Long Days in Paradise - The First Book of the Shards of Heaven Read online



  Long Days in Paradise

  The First Book of the Shards of Heaven

  Copyright © Amos T. Fairchild 2011

  Cover design copyright © Amos T. Fairchild 2011

  Cover original photography copyright © Guylaine Brunet 2008

  .o0o.

  A map of the Domain (Maeruna) is available at:

  https://bcs4me.com/atf/maps.html

  Other Books by Amos T. Fairchild

  The Shards of Heaven Series

  Long Days in Paradise

  The Time of the Dula Kaena

  The Face of Destiny

  Mirrim Dawn Series

  Mirrim Dawn

  Mirrim Vale

  The Megan Series

  Megan Evaluation

  Prologue

  The threads of tale are frail and thin

  And have no liking for their kin,

  Yet rope they weave, and weave it well.

  The rope of tale that Aestri tell.

  I

  Paradise for some, but not the rat.

  It had been doomed since the moment the eye of the predator had come upon it, a rat caught far from the sanctuary of the ship's bulkhead. It sniffed the musky air in the cool gloom of the hold, the aroma of the malting grain, and then returned to his meal.

  A meal provided by the predator, a thinking beast who smiled to herself as she gazed upon the near-mindless prey. At the appropriate moment she pounced swiftly and silently, her short claws piercing the flesh of the rat, its cry brief.

  She ate and frowned.

  Her next meal would be fish.

  II

  Helen Garret gazed out across the blazing waters of the Atlantic; north toward the island of Corvo that she knew lay beyond the curve of her mother earth. For now she sat upon a rugged rocky point on the northern shores of Flores, one of the western-most islands of the Portuguese Azores. The edge of the cliff was near; the wind was brisk, the waves pounding beneath...

  She continued to sit, an often wild sea now relaxing in relative calm before her. She sat because she could no longer stand.

  Helen inched the wheel-chair closer to the edge.

  A holiday, she thought, to forget all the pain and loss of mobility. She was eighteen, life as she had planned it already at an end – all because of a man that thought drink driving was a way of life. Her parents were dead and she should have been as well. She had no right to live on while they did not.

  So came the holiday, an idea of her current guardians, a time of joy that had indeed eased Helen's uncertain life, the last few dreamy days the most joyous of all. Now the thought of a return to Boston and its reality tore at her heart.

  Aunt Dolly placed a hand upon Helen's shoulder, startling her. “We should get you out of this wind – and Julio says there's a nice beach a few miles further on.”

  Helen smiled and took the hand of the woman that had always been so close to her heart – now closer than ever. “A little l...longer.” She filled her lungs with the damp salt air. “I feel more alive here than I have in w...weeks.”

  Dolly nodded. “Just remember that we have to be back in Ponta Delgardo by Wednesday. Then home,” she smiled. “You know that your friends back in Boston must be missing you something terrible.”

  “I know. Most of my brain is still w...working,” she slurred, knowing that a great deal of it still did not – and never would. “I j...just want to be alone a moment longer.”

  Dolly nodded and backed slightly. “And Dolly,” Helen added as hastily as she was able, smiling her crooked smile. “I l...love you.”

  Her aunt smiled again and retreated toward Uncle and Julio.

  It was not long before a vivid reoccurring dream returned to the mind of Helen Garret, a dream that was called into existence. Once her dreams had been of her future, the future of a promising young law student, a woman who planned to change the very way of life on her mother earth. Now her dreams drifted into fantasy, a world to hide within when the pain of reality came upon her shattered mind.

  In the last few days such dreams had become more vivid than the painful world surrounding her, and Helen knew she would never see Boston. Not while such dreams could be shaped at command. During the long night it was always paradise, gelled to a reality all its own. In the daylight hours it was often otherwise, a darker nightmare that seemed more challenging than terrifying.

  The creatures of nightmare did not bend easily to her will, as many before her had found. Some of those now tossed in restless midnight slumber on the other side of the globe. Yet without fear Helen welcomed darkness as it swept forward to embrace her.

  Again the world of reality dimmed.

  Darkness was surely death, but death was an ugly word; there should be another word. There should be no death. Perhaps there wasn't.

  Again the world slowed.

  Helen gazed upon the distant statue of Aunt Dolly, the more distant statues of her uncle and Julio, and shed a silent tear.

  They would never know.

  Helen drew upon the strength within and wheeled herself beyond the edge of the cliff.

  III

  Mainland Australia was a little over ten kilometres north of the water-borne test rig; Briggs was tempted to swim for it.

  The oil fields of Bass Strait weren't the worst, he was sure of that. The North Sea was more deadly on a good day than the strait on a bad, but the local conditions weren't great either. He had prepared himself for the hard work and the rough seas and long lonely hours, even the time away from home, but as for the screaming seas and the talk of ghosts...

  The rig shuddered again.

  “That's freakin' odd,” grumbled one of the uglier members of the crew as they sat in the bunk across from that of Briggs'. “Ten years I've been doing this shit, never had all that growlin' before.” Nobody had. There was more going on than the company dared tell.

  “Next you'll be seein' spanners flyin' around as well,” laughed another, Briggs frowning as they did.

  “Perhaps I will,” the ugly one glared in return. “Perhaps we all freakin' will,” he said ominously.

  The few odd things that Briggs himself had seen he blamed on way too much beer, and since everyone in the room drank just as heavily when they had the chance he suspected that was their problem as well. But alcoholic delirium didn't explain all, he was currently too sober for that, and there had to be more to the seismic testing than was being let on.

  Oil reserves were starting to look thin in the straits, everyone knew that, but there was too much invested in the field to pack up without getting every last drop. The new ultrasonic tests were going to ensure that, and it was up to the employees to ignore any adverse reaction that might result. That meant that there was officially no aftershock caused by any of the electronic blasts, and no sea-life of any description was ever seen floating in the currents near the rig. Anything they saw floating was officially imaginary.

  Briggs gritted his teeth and headed for the open decking, already having decided that it was last week on the rig – no matter what that might mean to his future. He was sick of the blasting, often occurring every half hour, and more sick of the occasional wail of the aftershock. Then every few days the rig would move on, leaving behind the few dead fish that managed to make it to surface.

  If it became any worse then he might even attempt leaving before the end of the week, even if it did mean swimming.

  When he saw Peter Nelson from the control room leaning out of the outer rail, Briggs was tempted to confront him. He worked in the control room and had to know somet
hing of what was going on, and he was nowhere near as evasive as anyone else in engineering.

  Yet Peter had problems enough of his own...

  IV

  Boston.

  Sue placed the three daisies carefully at the foot of the headstone.

  “Do you have to come here every day,” Jillian complained again as she did on a regular basis. “It has been over three years. I'm sure Helen would understand.” The thin redhead shrugged, glancing to her dark-eyed companion. “It's not as if she's even in there...”

  “She's at the bottom of the Atlantic somewhere,” Sue smiled. “I know, you've said that before. And I don't come every day. It's just that it's on the way to work, so... well I come past now and then.”

  “Twice a day.”

  “Every few days. Sometimes I'll come every day. I find it peaceful here; relaxing.”

  “Most of the people here are very relaxed,” snorted Jillian.

  Sue ignored the pun. “And whether Helen's body is here or not, her spirit is. I often feel that she's very near.”

  Jillian shook her head.

  Yet Sue again felt the warmth and love of her lost friend.