Category: Young Adult/Teen Publisher: Self
Type: Fiction
Pages: 162
Copyright: October 2, 2012
ISBN-13: 9780987230751
“Why pick on me?” cried Emily Sutton, a typical 12 year-old girl. She hadn’t counted on finding an alien artifact while bush walking with her parents. Or had the artifact found her?
Emily Sutton is just like any other tween-age girl, trapped in the purgatory between childhood and adolescence. Then she discovers a large crystal in a stream ... or it discovers her ... and the adventures begin. It seems this is one of the millions of stones sent by a long gone race at the centre of the galaxy to spread knowledge. Like a humungous computer chip, it also contains remarkable powers which it can pass onto Emily. So, why has Emily been stuck with a secret friend that is like the most powerful computer in the world and not some big, secret government organization? Maybe the question is, how long will it be before some big, secret government organization finds Emily and her Genesis Stone?
Excerpt
PROLOGUE
No light came from within The Stone. Nor had it done so for close to a million years. The only reflections of light on its surface in the deep, dark cold of interstellar space were the twinkle of distant stars.
One such twinkle became a steady glow. Over the millennia, this pinpoint grew and The Stone began to feel the warmth of the star as it approached.
As The Stone spiraled in, it passed the lifeless outer planets many times, being pulled this way and that. It briefly noticed as the fifth planet was torn apart in a cataclysm. It sensed the fermenting life upon the third planet and with great effort caused itself to be drawn into its orbit.
For countless eons, The Stone observed the turmoil below as the planet completed the process of birth and adolescence. A large piece of debris that remained of the fifth planet put things back several million years when it collided with the third planet. The Stone continued to search the surface for signs of life.
At one stage, it fleetingly thought it detected the energy of others of its kind, but that was not The Mission.
Finally, The Stone determined that the time was right for entry, so it allowed itself to fall into the welcoming embrace of the swirling mass of blue, green and white below. It plunged into the atmosphere, glowing white from the friction and taking on what energy reserves it needed.
The angle it chose let The Stone skip down through the thickening layers, bleeding off speed and circling the globe several times. Not wanting to cause damage or to damage itself, The Stone had selected a large sea for its landing. Most of the intelligent life forms seemed to be amphibian.
With several loud sonic cracks and a howling hiss, The Stone entered the water. As it settled into the ooze, The Stone began the long wait and started to call … I am here.
CHAPTER ONE
Emily Sutton felt like she was re-living every ache and pain of her entire 12 year-old life in one day.
She hated it when her mother and father got it into their heads that they had to take these outings to help with ‘family bonding.’ Big deal. Didn’t they all sit together and watch TV every night? Wasn’t that enough? This time it was bush walking.
Emily seemed to be growing in “leaps and bounds,” as Grandma would say. Her legs were a foot longer than they were yesterday, she thought. It’s like someone suddenly used too much fertilizer. What was embarrassing was that she was now a good head taller than all the boys her age and most of the girls. They made “basketball player” and “spider monkey” jokes. And she felt clumsy with all these long limbs and tall body, often tripping over herself like a new-born colt.
Emily plunked down on the edge of the walking track. Her mother and father stopped and stood with hands on knees, huffing and puffing like big bad wolves and sweating like little pigs.
“Come on, Em,” puffed her Dad as he stood upright and arched his back, lifting the rucksack to let some cooling air reach the dampness underneath. “We’ll take a break for lunch at the top of the Saddle.”
“I’m not going another step,” Emily protested. “My feet are killing me. I’m going to soak them in that stream.”
“I told you that you should have worn better shoes,” her Mother said with that typical motherly tone. They really must go to Mother School to learn to say stuff like that.
“But they don’t match this. What if I meet someone I know?” Emily began to unlace the pink, spotted high-top tennis shoes, then stood and staggered towards the gurgling stream, laces dragging. “I’ll catch you up in a minute.”
Her Dad was looking at his map. “This must be Specter Creek,” he peered closer to read a legend on the map, raising his dark glasses, “‘Named by gold miners in 1852 because they said it was haunted by a ghost that tried to entice them into the water.’ ... Ooooh, spooky! ... ‘Though rich deposits were found throughout the vicinity, miners refused to prospect this promising alluvial source because of the Specter.’ Well, there you go, Em. Find a big gold nugget and you can buy us dinner!”
“Pay off the mortgage, more like it. Or maybe buy a tank of gas!” Always acting the Mother, always the sensible one. “We’ll wait for you just up ahead. Call out if you want us.”
Emily waved back without turning as she settled down on a flat rock beside the stream, gingerly pulling off the impractical runners and peeling off her socks. She closely inspected her feet for blisters. Her parents walked across the wooden footbridge a few meters further upstream.
“That does look inviting. How about a skinny dip?” teased Emily’s Dad.
“Not so skinny any more, but plenty of dip!” her mother shot back. “Now get moving. Give Emmy some space.”
Emily spun on her bottom and hung her feet out over the cooling water of the stream. She could see the gravel and pebbles a foot down through the crystal clear water. She closed her eyes and slowly lowered her feet together into the gently flowing stream, savoring every moment as they entered into the water.
I am here.
Emily turned her head and looked towards the path and then the bridge. “Cut it out, Dad. That’s not funny. Mom, make him stop!” Her feet reached the riverbed and she began to burrow her toes into the flat, smooth pebbles on the bottom.
I am here.
“Dad! You’re really pissing me off now! I’m not listening … LA-LA-LA-LA-LA!” she pretended to sing, hands over her ears and eyes closed.
I AM HERE!
She slowly took her hands away and opened her eyes. A suspicious look came across her face. “How did you do that?” Emily called out to no one in particular. She looked down into the water and noticed a bright golden gleam next to her foot and forgot about the mystery. Her eyes opened wide and her mouth wider as images of riches filled her head. She reached down with two hands and shoveled out the golden glint and everything around it. Emily brought the haul up to her eyes and the surrounding gravel and pebbles slipped away as she let the golden treasure reveal itself through the muck.
It was the size and shape of one of those tiny hens’ eggs she always got when she visited her cousins’ farm. Like a walnut, but a little more pointy at one end. It turned out it wasn’t gold after all, but some kind of glass or crystal that must have caught the light. It fit right into the palm of her left hand as she wrapped her fingers around it.
Suddenly, the stone began to glow and grow warm. Blinding light shot out between Emily’s fingers in all directions. She imagined she was holding a white-hot ember that was burning right through her palm. Emily immediately dropped the stone and stood up in the stream.
Wait! Please, talk to me, Emily …
She leaped from the water. Now this was creeping her out, totally! She tried to scream, but burped instead. That out of the way, she let out a tremendous yell, “Mommy Daddy Mommy MOMMYEEEEE!”
Grabbing her shoes and socks, Emily ran off as fast as she could go in the direction her parents took. She hesitated at the footbridge, but only for a second, prancing across like a Fijian Firewalker in hopes the bridge wasn’t haunted, too.
Emily met her parents coming down the track as fast as she was going up and they nearly passed each other. Her Dad, in the lead, skidded to a halt. She grabbed her mother in a hug first and then her dad.
“What’s this all about? You look like you’ve seen a ghost!” sniggered her Dad at his own joke.
“Stop it! You put that idea in her head. I’ll bet that stuff isn’t even on the map,” chided her Mother, getting a second, even tighter hug for that.
Emily’s father looked wounded, “I’m sorry, Pumpkin. No, it’s really there ... on the map. I didn’t mean to frighten you. So, did you find any gold?”
“That’s enough!” the Mother Lioness growled at the Daddy Lion.
Emily looked down at her hand, expecting to see it charred and twisted. Instead, there wasn’t a mark on it. “No, I ... uh ... just didn’t know where you were. Sorry.”
“That’s OK. Let’s have lunch. There’s a nice place just up ahead … where your father was trying to get frisky!” Mothers have a way of breaking tension better than Dads.
“Ewww! I didn’t need to know that!” With an arm around Emily from a parent on either side, the trio strolled up the track, all worry forgotten.
My memory of Elias is intimate but brief; I asked him, "what happened, where are you taking me, who are you? Tell me!"
In a calm voice; "Sara hush, you died.
In book four of the Megan Martin series, Megan, May, and Brianna set off for a distant planet on Christmas Eve. There they find a young alien woman about to lose her life to a prehistoric animal, which they must save. This woman is much too intelli
