Zephrum Gates & The Mysterious Purple Haze: Zephrum Gates Series

By Tricia Riel

Synopsis of Zephrum Gates and The Purple Haze

         Zephrum Gates and The Mysterious Purple Haze is a coming of age story of a tom-boyish girl, named Zephrum.  Zephrum has some powerful abilities that were bestowed upon her at a very young age.  Learning to work with her innate and unusual aptitudes is part of her challenge and part of what also makes her so special. 

Zephrum has had an unusual upbringing with her Great Aunt Gussie, who is a bit of a loon.  In fact, there are a number of unusual adults in her life.  Her adult side-kick, Dexter Droudy, gets her into trouble without even trying.  Magical creatures also enter Zephrum's life with greater frequency as she gets closer and closer to discovering who she really is.

         Zephrum is a core player in uncovering the mystery of the "purple haze" that has enveloped her closest town, Haversville.  Following clues to uncovering the mystery, Zephrum encounters spiritual beings, strange wind phenomena, fairies, moss folk, goblins, a leprechaun, a very wild horse ride, and the very scary man behind the chair.  As she gets closer to solving the mystery of the "purple haze", a variety of hidden talents reveal themselves to her.  The most important thing that she discovers in the midst of all of her challenges is that being herself is the best gift she can give to the world.  It is also the thing that helps save her and all of her friends from the looming presence of the "purple haze."

         This book is filled with wild characters, strange situations, funny dialogue, and a deep message for us all. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zephrum Gates Productions
• Release date: Apr 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201134471

Book preview

Chapter 1

The House of Mystery

Towering on top of the steep and narrow heights of Nooseneck Hill Road stood the most feared and avoided house in Haversville.  The old dilapidated Victorian mansion and its adjacent carriage house had been left to rot on their foundations for years.  Paint curled and peeled off the narrow boards of the giant house, and almost all of the windows were blackened or boarded up.  Dark, thick pine trees surrounded the edges of the mansion, like guards to an evil fortress.  Crows cawed and peered from the branches of the weighty trees.  As people passed by at the base of the hill down below, crows would sweep down close to them.  Most of the time, the birds would just stare with fierce and piercing eyes.  No one had dared to go anywhere near the monstrosity for years.

Then, one day, everything changed.

The old house was owned by a crotchety older man, named Strasidous Rowpe.  He had inherited it from his grandmother, Eunice Seelie.  He really didn’t care about the old structure at all.  Over the years, he had allowed some of the letters on her mailbox to fall off, so that they only read ___un___Seelie.

Strasidous never spoke much about it, but neighbors had witnessed him muttering misgivings under his breath from time to time.  They heard him scream things like, I hope you rot in your own stench for an eternity!  and, Serves you right, you old bat!

Strasidous had a very difficult childhood.  People say that he was often babysat by his Grandmother Seelie, who was less than sweet to him.  It seemed that Strasidous was still harboring some ill-willed feelings about his upbringing.  Needless to say, he was an unusually miserable old man.  The neighbors recognized him for exactly what he was, a peculiar and angry old fart. 

One day, Strasidous' closest neighbor, Mrs. Fliffle, was craning her neck over her overgrown fence to better hear Strasidous.  He was going on and on, in a particularly long and loud rampage.  She had observed Strasidous scream and mutter ever since he was little, but she had never seen him be very happy about anything.  What she then saw surprised her more than anything she’d seen Strasidous do in all of the years she’d been watching him yell at the empty air.  He slammed the door to the old carriage house behind the main house and screamed at the top of his lungs, "Now you’ll never have power over me."  Then, Strasidous skipped down the hill to his car with more happiness than he had ever possessed in his entire life. 

Strange, thought Mrs. Fliffle, as she peered one eye at his car as he sped down the road. 

The next day, there was a real estate sign out in the front of the house.  Mrs. Fliffle theorized that Strasidous must have come to some kind of peace.  Rather than continue to let the house completely disintegrate, it seemed that Strasidous had come to his senses and was putting the old eyesore up for sale.  In fact, what Mrs. Fliffle didn't know yet was that he had already scheduled to have it shown to a young couple and their two-year old baby girl when it happened.

No one knows for sure what really went on the day that the couple came to take a look at the house, but rumors spread like wild fire.  Shortly after the couple arrived, there was a gigantic explosion on the property that thundered for miles around.  An unexplainable fire erupted in the old carriage house.  This fire came about under such unusual circumstances that people buzzed on and on about it long after it happened. 

By the time neighbors got to the scene, all that could be seen was a towering inferno too massive to be tamed. Onlookers watched as enormous flames licked the air with roaring ferocity.  The crackling and snapping of wood and flames from the carriage house kept the bystanders at a distance. 

Just before the first fire truck got to the scene, a couple of the neighbors swore that they had seen the baby girl thrown from the fire of the building, as though she was being born from fire and ash.  Another neighbor said, I could have sworn I saw wings on the kid as she flew and landed in that there pile o' leaves.

No one really knew how she escaped.  One thing is certain:  The little girl was an incredibly lucky soul to have survived the inferno without even a scratch.  To this day, the remains of the child’s parents were never found and the real estate agent lives in a muted state of shock.  She stares blankly into space, repeating the same words over and over, Purple haze...purple haze...

After the fire, a young reporter interning with a small area newspaper, The Diurnal Journal, came into town.  He was looking for a feature to add to his collection of small town-point-of-interest stories.  The reporter was a well-meaning and very intelligent fellow in his mid-twenties, but he had a number of very odd peculiarities.  Dexter Droudy had a horses’ overbite and was as thin as a pencil.  He was a bit clumsy and wore thick eyeglasses with frames that were pieced together by tape and paper clips.  He wore an inordinate amount of plaid and he had an interest in practically everything.  His mind spun with curiosity during every hour of the day, even while he slept.  He always carried a small notebook and a pen, and he frequently wrote down what people said during his casual conversations. 

Social skills and tactfulness were not his strong points. Try as he might, he couldn’t help himself from interrupting people while they were in the middle of telling him a story.  He blamed it on his talkative nature and insatiable curiosity, but the truth was that Dexter Droudy was also so imaginative that he could barely wait for the thoughts of others to leave their mouths before he’d interject with an explosion of his own ideas.  Sending him from town to town was one way that Archibald Greevy, Dexter's editor at The Diurnal Journal, kept him busy and out of his hair (so to speak).

Naturally, as editor of the area's most popular small newspaper, Archibald Greevy had an interest in making sure that The Diurnal Journal ran smoothly.  The day that the unexplainable fire broke out in Haversville, Archibald had been hoping to find some kind of remote assignment for Dexter.  Archibald was a very busy man.  Although he appreciated Dexter’s contribution to the journal, he just could not bear to have Dexter's high energy in the office.  Archibald was a squat middle-aged man with a bald head that was so shiny it looked like it would blind you in the reflected light of the moon.  He had a chest that was as big and round as a barrel, and he was always gnawing on an unlit cigar.  He gave up smoking years earlier to protect his health, but he felt like he needed something to do with his mouth in times of stress.  Nobody ever dared to tell him, but the soggy thing hanging from his mouth strangely resembled a cat turd. 

Regardless of his idiosyncrasies, Archibald had a very strong and commanding presence.  Though he wasn't a very tall man, he orchestrated the publication of his weekly journal with the confidence of a fine musical conductor.  He managed all of the various people on his staff and produced a weekly journal that was read by people for miles around.  Archibald needed a certain amount of peace and organization in the office to accomplish this task.  However, with Dexter around, peace was the last feeling he ever felt.  Archibald had a big heart and was very generous, but he was a little short on patience in regard to Dexter.

On the morning that the fire erupted over at the old Seelie house, Dexter had been fiddling and fumbling around in the newspaper office with more nervous anxiety than usual.  He just didn’t know what to do with all of his undirected energy.  He knocked over a number of half-empty coffee mugs near the coffee maker and he created a terrible brown puddle of a mess on the floor.  He also knocked over a giant office plant while trying to clean up the coffee puddle.  The loose dirt from the plant’s pot, combined with the puddle of old coffee, looked like a giant elephant poop.  Agnes, Archibald’s needle-necked secretarial assistant, intervened just as she saw Dexter about to scoop the giant mass of brown goop into the paper recycling. 

Dexter, she breathlessly said as she handed him a stack of papers, Why don’t you go make copies of these for me and I’ll have Gladice deal with this mess. 

"Oh yes.  I’m pleased to help," said Dexter, as he took the stack of papers and promptly scurried over to the copy machine.  Agnes was very relieved to have distracted Dexter from putting the mess in the wrong place. 

No more than a minute had passed and papers were jammed up in practically every orifice of the copy machine.  The flashing light beneath the glass cover sped up with increasing voracity as Dexter’s anxiety rose to a level that had him completely at a loss for what to do.  This is when Archibald Greevy entered the room and looked upon the chaotic site of Dexter furiously trying to spare papers from entering the mousetrap of this machine that he should have never put his hands on to begin with.

Dexter!  Archibald’s thunderous and gravelly voice came as a shock to the nerdy copy machine wonder boy.  Seeing Dexter jump in fear, Archibald tried to control his temper.  He slowly said, I’ve heard that there’s been a fire over at a historical landmark in Haversville.  Why don’t you go and check it out? 

Oh, uh, right away, Sir, said Dexter as he fumbled with a stack of papers in disarray.  I’m right on that.  Can’t wait, Sir.  I’ve been waiting to go and explore new territory, Sir...and...

Archibald pushed a map into Dexter’s chest.  With his face as purple and round as a ripe summer plum, he said, Just go, will ya’? 

Yes Sir, said Dexter with nervous enthusiasm.  I’m very happy to have this new opportunity, sir...and... 

Archibald interrupted him, with steam practically seething from his ears as he bellowed.  And stay out of my hair, will ya'?

Dexter very politely began to back out of the room, saying Yes, sir, what’s left of it, sir. 

At that ill-timed comment (which seemed to touch a sore spot), Archibald pointed to the door with the force of an exploding cannon and screamed, Now Go! 

Dexter bit his lip to stop himself from saying another word.  Then, he silently tiptoed his way out of the office, delicately walking backward as though he were avoiding fragile eggshells placed on the floor beneath him.

As Dexter entered the main strip of Haversville in his rusty, nearly broken-down jalopy, he noticed a strange tinge of purple haze hovering over the heads of everyone in the town.  He couldn’t believe his eyes, so he sputtered to a stop and pulled over to the side of the street to clean off his eyeglasses with his favorite handkerchief.  After breathing some hot steamy air onto the lenses and fastidiously cleaning them off, he placed his glasses back upon his face and admired his hanky for a moment.  Embroidered on one corner of it were the words, To Dexter...my favorite and only Son...Love, Mommy-kins.  Seeing this lovely sight, Dexter felt re-assured that his vision had been restored. 

When he looked up at the people still meandering on the main street of town, he expected that his clear vision would set him straight in his mind again.  Instead, what he saw was not only a purple haze floating around the heads of the people, but some small sort of energy forms as well.  They were dark and oddly shaped,