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    Lady of the Wasteland
    Lady of the Wasteland
    Lady of the Wasteland
    Ebook103 pages1 hour

    Lady of the Wasteland

    By Jon Jacks

    ()

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    About this ebook

    ‘Who am I?’ Viviana wonders when – after seeing whales during the school swimming competition – a weird new boy causes her to suffer bizarre recollections of an alternative life of outlandish landscapes and experiences. And when her parents vanish, with no trace of them ever having existed, Viviana is left wondering all the more: Who am I?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJon Jacks
    Release dateDec 11, 2015
    ISBN9781310491191
    Lady of the Wasteland
    Author

    Jon Jacks

    While working in London as, first, an advertising Creative Director (the title in the U.S. is wildly different; the role involves both creating and overseeing all the creative work in an agency, meaning you’re second only to the Chairman/President) and then a screenwriter for Hollywood and TV, I moved out to an incredibly ancient house in the countryside.On the day we moved out, my then three-year-old daughter (my son was yet to be born) was entranced by the new house, but also upset that we had left behind all that was familiar to her.So, very quickly, my wife Julie and I laid out rugs and comfortable chairs around the huge fireplace so that it looked and felt more like our London home. We then left my daughter quietly reading a book while we went to the kitchen to prepare something to eat.Around fifteen minutes later, my daughter came into the kitchen, saying that she felt much better now ‘after talking to the boy’.‘Boy?’ we asked. ‘What boy?’‘The little boy; he’s been talking to me on the sofa while you were in here.’We rushed into the room, looking around.There wasn’t any boy there of course.‘There isn’t any little boy here,’ we said.‘Of course,’ my daughter replied. ‘He told me he wasn’t alive anymore. He lived here a long time ago.’A child’s wild imagination?Well, that’s what we thought at the time; but there were other strange things, other strange presences (but not really frightening ones) that happened over the years that made me think otherwise.And so I began to write the kind of stories that, well, are just a little unbelievable.

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      Book preview

      Lady of the Wasteland - Jon Jacks

      Chapter 1

      There used to be a lake here.

      A vast lake.

      Containing all manner of fish, shoals of them: even whales and, yes, monstrous sea serpents.

      So deep. So cool. So magical.

      So otherworldly.

      My world.

      My lake.

      The one I ruled over.

      The one I drew my powers from.

      The one that was me, as I was the lake.

      I’m not used to walking; especially not across a dried, cracked landscape, in which my subjects lie gasping, perishing.

      Not used to the whistling moans of dying whales. The pitiful writhing of serpents half trapped in baked ground.

      Not used to feeling a wind pummelling my face, a wind that I can’t control.

      A wish – a wish to help, to redirect the wind, to conjure up cooling springs of water: that’s all it would have taken, when I still possessed my powers.

      I went to sleep, it seems; and woke to this

      The end of my world.

      Of the world as anyone knows it

      *

      Wherever I go, I’m no longer recognised.

      How could they know me?

      Few had ever seen me.

      Of those that did, none dared look directly at me.

      The glow might blind them, at least make them look away, their eyes too pained to stare any longer.

      Any longer?

      The longer I stay like this, the more human I become, more susceptible to their foolish ideas of the world, to their thoughts, their emotions.

      Emotions recognising beauty, not reality.

      Lies, not truth.

      From a high tower, the most handsome man I have ever seen is smiling down at me. And in the courtyard standing below that tower, a tree stands within its very centre, growing upside down.

      But – is it upside down?

      I’m no longer sure.

      The longer this goes on, the more I will forget.

      Forget, even, who I really am.

      And who is that?

      Who am I?

      *

      Chapter 2

      ‘Come on Viv!’

      Despite the water’s constant muting of the encouraging cries of her school friends, Viviana drew on that powerful sense of urgency to find those extra reserves of energy that would help her win the race.

      She drew inspiration, too, from the way her friends were all excitedly rising from their seats as the swimmers spun around at the edges of the swimming pool, heading into the penultimate length. She only caught odd glimpses of all this, of course, and then only through water-glazed eyes as she took in air, her head partially breaking the surface every now and again in mid stroke.

      Whenever she could, she focused most of her blurred gaze upon Aden, who was proudly smiling down on her.

      She would win this tournament for him!

      To show him that she was worthy of his love for her.

      Aden vanished in a wallowing of water as Viviana plunged her head under the waves once more, the arm she’d arch high in the air also dipping aggressively into the waters, powering her forward.

      There was a flash of brightest red in the waters flowing just beneath her, such that she briefly thought it might be a swirl of blood, that someone might have injured themselves in the last sharp turn against the wall.

      As her head rose again from the waters, her interest was no longer on the cheering crowds, but on that flash of scarlet.

      As her head dipped beneath the surface once more, she saw that it wasn’t – thankfully – blood after all, but the glow of a brilliantly petalled poppy, incongruously drifting in the violently stirred currents.

      She tried to ignore it, to treat it with the indifference it deserved, to concentrate on winning the race.

      But as she raised and dipped her face yet again, there were flashes of other, even brighter colours below her.

      A shoal of glittering fish.

      *

      The waters now stretched endlessly away from her, without any discernible depth.

      Her ears rang to the mournful cry of a whale rising from those dark, green depths.

      Her eyes widened as a monstrous serpent followed on close behind, striking out at her with its gaping, reddened maw.

      *

      Now hardly anyone was cheering. Those that were were congratulating their own friends for winning, or at least completing the race as, one by one, they reached out for and touched the pool’s end.

      Most of the crowd, however, even her own friends, were jeering, or even crying out for retribution against Viviana. She had disrupted the other swimmers as she’d urgently swum for the sides of the pool.

      She couldn’t understand what had happened.

      Hadn’t anyone else seen the fish, the whale, the serpent?

      Of course, she knew what the answer to that stupid question was – for the pool’s waters were sparklingly clear.

      Naturally, there weren’t any sea creatures in there.

      Not even the tiniest fish. And especially not a mythical serpent.

      She urgently glanced around, looking for Aden amongst the crowds.

      But he was no longer there.

      Rather, amongst all those furiously contorted faces, it was another boy who stood out, his expression intent and curious.

      It seemed his eyes never left her, even as she ashamedly turned away from the pool, deliberately limping as if she were suffering from cramp.

      Who was he?

      *

      Chapter 3

      Aden abruptly appeared alongside her, concernedly draping a thick, soft towel around her quaking shoulders.

      Everyone had thought she would easily win the swimming tournament.

      Instead, she had lost, and disgracefully too, barging into other competitors in her rush to vacate the pool.

      ‘Cramp: sorry,’ she whispered to Aden, regretting her lie, but unsure how else she could explain her stupidity.

      ‘Did you cut yourself?’ Aden asked, glancing down in alarm at her red-streaked heel.

      ‘Not that I–’

      Viviana looked back over her shoulder as she raised her heel up off the floor.

      It wasn’t blood.

      It was a poppy petal, sticking to

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