"The Family Lore" by Natalie Walker Millman

Natalie Walker Millman

The Family Lore was passed down by the men of the Ramara Family not by the women, as is usual even in Outsider families. Why this aberration? You might well ask, and if you pay close attention, you will learn.

Before I begin there are a few things you need to know about the Ramara Family. The first is that their name is not really Ramara. That is the name they now use, however, though few know why they chose it. Their real names were earned in a far away land of hills and moors and mists, a place they call the Highlands, and you can still hear the burr of it in their speech. How they came to be here in our valley is as much a mystery as how they chose their name. When you ask them, you get nothing but a narrowing of the eyes and a tightening of the mouth, even from the smallest and youngest.

The second is that when they arrived they were in need of safe haven. We never asked them why, or from what or whom. There were children among them, you understand, and we do not turn away children no matter how badly their elders may have transgressed. They totaled twenty-two in number, and they had nothing, only the ragged clothing on their backs, and that unsuited to the weather even were it not in rags. They were hungry, starved even, and sick from the cold. We took them in for our healers to tend, and sent several of our young hunters to the passes to watch.

No one ever came looking for them, so after a time we relaxed our guard. We built them three houses and a barn, gave them some animals, and showed them how to plant their gardens. They settled so well that eventually only the eldest of us remembered a time before they came. For the next fifty years, the Ramara Family grew and prospered.

"Do ya really think so, Davin, or are ya only sayin' that?" A yellow curl brushed my hand as a familiar head bent low over my shoulder. I sighed, laid my writing stick across my inkstone, and carefully elbowed the girl away. She was always doing that, getting too close.

Pushing back from the table I turned to look at her. She'd been born here, but she talked just like her grandparents, and they still spoke as if they'd arrived only yesterday. "Do I really think what, Santhie?" I asked, trying to sound more tolerant than I felt. Inquisitiveness should be encouraged in a child, but Santhie took it to extremes. It was wearing.

"Don't call me that." She stamped her foot for emphasis. "Call me Santheanis. I've told ya and told ya, Santhie's a child's name." Watching her sun-colored curls bounce and her sky-blue eyes flash as her mouth curved down into a pout, I had to smile. Eleven years old, and already she knew how to capture a man's heart. Once her appearance would have struck me as odd, even ugly, but over the years I had grown used to it, learned to see the beauty in light hair and skin. It was the eyes I had come to appreciate most. Such clear eyes could not lie. Sometimes I imagined that was how the Mother's eyes might look. Why else would she paint the sky that color? Others of the Ramara brood sported grey eyes, or green eyes. Their hair might have a copper tinge or darken to honey, but none of them were colored brown, like us. There had been marriages between Ramara children and ours. The offspring of those unions all resembled the newcomers. I wondered if in time, every child of our valley would look like Santhie.

I stood up and pointedly measured from the crown of her head to the corresponding height on my body. She barely topped my belt. I raised my eyebrows. "You are a child," I told her.

Her face took on the aspect of a thundercloud. "I had my woman ceremony weeks ago," she declared. "Ya know that, Davin. Ya did the blessing. In less than a year I'll be old enough to marry. Maybe I'll pick yer grandson. He's a fine lookin' man, and a good hunter too."

In theory she was correct. A year after a girl became a woman she was entitled to choose a husband. But it had been many generations since we married our children so young. Now we encouraged them to wait until they had gone at least two years without growing and had mastered some skill or craft to the satisfaction of their teachers. Santhie would not grow much more, the newcomers tended to be short, but she was a long way from mastering her craft. I looked down at her set face and clenched fists. She would make a formidable wife. "You are a child to me, Santhie. I am as old as your grandfather Willam; your mother is a child to me. Now, you interrupted my work to ask something about what I was writing. And please do not read over my shoulder, it's rude."

She blushed. "I know. I'm sorry. But what you wrote about us settling in so well that people can't remember a time before; do ya think it's true? There're still fights between the boys, an' sometimes the girls fight too. An' people tease poor Laiyon and his brother somethin' terrible for bein' half-breeds. I've heard them say things..." She stopped and scuffed the toe of her boot on my wooden floor, unwilling to repeat what she had heard.

I rested a hand on her shoulder. "There will always be those who say unkind things about other people. I think the children pick on Laiyon because they don't like his father. It has nothing to do with his mother being a Ramara. That is only an excuse. Laiyon's father is a nasty, spiteful man, and lazy too. It is unfortunate that some small-minded people take out their dislike of the father on the whole family."

"I know." She sounded unconvinced, but looking up she made a rueful smile. "So do ya mean it then, that we fit in? Why are ya writin' about us, anyway?"

"Of course I mean it," I said, somewhat testily. "And what I'm writing is really none of your business. Why are you here? It's the middle of the day; shouldn't you be with the bowyer?" She hung her head and mumbled some unintelligible response. "Why aren't you practicing your bow making?" I asked again.

Her scuffing toe stilled, her head hung even lower. There was utter silence for a moment or two, then she sniffled loudly. "Can't I stay here?" she whispered. As I watched, a large teardrop tracked down her nose, trembled on the end of it briefly, then splashed to the floor. She reached up a hand, brushed at her face, and breathed in shakily.

Oh, Mother, I thought. I had little experience with crying children. I was not good with anyone in distress, so my wife had always handled that end of things. I wished she were here now to help, but she had succumbed to the cold winter several years ago. Awkwardly I patted Santhie's shoulder again. "What's wrong?" I asked. That had always been my beloved's first question in these situations.

It all poured out in a rush, how Santhie had picked bow making because she loved to work with wood, how she could carve beautiful toy animals, believable in every detail, but could not manage to make a proper bow-stave, how that morning she had broken two good pieces of oak and the master bowyer had shouted at her and her fellow apprentice had laughed and she had run out of the bowyer's hut into the forest to cry among the trees, how she could not face the bowyer again, and how her parents would be angry that she had gone into the woods alone.

I knew why she had come to me. She thought that as Shaman I could fix it, tell the master bowyer to treat her more gently, tell her parents that she would not break the rules again, smooth the way for her. I would not do any of it. Santhie would have to learn to deal with such unpleasantness on her own. I had plans for this child, and while they did not include bow making, they did require that she learn to deal with adversity.

I let her cry as long as she needed to, and when her snuffles came far enough apart that she could speak coherently, I made her tell me what she would say in apology to the bowyer and to her parents. After a few tries she sounded sufficiently contrite, and asked me if it would be all right to challenge her fellow apprentice to a contest at the targets. I told her of course it would. Better than beating him into the dust, I thought, which she was capable of doing despite her smaller stature. She summoned up a smile, I gave her another pat, and she left at a run. I watched her until she disappeared around the corner of my neighbor's house, then retrieved my writing stick from the now dry inkstone. Dipping my fingers in the water jar, I pooled some drops on its top and watched as they turned oily black.

The Lore of a family is many things: its ancestry, its history, its record of births, deaths, and marriages, the accumulated knowledge of generations. The Ramara Family Lore was all those, and more.

I was a child when the Ramara Family came through the mountains and into our valley. I remember the day they arrived, straggling out of the snowy pass looking more dead than alive. One was a boy much the same age as me. My mother took him and three others into our home. His name was Willam. All that winter Willam stayed in our house. He helped me with chores, shared hours of tedious instruction in reading and writing, went with me to the harness maker's workshop to learn the craft, and slept in the big bed with me and my two brothers. A friendship was born that winter that has never faltered.

Willam and I grew into manhood together, accepted wives the same year, and watched our first children born within a week of each other. Now we boasted to each other about our grandchildren's accomplishments. In all that time there had been only two things my friend and I were unable to share. One was the year of seclusion required of any apprentice shaman; the other was the passing of the Lore.

In keeping with tradition it was my wife who held our family's Lore. When she rejoined the Mother it passed to her sister, the next oldest woman. But the Ramara Family, as I have already said, came from different traditions. Their Lore was held by men. So upon the death of Willam's ancient father, three years after Santhie abandoned bow making and found her true calling, Willam became his family's Lore Keeper.

The first duty of any new Lore Keeper is to read it from beginning to end. This Willam did. Then he came to me. I could tell by the way he stood in the doorway that he was troubled, so rather than bring him into my home, noisy and crowded with children as it was, I joined him outside. We walked toward the woods in silence, found our favorite thinking spot, and sat down.

It was some time before he spoke. Then he made an odd request. "May I speak with you, not as my friend, but as Shaman?"

I was taken aback. What could possibly be so disturbing? "Of course," I told him. "But Willam, you know there is nothing you could tell me that would test our friendship."

"It is not that I'm afraid for our friendship," he answered. "It is that I need the Shaman's advice. I have discovered something, and I don't know what to do about it, only that something must be done."

I watched him intently. There was a lost look in his eyes that frightened me. Willam had always been the steady one, the one with two feet firmly planted on the ground, his eyes straight ahead, and his mind on the task at hand. I had been the dreamer whose mind drifted off to places unseen while the harness maker showed us how to stitch a buckle to a strap, or who wandered upwind of a stag and spoiled the hunt.

Pulling the shaman's collar from its hiding place inside my shirt, I cupped both hands around its feathered pendant. I closed my eyes, composed myself, and whispered the prayer for wisdom, adding "Mother, whatever his problem, let me see it clearly." When I looked up again it was not my old friend sitting before me, but the Lore Keeper of the Ramara Family, who had come to the Shaman for counsel. "Tell me," I said.

He wet his lips with his tongue and began. "First, Davin, there are some things I must explain. The Ramara Lore is not as old as yours. In fact it goes back less than a hundred years." I swallowed a gasp. He was about to reveal things that should never be revealed, things that belonged to his Family, to be shared with no one. I wondered if he knew how extreme this was. Looking into his face again, I saw that he did. So with my mouth firmly shut, I nodded encouragement.

He continued, "Our family's story begins only a few months before we left the Highlands. It has been kept well since we got to the valley, but before that such organized lore-keeping was not practiced. We learned from your people how to record our history." He was delaying, talking around whatever it was that had led him to me. I waited, and after a minute he went on. "I have discovered that we are not really one Family, but the remnants of several. Some of the children we brought with us were unrelated by blood to the adults, and none of the adults were blood-tied."

That was a surprise, but it explained the two marriages that had been taken place within the Ramara Family. My wife and I had held our objections, hoping those involved were very distant cousins. Now it seemed likely that they had shared no blood at all.

Willam was speaking again, "The name we use, Ramara, is simply the name of the man who led us here. We took it to honor him because he did not survive the journey." There followed a long silence.

"Perhaps, my old friend, you should start at the beginning," I finally prompted.

Willam jumped and blinked, "I'm sorry, what...? Oh, yes, the beginning, you're right." He took a deep breath. "The world I was born into was at war. Not just our small part of it, but the whole world. Every nation warred with every other nation, and the fighting spread until even the smallest corner was unsafe. The leaders of my people hoped we would be spared, for we lived in a place that was remote indeed. It lay on the northern tip of a northern island, and had no military value since it could not be used to launch an invasion or as a passage to supply troops. Our land, though beautiful, was of no use to anyone but us." He paused again, a far-away, almost hungry look in his eyes. Then with visible effort he pulled himself back to the present and looked at me. "Do you understand what I am saying? Do you understand that kind of war?"

"Yes," I told him. "We have known terrible wars. Hundreds of years ago it was such a war that drove the Families to this valley, where few can reach us and even fewer try. From those who do make the climb, I understand that there has been peace in the outside world for a long time now. Let us hope it continues."

"Pray that it does," Willam echoed solemnly, and went on with his story. "For a long time the Highlands were left alone, but it eventually became clear that the wars would not ignore us much longer. Our elders began to look for a place of safety, somewhere we could hide and wait out the carnage. But there was no such place. The world was burning, Davin, not just the cities and military targets, the whole world." His face was stiff with pain.

"Are you remembering this, Willam?" I asked softly. "Or is it only what you have read in your Lore?"

"Both," he answered. "Though I was just six years old when we came here, I had seen a lot. For all these years I chose not to think of it, but reading the Lore brought it back to me." His voice wavered and fell to a whisper, "Once I had sisters, two little girls to keep me company. Once I had an older brother to look out for me, and a mother with a smile that..." He stopped and shook it off. "But that is not important. And it is all written in the Lore, the story of every one of us who came here, and the dead we left behind. The thing of it is that we had to find somewhere to go before every last one of us was ground under the boot-heels of soldiers.

"There were shamans among us. We called them wise ones, and like you they could see beyond the world we lived in, beyond time and space the Lore says. You know what I mean." I certainly did. It was what got me into trouble with the harness maker, and what caused the old Shaman to take me under his wing. I nodded, and Willam continued. "Since there was no refuge on our own world, they decided to try to open a, a..." he hesitated, looking for a word.

"A rift?" I supplied. Such things were not unheard of in shaman teachings, but most considered rifts just an idea to be played with. As far as I knew, no one had ever managed to find or create one.

"Yes," he said. "That will do, a rift, a way between worlds. It took some time for them to find such a passage, and more time still to open it. During the search many of our people died as, even though we took no part ourselves, the Highlands were caught up in the fighting.

"Finally a door was opened. There was no time to test it. With armies on our doorstep, the adults gathered every child left alive in our village and we ran toward it. Most were not fast enough. The Lore says that nearly three hundred died that day: men, women, and children. Their names are listed."

The history of the valley was much the same, except that we had found sanctuary on our own world. But war was many hundreds of years in our past. I could not imagine how it must feel to have it so close, to have lost brothers, sisters, and parents to sword and fire. I leaned forward. "Willam," I said, "the Lore of a Family is theirs alone. Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because..." It came out as a croak. He cleared his throat and clenched his fists so hard the knuckles turned white. "Because," he repeated, "you have to know it in order to advise me."

I waited, but instead of going on, he suddenly sat back and shook his head. "No. Forgive me, I shouldn't burden you like this. It is not your problem." He squared his shoulders and stood. "It is my responsibility, my decision to make."

It was impossible to let him go without giving him some kind of help. Catching his wrist, I pulled him down again. "Sit. Now, tell me." I used my Shaman's voice, the voice of authority.

He did as he was told. "It's all in the Lore," he said, his features twisted with anxiety. "The way we got here, the way the rift was made. It's in the Lore, step by step for anyone to follow. The way we came here. And the way to go back."

"Oh," I said.

Oh. The one thing that still set the Ramara Family apart was their longing for home. It was in every eye, every heart, every move they made and every word they spoke. Though they had quickly fitted into our community, learned our language, customs, and crafts, when they talked of home even those born to the valley spoke of the war-ravaged Highlands. Their spirits seemed tied to those hills in a mystical bond that might never be broken. Given the choice to stay or go back, I had no doubt what they would do. That was Willam's fear.

The Ramara Lore painted the picture of a land wounded beyond repair, of fields charred and salted; of wildlife destroyed to the last fawn and rabbit. Not a single bird flew in skies turned grey with smoke; not a fish swam in rivers choked by filth; every tree in every forest was burned to ash. No house was left standing, no barn, no inn. The Lore made it clear, even had the armies retreated leaving the land to its agony, there was no return. But the people, Willam said, would return regardless. In choosing return, they would choose death.

It is a fine thing to have an apprentice. Before I took her on, I could not have imagined the satisfaction it gives me to teach my craft, or the pleasure her company brings. It will be a lonely year when I send her into her seclusion. I continue to keep careful record of her progress, as female shamans are rare in our history. Santheanis of the Ramara Family is the first in several centuries, and the most promising by far in all that time.

"Do ya really mean that, Davin, or are ya only sayin' it ta make me feel better?" A golden curl brushed across my hand and settled dangerously close to the inkstone as she bent over my shoulder to read what I wrote. Four years it was since the bowyer had turned her over to me, and this one bad habit persisted.

Laying my writing stick down I sighed and elbowed her gently away, then rose from my stool and motioned her to take it. I eased into the one comfortably cushioned chair, close to the fire. "I always mean exactly what I say, Santhie. You should know that by now. And you should not be upset at this morning's failure. It's not that you are incapable; I have failed in my own attempts, as you well know. Opening a rift is not easy, even a small one meant only to look through. We may, in the end, have to act without seeing for ourselves. We may simply have to trust that the Lore is correct."

A shadow passed over her face. She knew what that meant. "Do we really have to destroy it? That part of the Lore, I mean. Could we not just hide it somewhere? Here, perhaps, no one would look for Ramara Lore in your house. Or the cave where shaman apprentices spend their seclusion, that would be a good place. Only you need know where it is. I'll go elsewhere while ya hide it, and I won't ask afterward."

She looked so hopeful, and I must admit I shared her misgivings about destroying those powerful pages. But the longing for home shone just as brightly in her face as did the thirst for knowledge. In Santhie's face, who of all the Ramara brood was most tied to this, their new land. My heart went out to her. At the same time my mind hardened in its resolve. Without certain knowledge that the Highlands could provide the necessities of life, the temptation to return must never be put before them. It would prove too much, and the children must be protected from the folly of their elders.

I would give it a little more time, but I had the feeling that opening a window on another world might prove beyond the abilities of a single Shaman and his young apprentice. I did not say all this to Santhie. Instead I told her, "That decision is not for today, and it is not for you to make. You have other worries, such as preparing for your seclusion. Now, tell me, how do you ready yourself for the healing of a simple illness?"

The lessons continued. And so did our attempts to create a small rift, a window through which Santhie, Willam, and I could see the Highlands. Willam left the Lore with me, and I marveled at his trust. It seemed almost like betrayal to fail. Late at night I struggled with the instructions, but I was beginning to despair of ever seeing success.

More weeks passed in futile effort. Then on a moonless night in late fall, Santhie shook me from a sound sleep. "Davin," she whispered with an urgency that brought me fully awake in less than a heartbeat. "Davin, I know what the problem is, why it won't work." I didn't have to ask her what she meant. I threw my bedcovers back, grabbed a blanket to wrap around my nightshirt, and hurried to the hearth.

Stirring the still-glowing embers into flame, I laid some sticks and a log across to chase away the pre-dawn chill, then hung a kettle of water to heat. I needed something warm in my belly before I could think of anything but how cold it was at this hour.

Santhie wasn't prepared to wait. She pulled the stool from my writing table, settled it beside my chair, and before I sat down was explaining her theory. "Ya've told me many times that a Family's Lore is the Family's alone." She paused for dramatic effect and watched my eyes to see my reaction. "Well, the Ramara Lore is no different, or so you say, right?" I nodded, still not sure what she was getting at. Leaning forward in her eagerness, she continued, "Every time I've tried to make a rift, you've been there."

My jaw dropped. Of course! It was so beautifully simple. The rift would not open because a stranger, one not of the Family, was present. But to let Santhie do it alone... She was young, inexperienced, her training not even half complete. Then again, this could not wait years. The Lore had been passed once already, fortunately to someone who remembered the horror the Highlands had become. Willam was as old as I. What if he fell ill over the winter and it was passed on again, this time to someone younger whose vision of the old world was uncolored by first-hand knowledge of war?

"Give it to me," Santhie said. "Give it to me now. The day and the hour are right, the same as when my Family passed through. The tie will be that much stronger." She began rifling through my books and papers. As I watched, wracked with indecision, her search became more and more frantic. "Now," she demanded. "I need it now!" A faint radiance glimmered from her head and hands, growing in size and strength until it surrounded her whole body with a soft, golden light. The glow of a Shaman's power. I had not thought to see it in her so soon.

Rising, I went to my writing table and felt for the catch at the back of its single drawer. "I'll get it, Santhie. Calm yourself. Calm is essential in the wielding of power. Recite the Uses of Power." She drew an automatic breath, then stopped and looked at me, perplexed. I straightened and glared. "Santhie, the Uses of Power." The recitation would bring her racing thoughts to heel.

"A shaman may use power to heal illness or injury," she began, "to aid in childbirth, to relieve grief, to order a disordered mind..." She looked at me and grinned. "I'm all right. I just feel so...so... ah, to see the Highlands, Davin, our true home! Now is the time. I can do it. I can!"

My fumbling fingers found the lock. The hidden shelf slid out, and I took the Ramara Lore from its safe-hold. Santhie snatched it from me, eyes dancing with excitement. "Perhaps you can," I conceded. "Go to the little hut in the forest, the one we use when we do not want to be disturbed. It's close, and no one will bother you there." Only then did I notice that she was, like me, clad only in her nightclothes. I pulled the warm blanket from around my shoulders and draped it over hers. "Here, take this. And what have you got on your feet, nothing? Don't be silly, girl! Take my boots as well." They would be huge on her, but she could not walk through the woods in bare feet, and I knew she wouldn't take the time to fetch her own. Finally I tossed two small logs, a little kindling, and a striker into a carry sling. "Make a fire before you start, or you'll freeze." Santhie nodded again, took the sling and headed out at a trot. "I'll look in on you in a few hours," I called.

She skidded to a halt. "No," she said quickly. "Don't. I'll come to you when I'm done."

"Are you certain?" I asked uneasily.

"Yes," she said. "I'll come when I'm finished." She turned away again.

"Santhie," I called to her back. "Don't do anything foolish. Don't risk yourself." Without turning, my one and only apprentice lifted her hand in acknowledgement, then her feet began to fly. I returned to my chair by the fire and sat, staring at nothing, waiting.

Willam came to my door with the dawn, his expression a strange mixture of haggard and hopeful. "You've let the fire die," he said by way of greeting, and crouched to stir it back to life. "I thought I'd find Santhie here." He placed some cedar shavings on the coals and blew until a flame licked up, then added a split log. With the fire burning nicely he dragged the stool closer to the heat. "I know she came to see you. Where is she?"

"Where she won't be interrupted," I told him, and explained.

When I was done he sat quietly for a time, watching the flames lick higher. Then he took the kettle from its hook and filled it. "Tea?" he asked.

The day wore on. Willam and I didn't move except to throw more wood on the fire or brew more tea. Well, to be honest we took turns going to the privy. It was late afternoon before Santhie finally reappeared, standing in the doorway white-faced and silent, a ghostly apparition. Her voice was as expressionless as her face when she told us, "I did it." Then she swayed and would have fallen but that we jumped to steady her. Willam reached her first, and she leaned her head against his shoulder for a moment. Then I took her arm, and together we led her to my chair. She dropped into it and accepted a mug of hot, honey-laced tea. Her hands were shaking and cold as ice.

Anxious as I was to hear what had occurred, I didn't want to rush her. Willam caught my attention and cocked an eyebrow, but I shook my head and he swallowed his impatience. The blanket Santhie had worn as a cloak was damp. I took it away and wrapped a dry one around her. Willam added yet another log to the fire, and once more we waited.

The sun was kissing the tops of the trees before Santhie gathered herself enough to tell her story. Some color had returned to her cheeks, but her eyes were still haunted and hollow. "I did it," she repeated. "I opened a rift and looked through."

My heart ached at her anguish. "What did you see?" I asked. I knew. Her body told me what she would say, but if she could share it with us, perhaps it would not hurt quite so much.

She swallowed hard. "Death," she answered. "It's dead. Not just the Highlands, the whole world. They left not a single thing alive..." she trailed off, the loss tearing at her soul.

Willam sat down hard on the stool, his legs suddenly refusing to support him. His head moved slowly side to side, his lips forming a single whispered word over and over, "No, no, no, no, no..."

Santhie seemed not to hear. "The sky is black," she went on, "but not with storm. The land is scoured to rock by wind that blasts without ceasing. The rivers have choked on ash and gone dry. Nothing can grow there now." Slowly she raised her face to me, and I nearly wept at the bleakness of it. "Davin, there is no going back. There will never be any going back."

Willam leapt to his feel. "Show me!" he cried. "A world can't be so completely destroyed. I can't believe it. I won't believe it! Show me. Make another rift. Here. Now." He grabbed the Lore from Santhie's lap and began desperately turning pages.

Santhie rose and gently pried the book from his fingers. "No Willam. I'll not show ya, nor anyone else. I'll not look at it again myself either. There is no goin' back. The Highlands aren't there anymore." Tears tracked unheeded down her face, tears for a world lost. "They don't exist, they're gone." She turned to me and hugged the Lore to her chest. "I destroyed it, Davin, the rift." Opening the book, she showed me where she'd ripped the pages out. "Look. I burned it, burned the words." Only then did I notice her hand, red and blistered. Burned, like the pages from the Lore.

Though her voice was soft and steady, her tears flowed faster as her arm swept toward the door and the mountains beyond it. "These must be our Highlands now, these mountains, this valley. We're stranded here, lost forever. There is no home to go back to. We're stranded for all time."

Poor child, and her not yet sixteen. To have seen what she had seen, done what she had done, taken that weight upon herself and decided her Family's fate. She would need me more than ever now, need the Shaman's help to understand, to accept. So would Willam. So would they all who called themselves Ramara. They had lived here all these years in the firm belief that this valley, this world, was merely a temporary refuge, convinced that when the wars had ended they would go back. I had not realized it before.

I gathered Santhie in my arms, held her tight and stroked her golden curls. "No, my girl," I told her. "You're not lost, not stranded. Not you, not Willam, none of the Ramara Family. You've just found your true home, that's all. After all this time, you've finally found home."

Natalie lives in Toronto with her husband and three children. She enjoys the outdoors, music, and martial arts.

Cover: "Abandoned"

Once busy, alive, and new. But no longer. The outpost rusts into a forgotten past.

Created in Bryce 6 and Paint Shop Pro

A homeschooling mom, and a grandma, L. S. King taught martial arts for years, and also coached gymnastics. She loves Looney Tunes and the color purple, and adores Zorro, which might explain her fascination with swords and capes. When on the planet, she lives with her husband and youngest child in Delaware.

She is one of the "Overlords" of the e-zine Ray Gun Revival found at < www.raygunrevival.com >, which also features her space opera serial Deuces Wild.

Visit her website Loriendil's Dreamland at < www.loriendil.com > to read her published short stories, her blog, or to catch up on back stories of Deuces Wild.

The Family Lore

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