The Emergence of Expanding Light: Book IV of the Pan Chronicles


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The Emergence of
 Expanding Light
 
 
 Book IV of
 the
 Pan
 Chronicles
 
 
 
 
 J.M.
 Stephen
 
 
 
 
 
 Copyright ©
 2023, Jessica Sticklor
 
 Published by:
 D. X. Varos, Ltd
 7665 E. Eastman Ave.
 #B101
 Denver, CO 80231
 
 This book
 contains material protected under International and Federal
 Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of
 this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced
 or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
 mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
 information storage and retrieval system without express written
 permission from the author.
 
 Book cover
 design and layout by Ellie Bockert
 Augsburger of Creative Digital Studios.
 www.CreativeDigitalStudios.com
 Cover design
 features:
 Full length portrait of dark haired woman wearing black and
 Victorian witch costume with a flowing cloak. standing pose, with
 gestural hand movements, against studio background, by
 faestock; beautiful brunette
 woman with long black hair, by Valua Vitaly; wood texture
 background. Interior design. Texture Logs by TetianaKotova;
 bbstract blue light energy sphere effect on black
 background, by d1sk; sick young man lying asleep in a hospital
 bed, by marvent; dark cold blue bedroom interior with linen
 sheet on bed, wall mock up, 3d render, by artjafara; 3D
 rendering of an interior of a cozy cabin in the woods with glass
 roof, a bed and fireplace, by Elisabeth Cölfen; women dress
 shoot in studio, by enginakyurt
 
 
 ISBN:
 978-1-955065-72-6 (paperback)
 ISBN:
 978-1-955065-73-3 (ebook)
 
 Printed in the
 United States of America
 ALL RIGHTS
 RESERVED
 
 
 
 
 This book is
 dedicated to my publisher,
 Daniel Willis,
 without his unwavering support this series would not exist. Without
 his belief in my work, I do not know if I could so brazenly call
 myself a writer.
 
 
 Table of
 Contents
 
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
 Chapter 5
 Chapter 6
 Chapter 7
 Chapter 8
 Chapter 9
 Chapter 10
 Chapter 11
 Chapter 12
 Chapter 13
 Chapter 14
 Chapter 15
 Chapter 16
 Chapter 17
 Chapter 18
 Chapter 19
 Chapter 20
 Chapter 21
 Chapter 22
 Chapter 23
 Chapter 24
 Chapter 25
 Chapter 26
 Chapter 27
 Chapter 28
 Chapter 29
 Chapter 30
 Chapter 31
 Epilogue
 About the Author
 Chapter
 One
 
 
 
 
 Pippa’s stomach
 dropped, her legs went weightless, and her chest swelled as the
 ground flew from her feet and they rose higher into the sky. The
 Main Street feel of Hudson, New York grew smaller until the people
 looked like dots and the buildings like toys as the air whooshed
 against her skin like it was picking her body clean. She entwined
 her fingers tightly with Sky’s as they rose higher into the
 atmosphere. Pippa had learned enough from school and TV to know
 that the farther you got into the stratosphere, the colder it
 became and while a chill graced her skin as they headed into the
 clouds, she wasn’t freezing, even though she knew she should be.
 She also knew from the same school and TV that once you reach a
 certain point, you lose altitude and cannot breathe, you pass out
 completely, but that did not happen either. Pippa took a deep
 breath and another and then another. She was fine here.
 “Zou want to go
 fast?” Sky asked with his thick French accent. He turned to face
 her with a smile on his face.
 “Yes!” she cried.
 With that the air swirled faster as they shot sideways through it.
 Whips of wind danced around her as the inertia of her movements
 fluttered inside her body and they bounded through the clouds that
 tasted like vapor when she breathed them in. They were so high now
 that she couldn’t make out the land anymore, it was all just grass
 and road streaming underneath her like a giant kaleidoscope. They
 could have been over Hudson, or New York City, California, or
 anywhere. They slipped through fluffy white clouds and into larger,
 darker clouds that felt damp and sweltering. Land rolled under them
 but after a while, as they kept flying, the landscape changed to
 the dark, choppy waters of some kind of ocean.
 Sky looked over
 at her and waved. His bright white hair shone against the darkness
 of the sky and ahead of them, in the distance, there were stars...
 and space. Sky stopped and they hovered in the air and though there
 was nowhere to stand, they remained still above it all. “It is
 beautiful, especially in the dark, no?” Sky asked as they levitated
 just inside a misty, white cloud. The bright lights of the cities
 on earth glistened below as they hovered over a black ocean and the
 night sky hung in a canopy of stars.
 “How far can we
 go? Can we fly to space?” The bright red light of Mars and the
 mists of the blue of Venus shone before her and Pippa wondered how
 close she could get to them. She knew that this far in the
 stratosphere she shouldn’t be able to breathe, not on her own, and
 fairy magic must have been working within Sky to allow them to stay
 like this. But how far did it go? Could she walk on Mars without a
 second thought or were they bound to this planet?
 “We cannot go
 much farther, no. We are close enough to the earth; we still have
 air. Even in the Fairy World, Sky has... limits, of course. We all
 have limits.” He smiled again and Pippa wondered why he’d been
 labeled antisocial. “We know of the one with no limits, the One
 they say, and to have no limits is…dangerous.”
 “So, what do you do? What can you do?” Pippa asked as they
 levitated. At one point, Sky let go of Pippa’s hand and she nearly
 cried out, worried she’d plummet to her death, but she stayed in
 the air, huddled in the midst of a cloud.
 “Do