Eden's Angels - Books 1-2

Interlude #1

August 2017

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Since the beginning of our project we had worked primarily in the hacienda library at the farm in Puerto Rico. We’d also spent a few days at Admiral Cortell’s home on Lake Norman just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina.

Both North Carolina and Puerto Rico are muggy in late summer, whereas Santa Fe’s seven thousand foot altitude makes for quite pleasant Augusts. Since Santa Fe’s Indian Arts Market had long been on the admiral’s bucket list, we decided to retreat to the high country of northern New Mexico for a spell.

Carla had been listening to Cortell’s description of the Domhanian people. When she walked into our small office/library and set two freshly brewed lattes on the desk she asked, “So, Admiral, what did they really look like?”

really“Why, thank you my dear,” Cortell said as he leaned back in the chair and wove his fingers together behind his head. “Egyptians! We looked like Egyptians.”

I scribbled a note and dated it. This was the very first time he had used a first-person pronoun when referring to the people of Domhan-Siol.

Cortell chuckled and said, “Now that’s not very descriptive is it? You know those five-thousand-year-old paintings and sculptures of the Pharaohs and Queens of Egypt’s Old Kingdom?”

Carla nodded.

“Well, those weird head dresses they wore that sloped way to the back—that was the shape of Domhanian heads. And the skin color; most Domhanians’ skin color was very close to the color of those ancient Egyptians.”

“Mesopotamians also wore similar head coverings,” I added.

“Yeah, many cultures did. Some even bound the growing heads of infants with cords to elongate the parietal area. You ever wonder what that was all about?” Cortell paused, looking out the office window at the aspen trees Carla and I had planted in the back yard a decade earlier. “But they got it wrong. Sculptures of the Anunnaki have little pointed or big square hats and long square beards—that was all wrong. The Old Kingdom Egyptians—they nailed it.”

“Wait a minute—you mean the Egyptians designed headwear to mimic the skull shape of Domhanians?” Carla asked.

The admiral shrugged and again looked out the window at the leaves of the aspen trees quaking in the breeze. After a long moment he swiveled his chair around, inhaled deeply and said, “That’s a great latte.”

When Carla smiled he winked at her, then turned back to me and said, “Enough lollygagging, let’s get back to work. And now I want to tell you a bit of the Domhanian backstory. You need to understand some things about their history.”