Sacred Seeds: Everwood Sanctuary, #2

By Jack Harmer

In the serene depths of Everwood, Dr. Amara Nkosi meticulously catalogs the ancient African heritage trees, only to stumble upon a profound discovery: a hidden tapestry of ceremonial significance interwoven across cultures. Enter Dr. Victor Kimathi, a visiting ethnobotanist whose quiet confidence and linguistic prowess challenge Amara's scientific detachment. Their initial rivalry ignites an unexpected spark that deepens as they decode age-old mysteries together, revealing not just the trees' secrets but their own guarded hearts.

As the sanctuary comes alive with a conference on traditional knowledge, Amara and Victor's professional synergy blossoms into a passionate yet daunting romance. But when a prestigious opportunity pulls Victor back to Kenya, Amara must grapple with the chances of love against the backdrop of past heartaches. Will she embrace a new beginning or remain entrenched in fear?

Together, they forge a groundbreaking exchange program that promises to bridge their worlds—transforming their connection into a shared journey of love, discovery, and the sacred roots that bind them. "Sacred Seeds" is a poignant exploration of resilience, connection, and the courage to plant new seeds in the fertile ground of the unknown

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Harmer
• Release date: Jul 8, 2025
• ISBN: 9798230226024

Jack Harmer

Jack Harmer is a long since retired CPA living in Australia. He now writes inspirational non-religious stories that focus on the changes his characters make to their own lives and to the lives of those around them during his stories. He is a huge fan of people that are prepared to step up and accept challenges that require personal changes and efforts. His personal reading choice is to find and read the works of other authors that think like he does.

Book preview

THE EVERWOOD SANCTUARY SERIES

The Inspirational  series is set in a huge forest sanctuary where  group of women are called together to become the Guardians of the Forest.

Each woman has faced a major interruption to her life that she must strive to grow past. Or risk seeing her life remain standing still.

The different trees that grow in the forest sanctuary all have their own stories to tell. Stories that each of the women will need to stop and listen to before they can come to discover, and then use what they learn in their own lives. This is what Forest Guardians must do. They must know and love what it is that they are guarding.

Each story in the series tells of one woman’s journey to face up to and move past a life event that might hold them back. By learning the stories of the trees they are protecting they each learn their own way forward.

BOOKS IN THE SERIES

The Roots of Belonging

Sacred Seeds

The Counting of Rings

The Testimony of Trees

The Thirst of Ancient Roots

The Healer’s Grove

Stories in the Leaves

The Underground Network

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Each book in the series is short. Novelette Length. Each book is a standalone story complete in itself.

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A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

My life has been guided at  many times by some very wise, strong, and thoughtful women. Mostly well but sometimes things could have gone better.

This series and the short stories in them is dedicated to those women with my gratitude.

CHAPTER 1

The air in the research center was tinged with sharp tang of botanical antiseptics and the imagined odour of last summer’s failures. The space felt more like a sterile refuge than a sanctuary for innovation. The ambition that had once filled the room now sucked at one’s senses. Disappointment seeped into corners like a lingering fog. This was now where dreams were postponed until another day. Where yesterday's hopes waited to be turned to today's give it another try. 

Amara entered the centre with purpose tapping through her boot heels. Alone in the bright vastness despite the occasional scientist bent over a microscope. Or or lost in the flashing colours reflecting off computer screens. Her presence in the facility was her quiet act of defiance against the personal and professional losses that nipped at her resilience. Nora Diaz had been here before her. she’d been tried and tested to see where her  limits lay.  Nora had won in the end. had won Gabriel Ortiz as her life  well. She could do no less.

Amara moved then stood at the metal table, adjusting and readjusting her equipment with a rigid patience that bordered on personalcruelty. She ran her fingers over vials and pipettes, offering the cool instruments more warmth than she allowed her new colleagues. She heard several morning Amara. Good to see you, as they passed by in a parade of good intentions. She returned their greetings with nods that barely jostled the downward tilt of her head. The scattered murmurs and fluorescent hum sharpened her solitude as she carried on the work of beginning yet again.

She reached into a large cardboard box, withdrew a stack of sterile petri dishes, and stacked them beside a coil of surgical tubing. She knew the process by heart, her hands working almost independently of thought. Even the slow rhythms of taping up labels, marking them with black ink, failed to distract her from the more careful task of sealing away disappointment. The old laptop drives from Cape Town contained gigabytes of empty data, hours of interviews she had hoped to reanalyze. Yet here she was, repurposing research questions, transplanting her failures to this faraway place. A fresh start, Victor had insisted. For once she hoped he was right.

She balanced the digital caliper against the table edge, kept her focus narrowed, heard the clinking clatter of glassware against metal as she rearranged the instruments with disciplined fervor.

You setting up a lab or an art gallery, Doc? The voice belonged to Nora Diaz, passing through with an armload of seed trays. Her tone was warm and teasing.

Amara managed a half smile, kept it tethered. Precision is important, Gabriel is always telling me that. she said.

Everything in its place, Nora said, nodding knowingly before continuing down the hallway.

Amara continued, the artless composition taking form beneath her disciplined gaze. Microscopes, pipettes, vials, notebooks. The transformation soothed her like the careful notes of a familiar tune. Instruments moved beneath her hands with silent obedience, every item’s placement echoing a need for control.

When the next wave of greetings rolled by, she barely looked up. Her own name repeated in different tones. Some casual, others surprised to find her here at Everwood. She focused instead on a meticulous grids of pipettes, realigning them again and again. Didn’t know you’d be joining us, someone said. Another offered, "Dr. Nkosi, I hear your new program is fascinating. Will you be one of the Guardians?

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Thank you. And yes, I am, she replied, though her voice hardly carried across the room.

Soon, they must have understood she had nothing else to offer. Their numbers dwindled, leaving behind a handful of stragglers who spoke more quietly in corners and clusters. Amara was grateful for the thinning crowd, though not so grateful that she’d acknowledge it. Her jaw stayed tight, her expression taut as she unpacked.

She drew another set of vials from deep inside the box. The lingering memories of Cape Town, where this work was supposed to flourish, scratched against her concentration. She brushed them aside, tried to brush them aside, a sweep of fingertips smoothing imagined dust from the plastic sheaths that bound her journals. The pages inside were dog-eared and worn, filled with marginalia that had meant something very different six months ago.

Beneath a clear plastic bag of beakers, a gift from her students—a multicolored lanyard, its brilliant beads clashing with the more measured tones of her setup. They had sent it before the collapse, a small memento of confidence and admiration. She set it next to a stack of memory cards and watched its cheerful presence erode the sterile calm. Nothing she touched seemed free of those last few months, the dashed proposals and abandoned plots.

Time elapsed in the comforting way of solitude, as though its passage were irrelevant so long as her hands stayed occupied. She aligned another row of vials, boxed up the empty containers and moved them from the table with precision.

The shadows shifted, fluorescents giving way to natural light. When a sunbeam inched across her workspace, she paused just long enough to frown at it. This was how she managed, by cultivating an environment where nothing else could intrude.

Nora’s voice again, now softer: Dinner at six in the main lodge. Then a pause, then a tentative question. You coming, Amara?

In a while, she said, not meaning it as a refusal, though it would be taken that way. The solitude settled again, and she let it.

The quiet clatter of equipment marked the only steady rhythm as she continued, sinking into the practiced motions that needed no thought and offered no betrayal of her uncertainty. This place would have to sustain her work now, she told herself, her need for distance, for detachment, far greater than her pride.

Her hands stilled briefly over an ink pad, her gaze meeting its surface as if peering through it to something underneath. It lay, muted, like everything else she’d brought from Cape Town. It was just what she needed.

The air inside the research center changed temperature but not quality as the day pressed on, sterile in its refusal to carry meaning. With a final adjustment, Amara positioned the last piece of equipment. The lingering traces of her disappointment laid out among the pipettes and notebooks, refusing to be packed away. The precision she craved took shape at last, an austere array meant to forestall entropy, to conjure purpose from