Orpheus Rising/By Sam and His FatherJohn/With Some Help From a Very Wise Elephant/Who Likes to Dance Read online

  Orpheus Rising is a sparkling immersion in adventures of great beauty, danger, and the unexpected, with a climax that will move anyone to a sense of joy. A daring retelling of the Orpheus legend in modern guise, Sam and his father, John, set off to rescue Sam’s lost mother, Madelyn, from “The Far Land of Fear” and “Dread City,” a startling, imaginative view of the afterlife. A fantasy set in terms of Sam’s 10 going on 11 imagination, they are joined by Lepanto, a very wise Elephant who likes to dance, dressed in Edwardian elegance, through a series of adventures with a most unexpected ending. Children will enjoy the sheer inventiveness of the storytelling, and adults the unexpected depths of Sam and his father’s journey to the completion of their hearts’ desire.

  Lee is also a poet whose output has been called “visionary” “vibrant” “a voice beyond epoch” variously compared to Browning, Auden, and in his freedom, Neruda. A playwright too, he has brought characters to life as diverse as Rasputin and the last fox in Los Angeles.

  PRAISE FOR: ORPHEUS RISING

  AN INDIE BEST BOOK OF 2021 — KIRKUS REVIEWS

  ...Lee writes a wildly imaginative, entertaining adventure story with deep foundations both in the lush realm of mythos and poignant human emotions. Beyond that, Lee dares to give Sam’s quest an ending that takes seriously the Elephant’s insistence on the reality of imagination, making the story even more powerful. In her debut book, artist LeBow provides woodcutlike illustrations with...a remarkable, charged sense of mythic power that marries well with the novel. An extraordinarily beautiful, touching adventure that can stand with the classics of children’s literature.

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  Imaginative and emotional, this underworld adventure offers thrills, chills, and insightful lessons. Great for fans of: Neil Gaiman’s Coraline, Roald Dahl. With the help of Sam’s imagination [he and his father] team up with a wise and distinguished elephant who loves to dance on a quest to save Sam’s mother from the afterlife. Their quest to save her teaches each about the power of honesty, trust, and love. Lee’s vivid imagination shines through each chapter of their quest, and his quirky characters will keep readers who appreciate fabulist adventure hooked throughout.

  —Booklife Review (Publishers Weekly)

  This is a charming and exquisitely written reimagining of the Orpheus myth.... The language of this imaginative novel is wonderfully rich, and sentences flow with uncommon grace. This is an adventure story full of utterly impossible events and utterly possible psychological truths interwoven so expertly that the reader is happy to suspend disbelief and go along on the journey. This reimagining of the Orpheus myth...examines questions of life, death, and survivorship in the gentlest possible way.

  —Booklife Prize Critic’s Review (10 out of 10)

  This is an action-packed, heartfelt romp through a young boy’s imagination, complemented with striking illustrations. Think of it as L. Frank Baum [The Wizard of Oz] falling down Lewis Carroll’s [Alice in Wonderland] rabbit hole into the afterlife. “A life lived without love,” says Sam’s father, “without even the desire for love, is a life without meaning.”

  —Blueink Review

  Orpheus Rising is a magical, memorable middle grade adventure that handles a serious topic with narrative grace.

  —Nancy Powell, Clarion Foreword Reviews

  Orpheus Rising is designed to appeal not just to kids, but many an adult reader, who will find its special blend of fantasy, philosophical inspection, and adventure equally engaging...a standout from the crowd, even if its exuberant story defies simple categorization. This translates to an expansive audience who will appreciate its charm.

  —Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review

  Orpheus Rising is a uniquely imagined and visionary work of fiction. The multilayered messaging, the blurring between dream and reality, and the endless creativity on bold display make this mytho-magical novel a pleasure to read for children and adults.

  —SPR: Self-Publishing Review

  ORPHEUS RISING is a haunting, dreamlike retelling of the Greek myth Orpheus and Eurydice, filled with inventive world-building and supplemented by surreal illustrations.

  —Cameron Gillespie, IndieReader

  5* READERS FAVORITE REVIEWS:

  If you love to read epic fantasy adventure stories, grab yourself a copy of Lance Lee’s Orpheus Rising...enchanting you through a wide range of emotions deftly showcasing the importance of believing in your dreams and pushing yourself to attain them.

  —Pikasho Deka

  Written for the adventurous and imaginative reader of all ages, Lance Lee’s Orpheus Rising is a mythological adventure set in the modern world. Following the overpowering desire to restore Sam’s mother to their lives, the father-son duo go on almost unbelievable adventures, not so different from other classics like Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, powered by love...a compassionate and fascinating tale of mythological proportions.

  —Emily-Jane Hills Orford

  Also by Lance Lee

  poetry

  Elemental Natures – selected poetry, art, and prose

  Homecomings

  Transformations

  Seasons of Defiance

  Human/Nature

  Becoming Human

  Wrestling with the Angel

  plays

  Time’s Up and other Plays

  Time’s Up

  Fox, Hound & Huntress

  (in vol. 10, Playwrights for Tomorrow)

  novels

  Second Chances

  non-fiction

  The Death and Life of Drama

  reflections on writing and human nature

  On the Waterfront – essays: contributor

  A Poetics for Screenwriters

  The Understructure of Writing for Film and Television

  (with Ben Brady)

  By Sam And His Father, John

  With Some Help From A Very Wise Elephant

  Who Likes To Dance

  by

  Lance Lee

  illustrated by Ellen Raquel LeBow

  Copyright © 2021 Lance Lee

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Illustrations by Ellen Raquel Lebow

  Book, Cover, and Logo Designs by Kate Cooper

  Portrait by John Robertson

  ISBN 9780578790558 (hc)

  ISBN 9780578885599 (p)

  ISBN 9780578790565 (e)

  Orpheus Rising may be ordered online and through all booksellers.

  Reviews and Queries should be directed to [email protected]

  Web page: lanceleeauthor.com

  The Myth

  One day Eurydice dies from a snakebite. Her husband Orpheus in his grief dares to go to hell, to Hades, to regain her. First he charms Charon the Ferryman with his music into taking him across the r
iver Styx, then the terrible, three-headed dog Cerberus, and then the Fates. He even stops the pain of all those in Hades who had faded to gray from their loss of life with his music and longing. Impressed, Hades lets him have Eurydice with one condition: Orpheus can’t look back until they both stand in the sunlight of the ordinary world again. Orpheus walks steadily back playing his music for Eurydice to follow until he stands in the sun once more. Then he can’t help himself and looks back: Eurydice has followed him, but is not yet in the light, and so he loses her forever.

  But, what if…?

  chapters

  Prologue

  i

  A Dream Called Life

  ii

  A Disturbing Book Arrives

  iii

  A Very Wise Elephant Who Likes to Dance

  iv

  A Dangerous Journey Decided

  v

  Through the Upside-down Ocean

  vi

  Wild Dancing in the Sea of Faces

  vii

  The Breath of Riddles

  viii

  A Fearful Place

  ix

  Biggest, Toughest, Hardest

  x

  Flesh to Stone

  xi

  John Finds His Courage—

  xii

  And Runs From His Dream

  xiii

  The Voice of Doom

  xiv

  The Way to Dread City

  xv

  Dancing From A Dangerous Bench!

  xvi

  Finding Madelyn In Dread City

  xvii

  Escape

  xviii

  The Battle Of Lepanto

  xix

  The Long Journey To—

  xx

  The Heart’s Desire

  for Jeanne

  and

  Alyssa & Heather, Hansjorg

  and

  Milena & Thomas & Sam

  Prologue

  The light shatters off the glass facade of the hospital under the noon sun as John stands at a loss, eyes slits against the glare. How did I get here, he wonders?

  He can’t take it in, the plaza, the people, the buses on three sides, why he stands like an idiot squinting at that blinding facade.

  And remembers.

  She was gone.

  She was so gray….

  His eyes water from the light, or is that tears, he wonders? Is this how mourning begins? A confusion of feelings and simultaneously, of feeling nothing at all?

  How long have I been standing here in the sun?

  A weight on his shoulders bends him down.

  He can barely breathe.

  How did this happen?

  The plaza stretches out around him. The people. The buses….

  I need to go far away, he thinks.

  To get Sam and go far away.

  i

  A Dream Called Life

  Somewhere an alarm went off; then another followed nearby, and a third more distantly. Soon each room in the house rang. A groan came from a small shape that could just be guessed under the twisted covers in a third story room under a pitched gable from which a green dragon hung with a too long head, and a two-masted yacht, a schooner, while an unlikely elephant who perilously tap-danced on a flying trapeze hung by them. The elephant was elegantly dressed, and wore spats.

  A boy of ten sat up muttering, looked around wildly, and stumbled to the dresser across the room to turn off the nearest alarm. Somewhere on the second floor a hand silenced another, but these two made little difference to the cacophony of buzzers, beeps and bars of music that filled the house.

  Sam—that was the boy’s name—disappeared into the bathroom to turn off another alarm, dashed across the hallway into the other third floor bedroom to silence the alarm there, and then hurried down to the second floor to join his father John shutting off the remaining clocks there before they moved to the first to shut off the rest. They ended in the kitchen where an out-of-place grandfather clock stood beside the refrigerator striking deep gongs without relief until John hooked the pendulum to one side.

  As he did so a machine took three eggs, a dab of butter and a quart of milk from the refrigerator, cracked the eggs over a bowl on the counter, discarded the shells, added milk, stirred, and then emptied the contents into a frying pan with the butter to make scrambled eggs. When done long arms served two equal portions on plates neatly set out on the small table by the window, and cleaned the bowl and pan—or so it was supposed to—but the machine always stalled early in the process, its motor making a high-pitched, irritating whine. This was, in fact, the last of the alarms which John turned off as Sam rescued the eggs poised over the bowl.

  John had never been able to make this machine work, his one great, determined yet failing stab at invention.

  At least, having begun to make breakfast, there was no reason now not to continue, which was really the point.

  John was a tall man with blue eyes that had lost their light: his blond hair laid limply on his head. His beak of a nose was too small to be called big, but too big to be called small. Sam was tall for his age and looked very like his father. They made breakfast and sat to eat it in silence.

  After breakfast John and Sam shrugged on overalls and boots over their pajamas and went out to milk Madrigal, who rolled her eyes at Sam’s arrival and moaned in relief as her milk filled his pail. He took that in, then went back for the blue and brown-speckled eggs from the chicken nests in their enclosed henhouse while John spread feed for the chickens and the one rooster who had lost half his comb to a fox a year ago.

  In season they visited the garden which always looked thirsty but produced a steady stream of beans and tomatoes, squash and broccoli, carrots, lettuce and chard as the season permitted. They were nearly self-sufficient.

  Neither looked up at their Victorian house with its ornate fretwork, gables, and cornices painted a myriad of colors faded to a nearly uniform gray. They called it the “Last House:” it was the only house in a canyon beside an all-year stream that provided their water. Up canyon they could see taller hills, while between the canyon’s walls at its foot was a sandy beach and restless ocean.

  Fog covered the canyon part of each day for months on end in late winter and spring, sometimes lasting through the summer. Even when it was green and blue, sunny and blowing, the air sharp and tangy, a gray spirit seemed to live in the canyon and look out from behind the sky’s blue and the blue of John’s eyes.

  Sam’s, brighter, seemed troubled by some puzzle he couldn’t solve or forget. It was impossible to say whether they echoed the land, or the land them.

  Their chores done they went back to the kitchen where John lingered over coffee and Sam over a hot chocolate. Finally, still silent, they shrugged off their boots and overalls and went upstairs to dress properly.

  There Sam found himself staring dreamily at the elephant on his trapeze. Idly he touched the elephant so he swung back and forth, then set the schooner spinning, as though caught inside a tornado; last he wondered why the dragon’s head looked too large for its body.

  “Sam! Do you hear me?! Come down
for your lessons!”

  His father had been calling repeatedly, Sam realized with a start, and slunk downstairs.

  John waited at the kitchen table, books piled beside a sheaf of paper. Sam hoped today didn’t start with history. He disliked math, but because his father was weak in that they spent little time on it. The lessons in English dragged on, his father’s strength, but history was worst. Sam was incapable of remembering anything from the past. He despised Christopher Columbus for starting American History. He hated the Norman Conquest of England for starting English history.

  But as he took his seat with a sinking heart he saw today was going to start with spelling.

  “Let’s begin,” John said: “spell ubiquitous.”

  “Spell what?”

  “Ubiquitous. It means something that’s everywhere.”

  “I just want something that’s here.”

  “Like what?” John asked. Sam shrugged helplessly.

  “Spell ubiquitous!”

  “U-b-i-t-o-u-s.”

  “Ubitous is not ubiquitous.”

  “I don’t want to spell that word!”

  “Tomorrow then,” John said with a sigh. There was never more than the beginning of a fight between them.

  “T-o-m—”

  “No, not tomorrow! Spell—” he looked at his list—“relevant.”

  “Spell what?”

  “Just spell it!”

  “R-e-v-e-r-t.”

  “That spells revert, not relevant.”