Over the Rainbow - Book One - 'The Gathering Place'

Over the Rainbow

Book One – ‘The Gathering Place’

Robert Vaughan

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2015 by Robert Vaughan

Acknowledgements

To Glenn and Pahia, two of the most unlikely
of muses for this most unusual of tales; to Halie for her steadfast
devotion and unshakeable resolve that this story would make a
wonderful book. To the wonderful and mysterious Universe, who
provided the truly mystical concatenation of events that led to
its’ creation. And to Liam, whose arrival helped me see it through
to the end.

To all of you, I say sincerely- Mahalo.

Foreword

The strange, mystical journey that
eventually became the sprawling tale I titled- ‘Over the Rainbow’
began almost thirteen years ago, when a feverish bout of writing
about a story that insisted it be told wouldn’t let me rest until
the gist of it had been set down in words. I was an artist at the
time, comfortably mired in a career as a Designer and Scenic Artist
for Theater, Film and Television. But a writer? I hadn’t written
anything since high school (if you don’t count a horridly trite and
concatenated attempt at a stage-play during my Freshman year in
college). But writing? Never crossed my mind. It wasn’t that I
didn’t enjoy it- I did, perhaps more thoroughly than any other form
of artistic expression. I just didn’t consider it as
a job
. But then of
course, the Universe apparently had other ideas- those of course
being the strange and serendipitious circumstances that I revealed
in my Bio after the conclusion of Book One.

One bright summer day in 2003,
just after putting the final touches on a particularly delightful
rendition of ‘The Fantastiks’, I got a call- my Dad had passed
away. Cancer. I hurriedly threw my gear into a bag and embarked on
the twelve-hour drive to Montana to help my Mom with the
arrangements. As I was about to drive away my wife gave me a gift
to accompany me on the long, lonely trip. It was a new CD by one of
my favorite artists-
The Blue Man
Group
, titled ‘The Complex’.

Somewhere in the middle of the
desolate lunar landscape of southern Idaho, I slotted the disc into
the dash and touched ‘Play’. The first cut, a piece called ‘Above’
danced from the speakers. As the first notes of the melody tinkled
in my ears I nearly drove off the road as a vision exploded into my
awareness. It was the image of a sleek white glider- rising, rising
ever higher on a warm draft of air from the Earth below, climbing
gently skyward into a cloud-puffed sky. A pause in the song
preceded a crashing crescendo of sound, and the glider in my mind
suddenly pitched over and flashed toward the ground, on a literal
and metaphysical collision-course with a battered yellow Jeep. And
as it did the story blossomed in my mind, fully-finished and
complete. After regaining my bearings and focusing on not becoming
a solitary vehicular casualty on a lonely stretch of road, I
pondered the mystical vision as the undulating wave of featureless
asphalt rolled and buzzed beneath me. The details of the story
unfolded in smooth, unhurried fashion for the next several hours,
an audio book within my mind with vivid pictures and sounds,
accompanying and comforting me for the entire duration of the long,
arduous trip.

After I arrived at my destination, I shoved the
story to the back of my mind, the myriad of unwelcome and
unappetizing details of righting the ship of my mother’s affairs
consuming all my time and attention. But no sooner had I returned
to my safe, comfortable world, the story reared its’ head again,
and I found myself scribbling away madly for hours on a yellow
legal pad- ideas, notes, snippets of dialogue, marginal corrections
crowding the borders with a host of arrows and symbols that
resembled a madman’s diary.

Finally, I turned on my computer. A few days later,
I sat back with a contented sigh and typed ‘The End’. There- it was
finished. I truly thought I was done with it- a magical, mystical
tale of love, adventure and romance that had come full-circle to a
thoroughly satisfying conclusion.

Nope. Not even close.

A few weeks after my presumed
completion of my unexpected return to my long-forgotten but
never-lost love of writing, at precisely 3:14 AM one restless
summer’s night, I was rudely awakened by a pair of unlikely
characters who were idly chatting away on a heavenly beach- you
will come to know them as Buddy and Walter, who insisted that the
story I had told was vastly incomplete at best, that the
serendipitious interlacing’s of their lives (and mine) was far from
over- in fact it was just beginning to get interesting.

Groan.
Seriously, guys-? It’s like three AM- in the morning. And
it’s still
night
.

Unfortunately, their story was compelling enough
that I knew I couldn’t rest until I had granted them their due. And
by now of course I was thoroughly awake, the story still unspooling
in my mind as I stared at the ceiling, the scenes jumping and
merging like a strange movie on a semi-dark screen. With a heavy
sigh I quietly rolled out of bed and tiptoed to the computer.

By the time I had consumed my
third cup of coffee that morning I had written the bulk of
‘Starting all over again…’- and had also laid out the course of
over a dozen subsequent episodes of my tale in a frenzied and
convoluted fashion on the now-unrecognizable legal pad.

That was then. Since that time, the story has
manifested itself in a myriad of incarnations; a movie, a
mini-series, a TV series, and back again to a movie before finally
ending up as the epic tale of ‘serendipity’ that I believe it truly
wanted to be all along. Four different titles, over 250,000 words
(and counting), countless iterations and too-numerous-to-count
edits and re-writes, the story still continues to almost write
itself, and I greet each day as I sit at the keyboard in the
delight of discovering the continual unfolding of my colorful,
quirky characters and the mysterious and magical interweaving’s of
their lives.

I hope you enjoy them. I
know
I
do.

Robert Vaughan

Ogden, Utah

May 2015

Prologue

T
he
thatched rooftops of the sleepy tropical village sparkled in the
pale moonlight, twinkling with sapphires and diamonds from the dew
of a passing rain. It was a typically still and quiet night in this
rural island hamlet, the only sounds being the silkily silent waves
that whispered a lullaby to the shore, the gentle chorus of
crickets that sang softly in accompaniment, and the occasional
antiphonal bark of a lonely dog.

But nestled almost invisibly at the edge of the
jungle that ringed this cluster of huts and houses, a solitary
structure stood curiously apart from the rest. A feeble flickering
light leaked from its sole window and a slow trickle of smoke
drifted lazily from its roof, unexpected signs of human activity on
this seemingly ordinary night.

But this was no
ordinary
night…

The fire flickered softly in the metal brazier, the
coals that fed it glowing red, then orange, then red, pulsating
like a thing alive- as if within their very core they contained a
fiery heartbeat. Above the flames a pair of aged and weathered
hands slowly rubbed each other in concert, a shimmering shower of
glistening powder drifting gently from them into the fire below.
The sparkling dust was hungrily consumed by the rising flames, the
fire flickering and jumping, tightening and coalescing into a
vaguely human shape, one that abruptly flashed and transformed
itself into the unmistakable form of a female dancer.

The blazing creature of light and flame now began to
move of its own accord, its flaming body waving softly from side to
side, hair and arms rising and falling like the swelling waves of
the endless sea, dancing in time to an inaudible rhythm. Its
movements were hypnotic, mesmerizing, lithe and sinuous; an ancient
dance that told an even older story, a language of movement that
told a timeless tale.

As the fiery creature danced and swayed, the
weathered hands dusted the final grains of the iridescent powder
from their palms and gathered up a handful of small, dark wooden
disks. They shook them loosely within their grasp for several
moments- a muted, musical rattling betraying their presence; a soft
conversation in gently clicking voices. And then without warning
the hands abruptly parted and the disks tumbled down onto a worn
wooden table where they scattered and clattered across a brightly
colored cloth.

The thin, brown hands hovered above the mysterious
objects for the briefest of instants, and then quickly descended
and began sifting and sorting among the strangely patterned disks-
some inscribed with odd, ancient designs, still others marked
enigmatically with a singular dot of white. Eventually the hands
stopped in their wanderings, finally satisfied with their
arrangement, and now began to twitch and dance as they drifted and
darted above the scattered disks- sensing, absorbing, probing;
reading their silent story, an almost invisibly golden glow now
softly pulsing and radiating from the leathery palms as they glided
to and fro above the table.

And then- they stopped.

A single crooked finger pointed out a figure on one
of the disks. The image looked distinctly female, clearly
reminiscent of the flames in the brazier, its lines and contours
waving like a tree in the breeze- sinuous lines of 'hair' and
'arms' waving gently to one side. As the finger hovered over the
strange icon, the sound of a silky female voice rippled in the
fragile silence. The language it spoke was rooted in the mists of
time; its’ tones lyrical, musical, mystical - almost as if singing
the predictions and prognostications of the story told by the dark
wooden objects.

“
There will be a girl…”

The wavering finger moved ever-so-slightly to one
side and hovered over another disk immediately adjacent to the
previous, this one unmarked save for the sole dot of white on its
surface. The hand reached to it and slowly turned it over. Its’
opposite face revealed the image of a masculine stick figure, an
arching halo radiating above its head- the ‘Rainbow Man’.

The ancient voice declared softly, “And a boy…”

A muted gasp betrayed the presence of another soul
in the tiny hut, and then a timid voice inquired with a hushed note
of surprise, “Another- twins?”

The other voice replied with a slight chuckle, “Yes.
But not as you think. Look. The boy- downward. Their births will be
separate- worlds apart, and yet- together.” The hand darted to
another of the white-dotted disks and quickly turned it over,
revealing the image of Honu, the sea turtle. But not just Honu
alone- for on the face of the disk were a pair of the graceful
creatures, each overlapping the other in union. “They will again be
as one,” the ancient one said with a confident tone. “A reunion
separated only by time.” The hand indicated another of the disks
just beside it- a sun rising over the waves, and again she spoke,
“He will come, many years from now- from across the water…” And
then the leathery hand pointed to another just above that, this one
filled with several strange beings of various size, curious legless
forms floating almost at random on the surface of the dark disk,
and concluded, “…and the Gathering will begin.”

A long moment of silence followed, the gaze of the
ageless one sweeping slowly back and forth, the hands wandering
aimlessly above the remaining dark objects scattered about the
table, drifting this way and that, stopping and starting, as if now
unsure of their destination.