Benjamin McTish and the Door Through the Grandfather Tree by June M. Pace
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure – YA and Older
This looks like such a fun adventure - be sure to read to the end and enter the Rafflecopter contest
This looks like such a fun adventure - be sure to read to the end and enter the Rafflecopter contest
As an artist I have always skirted
around the perimeter of creating on many levels. It seems to me if one can paint, then singing
and writing aren’t too far a stretch to contemplate or even excel at...it’s all
connected to that same thread of imagination and action.
So when I sat down to attempt to
paint something of whimsy...something that wasn’t so linear or black and white,
as most of my artwork is, I found that when I simply put the pencil on the
paper and let whatever came out, come out...it came.
Without conscious intention I had
drawn a little boy with a tree growing out of his head, and then there was a
pixie woman balancing in the middle of the air on a ball, and it continued from
there. A week later I had four drawings
and four very unique characters....and suddenly there it was, my book!
I decided right then that the book
I had always hoped to write was born from the name Benjamin McTish.
Now don’t get too far ahead of
me...I had no clue what the book was about, other than the fact that it had to
have tons of magic... and hope. It had
to stand for something more than entertainment, there had to be a moral to the
story...a purpose.
I always had a way with writing,
with captur ing the essence of what it was I needed to say in a way that caught peoples
attention...I am a wordsmith...a storyteller.
Even my everyday speech is up and
animated...some call is loquacious, or embellished, I call it
passionate...honest.
So here I was, sitting at my
computer, poised to put pen to paper, as it were, and write the novel that
would change everything. The only
problem was I had no clue what I wanted to say, or how to begin. The only part I absolutely knew was it needed
to be about a world of delight and imagination that lived beneath a behemoth
rooted tree...the Grandfather Tree. And
that somehow I had to inspire on a deeper level about the connectedness of us
sentient beings, floating around this blue and green orb...and of course wrap
it all up in a big exciting world of magic and thrills, adventure and question.
When I read, as I have done for a
majority of my life, I need the first page, the first sentence, to grab me. I need to be taken away instantly with the
promise of something continuing to take me to places I reserve only for books,
for reading and escaping...for losing myself in a new world for the next few
hours, days and weeks.
So that’s how it all began.
I literally pulled a random
sentence out of the air, something that held a mystery, something that if the
narrator of the story was surprised about, then the reader would be just as
engaged, and the magic would happen.
“Well, that’s very odd,
thought Benjamin. He had never noticed
the peculiar looking key hanging from a very worn and tattered green ribbon, on
the rusted nail in the garden shed before....”
June lives with her soon to be husband and best friend Ray, his youngest son and their two dogs, seven chickens and two ducks, in Santa Cruz Ca. Ray’s two older kids live respectively in LA and San Francisco.
June spends her days writing and sometimes painting her well known series of Rock n Roll icons.This series of work, the McTish characters, are a part of June in every sense of the word. “This work brings a deep sense of joy and passion for me in a very profound way, like nothing else that I do.”
June spends her days writing and sometimes painting her well known series of Rock n Roll icons.This series of work, the McTish characters, are a part of June in every sense of the word. “This work brings a deep sense of joy and passion for me in a very profound way, like nothing else that I do.”
Excerpt
He looked back at the Queen and calmly said, “You know you never answered my question about the prophecy. You HAVE heard the portend…am I correct?”
Tar Vigorn tilted her head in interest and her smile never wavered.
“Ahh, the prophecy of Pajah Set. Please tell me they don’t actually have you believing you are… THAT boy? You couldn’t possibly believe that. You are aware they’ve found others before you, are you not? Other boys they swore were going to save the world and put an end to all my beautiful darkness. Can you guess where those young lads are now, Benjamin?”
Suddenly Tar Vigorn disappeared from site, Benjamin looked up totally stupefied. However, before he could take another breath, she instantly reappeared on the other side of the Travel Chamber behind him and whispered, “Boo!”
Benjamin let the surprise grab him, “Ahh!”
“A little jumpy are we?” hissed the Queen.
Benjamin turned to look at her, his face filled with anger and question. She continued with her masterful web of unnerving him.
“Let me give you a bit of advice, dear boy. You’d be a fool to trust these imbeciles with your life. They’ll recruit anyone they can use to gain information. The last boy who followed the directive of Cottie Set….well let’s just say, he’s no longer following anyone. After all, how gullible does one have to be to believe in fairy tales…a prophecy, ridiculous! I thought you were much wiser than that young, sweet Benjamin. I mean honestly, do you really see yourself winning anything against the likes of me? You’re just a normal boy after all.”
Benjamin contained his anger, but the questions started to arise in his heart.
She’s right, how could I be the One? Why am I any different from the other boys who were told they were the ones? But before he had a chance to delve further into his impending doubt, the voice of Tannis appeared in his mind.
“Master Benjamin, the two boys that perished were always a question, she is not divulging all the information. There is much more than you have heard. You must not falter in the belief that the three of you are the children of truth, or she will gain advantage…..You are the prophecy, I put my life into your hands in trust and certainty. Search your heart young Benjamin and you will know the truth. You can not hide from your Path.”
Benjamin thought a moment, and once again a slow smile began to fill his face, disarming the Queen. Benjamin looked over at his friends, locking eyes with Annabel until she began to smile with him. Then Mathilda wiped her wet face with the back of her hand and followed suit. The girls walked over toBenjamin, standing on either side of him, and held his hands. They all looked up at the now boggled Queen.
“What you don’t know,” began the boy ever so cooly, “is that the prophecy was never about just one…it is about three friends. It also says that these three friends have a very powerful magic, the likes of which has never been wielded in the Gilley Forest before…a magic that stems from Love. But you wouldn’t know anything about that would you..Love? It also talks about a boy who has the ability to make things happen…just by THINK-ing them.”
The Queen flinched, her smile gone. Benjamin continued with his own Cheshire Cat grin.
“Can you guess what I am thinking right now Tar Vigorn?”
Then in an attempt to get even with the Queen and take back her power, Mathilda stepped closer to the Chamber wall, leaning forward as close as she could get, she locked eyes with the Queen.
“Better watch out, someone might drop a house on you,” she giggled.
The Queen went pale as the thought occurred to her in that instant, thatBenjamin McTish may very well be the boy of the ancient prediction. But before she had a chance to change her mind, a chestnut mare with a rider on his back was leaping high over the Travel Chamber and right over her head! The Queen swung around and looked as Tannis and Bits landed on the Forest floor a few feet away from her. A sly smile came back to her face.
“Well, if it isn’t my old friend Tannis. I should have know you would be involved in this. And how are things in the Darmon these days?”
Tannis smiled back at Tar Vigorn.
“You know perfectly well that I have not seen my home in many long years. But all this is about to change.”
And with this the battle commenced.
The children huddled together kneeling down on their heals, as Tar Vigorn unleashed a bounty of rapid fire lightening bolts straight for the Elf.
Tannis deflected the spikes of energy while jumping over the Chamber on the back of the stallion. The Queen instantly joined Tannis on the other side, and the exchange of red tinged electrifying currents flowed out of the two Forest dwellers. Bursts of exploding trees and stumps resounded like canon fire. The trio in the Travel Chamber were shell shocked at the intensity and force of the magic flying between the Elf and the Queen.
Errant lighting was ricochetting off the sides of the Travel Chamber causing the children to cover their ears from the booming sound it made inside. The entire Chamber shook with upheaval. Small trees that were unfortunate enough to be caught in the line of rage pouring out of Tar Vigorn, burned to char in seconds. The Travel Chamber was creaking and moaning, sounding like a wounded animal. It swayed and pulsed with every outcry of explosive energy thrown it’s way.
The Elf of the Darmon and the Queen of Darkness fought relentlessly. The Fairy clan dove in between the bursts of lightening to blind the Queen with their bright wall of color light. But the Queen would not be swayed.
Then, unexpectedly, Tar Vigorn halted her tirade and spoke the magic she needed to surrounded herself in a misty haze of smoke, thick, dark and ominous.
Everyone watched in astonishment as she appeared to be completely enveloped in the self propelled murk. Then she magically emerged from the cloud of spinning grey fog, in what appeared to be a large halo of light surrounding her body. It looked to the children as if she were in a small version of her own chamber, like an elliptical force field. Her own personal vibrating shield surrounding her entire body. And suddenly Tannis’s magic was senseless. Instead the powerful force of battle energy being heaved at her from all directions was bouncing back off of the protective barrier she now resided.
The Travel Chamber began to sound off an alarming vibration. It shimmied and shook with dramatic force. It felt as if the whole tunnel of light would collapse any moment. The sound engulfed the children and threatened to take their sanity with it. Mathilda was screaming at the top of her lungs. Annabel was holding onto her little sister as she grabbed Benjamin’s forearm and yelled with all of her might.
“Benjamin, I think the Travel Chamber is falling apart or something! We can’t just sit here!”
Benjamin’s mind was a whirling dervish of confusion. He could not keep up with the tremendous acceleration of events. He felt an immensely deep disappointment in himself for bringing this amazing journey to this final outcome. He looked up at the girls and just when he was willing to admit defeat, they all turned to look up as something flashed above them.
They had entered the eye of the storm.
The tightly nestled trio watched the activity around them in the syrupy silence of slow motion. First they witnessed, amidst the clouds of smoke and singed sky, as the belly of the chestnut stallion carrying the Elf of the Darmon, leapt over the slowly disintegrating Travel Chamber. They moved their gaze over to the backside of the Chamber where the steed landed with precision. The children looked up at Tannis.
Tannis looked calm and resolute, he smiled at Benjamin. In that quick momentBenjamin realized the intention of the Elf, and raised to his knees shouting, “NO TANNIS! DON’T DO IT!” But it was too late. The Elf was leaping on the back of his faithful stallion right into the center of the Travel Chamber.
Tannis turned Bits around to face the bewildered children. They all looked over at the Queen who was now standing solo amid her enraged destruction. The look on her face was worth every bit of fear the children had lived in the past evening. Her eyes were wide with incredulous disbelief. She was steaming with a rage strong enough to fell the tallest of fir trees. Then she let out a scream the likes of which had never been heard in the existence of the Gilley Forest.
She flew like a lightening bolt of deep dark magic at the Travel Chamber and it shook with a husky primal resonance that alarmed the inhabitants. When the Queen realized that her torture was beginning to wax heavily on the object of her anger, she reloaded and pulled the trigger again. She reigned a full force attack on the side of the Travel Chamber.
The walls were showing signs of dismantling. The glowing light of the Chamber began to flicker and the children could see that it would only be a matter of a short time before she would penetrate the protection shield. She would have them in her hands and at her unwavering mercy.
They all knew no one would survive.
Tannis jumped off of his steed and closed his eyes. He stretched his arms out beside him and touched the sides of the Travel Chamber with his hands. Within moments the watery energy of the Travel Chamber started to become more solidified. And without warning or thought…the lights went out.
After a moment the children, still in the darkness, realized there were no more sounds around them.
“Benjamin, where are we?” asked Annabel.
“I can’t see a bloody thing. But it doesn’t feel like we’re with the Queen anymore. Maybe…” and before he could say another word the small orb of light, generated by the Elf, was in the middle of everyone.
“Wow!” said Mathilda. “Where are we Tannis?”
“We are in between.”
