The Meadowlands (ePub)

The Meadowlands is a 76,000 word, YA fantasy, taking place in a parallel universe. Four children from the near future, a future dominated by institutions, technology and state control, stumble into a world populated by the Beigfur, a small sentient being, who live in harmony with nature and who have telepathic abilities.

The children, Terran, Tye, Simon and Brooke come from a time when marriages are on contractual basis of five years and strictly for the purpose of children. Only in rare exceptions can a couple have more than one child. Brooke is this exception. Children are raised at the GATE, the Government school for Academic and Technological Education and the concept of family is all but lost. The four children, while hiding from the authorities, penetrate the glamour placed between the two worlds and their adventure begins.

The children meet the Beigfur and struggle to understand who and what these creatures are and how they've come to find themselves in the lush, green world of the Beigfur. Only Brooke feels completely at ease in these new surroundings, learning the language and developing telepathically.

The Beigfur's matriarchal society is very spiritual and family oriented and they have developed telepathic skills but they have lost the ability to send the children back to their own time and place. The children along with an escort are sent over the "Bane" to the "Firth of Larnn" to meet with the Dalshain, an ancient sentient being who retain the knowledge from the past. On their journey the children must face the Vanshee, a fierce crow like giant of a bird that kills with impunity, during the Season of Random. Nemarra-the Seer's, shamanic experience in the Cave of Knowledge and finally the raging of the sea and Brooke's near death experience at the Firth of Larnn. It is this ultimate experience with the Dalshainhowever, and the telepathic connection between the three species that brings the novel to its conclusion, allowing the children to return to their own world by imparting lost knowledge to all.