American Prophet — Book Two — Chapter 1: The Plains of Memory
Teaser: Naomi and Thomas follow a faint hum across the drowned plains. The pattern on a broken wall matches the song the earth is singing.
The morning haze lay flat over the drowned forests and the old riverbeds. Naomi walked beside Thomas, boots crunching on dry silt. She listened. He watched. That was their rhythm.
Thomas carried a hand‑built magnetometer. The needle tapped like a nervous finger. “Same interval we saw in the ridge data,” he said. “Three to two, then five to three.”
Naomi pressed her palm to the ground. The soil was cool at the top and warm just underneath, like a sleeping animal. “It’s here,” she said. “The hum moves through the rock.”
They crossed a silent town. Signs swung on one hinge. A school’s mural showed a map of the world that no longer fit. On a concrete wall, Naomi found a spiral cut by a careful hand. It looked fresh, as if the carver had run as soon as it was finished.
She traced the lines. “Halem sares,” she whispered—the old‑new greeting from the ridge stones. Light be with you. Thomas nodded. “Use it when you need to,” he said gently. “It keeps us steady.”
They camped by the shell of a library. The stacks lay in piles, but the local history room was dry. Naomi found a box of maps and a plastic folder of weather records. She read by headlamp while Thomas tuned the radio through bands of static.
A clean tone sang out, simple as a flute. He froze, dial steady. “There.”
Naomi drew on a torn sheet. Peaks and valleys lined up with the spiral she had traced. “It’s the same language,” she said. “Ratios first. Words second.”
“Words for what?”
“For where to stand.”
Lightning crawled along the clouds on the far horizon. The air smelled like pennies and rain. Naomi closed her eyes and listened as the earth sang back to itself.
American Prophet 