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    Burning memory
    Burning memory
    Burning memory
    Ebook137 pages1 hour

    Burning memory

    By Peter Alexander

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    About this ebook

     

    When the Greek Civilisation finally faded in 10 A.D. Artemis, the goddess of the hunt and the Moon, an avowed virgin warrior led her Nymphs to a portal which took them to safety in a parallel universe where they lived happily without aging. Hades maintained his Hell hole under the earth, and Zeus, greatly depressed, dwelled in hideaways on Earth. As Earth began its current self-destruction, Artemis worried about her half-sister, Persephone, who had spent many centuries on Earth, trying to find love, which had been denied her by Hades. Artemis then engaged in a campaign to create a New Earth, rescue Persephone and wreak revenge on Hades.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKennebec River Publishing
    Release dateAug 12, 2018
    ISBN9781386022626
    Burning memory
    Author

    Peter Alexander

    Peter Alexander, an American living in Thailand, is an author, award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist and publisher. He formed his entertainment production companies, Kennebec Entertainment and Kennebec Publishing in 1999. Earlier, he was owner, manager and creative director of a leading Bangkok advertising agency, Redford International associated with Saatchi & Saatchi in London. A graduate of Boston University, he began his career as a sports writer for The Worcester Telegram in Worcester, Mass. He was also a sports stringer for The New York Times. He later worked for the Fairfax Sun Echo in Fairfax, Virginia. He next wrote and directed the documentary film The Animal are Crying, which won first prizes at The San Francisco Film Festival as well as at festivals in Columbus, Ohio and New York. The film was shown on the Phil Donohue television show and was picked up by Columbia Pictures for distribution. During his career in advertising, he wrote and directed more than thirty television commercials, one of which won the Silver Medal (2nd place) among all Saatchi & Saatchi agencies throughout the world at a time when the London agency was ranked either first or second in the world. During the past eleven years, Mr. Alexander has written seven children’s books, four for another publisher, and his three famous “Mubu” books published by Kennebec Publishing. They are Mubu and Mu-Mu, the Little Animal Doctor, Mubu and the Ghosts and the Tiger, and Mubu and Hoot the owl. The latter is being reserved to become retailed as an ebook. Besides Ruthless, which is being prepared to be an ebook, he has written two suspense novels, Beneath and The Girl Who Threw Stars. The latter has been retailed online throughout the world and received numerous five star reviews. Thus far, Beneath, self published, has been sold at book events. It is planned to sell it in the future as an ebook. Mr. Alexander is completing two new novels, Present Perfect and Burning Memory, which are currently being edited. He has one motion picture – a feature – presently undergoing development. It is entitled Finding Ruby.

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      Book preview

      Burning memory - Peter Alexander

      © Peter Alexander March 2018

      1.

      Although in her mid -thirties, Erica Kastenbaum is a well-kept woman, maintaining a Rubenesque figure, which tosses and turns in her tormented sleep. She slumbers in an elegant queen-sized bed. Sprawled by her legs is Jupiter, her black Labrador. Her bedroom is eclectically furnished with antiques and abstract art. Her face is damp with a light sheen of perspiration.

      Erica murmurs in her sleep, "Nick...please...wait."

      Jupiter suddenly lifts his head and emits a low whine. In the throes of a dream, Erica begins to entwine herself in the sheets. The dog twists his neck to look at her.

      In the throes of her dream Mrs. K stumbles through a dark, phantasmagoric forest. She wears a flowing white nightgown. "Please...Nick..!" she cries out,  Where are you? Wait for me..!

      Ahead of her in this twisted wilderness is the figure of a man, Nick, barely discernible as he lurches down an embankment into a pit where tree roots seem to clutch at him. Erica’s screams seem to fall back, further and further away, as Nick, a handsome man, his face distorted with utter terror, is swallowed up by the earth.

      "Erica—go back..!" Nick manages to cry out.

      Then he is gone.

      IN THE BED, TEARS ESCAPE from between her eyelids as Mrs. K’s dream suddenly departs to new realm. Jupiter studies her with a look of intelligence that characterizes his species.

      Her dream next takes her to a plain white room with a desk and chairs on each side. A policeman sits in one chair, absorbed in his paperwork. Still garbed in her nightgown, her hair in disarray, Mrs. K tries to explain.

      "Nick is my husband. Was my husband..."

      The cop doesn’t even look up. "Which is it, Mrs. Kastenbaum? Is or was?"

      Erica looks at him blankly. I’m not sure.

      The cop looks up at her. "Perhaps it’s contingent," he suggests.

      She is bewildered. "Contingent? Contingent on what?"

      With the minutest of smiles, he turns back to his paperwork. Where he’s landed up.

      WITH HER LONG RED DYED hair streaming from under her helmet, Penny Garcia steers her motor scooter while listening to a tune on her headphones. Although she wears just a scanty white halter-top with blue shorts over her skinny frame, her skin is flushed by the intensity of the heat. Her amiable face glistens with perspiration. Dense patches of lofty forest produce a fresh fragrance that pacifies her, and then the slender valley, refulgent and shimmering gives way to the small town of Thurmont. There she turns into a rural shopping mall.

      Penny has only recently passed her twentieth birthday, but looks like a teenager, walking down an aisle, jabbing her straw into her Slurpee, then sipping it with relief from today’s heat. She selects a CD from one of the shelves.

      Back on the road, she resumes her travel, one hand on the plastic cup, the other steering the motor scooter. Suddenly Perrie Edwards’ No More Sad Songs playing on her headphones is eclipsed by a strange and uplifting tone that immediately engulfs her and causes an expression of bewilderment. She pulls her scooter over to the side of the road and removes her headphones. The tone continues, seemingly from the depths of the forest that borders the road.

      She cautiously, but with irresistible curiosity, bounces onto a path taking her deeper into the woods as the tone becomes louder. Suddenly her scooter passes through a transparent warp in the atmosphere, which barely registers on Penny’s consciousness because her attention is focused on the forest and the source of the sound. It begins to reveal an appearance that seems distinctly disparate from the area in which she has been traveling.

      The sunlight becomes a silvery blue. Her scooter putt-putts to a stop and Penny wraps her bare arms around one another as the heat dissipates and she finds herself in a glittering forest with metallic, frosty green trees that only faintly suggest the pine trees with which she is familiar.

      The strange musical tone continues in the air around her. She smiles as her head turns to take in this new and remarkable world. The new world in which she finds herself appears to be creating a feeling in her that is almost euphoric.

      She lowers the kickstand on her scooter and takes a deep breath, closing her eyes as she tilts her head back, running her hands through her hair. The girl begins to walk through the forest. A creature, odd, looking somewhat like an oversized rabbit with heavier fur than usual, hops onto the path ahead of her. Penny follows it for several seconds, and then a tall slab of crystal obelisk stands before her. Translucent, reaching beyond the treetops, the crystal seems to be the source of the ambient musical tone. Also the structure seems to pulse, belying the assumption of solidity. Penny’s smile widens into an expression of wonderment.

      From behind her, suddenly she hears a female voice, rather deep and somewhat seductive.

      Well, well.. Another one’s slipped through a crack.

      Penny slowly turns, as if spellbound. She finds herself facing a beautiful dark-haired young woman with well-shaped, tanned muscular arms and legs and a shimmering outfit that covers her torso with what appears almost as liquid crystal. Draped over her shoulder hangs a silver bow. A quiver holding silver arrows is strapped by her waist. A half smile plays on her lips. Her azure eyes, though seemingly congenial, also appear rather daunting.

      Penny cannot find her voice at first. She stares at the woman. Where..am..I..? she finally manages to croak.

      Smiling at her, the woman answers, You might say the ‘future,’ but that would be slightly misleading.

      The rabbit-like creature jumps into the young woman’s arms. The young woman caresses the animal’s ears as it cuddles into the crook of her arm.

      Penny has difficulty speaking. She cannot stop staring at the woman who looks like Wonder Woman or another TV amazon. Then there’s the animal who gazes back at her, a creature emerging from the forest unlike any she has ever seen. It does not seem threatening~ but who knows? Plenty of killers on TV smile knowingly before liquidating vulnerable skinny girls like her.

      Uh, I heard that sound, Penny finds her voice again. My name is Penny Garcia. I –uh- was on Route 4- on my motor scooter— Are you, uh, like an alien or something?

      The young woman laughs. I don’t think so,  says the amazon, "but maybe it depends on your origins. My name is Artemis.

      Penny stares at her, an unbelievable realization taking form in her mind. "Isn’t that from - like – Greek mythology? Like Zeus, and—

      The woman called Artemis shakes her head with an ironic half smile. "Hardly like Zeus, although we are related. You won’t find him around here— but yes, I am actually that Artemis."

      "My God! What is this— Mt. Olympus? Did I have an accident and die?"

      Penny feels her head and face for injuries.

      "No. Miss Garcia, you have simply fallen through a crack between two different realities. Don’t worry; you’ll be back on the road momentarily. This is happening more frequently, but you won’t lose a second of your precious time. As there are no accidents, I’m sure that we’ve met before. Probably we will meet again."

      Quietly emerging from the forest behind Artemis come other animals, many slightly unfamiliar to the girl, gathering around the goddess, watching Penny with curious eyes.

      Um, can’t I stay? I like animals, Penny shocks herself by asking.

      Artemis smiles, shaking her head. This site is still under construction.

      ON THE ROAD PENNY

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