Sky Lands: The Gift Stones Read online



  SKY LANDS

  The Gift Stones

  by T. L. Rese

  -

  Sky Lands: The Gift Stones

  Copyright © 2013 by T. L. Rese

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First Edition, 2013

  Cover by The Book Designers

  Special thanks to

  Chrissie Glazebrook, for her guidance and encouragement; I wish she were still here to see this novel in its entirety. My editor, John Jarrold, as well as Christina Usher, Swapna Kishore, and Kenneth Hughes, for their insightful feedback. Kai Lu, Lewis Feldman, and Joni Rippee, for their expertise. As well as Pauline Grant, for her friendship and support while I was in a new country writing this book.

  Contents

  Chapters

  1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22 • 23 • 24 • 25 • 26 • 27 • 28 • 29 • 30 • 31 • 32

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  READING GROUP DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  Chapter 1

  On November 19th, my life changed. I discovered that our society’s comprehension of the universe, astronomy, dimensions, and physics – is only in its infancy.

  The day, however, began innocently enough.

  Mid-semester, my astronomy lecture at UC Berkeley felt the same as the week the course began. I sat in the large lecture hall, another bored student face, with the same students peppering the seats around me. A familiar row of girls slept in their chairs at the very back, and the steps were littered as usual with stragglers who’d come in late. I swallowed a yawn. Sometimes, college still made me wish I were back in high school swimming for the men’s team.

  After classes, I grabbed a quick hot dog at Top Dog, eating it on the way to the music department. I noticed the leaves were starting to turn, blushing over in hues of amber. Growing up in the eternal summer of Southern California makes you appreciate the autumn of the Bay Area. The Berkeley fall has a pleasant feel to it, a gentle surrender if you paused to look. Often, a light rain would come to wash the streets with little streams of silver. Squirrels would chase each other across the college grounds and nap in the tree boughs. And Telegraph Avenue would be populated with vagrants stretching out a jingling cup. Every so often, someone would hang a wooden swing from a tree outside the music hall, and on sunnier days couples could be seen kissing on the green carpet of university lawns. Above it all, the Campanile would toll out the hours through the crisp air, filling the campus with sound.

  I swallowed the last of the hot dog and crossed to the Morrison music department. This was the quiet corner of campus where the arts were tucked away. The busy sounds of downtown could scarcely be heard, coming only softly in the distant background. At times, an occasional note from the music rooms would escape into the evening.

  But tonight, there was nothing. The trees grew thick, nestling the buildings against a small forest of redwood and oak. A drizzle was beginning to fall, so light that it was nearly imperceptible; I wouldn’t have noticed if a raindrop hadn’t fallen directly on my forehead. Beneath me, the pavement was staining over with dark wet spots. I hurried to the back of the building, pulling its doors open and stepping inside in a rush of wind and droplets of rain. Shuddering, I took the stairs to the basement and continued to one of the piano rooms.

  Among the privileges of growing up in the OC is the inevitable piano lesson, whether you’re musically inclined or not. Privileges are all right. But sometimes, I felt as if I were the only one on a perfect island. No one could ever reach me and I could never sail out, and all I’d ever see was its unchanging landscape and the ring of endless blue waters.

  As I left the piano rooms that evening, I stopped at the back doors and saw the rain pouring in sheets past the windows. I could hear its drumming on the roof. A sudden wind blew against the doors, shaking the windows and making the glass shiver with cold. I shrugged on my jacket and pulled out my umbrella. Berkeley rain was unpredictable, so I always had an umbrella living in my backpack wherever I went.

  I opened the door. I couldn’t have known it then, but as I stepped out, I was walking away from everything I had ever believed, everything I had ever known. In that simple moment, I sailed from my island into an unknown ocean. And I could never again return to the safety of my island.

  As the door closed behind me, I saw a plain girl standing near the building, tucked in a strip of dry spot beneath the overhang of the roof. She was cast into a shadow, the lights pouring through the windows behind her. Her arms were wrapped around herself, a hand clutching the jacket around her shoulders. She stared at the layers of rain with a worried look on her face. She was fragile, bird-boned, with a small nose and mouth, and gently tapered eyes. Her hair hung long and straight, damp from the moisture of the night. I realized she was the dark-haired girl who sat a few seats from me in my astronomy lectures. She caught my stare and smiled, quickly looking away.

  “Hey, you need some umbrella?” I asked, hoisting the thing higher.

  She smiled again and seemed even more shy. “I was just wondering how to get through this rain.” There was a breathy quality to her voice. She plucked absently at her necklace of white beads – her fingers pale, drained from cold. The light from the window flickered over her jeans; I could see the bottom of her pants was already darkened, soaked from the rain where they hung just above her black boots. She looked so bare in the raining night. She had nothing with her, not even a book to hold over her head against the weather.

  “Where do you live? Maybe I could walk you?”

  “Down Piedmont Avenue. But I don’t want you to go out of your way.”

  I walked over and raised the umbrella to shelter her. “I still have some time to kill before I meet my friends,” I said. “So really, I’d only be helping myself. Besides, it’ll only take me what? Maybe fifteen minutes to walk you over there?”

  She laughed. “Thanks.”

  And together, we stepped into the night.

  Chapter 2