Love Never Dies Book 1 The Parting
LOVE NEVER DIES
A Synopsis
By
Geoffrey Zimmerman
This is a story about love and death. About the power of loveto transcend the earthly boundaries of life. Can love truly be so strong as tospan lifetimes? Do soul mates carry a special energy that allows them toreunite after reincarnating? Yes. Katia and Alexi are two such soul mates whopossess that deep and true love we all dream about. Their stories and liveswill not be simple nor easy. Trial, anguish, and separation will be their test,but what they gain will outweigh all they endure.
This three-tiered story begins within moments of Alexi andKatia’s demise. They’ve escaped deadly combat after Alexi rescued Katia, andthey now bob helplessly in a rowboat on a lake. They relive grand moments sharedbefore their eighteen-month separation. A sharpshooter takes aim and fires.
We now revisit what has led them to this place.
The date: winter 1854. The place: Terraminsku forest,Soviet-ruled Poland.
Ambling along a path en route to Katia’s cabin, Alexi hearsmounted Cossacks behind him. He hides, escapes and ends up at Katia’s doorstep.
Against her intuition, Katia is convinced to join Alexi in aninnocent scout of a forbidden region of the forest, the swamp. A reckless andpowerful prince, Leonid, has tracked the two lovers, and watches as Katia fallsinto the swamp and nearly drowns. The prince confronts Alexi as Alexi attemptsto save his sweetheart, and a sinister trilogy of destiny has been formed.
The two young lovers leave the swamp not realizing that theiractions have sealed their fate.
Time of change permeates the forest. Alexi’s father, Pietrovhas had enough persecution and decides it’s time to take his family away.America seems like the right place. Pietrov secures (illegal) passage and Alexidecides to rally one last time against his oppressors.
Alexi chooses one horrid stormy night to venture again intothe swamp and teach the Cossacks a lesson. He is led by his heart, and comesclose to Leonid’s camp, but stumbles near his enemy and is saved by a Polishfreedom fighter, Ludmilla Petrashevsty. Ludmilla leads Alexi to the cabin ofrenowned and legendary Polish poet, Zygmunt Krasinski.
But Leonid and the Cossacks close in, and Alexi and Ludmillanarrowly escape. The Cossacks blades are razor-sharp. This rainy night couldeasily spell death for the young love-struck Alexi Kowalski.
Krasinski is captured, and the night’s foray comes to aclimax as Ludmilla’s freedom-fighters (with Alexi in tow) do equestrian battle,in the forest by the swamp, in the pouring rain. Krasinski is rescued, andAlexi has had his first taste of battle.
Leonid is not killed, but becomes more incensed by thismisstep within his own backyard. He plans something; we know not yet what.
Alexi’s plan didn’t work. He must sit Katia down and tell hertheir lives together are over. He vows to do what he can to succeed in Americaand prays that his will and heart will lead him back to her arms. She saysshe’ll wait for him.
The Kowalski’s pack up a two-wheeled cart and haul theirbelongings out of the forest, to a dirt road, toward a train station fiftymiles away.
The dreams and telepathy between Katia and Alexi persist,hers of savior, his of rivalry.
Terraminsku is now behind them, and the Kowalski’s dream ofthe land of freedom. But their trials are far from over.
Pietrov’s false papers are accepted on the train, and afterdisposing of all their lifetime’s worth of belongings, the family rattles alongthe rattly rails toward the north sea, eight hours away.
A ninety eight foot sloop bobs off a rickety pier. This willbe their home for nearly three months. They climb the plank, enter a two by twofoot hatch and descend thirty feet down a wooden ladder – and enter the hold.Just inches from the sea, the hold is dark, cold, rotten, and incessantlymoving. Their only solace – others like them, fleeing persecution, seekingfreedom.
Alexi’s dreams of Katia continue. It seems the farther theydrift apart, the closer they come in heart.
But now it’s time to buck up, lift the head, and make thebest of it. Alexi is handed pencil and paper from a group of men and appointedthe voyage’s official journalist. He is slow to start, but derives inspirationwhen he pulls a rumpled letter from his pants and reads a note from Krasinski. Theletter from the forested sage seems to probe Alexi’s heart, and he is inspiredto venture up top, where he meets the ships’ skipper, Billy Bang.
Billy feels something for this audacious boy, and brings himon a daring shark hunt in a longboat lowered from the ship. A shark is caught,and Alexi uses a tourniquet to stave off death after the twelve-foot animalbites the skipper.
Billy bears well for a time, but his wound is too deep. Hedoes not survive his trauma.
Alexi has another loss to bear as he is called to witness thepassing of a new heartfelt friend on his adventurous passage to America.
The voyage does finally end, and as the ship docks at CrystalGarden, the quarantine station and last stop before the New York City streets,Alexi takes a moment to look at this adventure from the high view- to peerback- look at what all this has meant.
Love and death. Fear and bravery. Heart and head. He writesin his journal that he now knows these are conflicts he will continue toconfront so long as he is strong enough to answer his call.
ENDOF PART 1 OF 3
