For years, I have been guided to write a book.  I always thought it would be non fiction.  Recently, I committed to my daugher that I would write a short story for her to read the following day.  Thus began the process of creating Under The Black Sky.  As the main character Jackie continues to grow and evolve, she will spend time under many different colored skies.

Chapter One

Suddenly, Jackie was in the place of magic.  The air in this place is thick, so thick that it feels like liquid.  As she walked ever so slowly, she knew that tonight was a special night.  Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the sky went black.  Jackie had been in this place before.  If Jackie had her way, she would never be here again.  Jackie walked slowly through the forest, painfully aware of the sounds her black Converse low tops made as she gingerly inched along the fallen pine boughs.  The moonlight fell upon the branches of the trees, occasionally putting an angelic mist around Jackie’s face.

“Must walk quietly” she thought to herself, as she stepped even more carefully, even more lightly, even more slowly, through the vast, unending forest.

The forest under the black sky at night has a very eerie quality.  It is dark for sure.  But the forest under the black sky is not so dark that you can’t see the trees, or any of the creatures that inhabit this unique and often bizarre world.

On this night, there were three moons showing, one full, one half, and one just under a quarter.  This gave Jackie enough light to see where she was going.  But she didn’t know where she was going.  Jackie had to trust her intuition and slowly move forward.  In this world, sight and sound are not senses that will give Jackie much guidance.  Jackie has learned that the place to focus was in her heart.  If she listened closely to the feelings of her heart, she would know which direction to take at each turn.  Time and time again, Jackie had returned to the forest under the black sky, only to discover that it was in so many ways different than the last.  Sometimes the trees were the same, but in different positions.  Other times, the trees were larger, and more foreboding, less friendly and inviting.

The sounds of the forest were always unique, not like anything she had ever heard in her normal life.  When the wind blew through the trees, it made a singing sound, as if a group of women were huddled around a fire, chanting in unison for great powers to bless them.  Other times, Jackie heard the sound of a didgeridoo, and the beating of a simple drum, seeming to call her deeper into the forest.  The ground underneath the forest seemed to breathe, and when Jackie slowed down just enough, she could feel the powerful energy of the earth as it sighed in and out.

Jackie came to stop at a huge redwood tree, the only way she knew to be completely silent.  Jackie had found this mythical tree before in her travels.  She referred to the tree as The Mighty and knew it to be her friend and guardian.  No matter what happened in the forest under the black sky, Jackie had always felt safe snuggled up against The Mighty.  Jackie’s breath, now heavy, was feeling the weight of the dark energy of this place.  She hugged The Mighty with a desperation, a hope, that “it” wouldn’t find her.

Tonight, the tree felt cold to the touch, and soft.  Jackie laid her head against the green, moist, leafy moss which had grown on The Mighty for what must have been hundreds of years.  The moss felt to Jackie like her down bedroom pillow.  For a brief and serene moment, Jackie was back in her bed, safe and cozy warm.
Unexpectedly and with amazing force, a powerful woosh of what most people would call wind blew through the woods.  Jackie was immediately knocked out of her beautiful memory of sleep and comfort, away from this danger.

“Oh yes” she thought, “Drat, I am still here under the black sky.”

Jackie knew that this was not normal wind.  Oh no, not in this place.  On no, if only that could be the case.  The wind in the forest under the black sky is a subtle form of communication, a message that few can hear, and even fewer can feel.  Not only can Jackie hear and feel the wind, she knows of its nature.

“I can die in this place!” she thought, as the sound of her heavy beating heart pounded through her ear drums.

Chapter Two

By all outward appearances, Jackie is a normal 14 year old girl.  She goes to school just like everybody else.  When her daddy drops her off at school, he notices her long strawberry blond hair falling over her backpack full of books, her lunch, and of course, her Sony Erickson Walkman cell phone.  At 5′ 2″, Jackie is shorter than most of her classmates.  Due to the date of her birth, she was grouped with all the other children, and amongst the youngest in her class.  Yet, as her black South African kindergarten teacher told her parents in England, “she may be the smallest, but she is the strongest!”  If only Ms. Umbata knew the price that strength had exacted over the years.

Jackie’s strength, as with all strengths, was a blessing and a curse.  While she spent many an evening under the black sky battling against demons, she was also able to see a rare beauty in everything.  If you met Jackie, you would no doubt feel warmth in your heart.  Even the least perceptive amongst us would know that there was something special about this unique being.  While 14 years of age, she displayed the sensitivity and wisdom of someone much older.  Jackie had lived many lives, and from the feel of this girl, many of them were filled with dark skies.

“What to do, what to do” Jackie thought as she desperately tried to slow down her breathing.

Jackie could feel her normal sense of reality slowly ebbing.  Under the black sky, your memory of who you are begins to recede.  It can’t be helped.  Each time Jackie is transported to the endless forest, she swears she will remember her past experiences.  But only a true master can make such a distinction.  Jackie could only retain a vague memory of the forest and of her experiences.  Even Jackie, with all her time in the astral plane, she has many years to go before she can master the unmasterable.

Under the black sky, reality shifts, perceptions play tricks on you, and as each second ticks by, Jackie struggled to keep her wits about her.

“It’s me, it’s Jackie, none of this is real!” she would say, almost like a mantra, a chant for forgiveness, a plea for redemption, a siren song for sanity.  If only she could wake up.

“Why can’t I ever be under the green sky?”

Legend has it; the forest under the green sky is heaven on earth.  Few are fortunate enough, or strong enough, to feel the rapture of a life under the green sky.  Jackie had yet to experience the green sky.  She has heard stories about it, from fellow astral travelers, but had never been there.  A quirky 16 year old, a fellow traveler whom Jackie had named Zippy because he was able to pop in and out in an instant, had shared his one experience under the green sky.

“Jackie, if you can imagine the time you cried the most from joy, and multiplied that feeling by 100, then you would have an inkling of the intense beauty of life under the green sky.”  Zippy continued “It is so magnificent, that only the true masters can walk the earth.  I don’t consider myself a master, so I don’t know how I ended up under the green sky that one time, but there were many of us who simply couldn’t walk, for we were so overcome with emotion.  I fell to the ground onto my knees”  Zippy concluded, “I do want to go there again, but not for a long while.  I need to become a true master, else the place under the green sky is just too intense, there is so much beauty, it is almost too painful.”

Jackie dreamed of experiencing the green sky.  It was a place she could imagine, but never really know until she arrived.  “Oh, to become a true master” she would utter under her breath to herself during her times of day dreaming in class.  “How far have I come?  How far do I still have to go?  Of all my lifetimes, could this be the one in which I become a master?  Could it be?  She would ask with a hope that lives within us all.

The powerful wind whooshed again.  Jackie was starting to lose her memory.  She could still remember her name, but she could no longer remember where she came from.

“Earth” she thought.

“Yes, I come from a place called earth.”

Her memory of her mom and dad, her brothers and her sister, her best friend, Sidney, all were long gone.  This is what happens under the black sky.  Without her memories, Jackie must endure a terror from which only the very strong can survive.  In this world, only the clever and most perceptive ever have the opportunity to experience the black sky.  The weak will never see it, not until they are ready, not until it is their time.

“Here they come” Jackie mumbled to herself as she heard the distinct and unforgettable sound of wings cutting through the air.

As Jackie clutched at the majestic redwood tree, her temporary oasis in this dark world of twisted memories, she felt the presence moving slowly toward her.  The presence is a force in the world.  The presence seems to have great intelligence, though it is very difficult to understand.  The presence rarely feels benign, but rather terrifying and encouraging at the same time.  And in the forest under the black sky, the feeling of the force is even more powerful, more tangible, and more awesome.

The bats, as Jackie called them, were moving closer.  While Jackie could not recall ever seeing the bats, she knew of their nature.  Zippy had told her that the bats were about 6 feet long.  This Jackie did remember.  They were all black, with the exception of a small swatch of color just above their eyes.  Most were colored in red, and just a few had a violet hue to them.  They never did cause any harm, except to scare travelers who ventured into the forest under the black sky.  The bats served the dark presence that inhabited the forest.  That was their sole purpose.

Every time the bats appeared in the past, Jackie has gotten so scared, that she woke up and found herself back in her bed.  Even though she had gotten so much farther in her previous lifetimes, all of that was forgotten.  Each lifetime, Jackie would seem to start back at ground zero in her pursuit of mastery.  But each time, she would remember quicker.  Each time she came back, her energy always showed more maturity, more warmth, and more wisdom.  Ordinary people would recognize there was something unique about Jackie.  All of these qualities, which were reflected back to her from others, served as a quickening.  But still, she would forget all the work she had done in the past.  That is the nature of this place.

As the bat creatures began to circle over Jackie, she realized she was still in the forest under the black sky.  Although almost all of her memories were lost, she knew that during this time, she had never been able to look up and see the bats circling.  Somehow, this time, she had reached a new level, a new place, a new experience in the forest.

“Click click click” she heard from overhead.

Each of the bats was making a unique clicking sound, reminiscent of how some of the African tribes communicate to each other.

“Click click click.”

Upon looking at the bats, especially at close range, Jackie noticed the beautiful colors on their heads.  Rather than hideous hellish creatures, the bats were far more beautiful than Jackie could ever have imagined.

“Look at you all, you’re lovely!” Jackie breathed out in amazement.

Against the black sky, Jackie could see the shadowy outlines of their bodies.  What most struck Jackie was the phosphorescent colors from the bats heads, appearing as multi colored fire flies, weaving in and out in formation, as if performing a intricate dance just for Jackie’s amusement.

“Wheew!”  Jackie let out a big sigh of relief.

For so long, she was feeling so terrified.  Now, having turned her head up to face the bats, she felt all the tenseness leave her body.

“What are you guys doing?” she said aloud to the bats, not knowing if they would recognize her or her strange sounds.

“Why are you here?” she asked, as she began to release herself from the giant redwood tree.

The bats simply looked at her, and kept flying in their formation, circling around Jackie and The Mighty.

Beginning to have fun with her newfound courage, Jackie asked

“What are you all doing up there?”

Jackie’s respite was short lived.  An immense wind blew through the timbers.  Branches were blowing while some pine cones fell from the trees, landing all about Jackie as she was still looking up at the bats.  Under the sky, no matter what color, the function of memory is useless.  Everything is very much in the moment.  There is no past, and no present.  You may wonder how Jackie could so easily forget about the presence in the forest, but that is the nature of the forest.  It cares not who you are, who you think you are, what has happened to you in the past, or what you think may happen to you in the future.  No, the forest has no compassion.  The presence is all seeing and all knowing.  Its sole purpose is to challenge you and push you towards whatever it is that you don’t want to see.  It takes each traveler as is.

Now Jackie began to breathe deeply.  She felt the cool air entering her throat, as she once again began to hug The Mighty.  This time, the soft moss bore no semblance of comfort.  The wind continued to get stronger and fiercer.  Jackie felt herself lose her footing a few times as her feet slipped in the soft earth.  Each time she would regain her footing, deeply panting in hopes the incredible forece of the wind and the intense sounds would stop.  The roar of the forest became deafening.  Branches seemed to be falling from the sky.  The bats were clicking at a much faster pace, and the black sky seemed to get even darker.  Still, Jackie would not wake up.  Somewhere in the deepest part of her being, she knew she was destined to meet the presence.  This was the time and the place.

“God help me!” she prayed while she pushed her face up against the red bark of the giant tree.