Ember

By Sara Gibson

Ember—a curious, quirky college student—meanders through life with her head in the clouds. One weekend, at her parents’ home in the mysterious Smokey Mountains, she's so distracted by the flora and fauna in her backyard that a bizarre, unnatural storm nearly engulfs her. She narrowly escapes to the safety of her room, where a peculiar book awaits her. As she dives into the story, an intriguing figure lures her into the very pages, trapping her within between the book's covers!

Between encounters with fantastical friends, Greek gods, soul-sucking dragons, and the monsters that lurk about in the real world, Ember eventually descends into Hades and meets a ghostly girl who needs her help. On this mind-boggling trek that has her questioning what reality even is, she must decide whether she'll drown in despair, or join forces with her friends to save the universe and become the true author of her own life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sara Gibson
• Release date: Jul 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9781951490713

Book preview

Sunrise

Ra’s rapiers emerged from the sea and set the undulating water on fire. In an instant, the sun banished the dark emperor’s minions to remote corners where they shifted and scattered throughout the day, eschewing the light and waiting for their master to summon them once again at dusk. The sun’s rays reached a perfectly manicured golf course, awakening the sleepy earth and transforming the dark landscape into a canvas of chlorophyll green, sparkling dewdrops, and warmth.

A boy of about nine or ten ran across the grass but stopped in his tracks. A peacock crossed his path and fanned its tail. The child pointed and laughed at the flamboyant bird, but his smile turned to a frown when the feathered freak abruptly morphed into a six-foot-long monitor lizard. Thick saliva dripped from the monster’s mouth and onto the verdant blades of the lawn. A red ladybug ran afoul of the oozing substance and disintegrated in a puff of smoke. The reptile pounced on the boy and consumed him in one large gulp.

A moment later, the beast was nowhere to be seen. In the lizard’s stead was a well-dressed gentleman of about seventy years old. A tuft of strikingly out of place strawberry-blonde hair peeked out from underneath his red cap, hinting that he wanted to appear more youthful than he actually was. As the bloke brushed off the lapel of his jacket, a raven-haired woman in designer black yoga pants stumbled into him, falling into his arms.

Oh my! Excuse me! she sang out, grasping his arms to steady herself.

Pardon me, he replied coolly.

The mysterious man’s voice had a calming effect on the worried woman.

She inquired, "Have you seen a boy? He’s . . . about . . ."

He looked deeply into the lady’s eyes and smiled, showing his brilliantly white teeth. No, but I sure do hope you find your son.

The stylish woman seemed dazed. She scratched her head and walked away slowly. Now, what was I looking for?

Orb of Destiny

Far away, on a baseball field on Mount Olympus, Eris, the Grecian deity of discord, crouched at home base and gripped a bat. Pandora, the goddess of grain, stood at the pitching mound and wound her arm around like a saw blade. A fly buzzed around Eris’s face, so she tried to blow it away. When the insect landed on her nose, she swatted at it furiously.

Seeing that Eris was distracted, Pandora quickly stooped down and reached into a tiny box. She put the baseball down and picked up a gleaming golden orange. The notorious mischief-maker chucked the gaudy citrus at Eris, who was too busy picking bug entrails from her nostrils. The metallic orange smacked the sidetracked batter square between the eyes.

The cheeky orange taunted Eris. Ha! Your face is so big I couldn’t miss it! Hey, do you know why the banana crossed the road? Because it wanted to make a car peel out! Ha ha!

Eris punched the annoying orb and it fell to the ground with a thud. She then hurled the bat at Pandora, but missed her target. It bounced off the ground and flew into the sky as Eris rubbed her injured forehead and screamed in anger. The other goddesses erupted in raucous laughter. Eris bent down, picked up the auric relic, and threw it at Pandora.

You miserable wench! I should banish you back to Earth!

Instead of meeting its mark, the orb veered up into sky like a rocket.

Uh-oh, snickered Pandora as she fell to the dirt and rolled around. Now see what you’ve done, Eris? The golden orange of discord is headed straight for Earth!

Eris shrieked, You started it, you fool!

The auriferous treat blasted through space, hurtling toward Earth. When it entered the atmosphere, it caused a subsonic boom; it was too low for humans to hear, but it caused animals like elephants, whales, alligators, and peacocks alike to thrash and stir.

The gilded globe abruptly halted at a golf course on a sunny peninsula in Palm Beach, Florida, right at the feet of its new owner—the elderly, shape-shifting gentleman on the golf course, who grimaced and held his ears tightly. His sunglasses had fallen to the ground, and he squinted against the bright morning beams blazing in his face. As the strange gentleman bent over to pick up his shades, his eyes grew as wide as saucers. The golden orange gleamed. He wrapped his hand around the orb and struggled to lift it.

It’s my lucky day! This must be solid gold!

Like the butterfly effect, Eris’s wayward pitch precipitated a chain of events that would change everything for a young lady named Ember, whose existence would soon turn into a quantum conundrum.

Ember’s Dream

Ember, a twenty-year-old college student at Western Carolina University, allowed her ash-colored hair to cascade over her face and hide the fact that she was having a difficult time not dozing off in class. To help her stay awake, she penned a little ditty.

Sleep and Dream

Quasar at the bazaar

Black hole from afar

Wormhole

Brings you near

Dear, like a lily-of-the-valley

Nestled ‘round my ear

Burst into fractal infrared

Mendeleev mode virtual

Scatter Rayleigh

Sleep and dream

Sleep and dream

There’s no free energy

So let’s pedal you and me

Take the breeze

Make energy

From a waterwheel

I flew last night

In a dream

Threw out my arms

And careened

Wings swept up by wind

Float through a cumulous

Sirius

Fly away . . .

Sleep and dream

Sleep and dream

Crawlin’ crawdads red

Reach out and claw my hand

Slip, slide down mossy dreams

Blazing sun in uncloudy skies

In the shade

There’s no free energy

Gibbs me free energy

Gibbs me free energy

Ember closed her eyes, trying to work out the tune in her head, but she ended up lulling herself to sleep after all. Her head fell to the desk, which snapped her attention back to the classroom. Dr. Trimmers, her quantum physics professor, was still discussing Schrödinger’s cat.

"Now if you put a domesticated feline, perhaps a tuxedo varietal, in a box with a device that has a fifty percent chance of killing the cat . . ."

The students chuckled. Someone asked, What the Hello Kitty?

Ember simply could not stay awake. Dr. Trimmers’s monotonous voice swiftly sent her into sand land again. When she opened her eyes, she was surrounded by white on all sides. All was quiet. She stepped back and bumped into something. She spun around. A black box sat on a table. Words in red letters materialized. Open me.

Ember gingerly placed her hand on the cube. Something inside the container scratched at it right under where her hand was. She jumped back as the box meowed. She was suddenly filled with concern.

Oh, poor kitty! What did Dr. Trimmers say? The cat can be dead and alive at the same time? But if I open this container, will I find a dead cat? Will that mean that I killed it? The mouser meowed again. "Since the cat is meowing, it must be alive. A cat that is alive and dead surely can’t meow. I’ll open the box and let this fine kitty out."

The box was silent. Ember nudged it, and the cat purred. As she removed the lid, a swift vacuum sucked her into a black hole.

She shrieked, Oh no! I forgot that Schrodinger’s box has radiation in it!

Tufts of fur swirled around Ember’s face. A cat tongue licked the side of her face. It was wet, rough, and warm.

Aw, poor kitty. But then she turned to look at it and screamed, for the cat’s appendage was not attached to anything.

Ember tried to bat the leathery organ away, but it was glued to her. She felt her cells stretching and mixing with the cat’s. Her belly was covered in soft fur.

I’m going to be pulled apart! I’m dying, lost forever in this awful abyss!

Ember started to drift out of consciousness when a light ripped through the darkness. A deep male voice said, Never fear, dear, for I am here to save you.

A mysterious figure with chalky skin—making him look almost as if he were made of marble—appeared above the stranded student. It was a man with a great curly beard and a mane of silver waves. He stretched a chiseled arm toward Ember, who was trembling, and pulled her of the black hole and into a blue sky. He then extracted the cat from her cells and deposited the two on their own cottony clouds. The sable feline hissed at the black hole. The sinister spot turned into a cobra and vanished. The regal grimalkin vaulted onto the gentleman’s shoulder.

Well done, Bast, he praised, stroking its sleek back.

Bast spoke in a sultry voice. I’m here to serve and protect.

The feline’s body stretched and morphed into that of a curvaceous woman. Two stately lions bounded out of the heavens and whisked Bast away into the firmament. Ember was awestruck.

The godlike figure who saved her placed one hand on his hip and puffed out his chest. Ember swooned, and the great gent caught her in his powerful arms. Immediately, Ember drew strength from his oddly electrical embrace and perked back up.

I feel like I’m going to fall into the pools of your celestial eyes, she murmured before she thought better of it. Did I say that out loud?

Dear, dear, the chap said. Don’t fret. I have that effect on all the ladies.

"Did you really just say that? I was being literal when I said celestial. I mean, you look like a nice guy, but we just met . . . and you’re old," Ember chortled.

What? I am Zeus. I’ll prove it.

He leaned down to kiss her. Ember turned her head away to avoid his smooch, but his lips managed to land on her cheek.

Ember was instantly shocked. A small bolt of lightning ricocheted off her cheek. Bast and her lions came out of nowhere and pounced on the electrostatic discharge.

Ember was floored. You really are Zeus!

But before she could learn anything else about the god, she was precipitously whisked back to reality. Dr. Trimmers stood before her, looking at her with a stern edge to his smirk as Ember wiped some drool off her mouth. The other students broke out in laughter.

Save your dreams for the lab, Ember. You must learn about quantum theory before you practice it. Otherwise, you could find yourself lost in a black hole with no way out. Ember’s jaw dropped while the class snickered again. Someone even snorted. Had she been talking in her sleep or something? Dr. Trimmers winked. Class dismissed.

After she gathered her things to leave, she looked around for Dr. Trimmers, but he was nowhere to be seen.

The Weekend

Ember packed her books into her Nissan Versa, and then got in the driver’s seat. The first thirty minutes of her drive on I-40 West seemed to stretch on forever. She felt invigorated as soon as she entered the first twists and turns of the Nantahala River Gorge, which was called the land of the noonday sun because of its Cherokee roots, and the fact that it was so deep that the sun only grazed the river itself for a short period each day. When she was a youth, Ember spent many a day rafting and kayaking the clear, shaded waters of the Nantahala. As she drove past the river, she turned her head to watch kayakers flip and cartwheel through the rapids.

Ember rolled down her window to inhale the sweet fragrance of the giant kudzu blossoms. Although beautiful and green, the vine was an invasive species that robbed the native trees of their sunlight and sustenance. Ember drove past the Nantahala Outdoor Center, stopping to let a group of kayakers carrying their boats pass, and then up the river a bit before she stopped for a barbecue sandwich and a bag of boiled peanuts. A dude dressed as a fairy played the bagpipes on the banks of the river. After dipping her toes in the cool waters, Ember continued to her parents’ home.

After about another forty-five minutes, in the little township called Granny Squirrel Gap, Ember turned up the steep hill to a log cabin. As if on cue, her two dogs, Gypsy and Tobias, burst out of the woods, barking blissful greetings. Ember applied the brakes and rolled down her window to greet them.

Gypsy, a terrier mix with a dirty yellow coat, was a wanderer before Ember’s family adopted her. The female canine dominated over Tobias, a docile black lab and Cocker Spaniel mix who followed Gypsy dutifully around because she protected him with her ferocious barks. Ember reached forward to scratch her dogs’ ears, but before she could, Gypsy darted over to an opening in the woods. Tobias dashed after the terrier.

What’s going on? Ember stepped out of the car to investigate. She soon spied a massive great horned owl standing in the path at the edge of the wood. Gypsy barked up a storm, but the great bird stood firm and simply hooted at her.

Ember recognized the confused avian. Her name was Judge Judy. Dr. Carl, the town vet, rescued her after she was hit by a car. The owl sustained a concussion and never fully recovered. Although Judge Judy resided in the forest on Dr. Carl’s twenty-acre property, sometimes she ventured out into the town during the day.

Ember picked up some flat stones, just the kind that her dogs liked to fetch, and threw them up the hill and away from the owl. Immediately, Gypsy and Toby chased after them.

When Ember reached the top of the hill, she noticed her parents weren’t there. That’s strange. They should be home by now. It’s after five o’clock.

Ember sent each of her parents a text, but neither responded. She called Dr. Carl and left him a message about Judge Judy. Gypsy and Toby ran to her side, laying rocks coated in saliva at her feet. Ember let the dogs in the house and headed straight to her room, a weird feeling twisting her gut. Were her curtains a different color? Was the bed in a different spot?

Hmm, I can’t put my finger on it, but something feels different in here. I guess it’s all relative, just like Einstein said.

Ember took her computer out of her backpack, placed it on her desk, and huffed. Studying was the last thing she wanted to do, so she grabbed her journal and walked outside.

Zum Wald

The forest pulled Ember into a trance. Inspired by nature, she opened her journal and began to write.

From the solitary wine-stained wake-robin, sultry in her stench, to the Dutchman’s breeches with its dangling pantaloons, the springtime flowers of the Smoky Mountain forest paint its floor with the bounties of life. The large petal trilliums stand tall in the dappled forest shade and boast abundantly in all arrays of purple, red, pink and white, and become greater and succulent when nestled near the creek beds.

Ember’s eyes followed alien-like growths of wild grapevines up a large silver maple. The vines were as large around as the trees themselves, and savagely choked them as they climbed up the trunks and thinner branches to seek the sun’s photons. She could almost feel them moving, crawling, clogging the very pores of the trees on which they climbed. When she was young, she and the neighbor kids swung on the giant grapevines. Their parents cut the bottoms of the vines, which eventually killed the plants, but it allowed them to soar through the air like Tarzan and Jane.

Ember plucked a peach daylily and nibbled on its tender and fragrant blossom as she scanned the forest floor for other flowers. Standing tall and erect over a group of ghostly Indian pipes stood the proud Jack-in-the-Pulpit flower, its spadix covered by a canopy. Ember imagined the flower delivering a sermon to the parasitic pipes.

In a deep, resonant voice, she preached, Pipes, you are looking pale. If only you stepped into the sun, you might grow strong and tall like me!

Ember spotted a sophisticated yet swollen yellow lady’s slipper—Cypripedium parviflorum var. pubescens—its corkscrew petals dripping down with sensual symmetry like the Song of Solomon.

She pretended she was the wild orchid and fanned her face with her hand, adopting a southern drawl as she said, Don’t bother the pipes, Jack, for they will fade away if the sun blankets them. Besides, what if they suck up all your chlorophyll at night? At least they won’t get picked like me. I’m just sooo beautiful and seductive! See how my glossy, yellow blossoms beckon? Don’t you want me, too?

Gypsy and Toby, tails wagging, smashed the boastful Jack-in-the-Pulpit.

Puppies! she scolded. Get away from the lady’s slipper. ’Tis a rare and special flower! Toby nudged Ember’s hand with his slobbery snout. Tobias Darb Muttenberg, you silly dog.

Ember wiped her digits on some fluffy neon moss and looked up, realizing that she’d wound up at the burial ground of her dead pets: a guinea pig, a cat, a turtle, a few crawdads, and a dog. Feeling spooked, she moved along to where a bigleaf magnolia tree stood. Ember held one of the foot-long leaves in her hand, feeling like she was in the time of dinosaurs. She listened for the call of the Brachiosaurus, but only heard the caw of a crow.

The dogs trotted off and Ember called after them, Where are you going now? Are you leaving me again?

The wind blew her hair into her face, and she half hoped that a knight would ride by in shining armor. No knights in this forest! Plus, you are much too old for fairy tales.

Ember plucked a three-lobed leaf of a sassafras plant and crushed it, inhaling its sweet, spicy scent as she meandered back to her house. Ashton Beauregard Felix, her twenty-five-pound cat, rolled in the cool dirt under the shade of the porch.

Come here, kitty! I know you’ll give me a cuddle.

Beauregard ignored her, so Ember reached under the veranda to pet him. The cat darted further under the porch, where spiders, snakes, and bees hid.

Phooey, griped Ember. You left me, too!

A blue jay cawed. Ember wondered if it was the same bird she raised a few years back. One sunny spring day, when Ember was twelve, she was sitting in her room when she heard a great ruckus. She ran outside to see half a dozen blue jays attacking Beauregard, who scurried to take cover under the car. When the tomcat then darted into the woods, Ember followed him and found a baby blue jay so young that it didn’t even have feathers yet. She swatted the cat away and picked up the fledgling, named it Berty, and raised it in a cage in her room, right next to her guinea pigs. Berty was so friendly that he’d perch on her shoulder as she walked through the woods. The blue jay grew into a large, sleek, and healthy specimen that made friends with the wild birds by day and returned to her at night—until he didn’t. Year after year, she swore she still recognized his call.

Berty, is that you? Ember stared into the distance, moved by the brilliance of the afternoon light that painted the pick-me-nots with fire. She stared into their dragon-like faces, once again imagining that the flowers were animated. Stand guard! We have an intruder! Three, two, one: fire! Ember plucked one single Impatiens capensis and dramatically ducked as the blossoms spit their seeds at her, sounding silent sirens to the hidden bugs below. I’m hit, I’m hit! Kitty, Toby, Gypsy—my Prince Valiant—someone save me!

As Ember rolled around on the ground, she thought of how the splendidly assorted species of Southern Appalachia were ghosts of the glaciers that stretched hither and thither, scratching the spines of trees and sowing spores and seeds. Ember sighed as the wind whispered secrets of bygone times, dragging her fingers