[Baclup] Water and Earth, Prologue, scene 4 -- A Moment in the Meetinghouse Library

[JMR20190312: Backing up Water and Earth:
https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2018/05/we-0-04-moment-in-meetinghouse-library.html

Originally written between November 2017 and January 2018.
]

Previous: Researching Together

Table of Contents

---

Not by chance, we find ourselves in a local church one afternoon a day or two later. As we pass the meetinghouse library, we glance in and see the young man and the young woman, with the young woman's parents, notebooks out, working together at an internetworked communications terminal.

"Are you coming to church tomorrow?" we hear the young man ask.

"I think we plan on coming in the morning. How about you?"

"I'm in the afternoon group."

"Oh. Guess we won't see you tomorrow."

Glancing back again, we notice the young man's pensive expression, as if he is debating with himself on some great and weighty question. Or maybe he is just deciding whether to ask if they'd mind if he showed up in the morning to introduce them to his friends in the morning group.

The young woman seems focused on the terminal screen and her notebooks.
We continue on our business.

---

Table of Contents

Next: A Young Girl  Almost Drowns

---

[Backup] Water and Earth, Prologue, scene 3 -- Researching Together

[JMR20190312: Backing up Water and Earth:
https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2018/05/we-0-03-researching-together.html

Originally written between November 2017 and January 2018.
]

Previous: Warning

Table of Contents

---

"Hello, Water Princess."

Some business has taken us near a graveyard in the mountains again this morning.

The young woman turns and stands with a quizzical expression and a laugh. "Do you mean me?"

"Do you see anyone else here? -- besides your parents and my sister and brother-in-law, I mean."

"I suppose not. You're Ceri's brother?"

He nods.

"But if you call me such a thing, should I call you Earth Prince?"

The young man laughs. "I don't know your name."

"And I don't know yours."

The two eye each other, half warily, half inquisitively.

The young man points to a stone near himself. "My great grandfather was buried here." He stoops and reads the name and the date, his pronunciation clearly accustomed to the language.

"Oh." She takes out her notebook. "May I?"

"Sure. Do you think he's related to you? Ceri said you were researching your father's lines."

"Maybe he's a great-great-uncle or a distant cousin several times removed." She writes down what he tells her, and together they wander around the field, reading what is recorded on the stones, the young man deciphering words that have worn to almost unreadability and filling in with stories that have been passed down to him. After each stone, he checks her notes to make sure that she has been able to properly distinguish between the rumors, traditions, and supposed facts, and what is actually written on the stones.

After the third, the young man shifts his attention from the stones and looks around. "I thought the others would join us."

The young woman looks around as well and laughs. "I guess my parents thought they should get out of the way. Sometimes I think they plot against me."

The young man laughs too, hesitantly, perhaps a little self-consciously.

She continues. "But it's not necessary, really."

"No?"

"I'm still kind of young for that kind of stuff. Don't you think so?"

"Uhm, well, ..."

"And it's not like guys are going to be falling all over themselves to talk to me, is it? I mean, a face and a figure like this, ..."

"Ehrm, ..."

After an awkward pause, she looks at him and says, "Sorry. That wasn't fair of me to say was, it?"

He doesn't answer, just looks down, and his jaw juts briefly to one side. Then, making a discovery on a nearby stone, he begins reading again, and they continue talking of events past and people gone beyond.

---

Table of Contents

Next: A Moment in the Meetinghouse Library

---

[Backup] Water and Earth, Prologue, scene 2 -- A Warning

[JMR20190312: Backing up Water and Earth.
Working draft: https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2018/05/we-0-02-warning.html

The novel: https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2018/05/we-title-toc.html 
Originally written between November 2017 and January 2018, first published in my blog beginning May 2018.

]

Previous: Meeting in the Mountain

Table of Contents

---

When we happen again to be walking these mountain paths a few mornings later above a certain lake, we notice the young woman swimming below us.

She dives, then returns to the surface, using her momentum to lift her upper body out of the water, kicking with her legs into a full pirouette, then arching back underwater in apparent imitation of a dolphin playing.

(There are indeed dolphin-like mammals in the seas of this world.)

And we see the young man in the paths near us, running again. He slows to a stop above us, apparently observing the young woman, then abruptly descends off the path in front of us, his face showing an expression of concern. At the shore of the lake, he calls out when the young woman comes to the surface. She waves in reply, and he repeats his warning. Now she swims toward him to ask questions, and he points off to the other end of the lake, and gives some explanation. With some reluctance she nods assent and swims toward that end to continue her exercises, and the young man, having observed her retreat, continues his course in the mists above the lake.

---

Table of Contents

Next: Researching Together

---

[Backup] Water and Earth, Prologue, scene 1 -- Meeting in the Mountain

[JMR20190312: Backing up Water and Earth.
Working draft: https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2018/05/we-0-01-meeting-in-mountain.html

The novel: https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2018/05/we-title-toc.html 
Originally written between November 2017 and January 2018, first published in my blog beginning May 2018.
]

Table of Contents

---

The early morning mists drift in patches and clouds along the mountains, streams, and lakes in the pre-dawn light under the nether and hinter moons, giving a sense that this is a magical country. By turns, they hide, then reveal the path, the vegetation, and the view. Amid the shadowed greens, blues, browns, and flashes of watercolor hues we might almost not be surprised to meet fairies and other creatures of magic playing and working in the half light and shadows as we travel the mountain paths.

And when we see through the mists a young woman in a pale blue summer dress bending down to search among the rocks, flowers, and grasses of an open field, we might wonder if she is not just such an enchanted creature.

But her countenance is a bit ruddy and her build a bit solid to be a fairy.
(This young woman is one of our recent charges.)

As we watch, she stops, having found something written on one of the stones half hidden among the grasses, and calls out to a man and a woman who are searching in like manner nearby. They come, and she reads from the stone haltingly, not quite comfortable with the language, of the birth and death, and briefly of the life lived by one whose passing is marked by the stone she examines.

The older woman smiles and takes out a notebook, writing what the younger woman reads and checking over her shoulder, while the man examines nearby stones and takes notes of his own.

By their appearance, we might guess that the young woman and the couple are closely related.

Some two hundred meters distant from this scene, we note a young man in running gear, who stops for a break and stretches the muscles in his calves and around his Achilles, then drops to the ground for a set of pushups.

We see another man and woman approach, and he stands.

They exchange greetings of familiarity and pass, and he drops for another set of pushups. When he stands again they are approaching the young woman and her parents. They hale the three, and soon they are talking together. The young woman takes out her own notebook and listens intently.

The young man stretches his legs and lightly stretches the muscles in his inner thighs, then begins running again at an easy pace along one of the mountain paths. As he passes below the five, the young woman looks up and it seems their eyes meet. She smiles shyly.

The young man smiles and nods casually, continuing on his way. Whether they are acquainted or not does not seem immediately clear.

---

Table of Contents

Next: Warning

---

[Backup] Water and Earth, Title and Table of Contents

[JMR20190312: Backing up Water and Earth.
The working draft of the novel is here: https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2018/05/we-title-toc.html 

The bulk of the original version of the preface, and initial drafts of the as yet unpublished first section, were written during November (in a hospital bed) and December of 2017, and February 2018. Publishing in my blog began in May 2018. Minor edits continued until August 2018, at which time other commitments took priority until March 2019.

]

Water and Earth

Joel Matthew Rees

Copyright 2018 Joel Matthew Rees

Researching family history leads a group of young adults to discovery their hidden talents in surprising ways.

• Preface
  • Scene 1 -- A Meeting in the Mountains
  • Scene 2 -- A Warning
  • Scene 3 -- Researching Together
  • Scene 4 -- A Moment in the Meetinghouse Library
  • Scene 5 -- A Young Girl Almost Drowns
  • Scene 6 -- The Messengers
  • Scene 7 -- Reassurances
  • Scene 8 -- Swimming 
  • Scene 9 -- Roundball, One-on-one
  • Scene 10 -- The Team 
  • Scene 11 -- Anonymity
  • Scene 12 -- Talent
  • Scene 13 -- Gwen
  • Scene 14 -- Beryl
  • Scene 15 -- Hefin
• Chapter 1 (TBC)

This novel was seeded by a flash fiction piece written in a hospital bed.