by Carmen Caine
The thunderous applause broke into my reverie and Rafael and I were clapping hard along with everyone else.
After a while, Al and Jareth joined us and we congratulated them, hugging and laughing with excitement. It was intermission. I stayed as long as I could to chat, but soon I had to go back to work.
“One thing before you go, Sydney,” Jareth said with a gleam in his eye. “I’ve been keeping this. I don’t think you’ll destroy it now.”
I raised a curious brow.
He held out his hand and in a puff of mist a photograph appeared. I recognized it as the signed photograph of himself that he’d given to me for my birthday. I laughed and reached for it, but he held it up high over his head.
“Hey, I’ve already told you that I loved you,” I protested. “I admit it. I do love you.”
“Oh, I know,” he said, bending down to plant his face inches from mine. “I just want you to know that I love you as well, little sister.”
We just stared at each other, grinning.
Snatching the picture, I turned to hug Al. He was smiling broadly, having just lived one of his dreams.
“You were right, Al,” I said. “About so many things. But you’re a living example of someone who goes after their dreams.”
I could still hear his voice: there’s nothing you can’t do if you set your mind to it. Go make your dreams come true. You can fly to the moon and beyond!
He was a good example in so many ways.
With promises to see him home soon, I let Rafael shift me away. I had to hurry. I didn’t want to be late for work.
The afternoon passed in a blur. We were really busy and Samantha kept us hopping. I was a barista now, and I could create butterflies on latte foam in a way that made even Samantha smile.
It was a little later than usual before I finally got to sit down for my dinner break. Rafael was waiting for me, drinking his hot chocolate and idly turning the pages of his textbook. He didn’t even really need to study. He already knew all of the material, but he did find some of the human conclusions and concepts amusing. It was his goal to help human medicine advance once he’d attained his Earthly credentials and established the right contacts to help his cause.
He looked up and smiled as I joined him with my tuna sandwich and mug of tea, and as I sat down, he hooked his boot on my bottom chair rung and pulled me forward until our knees touched.
I smiled, and still thinking of the concert, I said, “That song was beautiful.”
“Jareth is talented,” he agreed with a hint of pride for his brother in his voice.
I laughed a little, recalling the days when they’d detested each other—or at least had appeared to anyway.
With a sigh, I reached into my backpack for a pen. I was studying for a math test, my worst subject. It wasn’t exactly the way I preferred to spend my break.
My fingers brushed against a cool, metallic pen, and I pulled it out.
My brows lifted in surprise.
It was Cor’s silver pen, the pen Rafael had given to me in Avalon. I had left it in my dresser drawer and I hadn’t seen it in weeks. I stared at the exquisitely carved Celtic symbols and the blue sapphire-embedded tip. It was glowing.
Following my gaze, Rafael smiled and said, “Ah! The pen has something it wants you to write. Perhaps it wants you to write what happened.”
“Write it?” I asked, just staring at the sparkling pen in my hands. “I wouldn’t know what to say. No one would believe that it had all happened.”
Where would I even start?
I knew the Lizard People were still out there, looking for ways to torture us, but how could I tell people about them and the Mesmers? How could I warn humanity not to play into their hands and make them stronger? And above all, that they didn’t have to live in so much fear?
I drew my brows together in thought.
While I was at it, how could I tell people that their thoughts held so much power? How could words show anyone that ordinary was extraordinary after all? Ordinary people had saved the world, not the Einsteins, the celebrities, or the elected politicians. No, the world had been saved by people and animals like Al, Jack, and Tigger.
I tapped my fingers on the table and took a sip of tea.
I wish I could tell people that if someone like me had learned that I could accomplish so much, then the world was an exceedingly wonderful place. Humans could dream and accomplish anything as long as they stuck with it and didn’t give up. In the past, I’d always looked at my ordinary-self as if ordinary were a bad thing. I didn’t anymore.
I smiled wistfully and repeated, “No one would ever believe me.”
Rafael reached over and tweaked my nose. “Then make it a story. What is it that you humans say? Oh yes, change the names to protect the innocent.”
“Or not so innocent,” I teased.
I held still, his idea catching hold.
“People would read it if they thought it was a story,” I said, a little excited. “I could write the truth. At least they’d read it, even if they were left wondering just how much really had happened. Maybe it would make them think?”
Rafael just nodded.
I looked at him and grinned. “And you’d make such a great character in a story. Jareth would, too.”
“I was thinking Al would be quite popular,” Rafael said with a chuckle.
But I wasn’t listening to him anymore.
Grabbing my math notebook, I began flipping the pages to find a fresh page.
I’d write this story and I’d win, page by page. I’d wake people up to the fact they didn’t have to fear, that there were so many shades of love, that they were supposed to love themselves, and that their thoughts were so powerful that they could create and save worlds.
Taking a deep breath, I wondered where I should start, and then with the inkling of an idea, I began to write the beginning lines of my story:
I flipped my cell phone shut.
I’d just told Maya, my mother, goodbye.
Again.
It was her fifth stint in rehab. I felt sorry for her. I knew she tried her best.
The social worker sent me a sympathetic smile as she zipped along Mercer Island Parkway …
The End
About the Author and Other Books
Click this link for a list of Carmen's books on Amazon
Like many of us on this planet, Carmen Caine/Madison Adler is from another world. She spends every moment she can scribbling stories on sticky notes that her kids find posted all over the car, house, and barn.
When she is not working as a software engineer, she is busy ferrying her kids to various appointments, writing lyrics for her husband's songs,raising her Doberman Ajax, attempting to tame her three insane cats, scratching her three Nigerian Dwarf Goats behind the horns or coddling her flock of thirty bizarre chickens from around the world.
And although I am terrible at tweeting and posting on Facebook (though I do strive to improve), please find me at the following places:
Carmen and Madison's Facebook Fanpage
Facebook friends with Madison Adler ( aka Carmen )
Facebook friends with Carmen Caine ( aka Madison )
Madison's Twitter - more paranormal content
Carmen's Twitter - more medieval content
Carmen and Madison's website
THE GLASS WALL SERIES (PG-13)
The Glass Wall
What if humans were more powerful than they thought? What if an alien race had a reason to keep humanity entrenched in fear? And what if ancient beings that we've met before were still trying to protect us?
And just what if the fate of Earth depended upon an average 17-year-old girl with a few secrets of her own?
Would she discover that the power of love was truly the strongest of all?
Prequel - the short story "Behind the Mirror"
Rafael Channing is a Fate Tracker, protecting his world and Earth from disaster, but what should he do when disaster appears in th
e form of love?
Book One - The Glass Wall
17-year-old Sydney's only interest in life is flying under the radar.
But destiny has other plans when the tall, handsome, formal, and unusual Rafael Channing moves into the neighborhood. Athletic and with killer looks, he wears black eyeliner like a magician and seems to be watching Sydney's every move.
What starts out as a light-hearted investigation with her gadget-happy foster father takes a serious turn when she discovers that Rafael isn't human. Add Jareth, the country's latest rock sensation, into the mix and Sydney is swept into a mysterious world of Tulpas, the Fae, and the Brotherhood of the Snake.
Sydney doesn't know she's a Blue Thread of Fate. She doesn't know the fate of humanity depends on her choice of whom to trust--Jareth or Rafael. And she certainly doesn't know that she's taken the first step on the unexpected path of love.
Book Two of the Glass Wall- The Brotherhood of the Snake
The excitement and mystery continues as the romance begins. After breaking the Glass Wall, Sydney finds herself on the run with Rafael. And as her feelings for him awaken, danger arrives in the form of Mesmers, agents of evil sent by the Brotherhood of the Snake.
But when Jareth struts back onto the scene, it isn't long before Sydney finds herself immersed in sinister secrets, and the subsequent whirlwind of events leaves her wondering just who is right and who is wrong?
Book Three of the Glass Wall - The Inner Circle
As the predictions from the Hall of Mirrors come true, Sydney seizes control of her destiny and makes a choice between Rafael and Jareth. A choice of true love.
And as she evades Mesmers, Tulpas, and the Fae's Inner Circle, she discovers the power of human thought.
But then one of the three makes their Blue-Threaded decision, the decision of fate.
Is it the right one?
Book Four of the Glass Wall - The Egg (Now Available)
A death. A beginning. And the final Blue-Threaded decisions are made.
A NEW ADULT PARANORMAL SERIES
The first book of other-worldly creatures: “Monster” (2014)
THE HIGHLAND HEATHER AND HEARTS SCOTTISH ROMANCE SERIES (PG-13)
The Kindling Heart
(Scotland, 1478) - Ruan MacLeod was through with women. They were nothing but trouble.
Leaving the rash life of his youth behind, he returned to Skye, seeking peace. He never meant to split the clan or start a war with the MacDonald of Duntulm. He certainly never foresaw an arranged marriage to the most scandalous woman in Scotland. Even though she was twice his age, the size of a horse and mother to more than one illegitimate child, he agreed to secure his sister's freedom.
However, even that plan goes drastically awry. On his wedding day, he finds himself faced instead with an enticing, green-eyed lass named Bree. A walking disaster, his bride immediately turns his world into chaos and threatens to melt his resolve never to love again.
Betrayed by her own mother, Bree flees to Skye, thinking only to reunite with her long, lost father. Instead, she finds herself wed to Ruan MacLeod as a replacement bride. When she is forced to remain in the castle, she is soon caught between brothers and the mentally ill wife of the laird.
Shy, yet strong, Bree embarks on a journey of independence and learns along the way that all men are not necessarily evil. In fact, one particularly brooding, yet gentle-hearted warrior is worthy of love, and she soon loses her heart forever.
Award-Winning Novel: The Bedeviled Heart
"The Bedeviled Heart" is the ROMANCE SILVER MEDAL WINNER of the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards!
(Scotland, 1479) Cameron Malcolm Stewart, Earl of Lennox, had made his peace with destiny. It was not his fate to love as other men.
Each of his politically arranged marriages had ended in disaster. And though he had never touched a one of his wives, he had come to believe that sharing his name would consign a woman to an early grave. So, on the sunny spring day Cameron encounters a delightfully devious, bright-eyed lass selling charmed stones in one of Stirling's alehouses, he tosses her a shilling, thinking only to steal a kiss. But it is a kiss that will change his life forever.
To care for her ailing father, the precocious Kate Ferguson has resorted to swindling the drunkards of Stirling. But a chance meeting with a handsome and seductively mysterious outlaw named Cameron ends with a kiss that changes the course of her destiny.
But as dark times descend upon Scotland, Kate is inadvertently caught in a deadly web of court intrigue spun by the royal favorite, Thomas Cochrane. And as King James III falls prey to his fear of the Black Arts, accusations of witchcraft and treachery abound. The fate of Scotland hangs in the balance, and while Cameron vows to defy destiny itself to hold Kate forever in his arms, he must unravel the plots of nobles and commoners alike to protect the country that he loves.
Award-Winning Novel - The Daring Heart
(Scotland, 1482) - To the scandalous Lord Julian Gray, marriage is a malady and nothing more. How can a man even court a lass longer than a fortnight when there are so many pouting lips to kiss?
Roaming the courts of Europe, Julian appears to spend his time drinking wine, wagering gold, and dandling willing lasses upon his knee. But no one knows the man behind the mask. No one knows that he is Le Marin--Europe's most daring and brazen spy.
But everything changes the night he finds a dagger pressed against his ribs and an alluring hazel-eyed minx in his bed.
Born into the Vindictam, the renowned Venetian family of assassins, Liselle dreams of the day she will be allowed to practice the family craft. And when she is sent to the Scottish court, her dream is finally realized. But is it an honor ... or a curse?
As the threat of civil war looms over Scotland, and the king's own brother conspires with the English to put himself on the Scottish throne, Julian can't help but be distracted by the mysterious Venetian beauty and her many secrets.
But will it be his undoing?
The Bold Heart
The story that started it all ends with the fated love of Merry and Ewan.
(Scotland, 1488) Ewan was a battle-weary warrior with haunted dreams. He no longer believed in love.
As Scotland's greatest warrior and heir to the earldom of Mull, few dared to cross swords with Ewan MacLean. But the price he paid for his fearsome reputation was a heavy one. To survive, he buried his emotions and became only the warrior, riding from battle to battle with his men to protect Scotland from threats within and without her borders and letting himself feel nothing else.
But when his right-hand man, Alec Montgomery, is caught dallying with a powerful Lord's daughter, a trap is set. And both Ewan and Alec find themselves in an English prison, their necks headed for the noose.
On the Isle of Skye, the raven-haired Merry MacLeod spends her days caring for the clan elderly and hurtling across the moors on the back of her black stallion. A high-spirited, adventurous lass, she is no longer troubled by childhood memories of the day the braw lad, Ewan MacLean, rescued her from her husband, the cruel MacDonald. But when she hears the very same Ewan is now confined in an English prison, she disguises herself as a lad and sets out to repay her debt.
After a bold, mysterious youth rescues Ewan and his men from the English, the group swiftly makes their way back to Scotland. But no sooner embarked on their journey home, a young Prince James sounds the call to arms, rises against his father, King James III of Scotland, and plunges Scotland into a dangerous civil war.
But as they journey to join the prince, both Ewan and Alec discover their rescuer's secret--and both men find themselves falling unexpectedly in love with a raven-haired beauty.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Sydney’s Note to Reader
Chapter One – A Death Beyond Devastation
Chapter Two – Déjà Brew
Chapter Three – Finding Melody
Chapter Four – The White Room
Chapter Five – The
Secret of Lysol
Chapter Six – Fear
Chapter Seven – My Type
Chapter Eight – The Portal
Chapter Nine – A Long Goodbye
Chapter Ten – TopHat
Chapter Eleven – There’s No Place Like Al’s
Chapter Twelve – The Forbidden
Chapter Thirteen – The Blue Thread
Chapter Fourteen – The Tesla Coil
Chapter Fifteen – A Pot of Gold
Other Books
