New Beginnings...

In beginning this new endeavor, I find myself wanting to say something deep, something pithy and worthy of a new beginning. But hope and optimism are concepts that seem so foreign to me, even now, and the best beginnings seem to brim with such things.

I can tell you though, that the events of the Everglades are several weeks behind us now. It took far longer to record those events in blog format than it did for those events to take actually occur. This allows me to be far more current, at least unless (more likely, until) events begin unfolding so quickly again.

So even as I was concluding the tale of how Drake was defeated and Papa Locks was slain, I was helping Katherine to sell her (formerly our) house and to move her and Jasmine to the Chicago area. Kenny was allowed to enroll for the soon to begin summer classes at the small, liberal arts college that the Professor teaches at in western Michigan. So the couple of weeks of free time that I was allowed before returning to work at the Bureau was taken up with packing boxes, moving vans and the other mundane aspects of moving family members across states.

After waking up from her bizarre journey, Katherine took a great deal of convincing for her to accept the idea that she had actually seen her husband’s modified corpse wandering around in the Everglades, coming to her rescue. She didn’t fully believe the truth of any of this until I actually showed up a few days later with Kenny in the car. Once she did come around, it was hard to contain her excitement at seeing all of the very real magick that surrounded her. After recovering from her reality check, she immediately asked to be allowed to study with Ravyn and her students. She also rather eagerly accepted a junior membership in the ORCs and the paid position of House Mother of the co-op where Ravyn taught many of her students.

Jasmine literally threw herself into Ravyn Fyre’s teaching. Her favorite part of the whole thing was getting to take care of the Phoenix. She easily spent more time with that creature than she did in her studies. Because of her duties with the Phoenix, Jasmine lived not in the co-op house, but with Ravyn on the Sanctuary, about ten miles outside of the town where the co-op is in.

Ravyn was just now finding out how difficult it was to keep nosy media folks away from the environs of WyldFyre Sanctuary with all of the rumours of sightings of a giant, flaming eagle flying nearby. She spent far more of her time than she would have liked on the phone with various television stations, denying them permission to film on the large tract of private land that she had acquired over the years and allowed to return to its natural state. Even the small old farm house and its associated barns and sheds seemed to melt into the now dense forests that had sprung up so unnaturally quick over the last decade or two.

After helping to get everyone else settled, I returned to Virginia to collect those few things I wanted to keep from my old apartment there. I had already determined that I would be unable to set up any kind of permanent residence, but I wanted a home of sorts of my own, a place that could be both mobile and very customizable. I settled on a motor home that closely resembled a bus in size. I had the Bureau pitch in to get the best computer and communication gear that I would need in order to be functional from anywhere in the country. They weren’t exactly happy with the costs, but a quick call to Zulu had that matter resolved within a day.

I also had the back end of the thing configured to carry my new local transportation, a supercharged Ninja type motorcycle, all black, of course.

So I now have a home that is as mobile, as transient as I am.

In getting all of this accomplished over the last few weeks, I had completely forgotten about the little present that Drake had left for me until I came across it in packing up my new home. When I found that, a very high-end PDA with the capability of recording and playing back sound and pictures as well as the normal text files, I sat down heavily in my new living room, holding the thing in my glove covered hand.

I knew I couldn’t resist the urge to turn the device one and type in the password for very long, so I didn’t bother to resist...