Stones (Data) (72 page)

“And these gyoza? Where did they come from?”

Matt slides closer to Jessica, his body fully against hers, and runs his fingers down her back, feeling the line of her spine. “Like everything else here, all I have to do is see it in my mind, really think about it, and then it’s just there, exactly as I picture it. I thought about the gyoza, the aroma of garlic and ginger, and there they were, ready to eat, just like my mom used to make them. Maybe that’s a small taste of what it’s like to be God.”

She turns to look him in the eye, a smirk on her face. “I thought you didn’t believe in God.”

“I don’t. But I believe in the
Allehonen
.”

Jessica’s eyes drift shut. “You told me about the Woman who came to you in your dreams. Who do you think she is?”

“All she said was
We are the Allehonen
, as if she’s not the only one.” Matt turns to gaze out the window. The Stone glows neon white, and he feels himself letting go of the last thin slice of the sun as it disappears below the ocean horizon, leaving an orange glow floating on its surface. “I’m not sure, exactly. All I know is that I saw her. Dressed in a robe, golden eyes, skin glowing like a plasma lamp.”

“Sounds like God to me,” Jessica says. “Or an angel.”

“She had a Stone, almost identical to this one.” Matt stretches out his fingers and touches Jessica’s arm. “She showed me the Universe, the Milky Way, the Earth, and everything on it. I saw how it was made. Now that I’ve seen it, I
do
believe. I can’t not believe.”

Matt realizes he’s been holding his breath, and lets it out in a long, slow stream. His fingers slip up Jessica’s arm to touch her fingers on the Stone.

“Do you believe me?” Matt keeps his eyes on the Stone, afraid of what she might say. “I wouldn’t believe it if I were you, sitting there, listening to this story. I’ve heard other stories about beings from other worlds with cosmic power and always thought they were crazy. But this is different, for me. I’m the one who saw it, the one who felt it with my whole body.”

Jessica turns and looks squarely at him. He can feel her eyes tracing lines across his face, between his eyes, down the bridge of his nose to his lips. “I do believe,” she says. “I don’t understand, but I believe. It
feels
right.”

“Thanks,” Matt says. “You’re a better man than I am.”

There’s a long moment of silence as Matt thinks about what he just said.

And then they both burst out laughing.

Uncurling her fingers, Jessica drops the Stone on the table with a loud thud. “Let’s go,” she says.

“Where?”

“For an evening swim.” She bounds across the table, runs down the steps in her bare feet to the outside and sprints across the sand to the ocean.

STONES (HYPOTHESIS) – BOOK TWO OF THE STONES SERIES

STONES (EXPERIMENT) – BOOK THREE OF THE STONES SERIES

STONES (THEORY) – BOOK FOUR OF THE STONES SERIES

Please visit the author’s website at
http://jacobwhaler.com
where you can sign up for a newsletter to get advance notice of his new novels.

C
ongratulations for making it this far. I know it’s been a long read. And there’s still three novels to go!

I’m the type of person that watches movie credits to the end because I like to see the fine print and because there’s always a chance that a little scene of bonus material might pop up on the screen. Please consider this to be my version of such a scene.

I’ll tell you the true story of the genesis of the STONES novels.

As a six-year-old on a fishing trip with my dad and grandpa, I found an obsidian rock half buried in the mud, blunt on one end and pointed on the other, about the size of an adult fist. My grandpa, a lifelong rock hound, tried in vain to get it away from me. He begged, threatened and offered me money. He told me what a perfect addition it would make to his collection. But I refused to let it part from my fingers.

For some reason, I felt an immediate bond to that rock.

I took it home, washed it off and put it on the window ledge above my bed. (If you’re interested, there’s a photo of it on my website.)

Decades later, I still keep it close by and often pick it up to feel the way it naturally fits the curve of my palm. I like to stare into its glassy surface and daydream about where it came from and the secrets it might hold.

It was on such a day, as I looked into my Stone, the seed of an idea took shape in my mind. Little by little, that idea grew and sprouted tentacles until it got such a hold on my brain that I was left with no choice but to start writing it down.

The result was four long books.

In a way, I think of the STONES novels as keeping a promise to my six-year-old self, a promise to always keep room in my heart for child-like wonder. A promise to stay who I am.

I grew up to love words.

As a teenager, I read Ray Bradbury’s horror stories into the dark hours of the night, afraid to move for fear that I’d feel
the pricking of my thumbs
and stir up something evil. I consumed Alan Dean Foster’s
Alien
in one sitting, glued to the La-Z-Boy recliner in our family room, heart beating in unison with the characters on the page as they pursued, and were pursued by, the nightmare aboard their starship. I sat in a secret corner of our house with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat as I savored the end of
The Lord of the Rings
.

I’m a true believer in the power of words.

In my professional life, I’ve used words to build meaning into arcane corporate documents that control the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars around the globe.

But I’ve grown tired of using words to control something as mundane as money.

So I’ve become a writer of novels.

Back in high school, I learned to program computers. It’s a different kind of writing, a different kind of language, a different kind of control. But like any good writing, it’s a string of written instructions that has an effect on the real world.

I’d like to think that the words of my novels are like computer code for human brains.

I hope you’ll continue to plug in and enjoy.

Jacob Whaler

http://jacobwhaler.com

Copyright © 2013 by Jacob Whaler

Edited by Erica Orloff

Cover design by Rebecca Swift

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

For more information about the author and his novels, please visit
http://jacobwhaler.com

ISBN-10: 0-9897044-0-8

ISBN-13: 978-0-9897044-0-3