Preview of Book One: Love Down Under

Rough draft of the Prologue of

The Three Brothers Heritage Trilogy

Australia’s New South Wales, near the beginning of time

I must get to them. I must get to them, the younger brother chanted in his head as he sprinted back toward where they had been camping.

His two older brothers and himself had been enjoying their time in the woods, wandering the wilds of the coast, knowing their loves waited at their various homes for them when they had completed their initiation rites. Although they missed their parents, which is why he had run to visit them, they were content in their travels. Throughout their journeys, they had met some incredible people and all three brothers had found partners in life. However, they were from different tribes, and the elders and ancestors didn’t always like that.

The terrifying woman he had seen from afar as he hiked to his parent’s camp was one of them. The craziness in her eyes, highlighted by keen intelligence and motivated passion was one of the scariest sights the younger brother had encountered. Her black hair stood out starkly against the unnatural paleness of her skin. Thin lips and angled features made her look powerful, but not beautiful. Her silence was the most terrifying part of her whole presence, however. She moved soundlessly and almost motionlessly, not stirring the air around her or leaving imprints in the soft ground, or making leaves or branches move as she walked the opposite direction as him. As he walked into his parents camp, he told them what he had seen.

“What?” his father said in fear. “You must return to your camp and rescue your brothers, for that witch will kill and eat them! Her name is Widjirriejuggi and she is a pure-blood supporter. Your new marriages will not sit well with her! Take this blessed boomerang to protect and save them, and go before it is too late!”

The younger brother turned and ran. But he was too late, for as he approached his camp he heard laughter that made his skin crawl and the hairs on the back of his neck rise. He broke into the clearing and let out an anguished howl. Where his brothers had been sitting around the campfire, the woman stood over a pile of bones with a satisfied look in her eyes.

He looked at the scene in agony and as she turned her dark energy on him, she cursed, “When hope is gone, I will rise before dawn, to draw the fiery lines that should never intertwine. My people will be pure, as your blood will ensure, a step toward setting me free. As I will, so mote it be!” He was saved from the negative burst of energy as he hurled the magical boomerang at her, hitting her in the head and slicing her body in half.

Running to the bones in front of the severed witch’s body, he fell to his knees, weeping.

Why had he left?

How had they not defended themselves?

Would he have been able to save them had he got back a second sooner?

It didn’t matter. He would have rather died with them.

As his tears poured down his young, jaded face, he collected the bones of his brothers and prepared for his final journey. His last act before he left their camp was to take the evil witch’s body and rid the living of it. He burned her body, then buried half of her ashes in the forest and the other half he sent into the ocean.

The hopelessness and shame running through him weighed his steps as he traveled through forests, across rivers, and over mountains. He reached an area where the flowers and grass grew in rich soil. A waterfall gently trickled down a sloped cliff, and the trees offered shelter and solace. He dug in this spot and buried the bones of his middle brother, the one who had found love first and was always willing to laugh. His brother who supported whatever naive idiotic ideas he had. More tears fell around the grave and the ground began to shift and change. As the younger brother moved on toward his final destination, the love and grief he left behind soaked the ground and the first Brother Mountain was formed.

Then he continued to travel, until he came across the longest grassy field next to a natural bay formation. The sun shimmered and blended into the waves of the ocean, and the air was fresh and clear. The peace he felt for a moment in that place was suddenly swept away by his grief, but not before he decided this was where his eldest brother’s bones would stay. He dug a hole and placed the bones in with care as he wept for the man who had helped raise him. The brother whose expectations and guidance had always sent him on a true path. The serious brother who took his role as responsible protector to heart. The lonely brother who had found his love last, but had felt it the deepest.

The youngest brother’s sobs tore across the peaceful land, upsetting a flock of sea birds who flew into the air like the pieces of his heart. He began to run, paying no attention to where or how or why. As he left the peaceful field, the land began to shift and grow where his tears had fallen and so became the second Brother Mountain.

When his despair had run its course and he had no more energy left, he found himself alone in a small cave. He knew he could never return to his parents or his love. Their disappointment and grief alone would kill him. He had shamed them all in his inability to save his brothers.

With that hopeless thought the last in his head, he took the magical boomerang and ended his life. At that moment, a young woman came dashing through the trees with anguish in her eyes and despair in her voice. She fell to him and tearfully gathered him close as he took his last breaths.

“I love you,” she whispered, as she gathered herself.

The air around the clearing changed as she laid his body down slowly, then tearfully stood and said, “Hope heals and love seals, the magic of the deal. The powers unite the descendants three, As I will so mote it be.”

She took his body and buried it deep within the ground, using only grief and rage, not the magic that flowed within her to dig and throw dirt. In that spot – where rage, grief, and love had caused so many tears – a final mountain formed.

Click here to continue to a rough draft of Chapter 1.