legend and magic into reality as the world’s ecosystem is threatened by supernatural demons. Elathea already destroyed one demon, but now Heartwood is needed in Pennsylvania where another battle is about to begin. The demon she must face cracks the earth and is building up his power with each fracture he creates. Ela must find out what and where his final, total annihilation will be.
However, the battle is not just with a demon. She must also fight the one building within herself. She grapples with the ancient race who has claimed her as their true Xylem. They need her. They need her power. After all, when Mother Nature needs help there is nothing more dangerous than a girl with a weapon. But they question her and her abilities, and because of it, she begins to doubt herself and question the decisions she makes.
For Ela, everything is changing, and the fractures are growing.
Will she be able to find the power to defeat the demon? Are the demands being placed upon her wearing her down? Only Tavon, the Amaranth Ranger whose birth right is to protect the true Xylem believes in her. But he worries too. Will the power within her and the need to protect the natural world consume her fracturing her very essence?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nance Newman
• Release date: Jan 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781370685011

Nance Newman

I firmly believe it is never too late to make your dreams a reality.I worked at Eastman Kodak in Motion Picture film for over twenty years before the company started to downgrade. After that, I was a teacher in Health and Physical Education and completed my years of work in a school district in transportation where I used software to solve the puzzle of getting 5600 students to many different schools as well as train new bus drivers.I am now retired—from work, but not from writing!I have always been a writer, and always will be. Since high school, I have written songs, novels, short stories, and journals. I have one dog—Ela-who is a rescue from the Puerto Rican hurricanes. She has taught me a little Spanish and I have taught her a lot of English.I enjoy being active outdoors in all seasons and partake in many different activities from kayaking, long distance biking, a lot of walks and hiking to gardening. I also love movies—most genres, but especially fantasy and science fiction.Most of all I love to write and tell stories.Please visit me at nancenewman.com because I would love to share my stories and music with you

Book preview

Prologue

CRACK!!!

The sound could not be heard above ground, but the earth below shook from the force. Ribesal stood up, a smile on his face that was full of evil and devoid of any sanity.

Stupid humans, he snarled. They are making it easier for me. The human’s drilling into the delicate shale that is part of the layers of fortitude holding the earth’s core together was the only thing he needed to continue the job Urxehl had started—total destruction of the natural world.

The humans either didn’t understand, or they didn’t really care about the damage they were creating with their search for alternate fuel. All he had to do was to find their drills and deliver his blow to the ground directly next to them. His force would further divide the fissures they were creating thus spreading the chemicals they left behind farther and deeper into the earth where they would eventually find their way into all life.

Death, newborn mutilation, and disease were just a few of the results that he would spread as he added his own toxic infection to the human’s chemicals. Soon, his evil would plague all living things—humans, animals and plant life. But the best part for him was the destruction of the lower crust layer of the earth. He would create massive earthquakes, and by the time he finished what he set out to do, there would be no survivors.

Before the humans knew what was happening, his destruction would speed things up so fast there would be no saving the earth’s living organisms, no healing life. Not even from that pathetic excuse of a female the Rangers had found to be their champion. Yes, she had killed Urxehl, the strongest (or so it was said) of the demons, but now, Ribesal would prove them all wrong. They would hail him as the most powerful.

No. There would be no way that wretched, little female human could touch him when he reached his greatest power. There would be no way she could heal the damage he was now spreading through the filthy foundation the humans had so senselessly laid out for him, because he was using the human’s foolishness to his advantage, and he knew she couldn’t heal that.

He walked over to the next drill and raised his arm above his head. Clenching his fist tighter than a wound spring, he summoned all his might and drove it hard down to the ground.

CRACK!!!

The humans couldn’t hear it. But soon, they would feel it, and they would see it.

Chapter One

Void of any clouds, it was the most dazzling night sky Ela had ever seen. She stood on the steps of Heartwood and admired the tiny, intensely bright stars that littered the black canvas. Allisandra would have loved this night. She often sat with Ela on the front porch during evenings like this. She would point out different constellations, giving her lessons on how her race used stars to navigate the earth, to predict the weather as well as using them to regenerate and increase their own energy and powers.

Ela wondered if the reason so many unusually, brilliant stars littered the night sky was because it was in tune with the proceedings about to take place. Allisandra often told her that the people of their race, the Nine Virgins of the Isle de Sien, or the New Gallisenae as they were sometimes called, were interconnected with all natural things on earth and a major part of an even bigger network of life that included the sky, the sun and the moon. If it was true, then the magical display in the heavens tonight was there in full force to honor Allisandra.

Tears started to fall down her cheeks. It had been less than a year since she first discovered who she really was—the secret past and possible future her parents hid from her. Before that, she was just a typical teenage girl—going to school, spending time with Jenny, her best friend, and contemplating her first date. Then a camping trip for her sixteenth birthday changed her life in an instant. Her normal, self-absorbed, carefree teenage life came to an abrupt halt, and she found herself fighting a demon that was destroying the earth’s forests.

On that single, most important day she found out she was the true Xylem and descendent of the New Gallisenae. The only way she could describe it would be that she was some kind of superhero who possessed enormous powers that only she could command to heal the forests. Allisandra told her that in time, she would come to realize many more powers and abilities that would enable her to heal all evils of the natural world. With those evils came other demons. Allisandra tended to downplay that part although Ela looked at it as her worst nightmare.

In the past six months, her life moved in a direction she thought only happened in the fantasy and science fiction stories she hated reading. She didn’t like those types of movies either, but now, here she was living one as the main character. Who would believe she’d have super healing powers at her command or learn to fight like a Ninja black belt and a knight of the round table all put into one package? Absolutely not her. Most of all, she never imagined she would lose the people she loved most so early in her youth.

Last year, as summer melted into autumn, she buried her mother and then returned to Heartwood near the ghost town of Tahawus, in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains. Upon her arrival, she found Allisandra, her teacher, mentor and second mother succumbing to the poison of Urxehl. Soon after, Ela lost her too. She spent the next four weeks honoring Allisandra by combing the high peaks healing the destruction the demon had inflicted upon the forests before his own demise at the hand of Ela.

Tonight, the Amaranth Rangers arrived at Heartwood to honor Allisandra in a ceremony that would release her spirit to the natural world. Gaia, her new teacher, told Ela that many of her ancestors would be there for the ceremony and that she would have a part in it. After that, Gaia would leave for about a month returning to their homeland, the Isle de Sien, where she would spread Allisandra’s ashes over the Atlantic by the night beam of the lighthouse at the end of the island.

Tavon, the Amaranth Ranger that stuck to her like broken pieces of a ceramic statue super glued back together, would watch over her while Gaia returned to their ancestral home. The most handsome man she had ever seen, and the most irritating, it was his life’s work to protect her. It didn’t take long for her to realize he was not only more than capable, but he would never leave her side.

Ela didn’t know much about the ceremony that was to take place. She also was in no way eager to be a part of it. After losing Allisandra and her mother, she had come to decide she didn’t like anything about death, especially when it was someone she loved so much. Being the first time people close to her died, she learned quickly that all the pomp and circumstance that went with it only magnified that reality. She hated the following funerals, memorials and the ceremonies at cemeteries because it reminded her over and over she would never again talk to her mother or learn about her powers and her ancestors from Allisandra.

Those thoughts scared her. She had never felt as alone as she did when the two women in her life who meant more to her than anyone else in the world had been so suddenly ripped apart from her.

And her dad… He was at home missing her and she him. It devastated him when she returned to Heartwood after her mother’s funeral, but she knew he understood. Ela had to come back. However, leaving her father alone to deal with the loss of her mother, his beloved wife, Naturna and then the absence of his daughter tore her apart. She called him whenever she got outside of Heartwood, but it wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t her fault that she wasn’t able to call him more often than she did. Heartwood had no cell service, because Heartwood wasn’t physically in the Adirondack Mountains—not really. The magical edifice appeared wherever and whenever it was needed, and no one other than the guardians of the natural world could enter, unless the scribe granted access.

If you walked in the woods at the place where Heartwood was resting, you would walk on the ground where it sat without ever knowing it or seeing it. She still struggled with the concept. None-the-less, it amazed her every time she entered the mystical site.

Ela sank down onto the step, drawing her knees to her chest. She hugged her body and silently cried. How she missed her mother. When Naturna realized the path her daughter was about to take, she had never been more proud. Ela was the true Xylem, the woman of her mother’s race who, every hundred years or so, possessed the powers to battle the demons of the natural world. She thought she saw her mother actually puff her chest out when she realized her own daughter would be someone she herself had only dreamed of. The image of her mother’s face basked in pride angered her back then because she didn’t want to be that person. Now, it made her smile.

She cried harder. This life was nothing like she had planned. She loved her mother, but during her high school years, they became like oil and water. Her mother told her that when she was older, and she realized there was more to life than a colossal crush on a boy, she would awaken to a stronger connection with her mother that would surpass the ones she had with her friends or any love interest.

At the time, Ela dismissed her mother’s ramblings. That was before she found out the secret of her true identity—that she and her mother were descendants of the Nine Virgins of the Isle de Sein. It was that moment in their living room, when her parents tried to convince her of the truth. That everything changed.

Ela learned the most important link she had with her mother had been their history—where they came from, who they were, who she was. Ela possessed no knowledge of it until that day, and now she would never get to share that with her. Her mother would never see the amazing things she could do—how she healed the woodlands poisoned by the demon Urxehl, and how together, with the power of the natural world flowing through her, she had been able to destroy him.

Ela gazed up to the sky. Her mother’s life force existed there, somewhere in the stars. Soon, so too would Allisandra’s. She felt them, and she believed they would always be looking down on her. They had to be, because if she could embrace her destiny as the true Xylem, then she could believe anything. More importantly, she needed them to be.

She dried her eyes with the back of her sleeve and went inside. She heard talking coming from the dining room. The rest of the Amaranth Rangers arrived earlier in the afternoon during which they attended private sessions with Tavon. Usually, she’d be very upset that they didn’t include her, but on that day she didn’t want to be a part of anything just yet.

The door opened, and Dale, the Ranger with pudgy cheeks that made him seem so much younger than his hundred plus years, presented a broad smile when he saw her. Ela ran over and gave him a warm hug. She stepped back and peered around him into the room to see Risco, Cephas, and Tavon in deep discussion.

History labeled the Nine Virgins of the Isle de Sien as virgins, but as Ela learned in her lessons, they were only virgins by definition. They mated with a group of men from the main land who were known for their skills in fighting, hunting and surviving in the wilderness with nothing but what they carried on their backs. Ela knew of the female descendant’s traits and the part they played in the natural world, but she was still learning about the males—the Amaranth Rangers. The only thing she knew for sure was that every one of them had blond hair and blue eyes and carried weapons that were trademarks of their families.

Dale carried a cudgel—a short, thick club that he stored in a sling over his back. His combed back hair emphasized his chubby cheeks that were a huge contradiction to the rest of him. His short stature, in comparison to the other Rangers didn’t take away from him being built like a brick house as seen in the strong, hard muscles covering the rest of his visible body. He always wore forest green hiking pants with brown laced boots and a brown leather vest. Sometimes he wore a t-shirt underneath. Today, he donned a skin tight, white shirt that clung to the lines of his bulging, defined muscles.

Risco looked up to see Ela. He raised his alpenstock (a weapon made of oak wood shaped like an ice pick) that he carried on a belt, like a gun holster, in respectful greeting.

All the Rangers wore similar clothing, but each chose a different shirt to wear under their vest. Risco’s thick muscles blended in with the ribbing of his off white shirt. Always messy blond hair framed his thin face with features that reminded her of ancient Roman sculptures chiseled in stone.

Tavon nudged Cephas, who was the only one to sport a mustache and beard. He always wore a friendly smile when greeting someone that was often hard to see under the thick facial hair, reminding her of her father. He picked up his bow and snapped it into the belt that crossed his back.

Tavon was the last to look over to where she stood, and when he did, she stared into all four pairs of the most beautiful, blue eyes that never ceased to amaze her. Even though each one had blue eyes, they were as different from one another as their physiques were. Cephas’s eyes looked a shade darker, and Ela often wondered if the darker color came with age, him being older than the other four. But his eyes, like Tavon’s, also shone with a mystical sparkle in them that intrigued her. Risco’s lighter, almost white eyes were more tinted blue, and Dale’s blue eyes reminded her of the oval rug her mother picked out for the dining room. She called it country blue.

These Rangers scouted different parts of the country looking for signs of the demons that sought to destroy the earth’s natural resources. Today they gathered at Heartwood to honor Allisandra.

Ela walked over to the men and gave each of them a hug. When she stepped back, she noticed Tavon watching her as he always did, as he was born and raised to do. Often, it agitated her, but she never let him see that because in truth, she didn’t think she could continue being the Xylem without him by her side, especially now that Allisandra and her mother were no longer with her.

Tonight, Tavon’s dark green flannel shirt was in stark contrast to his blond hair. He was mesmerizing. Ela was a young girl of almost seventeen, and she found herself forgetting about Dylan, the boy she had a crush on before all this happened and fighting one for Tavon.

She became annoyed at herself when she realized she looked at Tavon that way. At the most, he appeared to be in his late twenties; she supposed a benefit of being an Amaranth Ranger. But in reality, she was too young for him. She was a mere seventeen to his one hundred plus years. 

Are you ready for the ceremony? Risco asked her.

I’m not sure. I don’t know anything about it.

Hasn’t Gaia prepared you?

I’m about to, so if you’ll all excuse us. Ela, will you come with me, please? The Ranger’s heads turned in the voice’s direction at the same time and it reminded her of the Three Stooges—comical, except in a much more serious way.

Gaia, a New Gallisenae novice who cooked, cleaned and studied under the tutelage of Allisandra in private was now Ela’s teacher/scribe. Ela never had much interaction with her, but when Allisandra died, Gaia, who had been preparing all her life for this particular role stepped in. The change made Ela uncomfortable and apprehensive because she didn’t think she could ever connect to anyone as she did with Allisandra.

Now, Gaia stood in the doorway smiling at them, her long blonde hair braided down her back. She wore an off white, short-sleeved gingham shirt and a long skirt that moved when she moved making the brightly colored flowers patterned on the material look as if they were dancing in the wind. She looked and acted as regal as the educationalist of the new Gallisenae should.

Gaia turned and walked away.

Ela shrugged her shoulders at the men as she passed them to follow Gaia out of the dining room. They walked up the steps to the upper floor of Heartwood and into the room Allisandra had previously occupied that now belonged to Gaia.

Ela hadn’t been in the room since the last time she sat with Allisandra when she lay in bed, her limbs dying from the demon poison surging through her veins. Ela didn’t want to go into the room, but if Gaia summoned her, then she needed to follow.

When she entered, the room had a very different look and feel to it. That alone was enough to ease her angst from being in a dead woman’s bedroom. The colors of the bedspread, canopy and curtains boasted bright yellows, reds greens, and oranges in floral patterns. The different decor on the same pieces of wooden furniture helped her to separate it from Allisandra who bathed the room in brown, green and white copious patterns of leaves.

I have something for you, Gaia said as she walked over to the closet. This is for you to wear tonight for the ceremony.

Am I supposed to do anything? Ela asked her nerves firing like a loose electrical wire sparking on the ground.

I’ll explain that in a minute, but it’s nothing for you to fret over. She opened the closet door and pulled out a long, off-white dress with dark green leaf patterns from a variety of trees indigenous to the Adirondack Mountains.

Gaia held the dress up. It’s tradition that the new teacher wears the dress of the previous scribe’s material. You probably recognize this.

Ela did. The dress was made of the material that had been the canopy on Allisandra’s bed. She reached out and touched the fabric, running her fingers down the garment. As she did so, she traced each leaf saying in her mind which tree it belonged to. Ela allowed one tear to trickle down her cheek.

You’ll look beautiful, she said to Gaia.

It’s not for me. It is for you to wear. I know Allisandra would want that.

But you said the…

Gaia put her hand up. It has been a long time since we have had a true Xylem. It was always meant for her to wear the garment of the deceased scribe’s material, but we have lost more teachers than we have had Xylem’s. I think that’s why the tradition changed and the next scribe received the duty of paying tribute to the deceased.

A stab of panic hit Ela in the chest like a hammer as she pictured herself wearing an outfit made out of the bed canopy of a dead woman. I…I don’t think…

Please honor Allisandra tonight by wearing this.

Ela hesitated. For Allisandra, she choked out taking the dress from Gaia. I will.

Gaia put an arm around Ela and led her to a chair by the window. Now, let’s talk about how you will partake in the ceremony.

Chapter Two

Elathea looked in the mirror. She had never worn something so elegant. Her long blond hair laid on her shoulders blending in with the pattern of the leaves on the fabric, the color of which made her blue green eyes sparkle. The material’s softness caressed her skin, triggering memories of the most remarkable woman she had ever met. She hoped with all her heart that today of all days, she would make her proud.

There was only one thing missing—the necklace she had bought the day her parents gave her to the New Gallisenae. She found it in an outdoor store in Lake Placid and was drawn to it immediately upon seeing it. On a leather cord, a small round piece of wood had the word Heartwood over a tree—both carved. She had lost it the day she destroyed Urxehl somewhere in the Adirondack Mountains. She never told anyone. It was just one more loss that she had to live with.

Ela walked down the stairs that opened to the large foyer, the material of her gown flowing about her as light as a butterfly’s wings buoyant on a breeze. A small crown woven of leaves and twigs gathered in the Adirondack Mountains blended in with her hair.

The Rangers stood two on each side of the front door, their heads turned, their blue eyes fixed on her approach. Gaia stood in between them, waiting for her in a dark green, mid-length dress embroidered with a mille-fleur pattern also native to the Adirondack Mountains that she had chosen as her insignia. Ela recognized the same pattern that had replaced the leaf designs of Allisandra in her bedroom.

She learned about many of these flowers and plants during the last year she spent at Heartwood. In the spring, she watched as White Fringed Orchids, Swamp Candles, Hop Clover and Queen Anne’s lace graced the land.

Gaia took Ela’s hands in hers You’re truly beautiful. Allisandra is smiling upon you tonight.

Ela bit her lip to keep from crying. Thank-you, she whispered. Gaia kissed her on the forehead.

Dale and Cephas took a spot on either side of the entrance and walked out onto the porch. Risco took Gaia’s arm and followed them outside.

Tavon smiled at Ela. In that smile she found enough confidence and strength to take her place next to him and behind Gaia. But, as she stepped onto the wooden terrace, she panicked once again. She couldn’t do what Gaia asked her to do. She was just a kid, and at that moment, she felt like a small child folding inside herself as she wrestled to deal with the finality of their loss.

Wood posts set in a wide circle lined the small opening in front of Heartwood. Each one had a lighted flame resting on top. Ela couldn’t tell where the flame originated. When she looked closer, only the spark of colors was visible, nothing else. The small, bright yellow and red fire floated above the log minus a wick, a candle or a can of fuel. 

In the center, a solid wood column stood about four feet tall. Every inch of the rich oak had carved pictures of trees, waterfalls, mountains and animals—much like the carvings on Gaia’s bedroom furniture.

A glass, oval shaped container ten inches high sat on the smooth surface atop the column. Inside were the ashes of Allisandra and resting upon them were nine variegated crystals sparkling like prisms. Each crystal represented one of the Nine Virgins of the Isle de Sein. Gaia told Ela that the glass vessel held the essence of Allisandra’s soul and that the purpose of the ceremony was to join her soul with that of her mothers. Ela was clueless to what that meant or how it even happened, so she decided to go along with what everyone told her to do hoping it would all become clear to her.

Gaia had also told her there would be others present. But when Ela looked around, she saw no one—no relatives, no ancestors or even friends. The only other company was the thousands of bright, twinkling stars littering the black, night sky. She eyed Gaia who had been gazing upward. 

When Gaia noticed Ela watching her, she smiled and slightly bowed her head.

Once again, Ela set her eyes upon the night sky. It only took a moment for her to understand that the presence of her ancestors was in the shimmering lights appearing as if they were eager to have their daughter join them. She looked at the vessel in awe of the magical colors that flickered with an iridescent light in response to the stars above. Her eyes drifted from the vessel, to the stars and back again. Suddenly, the connection of life and death became larger than she could have ever imagined. It was as if the stars were calling and the light within the vessel was answering.

Cephas and Dale walked down the steps and stood at attention. Tavon guided Ela to the side of Gaia. She was to stay here until Gaia gave her the sign to do her part.

Gaia began to speak. We call to the Mothers of our Race, the Nine Virgins of the Isle de Sein, the New Gallisenae. Your loving daughter is to return to you this night, the night of stars.

Ela heard her cue. She looked at Gaia who smiled again and nodded encouragement for her to begin. With a silent breath, Ela took the first step down the stairs. Tavon didn’t follow. She had to do this alone. Gaia reminded her that the last scribe had been performing this ceremony for centuries because there was no true Xylem. Now that she was here, it became her role to perform the ceremony of passage for her teacher. She would be the one to aid Allisandra’s afterlife journey to her ancestors because this was how it was supposed to be.

Gaia continued, I am honored to pass this rite back to the true Xylem who holds the magic of nature within.

Ela didn’t want the honor. She would have been just as happy to have Gaia do it, but she knew Allisandra would have been so disappointed in her if she didn’t fulfill her callings, and as much as she hated it, this was one of them. Besides, she owed her this.

Ela lifted her head and walked toward the pedestal. As she did so, she noticed animals coming out of the woods, one of every species found in the mountains; wolf, bear, beaver, raccoon, squirrel, cougar, coyote, rabbit and one very large moose.

They moved as she moved—slowly into the circle of lights. From above, she saw peregrine, loon, red tail hawk, and many smaller birds that she was still learning about. What took her attention from all the other wildlife was the bald eagle that landed a few feet from where she stood. She found comfort amidst the animals and fowl because she knew she was a part of them, not the circle of life part of them, but something a whole lot more than. She could be them.

Stopping in front of the pedestal, she looked around at the life present for the parting of Allisandra’s soul. The familiar pain she had worked so hard to bury surfaced, but at that moment, she realized it wasn’t just her who ached. All of nature, every representation of life that stood with her in that moment had suffered the same great loss.

She listened to Gaia speak once again. We bring Allisandra here to return her to her mothers’ on this night of stars by becoming one with the true Xylem.

Ela didn’t like the sound of that. How would she become one with Allisandra and the Nine Virgins? Was that even possible? They were all dead. That thought ran through her mind from the moment Gaia told her the sole purpose of the ceremony was to reunite Allisandra’s soul with her descendants and she was to be the power that joined them.

One day, she overheard Gaia tell Tavon that Allisandra had been the