Keeper of the Penny
Keeper of the Unicorn
by Mary Ann Shaw

EXCERPT

PART ONE
Keeper of the Penny

PROLOGUE

Garth Winters raised his head from the papers he was scanning after speaking to his right-hand man without receiving any reply.

David was lying on the couch sleeping instead of sitting up as he had last been.

He looked at his watch. It was eight o’clock in the morning. They had been at work for over twenty-four hours.

Just as he rose with the intention to waken David and to send him off to bed, his mother made her sudden appearance. By her expression, he was in trouble again.

“This has to stop, Garth,” Elizabeth Winters insisted, looking from him to David. “You’re not only killing yourself, you’re killing your friend.”

“The night just got away,” he said by way of defending himself for a second time in only a matter of days. “I have a lot of things to tie up before my business trip in a few weeks.”

“Work. Business trips.” Her mood veered sharply to anger. “You have enough money. You don’t need any more. And you can’t take it to the grave with you. That’s where you’re going if you don’t slow down.”

“It’s not the money.” Garth awkwardly attempted to explain his actions. “I need something to do.”

“Then find yourself a nice woman with children and get on with your life.”

“Other than Norma, there aren’t any single women with kids around town, are there?” He wished she would leave his circumstances alone, because she didn’t know all of his problems. Then his anger grew within him again. “And no way in hell am I going to marry someone who’s more my sister than?”

“Of course you can’t marry Norma.” Elizabeth looked at the man lying on the couch sleeping soundly. “Norma belongs to him, and tongue-shy David will get around to asking her someday.” She turned back to her son. “I heard you speaking to your brother-in-law about placing an ad in the paper for a woman with kids. I think it’s a good idea. What can it hurt?”

“Dan knew I was joking.” Garth rose and stepped around his desk. “So do us both a favor and forget it.” He looked at her intently, and then strode to the door.

“Where are you going?”

He wheeled back to her. “Out.”

With a saddened heart, Elizabeth watched her son leaving. She knew he was going to sit on his mountain, just as her late husband had, whenever he needed to think things over clearly. Like Cameron, Garth had always returned with a different outlook on life until a few months ago. That day, he came home just as depressed. Somehow, she had to make things right for him, seeing as he refused even to try for his own sake.

The mountain was magnificently majestic. From the first Garth Winters – his namesake – down through the generations, all the men had gone to the mountain whenever things were at its worst.

It had always given him a sense of peace, and made him see the road he was taking was the right path for him. Today, he didn’t feel any contentment or know where tomorrow would lead him, if not only to more disappointment in life.

As he sat on a boulder, and stared far down below into the valley, he groped for someone to blame.

He had thought he couldn’t wait until Jean wasn’t legally his wife, so he could appease his hunger deep inside another woman. Except in the end, he found his ex-wife had hurt him so badly that he couldn’t touch another woman.

A few nights ago in Casper, he discovered how cruel life could be to a man already down on his luck. He’d met a woman in a singles bar and she hadn’t seemed revolted by his hands.

Then in the moment that things had led him to having sex, he was unable to follow through. Firsthand, he’d learned how demoralizing it could be when he couldn’t get it up, although hours earlier, all he needed was a woman’s body.

As soon as she left, he’d checked out of the motel and set out on the two-hour trip home. Afterwards, he’d slept for a few hours before working like a man possessed. Then, his mother gave him hell and rubbed insult in with his injury.

In the time after his separation and divorce, he grew tired of smiling and pretending he didn’t hurt inside because he was sterile. Now, he was impotent.

If he were to confide this to his friend, he could hear David advising him to use one of the many drugs on the market to solve the problem.

To hell with taking a pill to grow an erection. And to hell with a woman and kids. He didn’t need them to make his life complete. But I do need someone he thought, lowering his head in misery.

Just then, he saw the stones, shining brightly in the sunlight. He bent forward and stretched his arm out to reach one of the colorful stones. It was warm to his touch and seemed to vibrate with life beneath his finger.

With a stone in his hand, then the other, he saw out of the corner of his eye a person materializing.

“Holy shit, I knew there was some invisible person living on my mountain.” Garth stared at the man who looked to be in his mid-twenties. His long brown hair, with blond streaks, touched the shoulders of a sky-blue robe, and sandals covered his feet. “You aren’t a monk, are you?”

The man laughed. It was a warm harmonious sound, vibrating with life, and at the humorous beliefs of a mortal man.

“Then who are you?” Garth asked, spacing the words evenly. “And why are you appearing to me at this moment after all these years?”

“I am Kane Aaron Asa,” he replied with unruffled patience. “You finally found your stones. That is good.”

“You make it sound like they were always there, but I never saw them. I’m not blind. They were lying in plain sight the instant I looked down, so if they were always there I would have seen them before.”

“No, you are not blind, although the stones were there since the first Garth. You were the only one meant to find them at this precise time. You are to make a ring with one and keep the other until – you will know the moment the time comes. The stones are magical. They tell the wearer if they ever become untrue to themselves by a change in color. By changing, it gives the wearer the chance to take the path back. From the love of the father to the love of the son the stone of one?”

“I don’t have a son and I won’t have one,” Garth interjected. “If you knew everything, as you act like you do, you would know I’m sterile and impotent.”

Kane looked at him without any change in his calm and compassionate expression. “Make the ring and believe, then all your wishes will come true. Close your eyes and feel what the stones are telling you.”

Garth closed his eyes. The thoughts flashing through his head were unbelievable. “No!” His eyes snapped open. “It’s not true.”

Kane looked at him and sighed. “How is it untrue?”

“I want a woman. I want kids. I want sex. Look at my scarred hands. My wife couldn’t stand my imperfections, and you think another woman will accept them.”

“I do not see outer appearances. I see auras, and I find nothing wrong with yours. As a Healer, I cannot see any –this you will not believe either. Look again at the stones, without your mind preventing you from seeing them with your heart.”

Closing his eyes, Garth still didn’t want to believe. Seconds later, he opened them and found he was alone. “Wait! Don’t go. I need to know more.”

“You are a keeper. The world needs keepers, if not; all love and magic are gone.” Kane’s voice floated upon the gentle blowing of the wind. “You must help the other keeper to win her protector’s trust, and to fulfill his destiny.”

“Who’s the other keeper? What am I keeper of?” Garth snapped in his growing confusion.

“You will know the moment the time comes,” was Kane’s cryptic answer.

Garth hiked to his parked truck and drove the winding mountainous road to home. There, he made his ring and began the wait for something good although he felt it was hopeless.

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