Annah and the Children of Evohe

by Clay Gilbert

  :

  “Annah is a truly magnificent story, one that had me laughing and crying many times over.”—V.L. Jennings, author of The Alien Mind and Visionary from the Stars

  “The soul of Golden Age sci-fi lives in the pages of Annah!”— Daven Anderson, author of Vampire Syndrome “The author takes on ideas that would intimidate me as a writer: mystical experiences are told in a way that makes them clear as day and completely credible. But his action scenes, and his description of people falling in love, are just as clear. Once I got caught up in the story of Annah of Evohe and Gary Holder, I was carried along on the river of words, and the only thing that stopped me was that the second book hasn’t been published yet.”—Paul J. Gies, author of Princess of Ghosts

  Author/producer Joel Eisenberg, author of the Chronicles of Ara series, says: “One of my surprises of the year and going to be a successful multi-media franchise. Seriously, check this one out! It’s a gift.”

  Annah and the Children of Evohe, Written by Clay Gilbert

  Published by Dark Moon Press

  P.O. Box 11496

  Fort Wayne, Indiana 46858-1496 www.DarkMoonPress.com

  DarkMoon@DarkMoonPress.com ISBN-13: 978-1976031373 © 2017 Dark Moon Press

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from author or publisher. This is a new edition of this novel, re-edited and substantially revised for its new publication by Dark Moon Press in 2017, alongside forthcoming first printings of the second volume in the Children of Evohe series, Annah and the Exiles, and the third volume, Annah and the Gates of Grace. Both are complete as I write this, and will be coming soon from Dark Moon Press, whose founder and CEO, Eric Vernor, I would like to thank for giving Annah and her stories a new home.

  Annah, like me, is an only child, and so in this story, especially, I should say at the beginning:

  This is for my Mom and Dad, who raised me from good seed, in good soil—and who always encouraged me to dream. Because of you, my roots are planted deep.

  Annah’s bond with her friends is also of great importance, a quality I might less than modestly say she gets from me. Thank you to my lifelong friends John Francis and Greg Efurd, who’ve been there to see my dreams develop from a very early time in my life.

  Thanks as well to Gerry Davidson, who, while he may not have been there at the beginning, has been a faithful friend through many twists and turns of my own life’s path through the greenwood.

  Thank you to Martha Gill for early literary guidance and encouragement, and to Stephen King for giving writing advice to a thirteen-year-old boy that a forty-six-year-old man still lives and works by today.

  For the Word-weavers who inspired this tale: Frank Herbert, Robert A. Heinlein, Anne McCaffrey, Octavia Butler, Jean M. Auel, and, particularly, Charlotte Bronte. I think Annah and Jane Eyre would find kinship in one another.

  For the Shapers of Song who accompanied me on the journey: The Grateful Dead, Fairport Convention, The Indigo Girls, Vienna Teng, and the wonderful Hayley Westenra, whose music I discovered during the writing of this novel, and whose voice is the one I hear when I imagineAnnah singing.

  To Jason Thayer, Emily Nicole Nicholson, and Jessica Cooke for being some of the first fans of the Children of Evohe series.

  To Charles and Debbie Trawick, and Carl Gilbert, for unflagging encouragement and the love of family.

  And last but most, to Jesus Christ, through whom I do all things.

  -C.G. The stars were full of music. Annah had always thought so. The young one sat on one of the great stones that surrounded what had been her parents’ hearth-fire, on what had been their homeground-and hers. Looking up, she watched the bright light-currents pulse and wane above her in the Sea of Stars, as she had often done before, and as she did every night now that they were gone. Around her, deeper in the Grove, were other homegrounds, and other fires. But for all the warmth she would find there, they might well be as distant as the starry dark.

  All around her, in the wood and grass, in the dark soil, or in the flowing streams, she heard the music of the world, like many voices raised. She had heard the voices all her life, but it had not taken her long to learn that, to most, the world was a place of silence, not of song. Her parents, and one or two others, had tried to understand-but now, all of them were gone, and those that remained were content to keep their distance.

  She told herself the silence made the voices easier to hear. In the still before darkness, or in the moments before firstlight, she sometimes sang back to them. She knew that was a thing no longer done, but she did not care. She was alone, and she thought to herself that maybe the voices of the world missed her people’s melodies the way she herself missed being understood.

  As if the First Ones-in whom people seemed to believe in as little as they did, now, in song-had heard her, she saw a great fire streak from the sky, like a bright wave breaking in the black Sea above, to come to ground somewhere beyond her sight. She wasted no time in making her way into the darkness, toward where the flame had fallen. And, when she was far enough from hearth and Grove that no one would hear, she began to sing.

  * * * Probably nothing out here, Gary Holder had thought, watching the sea of space ebb and flow around him through the observation window. That’s just fine. Sure as hell nothing for me back home. As I’m sure they knew when they stuck me with this.

  Recon was about the worst gig a spacer could hope to pull, really. Not because it was dangerous, unless you wanted to die of boredom. The Big War was over-Holder thought it was funny how there’d been so many wars they just passed the same name on from one to the next-but Homesec still kept a border patrol active just in case any old spacers who hadn’t got the memo happened by; that or the odd pirate out to skim a living off the top of Homesec’s regulations. Holder had thought about the pirate life himself once or twice. Hell, more than twice.

  What the hell was that? Holder braced himself against the console as a second shockwave shook the pod. Gravity ghost, I guess. From time to time, you ran into thatremnants of a ruined star, recently gone ‘nova, leaving traces of its field behind, usually along with a dusting of space boulders with nowhere else to go. Every now and then, Recon duty might mean you’d be part of a cleanup crew.

  A third shockwave rocked the ship . Fine way to go out, Holder thought. Smashed to death by space boulders or crushed in the clutch of a gravity ghost. Still, there was nothing else. There hadn’t been for quite a while. It’d been three years since Shannon, who he had mistaken for the love of his life, had gotten tired of being a spacer’s wife and run off with a paper-pusher from one of Homesec’s branch offices. Don’t care, Holder thought. Fuck him. Fuck ‘em all. Rather go out in a blaze of starlight than rust my heart out down here in the dust. Holder wondered sometimes if it wasn’t already rusted out anyway. He had wondered it again, just before his sight was swallowed by a starless dark.

  * * * When she reached the spot where the great fire had fallen, Annah saw two things: one that filled her with wonder, and one that filled her with fear. The first was that the light that she had seen streak from the sky had not been a star from the great black Sea above, but a ship like the ones she knew, from Vision, her own people had once flown in, long ago. She had never imagined she would see one, even broken and shattered as this one was.

  But the thing that struck her with fear washimthe male (and she could tell nearly at once that he was male) who had steered the craft. His form and face were familiar from her Memories. He was one of the race who, long ago, had come in sky-vessels even bigger than his ruined one, and for some reason the Memories did not show-at least not to her-had tried to destroy her wo
rld. She felt a shock of fear, but then she forced herself to recall the Memories in her mind.

  They had been like him, but he was not among them. It happened long ago. There is no way that he could have been there. He is not of my kind, and cannot restore himself the way we sometimes can when harm comes. If I leave him here, he will die. Surely that is not the will of Spirit. I will help him, although the others of my Grove would not understand.

  He was heavy, Annah thought, half-lifting and halfdragging the large male’s motionless form from the broken thing he’d been in when he fell from the Sea of Stars, burning like one of the lights she sometimes saw descending in the night. It did not matter, though; she was strong enough. Still, there is no need to take him back to the homeground. It will probably be a wiser thing to tend to him here, far from where others would be likely to find him. Wiser for him, and wiser for me.

  She looked at him now, for the first time. He had covered his body in some kind of soft outer shell that was not skin; something her people would never do. They believed that the way bodies were made was sacred; that to cover them, to hide their function and the perfection of their design was an insult to the First Ones. At least, that was what the Memories told her. It was not something that was spoken of any longer, even in the learning-circles. It was just the Way.

  And if his ways are different than mine, there is no harm in that. That, Annah knew, was not the Way. But it was hers. She murmured aloud, a thread of notes she thought would soothe him. You are safe, the song said, and Annah realized it was a healing-song from the past, a gift of Memory. She tugged and pulled at the second-skin that covered the motionless stranger, taking care not to injure him any further.

  When she had gotten all his coverings off him, Annah looked him over with great care. His body is not so different from the males here, she thought. She had never seen someone who was not of her kind, and she felt a mix of fear, curiosity, and a familiarity she did not understand. His hair was thin on top, but what he did have was mostly brown, with bits of grey scattered here and there like cloudstreaks before a storm. The oddest thing was that his face and chest were covered with hair, too. No one here looked like that.

  She brushed a fingertip along his chest, being careful not to wake him. The rough feel of the hair sent a shiver through her. Just as carefully, she stroked his cheek with one finger, with no more force than that of the wind against her own face as she moved through the woods. He turned his head a bit at her touch, and she pulled her hand back, but he did not awaken. There were cuts and bruises all over his body. Those will need cleaning and tending. He has been very badly hurt. I doubt if he can awaken, yet. But with help, and time, I hope that he will. He will be safe enough here, while I go to the stream and bring back some water to bathe him with. She stroked his forehead, murmured the healing-song to him once more, and sung the melody that her people used to lull young bloomlings to their rest. It would work on one who was wounded just as well.

  Annah made her way down the hill to the bank of the stream that flowed near the Grove; the stream she knew fed into the great river running from this part of the land to the flatlands and the High Country as well; places she had never seen, but longed to, just as she longed to one day see the worlds she knew lay beyond this one, somewhere high above, in the Sea of Stars. Somehow, finding him had changed things; had made the dream not seem so distant, and the distance itself not feel so far. She dipped the watervessel she had brought with her into the stream, singing a song of blessing as she did, asking the First Ones to use it to heal this stranger; asking them to heal the empty places inside her own heart.

  When she reached the place she had left him, close to where hisvessel was the only thing she could find to call ithad fallen, she bathed him, cleaned his wounds, and passed her hands over each of them in turn, as the Old Ones had taught her. He did not awaken, although he moved a bit, as he had before, and his eyes flickered beneath their lids, telling her that he dreamed, and not in peace. She bent close to him, and as she whispered the sleeping-songs to him once more, a voice from inside his mind spoke to hers, telling her his name: Gary Holder. After a time, Annah herself slept, too. The days passed like that, for nearly a full round of the moon, until one day, change came, for them both.

  * * *

  Holder didn’t know where he was, but it smelled green. Smelled green, and looked it, too. The Earth had been like this once, Holder thought, before the nearsighted idiots called humanity had blacked it up with industry and bombed it out with wars. He’d landed in some kind of forest, stretching as far as he could see. Was I thrown out of the ship? Holder started to crane his neck to see how bad the wreck had been, when he felt the soft touch of a hand on his shoulder—just behind him, and out of his view-and then the sound of a voice inside his head:

  No. Do not do that. You have already been hurt, and I do not want you to hurt, anymore. It sounded, for all he could tell, like the voice of a young woman. He’d always had a thing for voices, and both the sound of her voice and what she said comforted him.

  “Where am I?” Holder asked, momentarily disturbed. He’d heard stories of spacers who’d crashed on worlds where Earthfolk were either objects of hatred or scientific curiosity, and never returned. This didn’t seem like that, but he wasn’t sure.

  Safe, she said. Now sleep.

  To his surprise, Holder forgot his questioning, and did.

  * * * Holder awoke feeling as rested as he always did after a long stint in hypersleep, only that felt artificial; dreamlike, more like a temporary death. This felt more like remembering what living was.

  There was a chill breeze in the morning air, and all at once Holder realized that he was covered in one of the grey synthwool blankets from the ship. She must have done it. I did, she replied in his head. He found himself wishing he could hear her voice, out loud.

  You would not understand me, that way , she said, and the sound in his head after the words was the apotheosis of laughter. Maybe I will sing for you sometime, though.

  “I’d like that,” Holder said, “but I want to see you.” The sound of laughter again, but there was a shade to the sound that reminded him of the first time he’d seen Shannon naked. She’d been beautiful, but she hadn’t known it. She’d been so shy.

  Yes, the voice said. Shy. “That’s all right,” he said, his heart suddenly softening toward this being with a voice that sounded both ancient and young at once. “You don’t have to.”

  I want to . But not yet. Soon. You should eat, she added, and Holder noticed the small assortment of pale-green, round fruits, a visual cross between the watermelons and grapefruits of his own world, spread out on a bed of moss. These are-now Holder heard her speak for the first time in her own language, and was instantly struck by how beautiful and incomprehensible it was-but you would probably call them ‘sweetglobes.’ They have been a favorite of mine since I was a bloomling.“

  A-bloomling? I guess that’s what your folk call children.” That laughter again, sweet and piercing, like a sugared dagger. Yes. I am not a bloomling any longer, though. I am ashe uttered another note of the word-music that Holder knew was her native tongue. You would say that as ‘seedmaiden.’ It is a word for a female, such as I, who has left bloomhood behind and is somewhere between the beginning of her Becoming and the time when those changes are complete.

  “Hmm,” Holder considered. “Really, now. I think on my world, that would make you—-a teenager. Mid-to-late teens, I’m guessing. I don’t know why I’m telling you this, but it’s been quite a while since I was either a bloomling or a-” Seed-youth, she told him.

  “Seed-youth,” he echoed. Do not be troubled, Holder , she told him. Yes, I know that is what you call yourself, she added, sensing the questioning in his mind. There is no need. We will do only what Spirit compels, you and me. What life-form could stand against that?

  Her words were comforting, even if Holder thought they were a bit naïve. Where he was from, a lot could stand against it.

 
“What’s your name, then?” he asked her. She sang the word to him at first, a rich, bright melody that seemed as if it might contain every experience of an as-yet short life in its tones.

  “And what would that be, in my words?”

  My name is Annah. He awoke sometime later, without even realizing he’d fallen asleep. These sweetglobes have about the same effect as Thanksgiving dinner back home, he thought. “Annah?” he called.

  I am here , she said, from somewhere out of sight, beyond the border of trees that surrounded the campsite, although her voice in his mind felt close, like a whisper against his ear.

  “Where are your people?” Some lie sleeping, all around us, in stone and seed and soil, and those who are wakeful are at their homegrounds and hearth-fires, deep in the woods and the green. But there are many now at rest. The Old Ones spend much of their time sleeping, and there are few young ones left.

  “Are you the only young one here?”

  No, she said. But I am still alone.

  “Why?” Holder asked. None of the others are like me. They are all happy with the life of the root; the safety of the trunk and stem. Their thoughts are the group-thoughts of the grove-mind. They do not dream of the greater Garden; of being planted, rootless, in the Sea of Stars.

  He realized she had looked into his thoughts while he slept; had seen him there, at the controls of the ship. And he knew that, for her, even the most routine Recon patrol would be an errand of delight. “Annah, would you like to see it? The Sea of Stars, I mean?”

  Oh, I would, she said, sounding amazed that he had even asked. But they would never let me.

  “Your family?”

  The Grove, yes, my parents, and the Old Ones.

  Holder nodded, and chuckled to himself.

  What amuses you so, Holder?

  “It seems that on any world, the ‘old ones’always get in the way of what ‘seed-youths’ and ‘seed-maidens’ want to do.”

  But you are not a seed-youth, anymore, you said. There was a playful tone in her voice.