The emergence of expandi.., p.1
The Emergence of Expanding Light, page 1
The Emergence of Expanding Light
Book IV of the
Pan Chronicles
J.M. Stephen
Copyright © 2023, Jessica Sticklor
Published by:
D. X. Varos, Ltd
7665 E. Eastman Ave. #B101
Denver, CO 80231
This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.
Book cover design and layout by Ellie Bockert Augsburger of Creative Digital Studios.
www.CreativeDigitalStudios.com
Cover design features:
Full length portrait of dark haired woman wearing black and Victorian witch costume with a flowing cloak. standing pose, with gestural hand movements, against studio background, by faestock; beautiful brunette woman with long black hair, by Valua Vitaly; wood texture background. Interior design. Texture Logs by TetianaKotova; bbstract blue light energy sphere effect on black background, by d1sk; sick young man lying asleep in a hospital bed, by marvent; dark cold blue bedroom interior with linen sheet on bed, wall mock up, 3d render, by artjafara; 3D rendering of an interior of a cozy cabin in the woods with glass roof, a bed and fireplace, by Elisabeth Cölfen; women dress shoot in studio, by enginakyurt
ISBN: 978-1-955065-72-6 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-955065-73-3 (ebook)
Printed in the United States of America
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This book is dedicated to my publisher,
Daniel Willis, without his unwavering support this series would not exist. Without his belief in my work, I do not know if I could so brazenly call myself a writer.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
About the Author
Chapter One
Pippa’s stomach dropped, her legs went weightless, and her chest swelled as the ground flew from her feet and they rose higher into the sky. The Main Street feel of Hudson, New York grew smaller until the people looked like dots and the buildings like toys as the air whooshed against her skin like it was picking her body clean. She entwined her fingers tightly with Sky’s as they rose higher into the atmosphere. Pippa had learned enough from school and TV to know that the farther you got into the stratosphere, the colder it became and while a chill graced her skin as they headed into the clouds, she wasn’t freezing, even though she knew she should be. She also knew from the same school and TV that once you reach a certain point, you lose altitude and cannot breathe, you pass out completely, but that did not happen either. Pippa took a deep breath and another and then another. She was fine here.
“Zou want to go fast?” Sky asked with his thick French accent. He turned to face her with a smile on his face.
“Yes!” she cried. With that the air swirled faster as they shot sideways through it. Whips of wind danced around her as the inertia of her movements fluttered inside her body and they bounded through the clouds that tasted like vapor when she breathed them in. They were so high now that she couldn’t make out the land anymore, it was all just grass and road streaming underneath her like a giant kaleidoscope. They could have been over Hudson, or New York City, California, or anywhere. They slipped through fluffy white clouds and into larger, darker clouds that felt damp and sweltering. Land rolled under them but after a while, as they kept flying, the landscape changed to the dark, choppy waters of some kind of ocean.
Sky looked over at her and waved. His bright white hair shone against the darkness of the sky and ahead of them, in the distance, there were stars... and space. Sky stopped and they hovered in the air and though there was nowhere to stand, they remained still above it all. “It is beautiful, especially in the dark, no?” Sky asked as they levitated just inside a misty, white cloud. The bright lights of the cities on earth glistened below as they hovered over a black ocean and the night sky hung in a canopy of stars.
“How far can we go? Can we fly to space?” The bright red light of Mars and the mists of the blue of Venus shone before her and Pippa wondered how close she could get to them. She knew that this far in the stratosphere she shouldn’t be able to breathe, not on her own, and fairy magic must have been working within Sky to allow them to stay like this. But how far did it go? Could she walk on Mars without a second thought or were they bound to this planet?
“We cannot go much farther, no. We are close enough to the earth; we still have air. Even in the Fairy World, Sky has... limits, of course. We all have limits.” He smiled again and Pippa wondered why he’d been labeled antisocial. “We know of the one with no limits, the One they say, and to have no limits is…dangerous.”
“So, what do you do? What can you do?” Pippa asked as they levitated. At one point, Sky let go of Pippa’s hand and she nearly cried out, worried she’d plummet to her death, but she stayed in the air, huddled in the midst of a cloud.
“Do not worry, my powers spread, if I can hover, so can you. You’re safe here.”
“Thank you,” Pippa said, watching as Sky sat right down crisscrossing on the cloud that held him. Pippa did the same and found sitting on a cloud to be surprisingly comfortable. “So, what are you protecting? Inner Earth protects the Core... or at least he should have, Pan protects the forest, Vati protects water.”
“All of it,” Sky said, gazing out at the vast night before them. “There are stars and rocks in this place, and the magnetic field around the core spreads through the sky. And Aurora, you have not seen Aurora yet?”
“Who is she?”
“Not who, what.” With that Sky took her hand and they zipped to another cloud. Down below them lights danced about in swirls of green and blue, soft pinks and lavenders. These lights looked like ballerinas, pirouetting on tiptoes as the bright green, soft lavender and neon blue lights scampered about. “Aurora,” he said. “The Northern Lights, I believe you say?”
“The Northern Lights,” Pippa said, looking down in awe of them. The lights moved with such purpose, like they were living creatures. “Are there light nymphs in there?”
“No, only magnetic forces that keep radiation from the sun away from the planet. I am tasked with helping make sure Aurora does her job. And there are things in space, rocks, junk... that must be kept away. I remember, when the last large rock hit the earth... when the Sisters were fighting, I was distracted, and it got through... that was not a good day.”
“The time the dinosaurs were wiped out?” Sky nodded yes to Pippa’s guess and a strand of his white hair fell into his face. “You’re that old? Vati is a replacement, she’s not that old…Pan is... was... is…” Pippa’s heart sank when she remembered him. His body was at her father’s house, unresponsive and in a coma, while... Pan, the essence of him, was with Ruinae and she needed to help him. “I’m sorry, Pan…”
“You love him, no?” Sky asked. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a leather-bound book. “I find that love... humans and love... but poetry... humans wrote beautiful poetry and I write some.” He fumbled a bit with the book, like he was embarrassed of it. “Here,” he opened the book and started reading. “They say it is red, love/It is a rose and a heart made to look like what it is not/A heart is not concentric shapes tied together by want/But a beating instrument/No, love is not red/But white/Presence of all color/Then it is black/A deep hole/ Sadness.” Sky looked Pippa in the eye, and she smiled sadly at him. “I have seen you with him... I can see you... all of you... sometimes my brothers and sister appear in my head. I do not want to spy, but sometimes they are there... and you. He loves you.”
“How do you see us? I don’t remember your presence.”
Sky shook his head and looked out, far away. “There are things in the Heavens, they help me to see you. Sometimes I simply get an image of you. I don’t ask for it, but I know how you’ve been.”
“Is he okay? Pan? Do you know?” Pippa asked urgently.
“I have not seen him... not since he was put under the spell... but I felt a cold chill when it happened, and I knew he was in trouble.”
“Why didn’t you come? Why have you never come?”
Sky looked away, then into the clouds. “I am from the Heavens, you see, and something was taken from there…it has not been forgotten. Or forgiven.”
Pippa wanted to ask what it was, but she knew enough from conversations with Queen Mab and the Lady of the Lake to know that it was no use trying to convince any fairy creatures to talk when
“Not as old as the Queens…I came after... long after, but older than... the rest.”
“Has there ever been another sky?”
“No,” he said quickly, like there was something more to say on that subject but he couldn’t…or wouldn’t.
“So, before you came into existence…” Pippa was not sure how this sentence should go.
“The land was formless, and void and darkness hovered over the face of the earth.”
“That’s from The Bible,” Pippa observed.
“Light was first. It was the light and it condensed into a single point and burst outward, and we got worlds and universes and stars and space dust and…light. First there was light, and it is the light we should celebrate and the light we should fear.”
“Light? Like light nymphs or the sun?” Pippa racked her brain, wondering what he meant.
Sky shook his head like he was shaking something loose. “I am sorry, silly me, so silly, getting serious when we are in this beautiful place, and you are here, Philippa and I am going to help. I have decided.” He spoke with finality and Pippa smiled at him.
“What’s your name? Are you like Pan... he goes by Pan... never had another name.”
“Please call me Sky. I have tried other names, some have stuck. I have favorites but call me Sky. I prefer.”
Pippa knew it was important to respect a person, or a Fairer’s preferred name. Still, she asked, “What was the name you liked best?”
“Anga,” Sky said. “A place in Africa... it is now called Kenya; they speak a language called Swahilli there and their word for Sky... it is Anga. I remember when I first heard it. The language was very new then and I loved it. Anga... it is Sky... and I was for many years... Anga. But others have called me by different names. Nebe, Ceil, Himmin.”
“I see,” Pippa said. Sky looked at her and smiled thoughtfully.
“Zou want to see where I live, no?”
“In the Land of the Fairies?” Pippa asked. The Lady of the Lake’s realm was another world, so was Inner Earth where her brother now lived. Pippa pictured castles in the clouds and flowers that grew on wind currents.
“No. Here,” Sky said. “I live here. In the most magical city. Light! So might light!”
“So, there’s no realm of sky in the Land of the Fairies?”
“There is... it is... all over... it is just... sky,” Sky said as if her question didn’t really make sense. “Not the Heavens no, I do not live in the Heavens, which is another realm entirely and it is not as it was. I have not lived there in…ages.”
“So, you live on earth?”
“I do,” Sky said. Then he laughed. “What’s so strange about that?”
“You’re so kind... why do they call you antisocial?”
“I am different. No one has ever liked what is different, even the good guys, they find a way to dislike, to avoid what is different,” Sky said softly before looking up at her and smiling. “Would you like to see the city where I live? I promise it is beautiful.”
“Let’s go!” Pippa called.
“To Paris!” he called as they flew so fast the wind currents nearly knocked her back. Pippa grasped his hand more tightly and they made a beeline over the ocean. They flew for only a few moments before Pippa saw land. The outline of England looked surprisingly the same as on the maps she’d seen in her Social Studies textbook, so did Ireland, and the coast of France look so familiar as it came upon them. They flew high for a while and then the weight of the wind intensified for a second as Sky started to descend.
The land came slowly into view. It was nighttime and it took Pippa a moment to recognize the city. She’d never been there and had only seen it in the movies. But there it was, the lights, so many lights, even at night the city was lit up like a star. The Seine, the river that ran through the city, curved toward them and the great stone buildings and tiny cobblestone streets pulsated before her. They stopped after a moment and hovered in the air, just high enough so as not to be seen by a passing night owl.
“I’ve never been to Paris!” Pippa cried. “You live in Paris? Not the Land of the Fairies?”
“Oui,” Sky said. “Sadly, there are no fairies where I live.” Sky hung his head for a moment like he was remembering something. Then he looked up, shaking it off. “But, why live with fairies when there is Paris? This place is beautiful, no?” They hovered a little more as Pippa looked out. The outline of Notre Dame stood stark in the distance and even with the construction from the fire, it was beautiful. After another second, Sky took her hand and they zipped to the Eiffel Tower. She saw it coming, that great metal sculpture settled in the middle of a beautiful tree lined park. They zipped toward it like arrows to a bullseye. The tower grew bigger as they zipped closer and Sky descended on it, landing through the fenced in gates and right at the top in the outdoor observation deck. “Ze most beautiful place to see the city.”
“Wow, Paris, you live in Paris? I guess if you could live anywhere you want... do anything, why not live here?”
“Why not?” Sky declared and he stepped back, giving Pippa an extra moment to take it in. “This part of the world was not always developed. I lived in Africa for a long time, back when this place was barely civilized. And Europe has had so many distasteful wars. Africa was much more peaceful. Then I lived in a place called China. I spent some time in an emperor's home there. Then, and this was only a few years ago... some Vikings–”
“The Vikings were only a few years ago?” Pippa asked, half laughing.
“Well, maybe not to you... but for me there has been so much time.”
“Are you the oldest Pan?”
“The oldest of the living Pans, yes. But also, the first.”
“The first? You’re the first?”
“The Heavens came first, after the light that is so harrowing and the Queens and... .. other things, I appeared. I woke up and knew I had to protect all I saw.”
“Pans are protectors,” Pippa recited something Queen Mab had once said to her. Sky nodded and they both looked out. The cool metal of the Eiffel Tower slumbered beneath her as she looked out into the distance and absorbed the sleeping city.
“Why did my brother want to meet you?”
“He did not want to meet me,” Sky said innocently.
“But Eros was going to meet you. He said he was, and then, when he was down with Ruinae, he got sick…” Pippa flinched, remembering how her brother had helped her see Pan, how he’d taken on so much of the weight of Ruinae’s presence just so he could see Pan.
“He wanted me to meet you,” Sky said.
“But he said... he said he was going to see you but instead he had to send me because he got sick.”
“Sick? The Prince is sick?” Sky asked, instinctively worried.
“A little. He went down with Ruinae. He said he’d be fine.”
The worry on Sky’s face settled to calm. “Ah, I see. If the Prince said he is fine, he is fine. The Prince is not a lair.”
“He’s not. He’ll be okay, but Why would he want us to meet?”
“I do not know,” Sky replied. He looked out at the city once more and then said, “Would you like to see where I live?”
“Is it a safehouse, do you have Renegades taking care of you?”
A puzzled look formed on Sky’s face and then he said, “No. I live alone. I am Sky, I am older than the oldest fairy. I have outlived every living creature save the Queens and... .. those things. I keep the poisonous rays of the sun away from the earth and let the good from the sunshine through. I hold the stars in the Heavens and the clouds in the air. I do not need someone to take care of me.”
Sky was a thin, tall boy with a young face and big gray/silver eyes. His white hair glowed with luminesce and his skin was almost as black as the night outside. He was boyish and young and yet he seemed wiser and older even than the Lady of the Lake.
“Do you know who my mother is?”
“Olwenn. The Red-Haired Sister,” he said simply, like this was not shocking at all. “I have known for a while; I do not know why it takes the others so long to catch up.”
