The Map of Orbis Terrarum Read online

  Melanie Simpson Mystery

  Book Two

  DJ SCHNEIDER

  The Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Map

  English translation: Theatre of the Orb of the World

  And a variant of the Latin aphorism at the bottom of the map reads:

  For what human affairs can seem important to a man,

  who keeps all eternity before his eyes,

  and knows the vastness of the Universe

  Other novels in the Melanie Simpson Mystery Series:

  The Roswell Quest, the Prequel

  Readers’ Favorite wrote:

  If you're a fan of TV shows like Stranger Things, you're going to love The Roswell Quest. DJ Schneider masterfully incorporates real-life events to craft an engaging narrative that keeps you hooked from start to finish.

  The Tale of the Tarot, Book One

  Reedsy Reviewer, Sally Altass wrote:

  An exciting teenage thriller set in the 1960s. Spies, UFOs, cover-ups, and much more. There's a rising tension throughout the book, and the ending had me gasping for breath.

  Published deBoys Press, LLC

  Copyright © 2022 David Schneider

  All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

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

  The only real events in this book are the historical facts depicted around UFOs and government coverups—and, of course, the crash that occurred outside Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 and the alien material from that crash.

  ISBN 979-8-9851453-4-2

  This novel is dedicated to

  those who share their stories

  of contact, and through them,

  help us achieve veritas

  Contents

  When the World Stops Spinning

  Awakening

  A Different Place and Time

  A Bit Wobbly

  The Decision

  Red Raines

  Support

  Alone in a Group

  Pity Party

  Four Dots

  Getting Over Guilt

  A New Clue

  Destiny’s Plan

  Keeping Focused

  Professor Lofton

  4th of July

  Saying Goodbyes

  Emilee’s Arrival

  The Trials of Povolzhye

  About Grandfather

  Bull Again

  Pop Tart

  The Industrialist

  Anniversary…kinda

  A Proper Breakfast

  Estranged

  The Offer

  The Haven

  Mel’s Plan

  Frankie and Emilee

  Realization

  The Train

  Evasive Maneuvers

  Clandestine

  Chase

  Livingston

  Pike’s

  The Call

  Road Trip

  Together Again

  Psycho

  Theatrum Orbis Terrarum

  The Orb

  The Music Box

  HQ

  On the Run

  Fool me Twice

  Face Off

  Heading Home

  The Locket

  Hidden Truths

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Call to Action!

  Dharma is when you walk on the

  path of your soul’s purpose

  Mrs. Crowley

  The tarot card reading

  When the World Stops Spinning

  It’s like a bad movie, playing over and over again in my head, and I can’t stop it:

  I walk out the door and down my driveway, fixated on the flashing lights.

  Soon I break into a jog. Then a full-on run toward the dead-end of Springbrook Court.

  I need to get there.

  I look up at where the railroad tracks cross Lakeview to see a police car, its lights flashing, drive across the tracks toward—toward what?

  My girlfriend, Katch, is right behind me. She tries to keep pace.

  I cut up and over a small hillside trail, and through the blackberry brambles where the path gets narrow.

  Thorns tear at my arms, legs, and face, but I don’t care, hardly noticing as they leave bloodied scratches all over my body.

  I need to get up there.

  “Mel?” Katch calls after me. She is way behind now, but the word hangs like a huge question mark.

  “It could be her!” I shout, not turning around. It hits me as I say it.

  What if it’s true? What if it is my mom?

  One of the police cars has blocked off the road at an angle just past the tracks and is directing cars to turn around.

  I’m up on the tracks now and running as fast as I can. I’m in flip-flops and one flies off my foot, but I keep running, the sharp rocks between the railroad ties jamming into the soft underbelly of my foot.

  A policeman on the road holds his hands out to stop me.

  “You can’t go back there! It’s a bad accident. We can’t have anyone interfere.”

  I duck under his arms and keep running.

  I come over a small rise and around a slight bend in the road.

  A guardrail follows it on my left.

  On the other side of the guardrail, a steep ravine descends sixty feet to Springbrook Creek below.

  A large truck sits angled in the middle of the road. Its front end smashed and the radiator billowing puffy clouds of steam.

  Beyond it, a fire truck appears. Just arrived. Firemen jump off and hurry in my direction.

  A man stands next to the damaged truck, holding a white rag to his head, blood on it.

  I see our police chief, Captain Thornton, talking to him, his back to me. The man looks in my direction, which causes Captain Thornton to turn.

  It’s me, of course, he sees …

  … running with one flip-flop on my foot, in cut-off jeans, and a bright orange psychedelic swim top. A ridiculous sight …

  … running toward a gap in the guardrail …

  … the size of a car.

  A huge, open wound of pristine, beech-colored wood is exposed on a thick tree trunk surrounded by ivy. Smaller trees are snapped off or smashed over.

  I lean into the ravine just as Captain Thornton grabs me.

  “Melanie. Don’t,” he says; he pleads.

  Something is down there. I see splashes of white in the creek.

  Somehow it is quiet enough that I can hear the sound of water bubbling over pebbles; a simple and beautiful sound.

  The undergrowth is thick, but I make out a crumpled, white wreck at the bottom of the creek bed. Through a hole in the foliage, I see a small, round window. A window found on only one type of car.

  Something starts deep down inside and rumbles out of my throat. A sound I have never heard or knew I could make.

  “Nooooo!”

  I wrestle away from Captain Thornton.

  He grabs me again as I throw myself at the ravine.

  Firemen appear next to me. They set up ropes, secure them to the guardrail, and work their way down.

  I hear howling: a mournful, animalistic sound from far away …

  … but I am making it.

  Katch throws her arms around me.

  I focus on her.

  She holds me tightly, crying.

  I see my flip-flop gripped in her hand; the bottom toward my face.

  There is a piece of tar stuck on it,

  the shape reminding me of Italy.

  It is the last thing I remember.

  I close my eyes

  crumple to the ground

  howl at life, “No, no, no …” again, again, again

  and the numbness of it all turns to darkness

  Awakening

  I woke up slowly, groggily, and opened my eyes to a strange ceiling. It started to spin. I closed my eyes to make it stop. The room smelled … hospitally. I moaned a little and tried to sit up. Bad idea. I flopped back down.

  “Now, honey, you just lay there and take your time. You’ve been asleep for a while.”

  It sounded like Mrs. Fletcher’s voice, my mom’s caretaker. What’s she doing here, and where am I? Was I hurt? I didn’t feel hurt. Not bad anyway, that I could tell.

  I lifted my head and opened one eye, but only a little. I could see Mrs. Fletcher sitting on a chair next to—my bed? She was holding my hand. Light streamed in through a window. Everything in the room looked whitish. I laid back and closed my eyes. I could hear the sound of traffic outside, like in a city.

  “Where am I? What happened?”

  “Oh goodness, honey. You don’t remember, do you?” There was a tone to her voice, like she was unexpectedly put in a place she didn’t want to be.

  “No, I—”

  Then suddenly I did. I shot upright. Mrs. Fletcher jumped with a start.

  “Mom! Where is my mom?” I tried to get out of bed.

  Mrs. Fletcher held me back. “Now, you stop that, Melanie. You lay back down.”

  I pushed her away and yanked a tube and some wires off my arm so
I could get up.

  A man and woman in hospital clothes ran into the room and forced me back onto the bed. I fought them. I wanted to get up. I wanted to find Mom. Something happened to her. I couldn’t put it together, but I knew that much. She needed me. I kicked and swung my fists at these people.

  “Let me up! Let me up!” Why were they stopping me?

  “Melanie, calm down. Please try to calm down,” the woman pleaded.

  It just made me fight harder. I managed to get a foot under her and kicked her away. She flew into some equipment and sent it rolling across the room.

  The man pushed me back onto the bed and threw his body across me, holding me down. His white doctor’s coat fluttered over my face. He had one arm pinned, but with the other I pushed the coat away from my eyes and struggled to get out from under him. I reached for his head, got my hand under his chin and shoved as hard as I could. It bent his neck back at a sharp angle. I thrashed around, but he kept me pinned so I dug my fingernails deep into his flesh. The woman yanked my arm away and forced it against the bed. She held it down, her back to me. I felt a sharp prick—a needle.

  “We’re giving her a sedative,” the man seemed to be telling someone. “She’s still in acute emotional shock.”

  Then I heard Mrs. Fletcher’s voice float across the room. “Oh, thank you, Doctor! Bless you.”

  A Different Place and Time

  I am sitting on the floor of a room. At least, I think it’s a room. Everything is in a soft white glow. There are no corners, but it isn’t round either. It’s endless. No furniture or fixtures, lamps or points of light. But it is well-lit, as if the illumination is coming from everywhere at once and nowhere at all. The only solid thing I’m sure of is the floor beneath, and the boy across from me.

  “Hi, Melanie,” he says. Like he knows me. He seems to be about nine years old.

  I am looking up at him even though we are both sitting on the floor. He is bigger than me, which doesn’t make sense because I am fifteen years old.

  He glances down at my right hand. “How is it?” he asks.

  I look at my hand and see it is tiny—the hand of a baby girl, maybe around the age of four. That’s why he’s so big. I am only four. I look at it again. Nothing seems wrong with it. I give him a funny look. I don’t know what he’s talking about. And then I ask myself, how can I be thinking like this if I am only four years old?

  He takes my hand and studies it. “It was burned really bad and not healing well. They didn’t like how it looked.” He smiles and glances off to the side, to some movement over there I can’t quite see. “So, they fixed it. Not a bad job, huh?”

  I don’t know what he means by ‘fixed’ my hand. I look up at him. He looks down at me. His green eyes shine under a tuft of dark, thick hair. He talks like he is older than nine. I wonder who he is.

  “They wanted us to meet as long as you are here,” he says, “because they don’t know if it is me or if it is you.”

  I tell him I don’t understand.

  He gets up and pulls me to my feet and then up off the floor. I fly in the air for a moment—a feather floating in his arms—before he sets me softly back on the ground.

  “You will,” he says, then leans down and kisses my forehead. He smiles a big, friendly smile. I realize it’s a very familiar smile for some reason. He turns around and walks away, disappearing into the white.

  A Bit Wobbly

  “Melanie? Do you hear me?”

  I opened my eyes. It’s Captain Thornton. Sitting on the edge of my bed. In street clothes, not his uniform. “Captain Thornton?”

  “I’m George today, okay?”

  I could hardly keep my eyes open. “Why do I feel so— weird?”

  “They gave you a sedative, to calm you down. Apparently, you tried to take out half the hospital staff earlier this morning.” He smiled at his little joke.

  “I did?” Things were a blur. I kind of remembered something.

  “Melanie, can you understand me okay?”

  I looked at him. He somehow didn’t seem as big and imposing in street clothes. More like a big, huggable bear. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “The medicine is making you a little groggy.” He paused for a second; I think to make sure I understood. “Do you remember anything about yesterday?”

  I tried to pull my thoughts together. My mind felt like it was wading through waist-deep syrup. A man in a white coat stood behind George. There were little red wound marks in a line along the side of his face. I remembered digging my fingernails into his jawline. I had drawn blood! Why did I do that?

  I looked at George. “Where am I?”

  “You’re in a room at Physicians and Surgeons Hospital in Portland.”

  “I’m in a hospital? Why?”

  “What do you remember?”

  Some things were coming back—little flashes of scenes, like movie outtakes on a cutting room floor. “Sirens…my mom. A truck. Her car. A gap in—”

  I sat up quickly. “She was in an accident. Where is she?” I frantically looked around the room as if she would be standing there.

  George put his hand on my shoulder to get my attention. “She is here, in the hospital.”

  “What?” I focused on him. “I want to see her.”

  “Not just yet. You need to listen to me, okay?” He had a real solemn look to him.

  “Is she dead?” I had to ask, but didn’t want to know the answer.

  “No. She’s hurt really bad, though.”

  I nodded.

  “She’s under intensive care here at the hospital.”

  I tried to get up. “I need to see her.”

  “Slow down. You can’t yet.”

  This wasn’t making sense. “If she is the one hurt, then why am I in a hospital bed?”

  “You’ve been here since the accident yesterday. You were in shock. You passed out, and were, well…having trouble. They gave you something to help you relax and felt it best to keep you for observation overnight. Thus, the room and the bed.”

  I still felt shaky, but my senses were coming back. “I want to get up now.”

  George looked at the doctor, who nodded. “I think she will be all right.”

  “Okay,” George said. “Mrs. Fletcher brought you some clothes. They’re in the closet. I’ll wait for you outside.” He left the room.

  I swung my legs over the edge of the bed to get up. Now that they were out from under the sheets, I could see scratches all across my legs, and all over my arms as well. Splotches of dried blood had formed where the scratches were the deepest. The thorns on the blackberry vines. I remembered running through them, and seeing my mom’s car at the bottom of the ravine. Oh, God, my mom.

  The doctor helped me out of bed. I was a bit wobbly.

  “Melanie, I’m Doctor Carlson. I’m going to wait for you here while you get ready.”

  I nodded, and asked, “Did I do that to you?” looking up at his face. The marks looked even worse closer up.

  “Yes. You are quite strong.”

  “Sorry, I guess I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  He smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ll heal. Are you okay to walk by yourself?”

  I nodded again.

  He took the clothes from the closet and handed them to me.

  I carried them into the small bathroom. Once in there I looked in the mirror. There were scratches across my face as well. I sure did a job on myself. I washed up as best I could and dressed. I opened the door to see the doctor still standing by the bed.

  “Melanie, I’m one of the doctors attending to your mother. If you are up to it, I would like to fill you in on her condition. Is that all right with you?”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Good.” He pointed to a couple of chairs in the corner of the room where we could sit. I went over and took one of them. He sat in the other.

  He settled in and paused for a moment as he studied me. Maybe to make sure I was ready for this. “Your mother is seriously hurt. She has multiple fractures and a possible spinal injury. We spent most of last night in surgery setting the worst of the breaks and stabilizing her until we can diagnose the spinal injury better. Of greater concern—the accident resulted in a serious head injury. She is suffering from cerebral edema, which is a swelling of the brain. We had to open her cranium to release the pressure. Once the swelling subsides, we will be able to better diagnose her condition.”