The Clearing

The Clearing

By: Judy Lynde Romero

This book is a work of fiction.  All characters herein described exist only in the author's imagination with no relation to any persons bearing the same name, living or dead, known or unknown to the author.  All names, characters, places, and incidents are either used fictitiously or are the product of the author's imagination.  Any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and unintended.

Cover art by: Travis Zimbelman

2019 Judy Lynde Romero Copyright

All Rights Reserved

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by any means now known or yet to be invented, without the express written permission of the Copyright Owner, excepting brief quotes used in reviews or scholarly journals.  The purchase of a copy of this book does not confer upon the purchaser license to use this work or any part therein in other works, including derivatives.

First Edition

ISBN #: 978-0-359-89642-4

Mountain Rain Publishers

Judy Lynde Romero

USA

For more information address: judyromero0@gmail.com

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all of the beautiful reflections who have come into my life.

To my husband, Phillip. Thank you for being there for me through my maddening thoughts and emotions.  You ground me when I am ready to float off to some distant realm.

To my children, Travis, Joseph and Elaine.  You are my beautiful angels.  You show me realities I could never see on my own.

To my beautiful sister, Linda.  I don’t think you realize how amazing you really are and how much you shaped my life with your passionate joy and laughter. 

To Carlos and Angelle.  Thank you for your understanding when I needed it most.

To God for showing me such compassion and possibilities and for helping me find the infinite nature of my imagination and the peace that can be seen in all things real and unreal.

Chapters

Chapter 1……………………………….…The Mountain

Chapter 2………………………………......Man on Fire

Chapter 3………………………………….The Coming Storm

Chapter 4………………………………….Strangling Vines

Chapter 5…………………………………..The Child to Come

Chapter 6…………………………………..Grandpa’s Secret

Chapter 7……………………………….….Hidden Truth

Chapter 8………….……………………….The Lost Son

Chapter 9…………………………….…….Deaths Doorstep

Chapter10…………………………………..Returning Home

Chapter 11………………………………….Inner Demons

Chapter 12……………………………..........The Mission

Chapter 13………………………………......The Descent

Chapter 14……………………………….....The Rescue

Chapter 15……………………………….....The Final Hour

Chapter 16……………………………….....Almost Home

Chapter 17……………………………….....Merging Realities

Chapter 18……………………………….....The Integration

Chapter 19………………………………....The Awakening

Chapter 20…………………………………The Ascension

1

The Mountain

    IT all started when I moved into my Grandpa and Grandma’s house.  It was May twenty-eighth and I remember the day so clearly.  My Aunt Joan was helping me load all of my stuff into the cabin.  I remember how the air smelled and the openness of it all, so fresh and so clear.  It was like stepping from a misty old closet into a sunlit room, you know when the sun is shining through the windows and the air is clean because you can see through it.  Well I loved it all.

    My name is Eva Carson.  My mother and father were killed in a car accident when I was only four years old.  I once in a while try to think really hard and remember everything I can about them, but it only comes back as bits and pieces.  Sometimes I would think of myself as being an orphan but I wasn’t really because I had my Aunt Joan and my Grandparents who have always cared for me.  They love me very much and I love them.  We are a family and I have never known any other.

      Every summer I come up to the Grand Mesa and stay with my Grandparents three months out of the year.  I love the mesa, the cabin and the lakes.  Colorado was the whole world to me.  I have always lived in Colorado except for the time when Grandpa and Grandma took me to see the Grand Canyon and another time when my Aunt Joan took me to a balloon festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico but I was only six then.  I am fourteen now and a freshman in High School.  I like school but I would rather be doing other things like spending time with my Grandparents and my close friend Jeremy.  Those are the times I enjoy the most.

    Moving day was the day I had been looking forward to all winter long.  I think I started packing my things three months before we even left.  I was so excited because this time I was going to stay at the mesa six months.  Grandpa and Grandma discussed it with Aunt Joan in the spring.  They decided I would spend a little more extra time with them while Joan spent time with her new husband, Daniel.  Daniel and Joan were married in February.  They didn’t want a big wedding so they walked into a courthouse one day and tied the knot.  I was really happy for Aunt Joan.  They had been planning to get married for about a year.  She deserved a good man and Daniel was the best.  He was really nice.  He didn’t treat me like a kid, more like a good friend even a grownup sometimes.  We often had long talks about things I was interested in.  He always listened intently and offered great advice when I asked.  He was like a big older brother I never knew I wanted.

    The first day I moved into my grandparents I had a strange feeling something interesting was going to happen.  My room was a loft above the living room.  I wasn’t use to all the room but I really liked it.  Two large pinewood dresser drawers were situated against the walls on both sides of the bed.  It felt so good to plop down on the bed after doing all that unpacking.

    I looked all around me at everything in the room.  It was all so familiar.  There were two pictures that hung on the wall. One was of snow, covered mountain paint by number. If you looked really close at the painting, in the bottom right corner you could see the name, Pal, in black cursive swirls.  Grandma once told me Grandpa use to call her that when she was younger. The fancy letters reminded me of an old fashioned calligraphy pen style of writing. 

    Then there was the big rug that nearly covered half of the wall to the left of my bed.  It was velvet black with beautiful mountains and a soft green valley.  Trees, grass and sheep dotted the countryside. Jesus was in the center of it.  He was crouched down, balancing himself with a staff in his right hand, and a lamb strewn across his lap.  He wore a red robe under garment with a white blanket draped over his shoulder.  He had a yellow halo over his head giving the impression of angelic goodness.  His head was bent with his eyes focused in on the little lamb he held.  Below Jesus a small stream cascaded by with a single white sheep stretching his neck to get a drink of water.  The picture always made me want to step into it because it seemed so peaceful and safe.

    Grandma always kept the room so clean.  I pictured her dusting, sweeping and placing fresh linen sheets on my bed.  One of the best things about that old loft is the big bay window at the head of the bed.  I enjoy lying there at night staring out into the stars.  There seemed to be so many in the mountains, as if they pushed me closer to the heavens.  As I lay there I felt a breeze blowing down on my hair and face.  I closed my eyes and imagined myself floating in a crisp angelic heaven in the clouds.  Birds would fly past me and gaze at my angelic beauty, serene and peaceful.  The sun glinted off my white satin gown like sparkling crystals of snow on a cold frigid day.  This window was my doorway to heaven.  There were two wing windows on each side of the bay window that cranked open.  Grandma usually left them open a crack to prevent the loft from getting so stuffy.  The fresh mountain breeze always lifted my spirits.

    I pushed myself onto my knees and sat up gazing out into the aspens and pine trees.  They stretched into the night sky as if to say Hold me forever.  The lake in the distance seemed so dark and still, echoing the blackness of space.  The sound of an owl cooing in a nearby tree filled the airs silence while crickets chimed in between each coo.  The night in the mountains are filled with so much beauty and sounds many people fail to notice.  Sometimes I would like to sit by my window and count all the different sounds.  One night I remember staying out late and I was sitting on the patio staring at a full moon.  I was sure I heard over thirty different sounds in just a few minutes from the creaking cabin door, lake ripples, chirping crickets, mountain echoes of airplane jet engines, to the branches rustling in a light breeze.  So many sounds some people would never pay any attention to.

    I turned my head to look at my watch when a bright light flashed through my window and dimmed.  I turned again to look out my window and in the sky was a small flickering light.  At first I thought it could be a falling star but as my eyes focused more clearly to the darkness it was something very different.  It was falling very closely and it wasn’t very far from the cabin.  It was only a short two minute walk from the front door and I could probably see its full mass looking straight up.  It stopped falling and shot off over the pines.  By the size of the trees the flickering light was round and flickered like a star then dropped into the forest trees.  I thought my eyes had to be playing tricks on me.  I remember sitting there for the longest time just staring into the darkness but everything seemed to be just as peaceful as ever.

    I don’t remember anything after that.  All I remember is waking up the next morning, smelling delicious smells floating through the house.  I hurried down the loft steps to find Grandma had made the most perfect breakfast of fresh blueberry pancakes with real maple syrup and butter, fried eggs and bacon.  Grandma did it all, she always did.  She never missed a meal.  She is the kind of Grandma everyone dreams of having.  I rarely saw Grandma get angry or sad for that matter.  She always had the answer to any problem I had and was happy to be with me when I really needed her.  She is the best!

    Now my Grandpa is a different story You stay out of my hair and I’ll stay out of yours. That is the way my Grandpa is.  He is a very quiet man with sullen eyes, strong jaw and scruffy beard.  He enjoyed a man’s work, chopping wood, tilling a garden, carrying heavy tools and of course pampering Grandma.  He appeared very hard on the outside but I knew he had a soft heart.  We were never really close, not like Grandma and me, but love always filled the cabin.

That afternoon there was a knock at the cabin door.  It was my friend Jeremy.  Jeremy and I had been friends since we were very little.  We had known each other for all the time that I had been coming up to the Mesa.  Jeremy’s father owned a trade store and lived in a cabin about a mile from ours.  Every summer, when I came up to the Mesa, Jeremy and I found tons of things to do.  He has always been one of my best friends even though he is two years younger than me.

That afternoon Grandma packed Jeremy and me a lunch.  We decided to go exploring in the woods.  I told Jeremy everything about the strange light I had seen the previous night.  I don’t think he really believed me but we headed off to where I had seen the light go down.  We were always pretty familiar with the woods around our cabins but sometimes we managed to find interesting new plants or little animals on our treks.  Our imagination did most of the work for us.  Jeremy’s imagination was always creating new scenarios while mine dwindled the older I got.  Jeremy would often get annoyed with me when I had to ask him to think of something fun to play.  He would ask me but for the life of me my mind would often draw a blank.  Sorry Jeremy, I can’t think of anything.  I found myself saying more than I should.

    Dang, your no fun!  He would say.  Then boom!  He would create some fantastic story we would recreate.  Lately though I felt a little silly playing and pretending with Jeremy.  I knew it was because I was getting older and the pang of childhood was becoming a memory to me as time went by.  I didn’t want to fully give up my childhood just yet so I continued to play as long as Jeremy let me.     

    When we had got to the place where I thought the light had gone down, we looked and looked but there wasn’t a sign of anything.  The strange thing was that in the place we searched lay a clearing in the middle of a bunch of pines.  Many wildflowers and thick green grass grew there.  I asked Jeremy if he had ever seen the place before and he responded that he hadn’t.  We must have seen it before sometime during the years we had been coming up to the Mesa.  It couldn’t have been more than a mile away from the cabin.  Jeremy and I had thought we explored every spot within two miles of the cabins.  We were both puzzled.

    The afternoon with Jeremy was what I looked forward too for so long.  This time with him took me away to places in my mind I longed to be when I was stressed or feeling down.  My time in the mountains was my oxygen, literally.  I survived just to be here in this place.  I was born to be here.  My childhood was embedded in every aspect of